Category: search

Search engine optimizers: editors of all media?

Posted by: Stephen Baker on June 24

Let’s start out with the premise that most media, to be found and consumed, had better show up high on search results. Does it follow, as Steve Rubel writes, that…

Report: Search advertising to drop 20%

Posted by: Stephen Baker on January 20

A new report predicts that the U.S. search advertising market will contract by as much as 20% from the first quarter a year ago the fourth quarter of ‘08. The…

Google-YouTube: Was it worth $1.6 billion?

Posted by: Stephen Baker on May 22

What value does YouTube give Google?

Google’s Manber: Learn to think like machines

Posted by: Stephen Baker on April 18

Google’s engineering VP Udi Manber tells Popular Mechanics that people should work harder to express themselves in terms that a machine will grasp. (ex Marketing Pilgrim) He says: “I wish…

Google opens up its cloud: an early step

Posted by: Stephen Baker on April 08

As expected, Google opens up its cloud to host software applications and services—and developers quickly complain that it is too restrictive. They say it offers less than Amazon’s similar service….

Yahoo’s Raghavan describes linkless search

Posted by: Stephen Baker on March 13

Yahoo’s Prabakar Raghavan describes new kind of search, which hunts for information—not Web pages.

Ask.com: Migrating toward yesteryear

Posted by: Stephen Baker on March 06

I was sad to read the news yesterday that Ask.com was halting its quixotic battle against Google and positioning itself as an Internet answers service, primarily for women in the…

Cat teeth: search trumps experience

Posted by: Stephen Baker on December 04

Do cats have molars? A hunt for the answer goes away from the animal in question and straight to the computer.

Hey, if the alarms aren’t sounding at Yahoo mail…

Posted by: Stephen Baker on December 03

This is what I’m getting at Yahoo: Sorry for the holdup. Looks like a temporary glitch in our network has part of Yahoo! mail down, so you’re briefly without service….

Hakia search: Meet others who made the same query

Posted by: Stephen Baker on November 05

Hakia.com, a New York-based “contextual” search engine, is offering a service to link users with others who have made the same query. If you’re looking for “used cars New York,”…

Is Google’s Dataspacing foiling optimizers?

Posted by: Stephen Baker on November 02

I see in Eweek.com that Stephen Arnold, consultant and Google gumshoe, says that a new Google technology called Dataspacing is dragging down the page ranks of sites such as Washingtonpost.com,…

New Yahoo Search a Google Killer? No

Posted by: Heather Green on October 02

Yahoo has finally brought together some of its interesting social media acquisitions (Upcoming and Flickr) and the content is has from across its site (like videos or travel information) to make its search smarter. And it’s a real success. But the change isn’t big enough or interesting enough to make many people switch from Google. People have become too accustomed to searching the Google way: fast, stripped down, always improved relevancy. Yahoo’s new approach, while sleek, still asks you to do too many new things that don’t help you that much more.

Google to build trans-Pacific cable

Posted by: Stephen Baker on September 21

This from TeleGeography: On September 21, 2007, Communications Day reported that Google is heading up a consortium of telecom companies that is working on a trans-Pacific undersea cable, called “Unity.”…

Hakia’s semantic search: Do we need it?

Posted by: Stephen Baker on September 04

I visited the Wall Street offices of Hakia.com last week. They’re a start-up focusing on semantic search. For some questions, the results are impressive. I just asked Hakia for the…

Google and SEO: What would “pure” search look like?

Posted by: Stephen Baker on August 29

After reading many posts about Robert Scoble’s video prediction that Google would be upended within four years,I finally took a look for myself. His main point is that Google is…

TMI, or Just Information You Can’t Find?

Posted by: Heather Green on August 28

Pretty much everyone I know complains about TMI, or too much information. But when I stop to think about it, what really bothers me is not all the information. I am really happy for all the information that’s out there. It’s just that I often have a hard time finding the things I found in the past. I know, that’s what delicious and bookmarks are for. But it’s also, I would think, what my memory’s for. And I think that when I could concentrate on information more, pouring over it, I could remember it better than now, when I flit from one interesting data point to to another. But on the subject on informaation, I found some survey results that popped in my inbox today interesting. Hakia.com, the company that sent this, hakia.com that calls itself as a new meaning-based search engine, says the survy shows that 63.1% oof the respondans find they get too much information and 24.2% of respondents cannot get the information they want. The way I read it, a whopping 43.6% actually may get too much information, but they get what they want and another 17.4% is happy, so that 61% gets the information they want. But I guess that’s fun with numbers…

Will Google drain life from English?

Posted by: Stephen Baker on August 22

I came across this excellent CNet article on how great newspaper headlines, such as Ford to City: Drop Dead, are poorly engineered for Google searches. The idea is that headline…

TV and mags drive search

Posted by: Stephen Baker on August 20

IProspect’s search survey (ex Marketing Pilgrim) finds that 37% of searches are inspired by TV, 30% by print ads, and 36% by word of mouth. IProspect writes: …a full 67%…

Technorati troubles. But try searching the news

Posted by: Stephen Baker on August 16

Om Malik reports that Dave Sifry is resigning from Technorati, amid lay-offs. I’m sorry to see this. I was in Technorati’s offices nearly two years ago when Google unveiled blog…

Critics: Just point to Google

Posted by: Stephen Baker on July 17

Is criticism worth reading, or merely a pointer to Google?

Google with Postini: Searching our e-mail

Posted by: Stephen Baker on July 10

Google with Postini = heightened surveillance of the work place.

Breathless Google Buzz…Again

Posted by: Heather Green on January 22

An article in the Times of London gushes about how Google is plotting to “do for books what Apple’s iPod has done for music.” Ugh, yet again Google waves its…

Crap floats

Posted by: Stephen Baker on December 05

I’ve been reading about Niall Kennedy’s prank, in which he apparently tweaked Microsoft by subbing a salacious photo for the Flickr pic of his that they’d posted without permission. Robert…

Yahoo’s time capsule: Aren’t we creating one every day?

Posted by: Stephen Baker on October 11

I read news about Yahoo’s time capsule. (ex MIT) We can all contribute our thoughts, poems, pictures and songs. But doesn’t it seem strange to be assembling a formal time…

Del.icio.us Hits 1 Million Subscribers

Posted by: Heather Green on September 25

I met with Joshua Schachter from del.icio.us this morning and the latest news out of the bookmarking company is that it hit the 1 million registered member mark this month….

What’s Google’s algorithm for ferreting out “racism” in Portuguese?

Posted by: Stephen Baker on September 05

Google has agreed to provide Brazilian authorities with data on users who encourage racism, homophobia and pedophilia. (ex Battelle) Plenty of serious questions about privacy and freedom of expression, of…

Blogs as history

Posted by: Stephen Baker on August 29

Dave Taylor wonders whether bloggers should keep updating their old posts as stories change. His concern: that Web-searchers will come across old blog posts that proved to be incorrect and…

How Google’s Neven Vision could track our lives

Posted by: Stephen Baker on August 16

Could Google’s purchase of Neven Vision could lead to a vast people-tracking system? With technology that recognizes faces, imagine a search for the image of you. It could plow through…

Infinitive verbs: to hoover, to xerox, to google

Posted by: Stephen Baker on August 13

Criticize Google all you want for knuckling down on inappropriate use of its moniker. (ex Rubel). The crackdown makes it look like a company that’s forgotten how to laugh. And…

AOL’s data gush: Help, they’re reading my postcards!

Posted by: Stephen Baker on August 08

The fuss about AOL’s data gusher reminds me of a story I heard a week ago about the advent of penny postcards in the 19th century. They provided a handy…

Now I know how Clive Barnes feels

Posted by: Stephen Baker on July 27

The phone buzzed in my pocket. It was my sister from Portland telling me about a full-page Ask.com ad in Tuesday’s New York Times. It quoted one of my…

Google for the blind. How about iPods?

Posted by: Stephen Baker on July 24

Good news that Google is developing search engine technology for the blind. What I’d like next is technology to help the blind navigate an iPod. When the screen on…

Yahoo’s surfers: adcentrics, adphobics, and omnivores

Posted by: Stephen Baker on June 16

Search for Disney and results come back next to ads for flights to Orlando. Duh. But what kind of searcher are you? Yahoo! is now finding three distinct groups: Those…

Technorati spam filter may have snared your blog

Posted by: Stephen Baker on June 03

Late Friday afternoon, as Technorati’s staff enjoyed their weekly wine fest, I asked Technorati’s David Sifry the questions a few of you left for me on Thursday. The most interesting…

Battling blog fatigue: Sphere points to new blogs

Posted by: Stephen Baker on June 01

I was visiting the blog search start-up Sphere yesterday. They have a headquarters in San Francisco’s Presidio. The Golden Gate Bridge is right out the window. I was telling Tony…

Google Pontiac? Or Ask dot com it?

Posted by: Stephen Baker on May 15

Are ads, sponsored links and search engine optimization screwing up search results? I just did a little test, and my conclusion is Yes. From now on, I’m going to start…

RSS, Podcasting, Blogs: Who Wins?

Posted by: Heather Green on May 13

The results from Google Topics on RSS, podcasting, and blogs gives credence to the insight you can get from search.

Even when it’s down, Technorati spouts the truth

Posted by: Stephen Baker on May 04

Technorati appears to be down, and that produced this troubling response to my search there: “There are no posts that contain truth in blogs about Politics yet. Search all blogs…

Is advertising killing search?

Posted by: Stephen Baker on April 26

I’ve given up on Google for travel. The results are too polluted with optimized sites that fail to give me the answers, phone numbers and addresses I need. So instead…

Argument: Is search engine optimization equivalent to spam?

Posted by: Stephen Baker on April 25

Stephen Arnold, author and president of Arnold Information Technology, has ruffled feathers at this Search Engine Meeting by equating search engine optimization with spam. It makes people here furious, because…

Could vertical search supplant SEO?

Posted by: Stephen Baker on April 25

I’m at The Search Engine Meeting in Boston listening to Vivisimo’s Raul Valdes-Perez promoting vertical search. In his vision, companies will aggregate their own information universes, discreetly putting their own…

Search engine conference in Boston

Posted by: Stephen Baker on April 23

I’ll be at this search engine get-together in Boston on Monday and Tuesday. If you’re there, let’s have coffee during one of the breaks. I’ll be talking to people at…

French study pans all search engines

Posted by: Stephen Baker on March 07

This study from France (ex Battelle) shows that most of the results delivered by search engines, including leaders Google and Yahoo!, are disappointing. Does this mean that some newcomer could…

Is Edgeio an eBay slayer?

Posted by: Stephen Baker on March 01

Edgeio, an RSS startup battling eBay and Craigslist, may be a good idea tracking the wrong market

Does Google benefit from faulty search?

Posted by: Stephen Baker on February 24

Advertising media buyer Rishad Tobaccowala of Groupe Publicis has plenty of criticism for Google—and asserts that they benefit from faulty searech.

Google is like primitive stone chisel

Posted by: Stephen Baker on February 17

An online book on starting a business features Google ads for lawnmower blades. The point: search is primitive, and has near limitless growth potential.

Google and Yahoo trail in key e-commerce metric

Posted by: Stephen Baker on February 15

A study by Websidestory indicates that ads on AOL and MSN are more effective at driving customers to buy than those on Google and Yahoo!

Is star-studded Google turning into the New York Yankees of tech?

Posted by: Stephen Baker on February 08

Google snags the head of Amazon’s A9. But is Google’s brain surplus sustainable?

Chinese weigh in on Google’s “eunuch” search engine

Posted by: Stephen Baker on January 26

Chinese weigh in on censored Google search engine

How does Yahoo recruit the best brains to “maintain marketshare?”

Posted by: Stephen Baker on January 24

After Yahoo cedes number one in search to Google, how does it fire up its researchers and recruit the best brains?

Technorati: Yahoo or Microsoft?

Posted by: Stephen Baker on January 14

Speculation mounts that Yahoo will snap Technorati. But Blogspotting is sticking with Microsoft—or nobody.

Could zip codes burn Google in local search?

Posted by: Stephen Baker on December 29

Will Marchex’s info service based on local U.S. zip codes bypass Google and Yahoo searches?

Predictions of a year gone by while surveying transit strike

Posted by: Stephen Baker on December 20

Points to John Battelle’s predictions for this year. His biggest miss: That Google would do something big with Blogger.

Some Googling Aspirations

Posted by: Heather Green on December 16

A little about Tristan Louis’ post on Google’s new Safe Browsing technology and the imporantance to Google of collecting data.

Podzinger searches audio files for podcasts

Posted by: Stephen Baker on November 28

Podzinger, a new podcast search engine from BBN Technologies, is worth a test drive. Instead of searching audio files for tags, it scans the spoken words, turns them into written…

Technorati’s catching up to Google’s speed

Posted by: Stephen Baker on November 22

Technorati has caught up to Google in blog search speed, and is also offering a mini window for obsessive bloggers to see who’s linking to them

Google faces lots of work in facial recognition

Posted by: Stephen Baker on November 18

Even if Google buys Riva, don’t expect accurate and reliable photo search anytime soon

Podcast with Technorati’s David Sifry

Posted by: Stephen Baker on November 09

Points to BW podcast with Technorati’s David Sifry, who talks about competing with Google in blog search

A peek at how Google will crash into classifieds

Posted by: Stephen Baker on October 31

A look at Google and classified, and links to other screenshots of new Yahoo and Google features

New medical search engine focuses on flu

Posted by: Stephen Baker on October 20

Healthline, a new health search engine, offers a U.S. flu-tracking site.

Sphere: New blog search engine is promising

Posted by: Stephen Baker on October 17

Sphere, a new blog search engine, could be a winner once it irons out kinks.

Yahoo gets back on disputed search numbers

Posted by: Stephen Baker on October 14

Yahoo clears up questions about its search survey

Yahoo unveils news search with blogs and Flickr photos

Posted by: Stephen Baker on October 10

Yahoo unveils a news service that includes blogs and Flickr photos along with mainstream news.

Yahoo preparing announcement on blog search

Posted by: Stephen Baker on October 01

Yahoo to make announcement on blog or RSS search early next week

Yahoo search focusing on life events

Posted by: Stephen Baker on September 30

Yahoo search to offer a special service focused on major life events, from having a baby to going to college

Exploding DIY Content

Posted by: Heather Green on September 27

Co-founder of Blinkx, a startup that’s doing interesting things with video and audio search discusses growth in indie content.

Start-ups are benchmarking Google blog search

Posted by: Stephen Baker on September 27

Blog search start-ups are busy benchmarking Google, even as Google works out its kinks

New RSS search scans feeds by title

Posted by: Stephen Baker on September 26

Sign up to be included in the latest RSS search engine by SurfWax.

Google blog search misses us

Posted by: Stephen Baker on September 21

Google blog search skips over Blogspotting

Still waiting for Bloglines search

Posted by: Stephen Baker on September 20

Baseball and other sports are prohibited on Sundays at Ashbridge Park in Rosemont, across Airedale Road from Wyndon Avenue.

Online review of Google Blog Search

Posted by: Stephen Baker on September 20

Looking for reader input for a review of Google’s new blogsearch

Technorati CEO unveils Google’s blog search

Posted by: Stephen Baker on September 15

Dave Sifry on Google’s Blog Search.

Is Technorati making deals to get data first?

Posted by: Stephen Baker on September 09

A Wall Street Journal story indicates that Technorati cuts deals to get blog data before its competitors.

Top 40 searches including the word blog

Posted by: Stephen Baker on August 31

In the top 40 blog searches, sex and radio fare well. But what’s sky blog?

Yahoo’s audio search: Play me dum diddy dum dum dum

Posted by: Stephen Baker on August 05

Yahoo’s new audio search is not built for shower crooners.

Word from Icerocket: New rankings are on the way

Posted by: Stephen Baker on August 03

Icerocket is at work on a new ranking of blogs.

A mobile short-cut on Technorati

Posted by: Stephen Baker on August 02

Technorati’s mobile page seems to work faster than its standard blog search

Flickr’s related tags point to new search

Posted by: Stephen Baker on July 27

Flickr’s tag-related browser leads photo search toward broad themes.

Confused about blog search? Read this.

Posted by: Stephen Baker on July 25

Mary Hodder analyses different blog search engines. First in a series.

Driver wows judge with Google map

Posted by: Stephen Baker on July 21

Combine the power of Wi-Fi with Google maps, and you get stories like this one, where the defendent in New York traffic court shows the judge on a laptop that…

Bloglines Mark Fletcher envisions ideal blog search

Posted by: Stephen Baker on July 14

Bloglines CEO outlines ideal blog search—and says his new search engine will be coming soon.

PubSub’s Wyman expects Google and Yahoo to plow into blog search

Posted by: Stephen Baker on July 11

PubSub’s Wyman says that blog search will be a snap for Google and Yahoo

Frustrated bloggers to search giants: Help!

Posted by: Stephen Baker on July 09

Bloggers are petitioning Google and Yahoo to hurry into blog search

Yahoo is testing blog and RSS search

Posted by: Stephen Baker on July 08

Yahoo appears to be developing a search tool for blog and RSS

Why Technorati feels slow

Posted by: Stephen Baker on July 08

Responding to a complaint that Technorati is running slowly, the company’s chief engineer details the challenges in blog search.