Thread Title: Review of Malcolm Gladwell's Blink Thread Url: http://www.seobook.com/archives/000643.shtml Thread Description:

Aaron Wall has a short review of Malcom Gladwell's new book, Blink - worth a look if you're umming and ahhing about buying a copy...

Of particular interest are the points made about how this might related to seo/sem's

Thread Title: Video Search Goes Mainstream Thread Url: http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000072.html Thread Description:

Yahoo! are adding a tab for video search to the main search interface shortly and Google have added http://video.google.com subdomain today - reported at numerous sources

I must admit to not even having played around with Yahoo's vid search but i hear Jenna Jameson is launching a new wireless ad campaign so i'll probably be doing a little research on that one...

Also, i keep meaning to investigate Blinkx.tv but it just looks so confusing and if i don't get how to work it within a few seconds i get all upset....

More on Yahoo! & Google Video Search

Now i've managed to drag myself out of bed i find a whole bunch of posts on this stuff, unsurprising. On good topic to talk about is Google dont have actual videos, but Yahoo! do... This from Forresters Charlene Li

My hunch is that this is a way to demonstrate to reluctant studio producers that video search could help them monetize their video content if they make it easily discoverable. Imagine Google partnering with DVR services like TiVo to do one-click recording of future episodes. Yet another is to enable video-on-demand ordering with your local cable provider, where users would pay-per-view to see the episode that aired two weeks ago. Or movie studios could sample a segment from a movie and allow online streaming of just that one section for a fee through partners like CinemaNow or Movielink.

Thread Title: Ad Network To Reward Publishers For Bringing In Advertisers Thread Url: http://www.mediapost.com/dtls_dsp_news.cfm?newsId=288353 Thread Description:

If i understand this correctly, AdMarketplace who launched at the beginning of December last year have put together a rather neat way of bringing in more advertisers - they're going to use their publishers to do it. Rather like an affiliate program:

Contextual ad network adMarketplace this morning launches a new initiative designed to give publishers an incentive to solicit advertisers for the network--even if those advertisers ultimately abandon the publishers who brought them in and instead advertise with competitors. The plan involves paying publishers residual fees on all ad revenue generated by advertisers they refer

The idea is that publishers place a link on their sites that goes to an Admarketplace registration form - if the advertiser signs up then the publisher earns residule income from all revenue generated from the hook up. Of course there are a few considerations the MediaPost piece didn't mention, such as:

Wont the publishers users get pissed off? So, how long is the cookie? Is there a cookie at all?

It is kind a cool though eh? A cross between referal spamming, affiliate marketing and good old fashioned "see what ya could have had..." style marketing.

Thread Title: Steve Jobs - Circa 1984 - Awesome Movie... Thread Url: http://www.mac-software-updates.de/1984macintro.mov Thread Description:

Go on, click the .mov link above, it's a great clip of Steve big Jobs introducing the Apple back in 1984 restored and digitalized on a German Mac site for your time traveling pleasure...

It might look nothing like him, but the showmanship (as joe wilcox notes) is all Jobs, if a little less developed.

It's funny to note that whilst appearances may change, voices don't...

Thread Title: Changes Thread Url: http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben/archives/007366.html Thread Description:

News in via neowin says that lead Firefox engineer Ben Goodger is to work for Google - fueling rumours that the dreaded GBrowser that was denied in October last year may once again be on the table.

From Inside Firefox:

My role with Firefox and the Mozilla project will remain largely unchanged, I will continue doing much the same work as I have described above - with the new goal of successful 1.1, 1.5 and 2.0 releases. I remain devoted full-time to the advancement of Firefox, the Mozilla platform and web browsing in general. I'm sure you have many questions. While I will be spending more time at Google, I will work out of the Mozilla Foundation offices regularly as the need arises.

Now if that doesn't fuel a few conspiracy theories and wild speculation im just gonna pack up go home heh..

And from Neowin:

Mozilla and Google have been working closely in 2004 behind the scenes. A recent Mozilla Developer Day 2004 was held at the Google campus allowing those interested in developing applications for Firefox to learn more. Google have invested heavily in JavaScript powered web apps like Gmail and Google Suggest. Some have speculated on Ben Goodger and Chris Wetherell teaming up to make new Gecko based programs. Google is currently featured as the default homepage and the company have a 'customized' search engine for the Firefox browser.

Thread Title: My MSN Launches RSS Reader Thread Url: http://blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch/archive/2005/01/24/359684.aspx Thread Description:

Cute, maybe the MSN team are starting to get the point of the blog medium, this entries halfway interesting heh.. they even promote My Yahoo when listing places you can add the msn search blog feed to.

There's also a listing of MSN Feeds at rss.msn.com with the promise of more to follow.

Over the last week or so there's been much speculation and general commentary on the upcoming (now here) MyMSN RSS including:

Findory's Greg Lindon - My Yahoo vs My MSN Silicon Beat - Quotes from Brooke Richardson MSN prd mgr Danny Sullivan mentions Blog Search Features? - I didnt see that, did i just miss it or will it come? Staci at PC talks about the Moreover relationship Moreover are powering thier feeds apparently..

As an aside, Staci also mentioned the fact that it's amusing to watch all the techie blogs take shots at M$ everyday but when the megacorp release something like this they still all get really excited. heh...

Thread Title: Semantic Web Ontologies: What Works and What Doesn't Thread Url: http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=P7480_0_3_0_C Thread Description: "Humans are very good at detecting this kind of spam, and machines aren't necessarily that good."

Google's director of Search quality Peter Norvig talks about semantic web ontologies and the challenges faced when looking at them in terms of Search:

On the difficulties of using semantic ontologies with public systems:

Now imagine what it would be like if instead of using our algorithms we relied on the news suppliers to put in all the right metadata and label their stories the way they wanted to. "Is my story a story that's going to be buried on page 20, or is it a top story? I'll put my metadata in. Are the people I'm talking about terrorists or freedom fighters? What's the definition of patriot? What's the definition of marriage?"

Just defining these kinds of ontologies when you're talking about these kinds of political questions rather than about part numbers; this becomes a political statement. People get killed over less than this. These are places where ontologies are not going to work. There's going to be arguments over them. And you've got to fall back on some other kinds of approaches.

On Search Spam

The last issue is the spam issue. When you're in the lab and you're defining your ontology, everything looks nice and neat. But then you unleash it on the world, and you find out how devious some people are. This is an example; it looks like two pages here. This is actually one page. On the left is the page as Googlebot sees it, and on the right is a page as any other user agent sees it. This website—when it sees Googlebot.com, it serves up the page that it thinks will most convince us to match against it, and then when a regular user comes, it shows the page that it wants to show.

What this indicates is, one, we've got a lot of work to do to deal with this kind of thing, but also you can't trust the metadata. You can't trust what people are going to say. In general, search engines have turned away from metadata, and they try to hone in more on what's exactly perceivable to the user. For the most part we throw away the meta tags, unless there's a good reason to believe them, because they tend to be more deceptive than they are helpful. And the more there's a marketplace in which people can make money off of this deception, the more it's going to happen. Humans are very good at detecting this kind of spam, and machines aren't necessarily that good. So if more of the information flows between machines, this is something you're going to have to look out for more and more.

Thread Title: Why Google Is Not Doing VoIP Thread Url: http://www.gigaom.com/2005/01/24/why-google-is-not-doing-voip/ Thread Description:

Om Malik, somewhat of a VoIP expert and frequent commentator on the technology explains why speculation over Google going into VoIP is out of whack:

The first reason, why Google is not doing VoIP: how the hell do you monetize something like this. Since Google’s business model revolves around embedding text-ads in pretty much everything, it doesn’t make sense for them to even indulge in VoIP.

I suspect that people are reading too much into Google’s job listing, which in my opinion has a very simple explanation. Google is growing, and it is adding data center capacity pretty much all across the planet. (Because it wants to be the Internet OS!) Europe, Asia and US and it needs to link these together with a dedicated backbone, like most smart companies do. In order to do that, they have to build a global virtual network.

Om goes on to theorize that Google does not want to buy dark fibre at all, they just want a chief negotiator with experience in the area to put these deals in place.

Thread Title: Quigo Debuts Private-Label Contextual Marketplace Thread Url: http://www.clickz.com/news/article.php/3463081 Thread Description:

Pamela Parker reports on Quigo's new private label contextual ad marketplace - they have already have deals in place with TheKnot USAToday and DenverPost:

....a private-label version of its AdSonar system, which will allow advertisers to buy contextually targeted text ads on individual sites.

"Now the publishers get to control pricing, the types of advertising that go on the site, and those that don't," said Quigo CEO Mike Yavonditte, adding that it also gives advertisers the flexibility to advertise only on the sites they choose. Contextual networks such as those from Google, Overture, and Kanoodle distribute ads throughout their partner sites without allowing advertisers to designate individual sites.

Thread Title: Mac Mini -- More Than Meets the Eye Thread Url: http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/01/wo/wo_delio012405.asp?trk=top Thread Description:

Technology review have a nice list of uses for the oh so cute Mac Mini. I'll bulletpoint the list here but check the article for a description on each point:

As a Portable Depot for Digital Pictures As a Portable Depot for Digital Pictures As s Regional X10 Server As a Christmas Lights Sequencer (give me strength..) As Part of a Home Theater System As a Car Enhancer As a Hardware Firewall for Laptops As a Physical Security System As a Server and/or Gateway As a Component of a Low-Cost Parallel Processing Array As a SCADA system As a Beowulf Cluster As an iPod Feeding Station

I was thinking of using mine simply as a seperate net media center...

Thread Title: Yahoo Extends $4.98 Domain Offer, Go Daddy Cuts Price Thread Url: http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2005/01/24/yahoo_extends_498_domain_offer_go_daddy_cuts_price.html Thread Description:

Netcraft reports that Yahoo! have extended their $4.98 loss leader deal on domain names for the third time and speculates that the offer is generating business - the offer now runs through to Feb 8th. Maybe they should just say "untill further notice" - maybe they're just hungry for the headlines on this deal eh?

Thread Title: WSJ story on blogging ethics has an error; we do accept review units—we just don’t keep them! Thread Url: http://calacanis.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000367028484/ Thread Description:

I find it hard to beleive that the WSJ would dignify such crap with a write up...

Bloggers ethics my arse, get on with it and stop being such a bloody whiner Jason..

Thread Title: A New Internet Marketing Company - Time to Move Thread Url: http://www.stuntdubl.com/2005/01/new-internet-marketing-company-time-to.html Thread Description:

Forgive me a little indulgence late on a sunday evening..

Todd, aks stuntdubl is moving to upstate New York to work with Jim at WeBuildPages - both Todd and Jim have been good friends to Threadwatch so good luck with the move and the new job mate.

I understand girlfriend is to follow shortly and trust that it's a good move for all...

Thread Title: rubberstamped.org Thread Url: http://resource-zone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=31571&page=1&pp=15 Thread Description:

Rich Skrenta, one of the founders of the ODP lost his root priveleges a day or two ago over at DMOZ - demoted to a common META, ack, the shame of it heh...

I shouldn't think he's in the least bit worried about it, Topix.net is doing just great thankyou very much! - I don't know if Rich's loss of priveleges have anything to do with everyone's favorite troublemaker IHU in the threadlink above at the "oh such a pleasant place" resource-zone but maybe it did. I know it'd give a few of the more rampant IHU'er wet dreams for weeks to think that they may have played apart in someone elses misfortune, but then i find it hard to beleive that:

a) Anyone cares what they say b) Anyone at dmoz cares if Rich adds sites he likes - that's the point isn't it? c) Any of you care at all

It does make for a fun little scandal though, plenty of whining, lots of skullduggery and no small amount of frothing at the mouth lunacy thrown in for good measure.

And for those with a lust for Skrenta info, Peter has an interview with the uber geek himself...

Thread Title: Does PR "weight" the link text? Thread Url: http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=3750&page=1&pp=20 Thread Description:

it's a really simple question

Assuming 10 IBLs from both, and similar link text.

Will the link text from a PR6 page link have the same value as that from a PR2 page link?

but the answer obviously isn't. I love these theoretical threads until they get bogged down by people demanding evidence. Evidence aside I would say Google could weight the links quite easily if they wanted to?

Thread Title: Briefly: iPod mini, 5G iPod, PowerBooks Thread Url: http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0501briefly2.html Thread Description:

Seems Steven whatshisface can't get enough of court these days - good for him, nobody like a bully Mr (big) Jobs...

The next iPod mini, code-named Q22B and referred to as Osiris inside Apple, will sport a higher capacity hard drive, very likely 5GB. Sources speculate that Apple will tap Seagate for the part, abandoning current iPod mini drive supplier Hitatchi for the time being. Hitatchi's one-inch hard drive currently tops out at 4GB, although 8GB and 10GB versions are due for release later this year and may very well find their way into a future iPod mini.

Go TS!