Category: Of Note in Search Biz

Declaring the Relationship (RSS related)

Neat: Winer has created a feature that allows folks to see who subscribes to their blogs via RSS. I've always wanted to know who cares enough about Searchblog to check it regularly via RSS. In fact, I think such a connection is one of the cooler things about blogs and…

Neat: Winer has created a feature that allows folks to see who subscribes to their blogs via RSS. I’ve always wanted to know who cares enough about Searchblog to check it regularly via RSS. In fact, I think such a connection is one of the cooler things about blogs and the web – the two-way conversation is declared and nurtured, the community is known. It’s like an email subscription, but more intimate. But some folks prefer anonymity with their RSS habits, and I respect that as well. How do you all feel about it?

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Bloomberg: Google Chooses Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs to Lead IPO

This is not confirmed by any parties, but Bloomberg claims to have an inside source. If this means the bakeoff is final, then the IPO is 90-120 days away, maybe sooner depending on the SEC. Exciting times for all concerned, and possibly and end to all this speculation. WR Hambrecht…

This is not confirmed by any parties, but Bloomberg claims to have an inside source. If this means the bakeoff is final, then the IPO is 90-120 days away, maybe sooner depending on the SEC. Exciting times for all concerned, and possibly and end to all this speculation. WR Hambrecht (the Dutch auction folks) is named as a banker on the deal, but not as a lead, and there is no immediate news on whether an auction or online distribution scheme will play a part in the deal. Slashdot has hundreds of comments on the deal already, for those of you with a lot of time on your hands…(Thanks to Ross for the tip!)

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Tipping Point For Shoppng Engines?

Shopping.com doubled its holiday traffic this past season, DM News reports today. Execs from the site are quick to claim that online shopping (or, as I like to call it, the shopping search vertical) has hit critical mass. It's hard to argue. From the piece: The San Francisco company doubled…

Shopping.com doubled its holiday traffic this past season, DM News reports today. Execs from the site are quick to claim that online shopping (or, as I like to call it, the shopping search vertical) has hit critical mass. It’s hard to argue. From the piece:

The San Francisco company doubled the number of unique visitors in the 2003 holiday season to 58 million and the number of shopping sessions to 69 million. Leads referred to merchants listed on the site grew 123 percent in holiday 2003 to 29 million, and sales for them rose 132 percent to $181 million. …

…Shopping.com … stood fourth among U.S. multi-category e-commerce sites for November in terms of unique monthly visitors, according to Nielsen//NetRatings, trailing only eBay, Amazon and Yahoo Shopping. Walmart.com, target.com and BizRate.com followed. …

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Wired News: Narrowing the Search

Not much you haven't seen before, but a fair roundup of a few more focused search tools, including TouchGraph, which I had not previously grokked….

Not much you haven’t seen before, but a fair roundup of a few more focused search tools, including TouchGraph, which I had not previously grokked.

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The People Search Meme Grows: Plink

Via Jeff Jarvis today I came across Plink, an experimental "people link" search engine built on the "Friends Typelist" and/or blogrolls of Moveable Type users. It is explained by Anil Dash in the Six Apart blog here. This is a neat implementation of search based on FOAF ideas. Basically, Plink…

<a href="http://battellemedia.com/images/plink2.gif" onclick="window.open('http://battellemedia.com/plinkVia Jeff Jarvis today I came across Plink, an experimental “people link” search engine built on the “Friends Typelist” and/or blogrolls of Moveable Type users. It is explained by Anil Dash in the Six Apart blog here. This is a neat implementation of search based on FOAF ideas. Basically, Plink (cool name) lets you search for people you know, and then see who they know, and who knows them. To be included, you have to create a FOAF file, which I have not done, and honestly, am not sure I want to deal with. Those that have, however, are pointing the way for applications that eventually will do it automatically. Might this auger the future of Friendster or LinkedIn, where the intelligence and relationships built into those closed networks become part of the open platform of the Net?

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“Ungoogle”

I suppose it had to happen. "Ungoogle" is a meta-search engine is that uses the "major search engines besides Google." I can't find anything else on the site to tell me who is behind this, save a reference to the "Hound Internet Family of Search Engines" which a quick Google…

ungoogleI suppose it had to happen. “Ungoogle” is a meta-search engine is that uses the “major search engines besides Google.” I can’t find anything else on the site to tell me who is behind this, save a reference to the “Hound Internet Family of Search Engines” which a quick Google search shows will return you to the same page with a few different URLs. (Found via the Google Blogoscoped site.)

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Grokking WebFountain

If you're like me and you want to understand what IBM is up to with WebFountain, this overview from IEEE Spectrum is as good a piece on it as I've seen anywhere. WebFountain is clearly one to watch in 2004, I'll be talking with them early this year and will…

IBM logoIf you’re like me and you want to understand what IBM is up to with WebFountain, this overview from IEEE Spectrum is as good a piece on it as I’ve seen anywhere. WebFountain is clearly one to watch in 2004, I’ll be talking with them early this year and will have reports back shortly….also, I’ll be watching this joint venture with Factiva, which will be one of the first commercial executions of the technology.

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Happy New Year, 2003 Zeitgeist

The Google Zeitgeist for 2002 helped to spark the idea for me that I had to write a book on search. Here is the 2003 version, fresh off the presses. It barely scratches the surface of what the Database of Intentions has to say about our culture, but it's a…

plinkThe Google Zeitgeist for 2002 helped to spark the idea for me that I had to write a book on search. Here is the 2003 version, fresh off the presses. It barely scratches the surface of what the Database of Intentions has to say about our culture, but it’s a fascinating scratch nonetheless. Also, Yahoo, Lycos do the same…

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(Updated x2) Top Yellow Pages Searches

Ya gotta love the Yellow Pages – all printy fresh. In a press release issued today (the link is an instant download and I imagine you don't need the pdf clutter), they offered up their top searches for the year – the year 2002. In any case, it's interesting to…

Ya gotta love the Yellow Pages – all printy fresh. In a press release issued today (the link is an instant download and I imagine you don’t need the pdf clutter), they offered up their top searches for the year – the year 2002. In any case, it’s interesting to see what the top “references” are – their terminology, best as I can tell, for the equivalent of a person taking action based on a Yellow Pages listing. This data comes from the Yellow Pages Integrated Media Association, which exists mainly to promulgate the idea that the Yellow Pages are a vibrant and long-lived source of leads for local business. Caveats herewith in place, the top ten are:

1. Restaurants
2. Physicians & Surgeons
3. Automobile Parts-New & Used
4. Automobile Repairing & Service
5. Pizza
6. Automobile Dealers-New & Used
7. Beauty Salons
8. Attorneys/lawyers
9. Dentists
10. Hospitals.

The data also includes the actual number of references for each term. The top term (Restaurants) had more than 1.3 billion references. In other words, folks used that category in the Yellow Pages 1.3 billion times in 2002. How on earth did they came up with this number?The study of course has no methodology attached to it. I mean, how *do* you track this? Compared to paid search, which is entirely trackable? Anyone know?! Guess I’ll have to call the YPIMA and ask. Also, I’ve emailed folks at Google and Overture to ask what the equivalents are in paid search, which would be a fun comparison. …

UPDATE: Click on the (more) link below to see the full response from the Yellow Pages Integrated Marketing Assocaition on how they got this data…Thanks to the IMA for this response!

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Another Oddly Named New One…

Tara over at ResearchBuzz has found this new entry: Ay-Up. Yup, Ay-Up. As she points out in her post summarizing its features, Ay-Up is unique in that it offers free site search. Worth a looksee. (And yet another new engine that needs the help of a logo specialist…)…

Tara over at ResearchBuzz has found this new entry: Ay-Up. Yup, Ay-Up. As she points out in her post summarizing its features, Ay-Up is unique in that it offers free site search. Worth a looksee. (And yet another new engine that needs the help of a logo specialist…)

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