Published by rwatstein July 12th, 2008
in video and search.
With YouTube, Blip, Hulu, and scores of other online video sites, just keeping track of what’s there has been no easy challenge. Well, it’s now easier thanks to a new search engine that specializes in finding TV clips, movies, and videos of all types. It’s called Yidio and it’s all about video. Keeping track, it claims, of 200 million different videos from all over the world.
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Published by rwatstein July 5th, 2008
in search, Google and privacy.
Google Inc. might be widely admired for its technical wizardry and its quick, accurate search engine, but one of the company’s most impressive accomplishments has been its ability to grow as powerful as it is while still remaining, in the minds of most Americans, fundamentally likable. The company has more than 15,000 employees and a market value as big as Coca-Cola and Boeing combined. Its search engine is the tool of first resort for expert researchers and schoolkids alike; for suspicious employers, first-daters, long-lost friends, blackmailers, reporters and police investigators — for seekers of any and all sorts of information.
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Published by rwatstein July 5th, 2008
in search, Google and Yahoo.
Adobe announced recently that Google and Yahoo are adding search capabilities that will enable users to look inside the content of files encoded in Adobe’s Flash file format — SWF.The content inside SWF files has heretofore been ignored by the search engine giants, but Adobe has worked with both companies to make sure that their search engine technology can now look inside existing and future SWF content, including text, hyperlinks, audio and video content.
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Published by rwatstein June 29th, 2008
in search, Google and Firefox.
Google has managed to build an awesome search engine to my mind: it has a simple user-friendly interface and returns the most relevant results. However naturally, Google just can’t satisfy everyone’s needs.The following FireFox Extensions will help you to adapt Google’s interface and results to what you need, in the most efficient manner possible, making Google even better.
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Published by rwatstein June 21st, 2008
in search.
See the full list of the top 10 search terms in 10 categories here
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Published by rwatstein June 7th, 2008
in search and language.
The World Wide Web may not cover the entire globe, but it certainly has a presence in most populated places throughout the world. With such an international scope, the “multilinguality” of web content continues to increase. For savvy searchers, the multiple languages and content from distant countries create new opportunities for finding previously buried information resources.
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Published by rwatstein June 1st, 2008
in search, Firefox, widgets and Mozilla.
Most of the information professionals I know are huge fans of Firefox, mainly because it is so…extensible. The sheer number and variety of add-ons that increase the browser’s utility…just staggering. If there is something you wish that Firefox could do, the odds are very good that someone with programming talent had the same thing in mind — and has created some sort of extension that adds precisely that functionality.Since I spend so much of my working existence online, my Firefox browser is seriously pimped out with a stalwart set of add-ons that, collectively, make my life so much easier. The following are road-tested and highly recommended.
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Published by rwatstein June 1st, 2008
in search, books, collections and Microsoft.
Microsoft last week announced that it will pull the plug on its book and scholarly article scan plans, Live Search Books and Live Search Academic, and that both sites will be taken down. “We recognize that this decision comes as disappointing news to our partners, the publishing and academic communities, and Live Search users,” reads a Microsoft blog post from Satya Nadella, Microsoft senior VP search, portal and advertising. “We believe the next generation of search is about the development of an underlying, sustainable business model for the search engine, consumer, and content partner.” Nadella said that books digitized under the programs would now be included in MSN search results.b
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Published by rwatstein June 1st, 2008
in search.
Search Engine Land writes, “Today is Memorial Day, so we plan on keeping it light over here at the blog today. I have a post at the Search Engine Roundtable, with a collection of logos I have found from the various search related companies and blogs for the special day. Here is a single picture with those logos and themes all in one image”
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Published by rwatstein May 26th, 2008
in search and Google.
Some eight out of ten web searches conducted in Europe in March were carried out using Google, new figures have shown. Digital research firm comScore reported that over 19 billion searches were carried out on Google in March, making up a total of 79 per cent of Europe’s entire search market. “With nearly 80 percent of all searches conducted in March, Google is far and away the leading search property in Europe,” said Jack Flanagan, executive vice-president of comScore.
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Published by rwatstein April 27th, 2008
in search, Google and green.
A new Australian green search engine seeking to capitalise on web surfers’ eco-guilt has been barred by Google from using its search technology and advertising platform. Ecocho.com.au promises to buy carbon offset credits that will result in two trees being planted for every 1000 searches made through the site. It gives users the option of searching through either Yahoo or Google and serves up their ads alongside search results. But like other green search engines, it is questionable whether Ecocho really is any more environmentally friendly than regular Google search.
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Published by rwatstein April 27th, 2008
in China and search.
Baidu, the leading search engine in China, is getting involved in the coming US Presidential elections it seems. They have added a caricature of Barack Obama and the democrat donkey in the Baidu logo.
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Published by rwatstein March 29th, 2008
in search and Ask.
Just how much does Ask.com own the word “Ask?” Enough to have a problem with a question-and-answer site called “Askpedia,” apparently. Representatives from the start-up Askpedia.com told CNET News.com that the search engine’s parent company, InterActiveCorp, sent a cease-and-desist letter earlier this month, citing intellectual property violations in the name “Askpedia.” “(This) is likely to cause consumer confusion, particularly inasmuch as Askpedia purports to provide online informational services that are substantially similar to those provided by Ask,” the letter dated March 13 reads. “In using and incorporating Ask’s intellectual property in this manner, Askpedia is falsely suggesting a connection between Ask and Askpedia, and thereby misappropriating the substantial good will associated with Ask’s trademarks.”
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Published by rwatstein March 23rd, 2008
in search and collaboration.
Social software is proliferating online, but many of the most common Internet tools, such as search engines, are still used in isolation. “These tools are designed for a single person, working alone by him or herself, but that’s not always the way that we work,” says Meredith Morris, a researcher in the Adaptive Systems and Interaction group at Microsoft Research. People planning travel with their spouses, she says, or students working on research projects with classmates all too often find themselves repeating work others have done or fail to find sites that others have identified. Morris is designing a tool that could begin to help with this problem. Called SearchTogether, the tool is meant to help groups whose members are working on different computers, whether they’re all logged in simultaneously or one at a time.
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Published by rwatstein March 23rd, 2008
in search and semantic web.
Yahoo is about to add semantic elements to search, as announced on March 13 at www.ysearchblog.com. For educators, evolution toward search based on meaning and not just a character-string is highly significant. With search as it is now, using Google or Yahoo or Microsoft and so on, we must imagine what terms might describe the object we’re looking for. We might try 2 or 3 or more different ways to find the right search string to come up with appropriate sites. But maybe there’s help on the way.
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Published by rwatstein March 3rd, 2008
in search.
Phil Bradley writes, “Have you ever heard of Black Stump? How about TicoFun, Leit, Tanikalang Ginto or Kanoksearch? Don’t worry if you haven’t, but on the off chance that you have, I’d take a guess that you’re interested in Australia, Costa Rica, Iceland, the Philippines or Thailand respectively. They’re all search engines – the main difference between them and many of the others that you will have heard about are because they have a very specific focus, on a country or a region.”
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Published by rwatstein March 3rd, 2008
in search.
Phil Bradley maintains a web page with links to various search sites that offer specialized expertise. Need to know about trends in searching? Want to re-rank or reorder your results? Need to search for different file formats? Phil has some suggestions.
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Published by rwatstein March 3rd, 2008
in search.
We know that knowledge workers spend a large percentage of their time looking for information. What are they looking for and where are they looking? In fall 2007, we set about trying to find out. In conjunction with KMWorld and IDC’s Technology Advisory Panel, we asked participants to tell us how long they spent searching, what their typical questions were, and where they went (online or print) to find the information they needed. The 272 people who answered our questions ran the gamut of job categories, with 28 percent coming from IT, 21 percent from professional services, 12 percent from operations and 10 percent from executive management. They were distributed fairly evenly by company size and across industry, education and government sectors. Here’s what we found:1. Everyone looks for information first on the Web.
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Published by rwatstein March 3rd, 2008
in search.
Core U.S. Internet search across the top search engines in January grew 8.9% over the prior month’s results, according to the latest report by comScore. Not surprising, Google held the top slot amongst Americans as the favored search engine of choice when conducting an online search. Yahoo held the number two position, Microsoft’s MSN was ranked third, followed by TimeWarner Co’s AOL and IAC’s Ask. According to comScore, Americans conducted 10.5 billion searches at the core search engines, representing an 8.9 percent gain versus December. Google Sites saw 6.1 billion core searches during the month, while Yahoo! Sites recorded 2.3 billion. Each of the five core search engines saw the number of searches conducted in January grow at least 5 percent versus the previous month. But you have to take note, as comScore says in its news release, that these ‘core’ searches didn’t include searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites, but they did cover partner sites and cross-channel searchers.
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Published by rwatstein February 25th, 2008
in search, Google and Yahoo.
comScore, Inc. a leader in measuring the digital world, recently released its monthly comScore qSearch analysis of the search marketplace. January 2008 saw Americans conduct more than 10 billion core searches, representing a significant jump in activity versus December.In January, Google Sites marginally extended its share of core searches to 58.5 percent. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 22.2 percent, followed by Microsoft Sites (9.8 percent), AOL LLC (4.9 percent), and Ask Network (4.5 percent).
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Published by rwatstein February 18th, 2008
in search and taxonomies.
Heather Hedden writes: “Large websites and intranets can benefit from improved methods of search and navigation. These include site maps, A-Z indexes, sophisticated search engines, and generally improved navigational design—and playing a potential role in all of these methods is well-planned taxonomy.”…
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Published by rwatstein February 9th, 2008
in search and Google.
The Internet has changed research dramatically. Now, it’s hard to resist defaulting to search engines, especially Google, as its capabilities grow. But you miss opportunities to get valuable insights into IT topics if you rely only on search engines. Professional librarians and researchers will tell you that the Web has many unexplored opportunities for finding more information on business topics. Pursue these six techniques to improve your research results.
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Published by rwatstein February 9th, 2008
in search and Google.
Amid the flurry of news over Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo and Google’s rebuttal, a research announcement by Google went largely unnoticed. Last week, the search giant began a public experiment in which users can make their search results look a little different from the rest of the world’s. Those who sign up are able to switch between different views, so instead of simply getting a list of links (and sometimes pictures and YouTube videos, a relatively recent addition to the Google results), they can choose to see their results mapped, put on a timeline, or narrowed down by informational filters. Dan Crow, product manager at Google, says that the results of the experiment could eventually help the company improve everyone’s search experience.
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Published by rwatstein February 9th, 2008
in search.
Research company Gartner predicts that worldwide sales of enterprise search software will total $989.7 million this year. That is an increase of 15% from $860.6 million in 2007. “Search and information access is not a one-size-fits-all marketplace.
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