SocialMossberg Positive About Rollyo and PubSub, Rollyo Adds New Firefox Search Bar Feature

Mossberg Positive About Rollyo and PubSub, Rollyo Adds New Firefox Search Bar Feature

The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg has positive comments about two services, PubSub and Rollyo, two services that we’ve posted about several times.

Rollyo
Sure, a power searcher could use advanced syntax and create a complex search string limiting their search to a number of domains and sites. However, the typical searcher doesn’t have the time and very likely the skills to do this. Rollyo makes it very easy to “roll your own” search tool. Simply select up to 25 domains, enter the URL’s, click “create” and now you have a database that only searches the domains you’ve selected. That’s it. Rollyo is powered by the Yahoo web database. This blog post from late September (the day Rollyo launched) has much more.

The only significant weakness I discussed back in September remains a concern. What is it? You can only enter top level URLS like www.cnn.com, support.apple.com, etc. It’s still not possible to limit your search to a portion of a web site. For example, if you wanted to create a “roll” that searched web pages from CEO’s like Bill Gates at http://www.microsoft.com/billgates/ you couldn’t do it. As of today, Rollyo will only search the entire www.microsoft.com site.

Overall, I’m still a fan not only of Rollyo but the concept in general. It’s a great one that can be used in many
situations and by many types of searchers. For example, think how a teacher could use it to create a specialty engine for their students.

Rollyo’s person in charge, Dave Pell told me that he’s aware of this issue and his team is working to improve the service including the option to search only a portion of a web domai and add new features.

New From Rollyo
Speaking of new features, Rollyo has just added a cool feature that allows you with just a single click to create a search roll and then add it to your Firefox Search Bar.

PubSub
PubSub is a matching engine that provides access to content with content containing your keyword terms as they’re published (close to real time) from over 14 million content sites (blogs, news sites, other feeds like SEC filings) and then deliver these results to you via an RSS feed, on a web page, or via the VERY useful PubSub sidebar that alerts you to new content that matches your keywords as they hit the PubSub database. Btw, if you or want to create a more precise search PubSub offers a good selection of search operators and features that can help. I realize that most people will not take advantage of these advanced features but PubSub should do more to promote them. Again, a little training can go a long way. I’ve also blogged on several occasions that I like what PubSub has done by creating pre-built advanced queries (built by a professional researcher) for various topics. PubSub Government is one example.

More SEW Blog and SearchDay on PubSub
+ PubSub Gains Community Lists To Rank Top Blogs By Topic
+ PubSub Offers Real-Time Feed of Earthquake Information
+ Managing the Firehose of Real-Time Information

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