Balakam Beta for Web Media Search
June 3, 2012
There’s a new service called Balakam, still in beta, that combines search with live media streaming. More than just a portal, the site allows you to search the Web for streaming radio, TV, and Web cams. Their About page states:
“The searching service allows to find sources of live broadcasting stations – radio, TV channels and web cameras transmitting live audio and video content over the Internet.
“The patented technology dramatically enhances the effectiveness of web browsing thus making the searching process quick and easy providing for the high relevancy of the search results.”
Balakam says its Geo feature lets users narrow the scope of their search to focus on a geographical area, be it their hometown or someplace on the other side of the world. However, I don’t yet see a link to use this feature, except for one little icon that lets me specify the US. As I am trying it out, the functionality is a teensy weensy bit buggy, and results seem highly skewed toward radio so far. I can’t hold that against them, though; this is a beta after all.
It sounds like the media search engine is a way to test the waters for the new company that specializes in Web search technology R&D. Located in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, the startup began at MeraLabs, a privately owned incubator for high-tech venture projects, and has received seed funding from Russian Venture Company.
Cynthia Murrell, June 3, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Scholarly Research Blogs Going Strong
June 3, 2012
More indications of trouble for the big buck professional scientific technical medical publishers—the scholarly research blog has become a big enough phenomenon to warrant its own scholarly study. Scientific American hosts a “Discussion of Scholarly Information in Research Blogs.” In this write up, Hadas Shema discusses an article she published with colleagues characterizing 126 blogs found at aggregator site Researchblogging.Org. She shares their inspiration for the project:
“Groth & Gurney (2010) wrote an article titled ‘Studying scientific discourse on the Web using bibliometrics: A chemistry blogging case study.’ The article made for a fascinating read, because it applied bibliometric methods to blogs. Just like it says in the title, Groth & Gurney took the references from 295 blog posts about Chemistry and analyzed them the way one would analyze citations from peer-reviewed articles. They managed that because they used RB, which aggregates only posts by bloggers who take the time to formally cite their sources.”
Ms Shema goes on to discuss the teams reasoning, roadblocks, and some of their findings complete with infographics. Shema is an Information Science graduate student at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University and a member of ACUMEN.
Cynthia Murrell, Sponsored by PolySpot
Sponsored by PolySpot
Competition in E-Commerce: What Draws Consumers to Your Brand?
June 3, 2012
Globally, online shopping is on the rise but does your website have what it takes to bring in the traffic? The more content you have online, the more consumers you’ll attract according to the article, eCommerce on the Rise: Is your Brand Visible to Consumers?
It boils down to convenience, pricing and availability aka ease of access as:
“Increasingly, consumers are spending their money online. For many it’s about finding the best price, ordering an item not available locally, or shopping from the comfort of home. Above all it’s about convenience and immediacy. Is your product or service available online and able to be found when consumers are searching for it?”
“Global e-shoppers spend on average 22% (us average: 23%) of their annual outgoings on goods and services online.”
It seems the traditional Sunday sales papers have become fodder for the recycling bin as consumers find better deals online. Even department stores that run weekly sales often have better pricing via their websites. Not to mention, scrolling through organized product lists and images is far more convenient then strolling around for hours gazing at shelves.
If you want to compete with the e-commerce businesses of today, you have to get the consumers attention… and keep it. Reputation is earned, and you can earn it by developing and utilizing a strategic marketing plan. The traditional advertising techniques no longer make an impact, so what can firms do? We suggest implementing Augmentext to bring the consumers business back to you.
Jennifer Shockley, June 3, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
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