Category: Random, But Interesting

Bray Is Happy

As I wrote a last Fall, there's flowers poking through the Silicon Valley snows. Latest case in point: Tim Bray posts that he's got a Big Idea, and this has made him Happy. Oh, do, please tell. Is it this?…

As I wrote a last Fall, there’s flowers poking through the Silicon Valley snows. Latest case in point: Tim Bray posts that he’s got a Big Idea, and this has made him Happy. Oh, do, please tell. Is it this?

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Gillmor Posts Book Chapters

Dan Gillmore has been working on a book for some time now (on new media and journalism), and he's bravely posted his introduction and first chapter (with more coming) for the world to review and critique. Very cool….

Dan Gillmore has been working on a book for some time now (on new media and journalism), and he’s bravely posted his introduction and first chapter (with more coming) for the world to review and critique. Very cool.

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Don’t Be A GoogleDork

Dan Gillmor points to a thoughtful article on search and security, published on The Register today. In it the author points out how easy it is to use Google's more advanced search features to find sensitive data left carelessly in the clear by webmasters (or, as the author puts it,…

Dan Gillmor points to a thoughtful article on search and security, published on The Register today.

In it the author points out how easy it is to use Google’s more advanced search features to find sensitive data left carelessly in the clear by webmasters (or, as the author puts it, by Bob in Marketing who has no idea he’s even publishing to the public web). The article is full of example searches, which is rather fun, and includes a pointer to an entire site of hacks that is worth checking out, called Googledorks.

Excerpts:

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Funny Google Pages

I've come across a few oldies but goodies, worth a laugh. I hope the folks at Google keep their sense of humor as things get more and more … serious. Google's "PigeonRank" explained "MentalPlex Search" defined… …and MentalPlex "April Fools" search…and illustrations……

I’ve come across a few oldies but goodies, worth a laugh. I hope the folks at Google keep their sense of humor as things get more and more … serious.

Google’s “PigeonRank” explained

“MentalPlex Search” defined…

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Winer Offers Peace With Atom

This is pretty inside baseball, and I certainly don't claim to understand all the nuances of the ongoing battle between Google's Atom and Winer's RSS, but in this post Winer claims that RSS is basically winning, but that it's time to work together with Atom. It'll be curious to see…

This is pretty inside baseball, and I certainly don’t claim to understand all the nuances of the ongoing battle between Google’s Atom and Winer’s RSS, but in this post Winer claims that RSS is basically winning, but that it’s time to work together with Atom. It’ll be curious to see if this is taken seriously by the Atom folks, or dismissed. In any case, Winer is putting himself out there…

So here’s the chance to do something good for the Internet, something not evil. Let’s go Google, let’s go SixApart, it’s time to bury the hatchet and move on. Joi Ito, you’re famous for being an advocate of peace. RSS is here to stay and so are Google and Movable Type. Let’s all acknowledge that and stop this fight now.

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Topix Launches Today

The beta has been up for a while, but today marks the official launch of Topix, Rich Skrenta's latest creation. From the release: Topix.net today launched the Internet's largest news site (www.topix.net), and the first site to localize disparate audiences through content. Topix.net features 150,000 topical news pages and local…

The beta has been up for a while, but today marks the official launch of Topix, Rich Skrenta’s latest creation. From the release:

Topix.net today launched the Internet’s largest news site (www.topix.net), and the first site to localize disparate audiences through content. Topix.net features 150,000 topical news pages and local news for every US ZIP code. The Company‚s patent-pending artificial intelligence (AI) categorization engine provides a concept-based method towards aggregating news, which is unlike other vendors‚ keyword-based search techniques. The proprietary technology from Topix.net provides readers with micro-targeted news and intuitive navigation that improves search relevance and overall search experience through the delivery of localized, targeted news. Furthermore, Topix.net’s content reaches users that can be specifically defined by their locality, profession or interests. As a result, businesses that advertise on Topix.net can maximize their online advertising budget by ensuring that their messages are directed to their desired target demographic.

Congrats, Rich! (Also, Gary Price has an Interview with Rich ….)

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I Want X1!

Desktop search (ie searching your own hard drive) is one of those things that seems to have gotten worse in the past ten years (why Yahoo, MSFT or Google don't do it is a mystery, imagine the goodwill…). Back in 1987, I had a great utility (why do I think…

Desktop search (ie searching your own hard drive) is one of those things that seems to have gotten worse in the past ten years (why Yahoo, MSFT or Google don’t do it is a mystery, imagine the goodwill…). Back in 1987, I had a great utility (why do I think it was called Gopher?) that rummaged around through my 20 meg Macintosh hard drive and found any text string, anywhere. Now I’ve got 40 gigs, I think, but no desktop search utility (Sherlock doesn’t have text string search, far as I can tell). My email, for example, is a thicket of badly organized folders. Today David Weinberger raves about X1, a utility for Windows that searches email, docs, etc. But I’m on a Mac. Anyone know of something similar for us OSX folk?

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Comment Spam, A Personal Tale

In Search Engine Watch today, a personal tale of how a memorial website was defaced by spambots posting PageRank-gaming comments….

In Search Engine Watch today, a personal tale of how a memorial website was defaced by spambots posting PageRank-gaming comments.

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A Quick Tour of Google NY

I know, I know, you're all waiting breathlessly for my report on WebFountain, but to be honest, the stuff I saw there last Friday was rather complicated, and it's going to take me a bit more time to figure out how to relate it. Given that I'm swamped at SES,…

I know, I know, you’re all waiting breathlessly for my report on WebFountain, but to be honest, the stuff I saw there last Friday was rather complicated, and it’s going to take me a bit more time to figure out how to relate it. Given that I’m swamped at SES, I’ll hope to get to it sometime later in the week. Meantime, I did get a chance to swing by Google’s NYC offices, which are near Times Square, in the old About.com space (you gotta love this trend of taking over space from once-highfliers). I met Craig Nevill-Manning, the engineer responsible for Google’s 30-odd NYC-based engineers. Craig is the man behind Froogle, and we had a good chat about approaches in the shopping space. Net net: watch the space. Work continues apace. My old colleague Patrick Keane, late of Jupiter, who now works in the NY office, was out with some nasty food poisoning. Get well soon…

The NY office is dominated by a large sales force, mainly late 20s, busily hawking AdWords or its variants. Clearly a happy group, but a very different feel from the Googleplex in Mountain View. The colors scheme and lava lamps are the same, but this is New York, after all. Sell, sell, then…sell some more.

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Blogrolling Rolled Up…

Blogrolling, one of the early weblog services companies, has been acquired by Tucows. My prediction: expect to see a lot more of this happening this year….

Blogrolling, one of the early weblog services companies, has been acquired by Tucows.

My prediction: expect to see a lot more of this happening this year.

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