App Store Query by Third Party, but for How Long
September 3, 2009
I find the search function in iTunes pretty bad. I know that some of my readers are Macaholics, but the iTunes’s search system is useless. But if I thought the the iPhone / iTouch App Store finding methods are in my opinion even less functional. You can try the new App Store search engine Uquery.com. I ran some tests and found it more suitable to my search needs. Type a query and the system drops down a list of suggested search phrases. I don’t use this feature, but I know from my research that some users love the training wheels. I ran one of my test queries for card games. Here’s the result list, and I want to say that I was pleased with the useful touches like price clustering and the right hand rail’s list of recent applications.
My question, “Will Apple cut this service off at the knees?” An outfit that nukes Google Voice is one that can move in unexpected directions.
Stephen Arnold, September 3, 2009
Smart Wiki Search
August 23, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who sent me a link to Smart Wiki Search. There is a good description of what the system does to identify related queries. Click a related query and the system displays a page of Wikipedia information germane to your original query. I tested the query “Julius Caesar” and got useful links shown below:
The about section of the service explains the nuts and bolts of the system:
Smart Wiki Search uses the link structure of Wikipedia to calculate which concepts each page is associated with. It is easy to see why looking at links can help group pages by concepts. For example, pages about mathematics have a lot of links to (and from) other pages about mathematics. Pages about the Apollo moon landing have a lot of links to pages about NASA and pages about the moon, etc. More specifically, Smart Wiki Search uses the so-called Eigen decomposition of the Wikipedia link transition matrix. Eigen decomposition provides of a number of special vectors, called eigenvectors, and their corresponding Eigen values. These vectors are special because even a relatively small number of eigenvectors having the largest Eigen values can capture all the most important properties of the link structure.
Give the system a spin. Graduate students and those writing research papers are likely to find this content domain specific search system useful.
Stephen Arnold, August 23, 2009
Stephen Arnold
Convera and the Bureau of National Affairs
August 22, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who sent me a Tweet that pointed to the International HR Decision Support Network: The Global Solution for HR Professionals. You can locate the Web site at ihrsearch.bna.com. The Web site identifies the search system for the site as Convera’s. Convera has morphed or be absorbed into another company. This “absorption” struck me as somewhat ironic because the Convera Web site carries a 2008 white paper by a consulting outfit called Outsell. You can read that Convera was named by Outsell as a rising star for 2008. Wow! I ran query for executive compensation in “the Americas” and these results appeared:
The most recent result was dated August 14, 2009. Today is August 21, 2009. It appears to me that the Convera Web indexing service continues to operate. I was curious about the traffic to this site. I pulled this Alexa report which suggests that the daily “reach” of the site is almost zero percent.
Compete.com had no profile for the site.
I think that the human resources field is one of considerable interest. My recollection is that BNA has had an online HR service for many years. I could not locate much information about the Human Resource Information Network that originally was based in Indianapolis.
Convera appears to be providing search results to BNA, and BNA has an appetite for an online HR information service. The combination, however, seems to be a weak magnet for traffic. Vertical search may have some opportunities. Will Convera and BNA be able to capitalize on them?
But with such modest traffic I wonder why the service is still online. Anyone have any insights?
Stephen Arnold, August 21, 2009
More Local Loco Action: Guardian UK Gets the Bug
August 21, 2009
Short honk: I don’t want to dig too deeply into the efforts of a traditional newspaper company to get more traction in the Webby world. You will want to read Online Journalism Blog’s “The Guardian Kicks Off the Local Data Land Grab” and ponder the implications of the write up.” The idea is that a newspaper wants to hop on the hyper local toboggan before the run dumps the sledder into the snow at the base of the mountain. Mr. Bradshaw, the author of the article, wrote:
Now The Guardian is about to prove just why it is so important, and in the process take first-mover advantage in an area the regionals – and maybe even the BBC – assumed was theirs. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone: The Guardian has long led the way in the UK on database journalism, particularly with its Data Blog and this year’s Open Platform. But this initial move into regional data journalism is a wise one indeed: data becomes more relevant the more personal it is, and local data just tends to be more personal.
For whatever reason, hyper local information is getting as much attention as real time search and Twitter. I wish the Guardian good luck with scaling, monetizing, and marketing. My thought is that the hyper local crowd will want to move quickly before Googzilla wanders through this information neighborhood. Finding is a big part of the local information challenge. The deal breaker will be monetizing. The Guardian may well have the most efficient monetization method known to man. I hope so. The Google’s a good monetizer too.
Stephen Arnold, August 21, 2009
Local: Hyper, Meta, and Loco
August 21, 2009
For years, local information meant one of three things:
- The Yellow Pages for the city in which one found oneself in the US (an endangered species)
- Suburban papers such as the Gaithersburg Gazette (dog paddling in red ink)
- Asking a female who was hooked into a fancy women’s club like Rockville’s Club 100 (you have to know one to ask one).
Asking a taxi driver, reading the Washington Post or Newsday, or pulling into a gas station would produce mixed up directions and garbled information. Listening to a local radio station like WGN in Chicago provided zero info about DeKalb. The DeKalb radio station was a mess with reverb and dial in shows. Now big companies like NBC want to crack the code. What is interesting is that there are quite a few local Web sites. I live in rural Kentucky and the highly motivated can locate Louisville Mojo (a unit of Tasty Mojo) and check out the local action. if you can remember to put the hyphen in the url, you can read the Courier-Journal online. You can check out the local blogs, local free newspapers, and read the public grade school bulletin board in the Kroger’s or Giant Eagle near you. Local information is a mess. The Business Dateline database, a product with which I was involved from inception to its sale to the dinosaur University Microfilms / Bell+Howell aggregated business information from regional business publications. That experience taught me that local Chambers of Commerce, state and Federal agencies providing business information, and the local colleges and universities were clueless when it came to local information. Even today, with a wealth of electronic tools at my fingertips, I don’t know where and when the collector car meet up will be in New Albany, Indiana. I have to make phone calls to find out about these venues. Navigate to “MSNBC Buys “Hyper-local” EveryBlock.com” and read the announcement. Quite a bit of cheerleading leaks between the punctuation marks. What is missing from the write up are answers to these questions:
- Assume that MSNBC is really successful. How will MSNBC handle the scaling for increased traffic?
- Assume that MSNBC recruits bloggers to provide local information. How will MSNBC prevent another, larger aggregator from sucking up the best and brightest? Pay contributors? How will those costs match up with the costs for item one above?
- Assume that MSNBC pulls a Hulu for local information? How will that consortium scale, monetize, and innovate? Committees are the groups producing camels when the objective is a camel.
Have You Checked Out Google Local Lately?
My suggestion is that you navigate to Google Local at http://local.google.com. Now select a city with a modest population of nerds and run a query for “Web developer”. Here are the results of my query for Des Moines, Iowa and Web developer.
The screenshot below shows the “more info” for Cargocultdesign.com, a Web development company. Notice that there are four tabs: Overview, which is a description of the company, including a snippet of text from the firm’s Web site, a details tab which provides a mailing address for snail mail and an email address for the non-Facebook set, a Reviews tab (Cargo Cult may want to get a “friend” to write a review, and links to two Cargo Cult Web pages.
Google and Real Time Maps
August 11, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who alerted me to GoogleMapMania’s “Real Time Google Maps”. The article contains a number of links to real time Google Maps created by developers. The one that I found most useful was the Chicago Transit Authority map. Google has a burgeoning transportation services business. Those operating bus, rail, and shuttle services may want to take note of this CTA-centric gizmo.
Stephen Arnold, August 11, 2009
Google Travel
July 20, 2009
Short honk: Navigate to Google.com. Enter the query “LGA SFO” and you get a structured search box. Click and you get air ticket prices. Google has a number of vertical sectors in its tractor beam. Google’s wants to be a player in online travel information as well. The story in Hotel Marketing provides the basics and offers some links. I provide a run down of the vertical sectors my research suggests. Disruption ahead for those in other sectors. Google is picking up its pace in my opinion. How will travel publishers and information providers respond? Ignore, surf, fight, or dither?
Stephen Arnold, July 20, 2009
Bing and Censorship
July 20, 2009
Short honk: A reader alerted me to the Bing.com filter that chops out certain content and creates a collection of a mini vertical search engine for segmented content. The filter is now applied to X rated content. You can read about the filter in Network World’s story “Bing Gets Porn domain to Filter Out Explicit Images and Videos”. There are a number of complicated issues in play. The present solution creates an interesting revenue generating opportunity for Bing.com. Will Microsoft exploit it? I wonder how different this type of filtering from the Amazon filtering of certain content?
Stephen Arnold, July 20, 2009
Google Non US Initiatives Presage Future
July 7, 2009
Short honk: The Google real estate service in Australia is important. The service goes beyond the Google Base listings and the experimental results that appeared a year or so ago. The bigger news is the impending UK health deal. This enhancement of Google’s tactics is significant. More coming where the legal eagles flap less enthusiastically. Does this mean the US gets Google services later? Is Google preparing for a world in which the US plays a lesser role? I am contemplating these and other questions. Change is in the wind.
Stephen Arnold, July 7, 2009
Koogle: Vertical Search Engine
June 16, 2009
Short honk: Extreme Tech reported a vertical search engine called Koogle. Developed in Israel, the system has been designed for orthodox Jews. Details appear in “Devout Jews Launch Kosher Search Engine”. The story reported:
The site, at www.koogle.co.il, omits religiously objectionable material, such as most photographs of women which Orthodox rabbis view as immodest, Altman [company executive] said. Its links to Israeli news and shopping sites also filter out items most ultra-Orthodox Israelis are forbidden by rabbis to have in their homes, such a television sets.
More information will be posted when it comes to me.
Stephen Arnold, June 16, 2009
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
