Looking for an apartment online, day after day, can get tedious. Finding the right sofa at the right price can also be time consuming. A new search engine, called Yotify, is designed to make these kinds of persistent quests more tolerable, and hopefully more successful. Much like Google Alerts and Yahoo Alerts, a Yotify search does not start and end in an instant. Instead, the search runs at regular intervals–either hourly or daily, depending on the user’s preference–with results sent back to the user via e-mail.
Bernard Lunn writes: “Mahalo popularized the term ‘human powered search’ when they launched just over a year ago. Many of the pitches we get still use that term as part of their positioning. Many of them are bootstrapped, so the price of entry is clearly low. But the upside has not yet been established. In this post we look at the pros and cons of human-powered search engines in general, look at some differentiating strategies, and ponder the future.”
Marshall Kirkpatrick writes: “Are you the only person at work who likes to read blogs? Is it your job to talk to people who would probably throw you out of their offices if you said the word ‘Twitter?’ Are you trying to reach audiences who’ve never visited a social networking website because they’ve heard those sites are used by no one but virus peddlers, sex fiends, and 14-year-old losers? Here are five strategies for using social media to reach people who don’t use social media, with specific tools you can use to do it.
Google is still debating the merits of an experiment that allowed users to re-rank and remove search engine results and comment on them. The test, presented to a random portion of users, adds buttons next to result links to move them up and down, remove them from view and append comments to them. Implementing these features permanently would be a major step for Google in giving more participation to its users in influencing the process of ranking and evaluating search results.
I think most knowledge management practitioners would agree that part of their job is to educate users and management types about the possibilities of a successful knowledge management program. But what happens when the knowledge management practitioner doesn’t agree with where the business wants to go with KM?
Jessica Merritt writes: “In the internet age, everyone’s a content creator. Embracing the trend of user-generated content allows you to spread more information and engage library users at the same time. Read on to find out how to go about doing this, and pick up some handy resources along the way.”
Social networking and other Web 2.0 technologies led the social whirl of the information industry. Publishers and librarians tried to keep their products and services relevant by mixing authoritative content with user involvement, but that wasn’t enough. Enhancing interfaces, adding new forms of content, and making strategic acquisitions—all are necessary to ensure that the information industry party continues.
When did it become an acceptable customer service response to try and push out an entire age group of users? Never, but that’s happening at too many libraries. Can we remain transparent, open, and focused on the core value of access and still tell young people to find another place to be social online?
This column is directed to front-line librarians and staff, who deliver customer service and have damn good ideas for what can be done to improve things. It’s often a hurdle to get library administrators and managers to listen to your concerns and views. But there are ways. And we believe this advice holds true for everyone on the desk, from reference librarians to support staff.
According to the latest AlertBox research, users now do basic operations with confidence and perform with skill on sites they use often. But when users try new sites, well-known usability problems still cause failures. Almost all users: are better at physical operations, such as mouse movements and scrolling; are more confident at clicking, and less afraid that they’ll break something; and know the basics of using search and use it more often than in the past.
US consumers say their favorite leisure activities are reading, watching TV and spending time with friends and family, according to The Harris Poll. Computer activities were named fourth most favorite, although the percentage of respondents listing it as a favorite has increased slightly in the last seven years.
‘Search-Engine-Friendly’ Copywriting Style is Often not Very Friendly to Humans
IF THERE IS one black mark that some search-engine-friendly copywriters will have left on the early years of digital marketing and advertising history, it will be for how they managed to butcher various language structures throughout the world with their new brand of “search engine friendly copywriting” style.
After Apple fanatic Nick Haley posted his homemade iPod Touch commercial to YouTube last month, a few ad execs at the Cupertino based company saw it. But rather than send him a cease-and-desist letter, they bought his ad, flew him out to Los Angeles to reshoot it in high def, and will be broadcasting it during the World Series.
When GE launched “Imagination at Work” as its new slogan to replace “We Bring Good Things To Life”, the most eye-catching part of its online campaign was a virtual whiteboard that visitors could sketch and scribble on. Apparently, someone at GE had the smarts to transfer the ad’s essence to the gleaming white surfaces of GE’s appliances. White goods + whiteboard…? Witness the birth of the sketch-a-fridge.
Corporate attitudes to consumer-led technologies extending into the enterprise must shift from “unavoidable nuisance” to “opportunity for additional innovation”, according to Gartner. The analyst firm predicts that employees will continue to push consumer technologies into the enterprise, particularly in areas such as personal productivity and communications.
In 1980, when the 3M company introduced the Post-it, no one could have foreseen the effect the 3-by-5-inch yellow rectangle would have on domestic life. Its beginnings were folkloric: 40 years ago, Spencer Silver, a scientist at 3M, discovered the imperfect adhesive that would adorn the Post-it; it took another six years for Art Fry, another 3M scientist, to find the application for this half-glue, which came in a flash of inspiration after the bookmarks for his church hymnal kept falling out. And for years Post-its were marketed primarily for this purpose — as tools for capturing a thought or for marking a spot on a document, among other typically office-bound tasks — even as they were steadily migrating out of the office and into people’s homes (and garages), onto vertical surfaces like cabinets, refrigerators, dashboards, mirrors, walls, toilet seat lids, bathroom scales and the edges of pet food bowls.
The Queen has set up her own email account, it has emerged. But she does not actually type her emails herself - she dictates them, according to the Daily Telegraph. The 81-year-old monarch, who also has a mobile phone and an iPod mini, revealed her acquisition of an email address at a recent Buckingham Palace garden party.
