Subscribe to SearchDay, our free daily e-mail summarizing the day's Search Marketing News.

October 5, 2005

New Content Added to Elsevier's Scirus Science-Specific Database

Scirus is a specialty web database that focuses on science-specific material from publishing powerhouse Elsevier. Scirus combines open web material with content from many specialty databases (both free and fee). Today, Scirus announced a new partnership with the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) to include its collection of theses and dissertations from NDLTD member institutes in the Scirus database.

Scirus has indexed over 200,000 theses and dissertations, in more than twelve languages, including English, Portugese, French, German, Spanish and Taiwanese, among others. The theses and dissertations are from institutes around the world, including their largest content contributors Library and Archives Canada, Hong Kong University, Brazilian Institute of Scientific and Technical Information (IBICT), MIT, University of Uppsala, National Sun Yat-Sen University of Taiwan (NSYSU) and Virginia Tech.

Scirus has been mentioned several times on the SEW Blog and it's a database that I plan to "pimp" in the near future. Scirus received an honorable mention in the Specialty Database category during this year's Search Engine Watch Search Awards.

Fast Fact: One of the largest, if the not the largest, database of dissertations comes from UMI/ProQuest and contains more than 2 million titles dating back to 1861. Newer disserations (past two years) can be searched and previewed online for free. It's also possible to order the full text and have it delivered via mail or online.

Posted by Gary Price on October 5, 2005, 5:54 PM | Permalink

A New API From Yahoo: Yahoo Shopping User Product Review

Web Developers might be interested in learning that earlier today Yahoo released the Yahoo Shopping User Product Review API.

The User Product Review service allows you to display user reviews about a particular product. These reviews can be sorted in three ways: latest reviews, most recommended reviews or the highest rated reviews; either in ascending or descending order.

Posted by Gary Price on October 5, 2005, 5:19 PM | Permalink

Free Searchable Version of Da Vinci's Notebooks Now Available

Over on ResourceShelf (aka my other site) our Deputy Editor, Shirl Kennedy, has posted the news that askSam is at it again. This time, they're offering a free, searchable databases to (search/view/browse) online or offline. Today, askSam has posted Leonardo Da Vinci's Notebooks. Cool! To view offline, you'll need the askSam reader but that's also free.

The Notebooks are over 1,500 pages filled with all sorts of information. It's not a page-turning novel, but a fascinating glimpse into the mind of one of history's great figures.

You'll find a list of other askSam searchable databases, also free, on this page.

Posted by Gary Price on October 5, 2005, 5:07 PM | Permalink

Daily SearchCast, Oct. 5, 2005: Google And Sun Partner On Toolbar, Yahoo Acquires Upcoming.org, AOL Adds Saved Searches, Finding Movie Info, Saving The Ask Jeeves Butler & More!

Today's search podcast covers more on Google and Sun partnering to distribute the Google Toolbar and other cooperative moves, Yahoo buying events listing service Upcoming.org, AOL adding saved searches and other features to its web search, getting more out of the Internet Movie Database, a campaign to save the Ask Jeeves butler and more!

Tune-in by listening to this MP3 file, listening via WebmasterRadio at 11:30am Eastern and repeated at 2pm Eastern Tuesday through Friday, via our Odeo channel or through iTunes via this link (or use alternative iTunes instructions explained here). Below are links with more information about the stories that were discussed.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 5, 2005, 3:38 PM | Permalink

Intel Uses Nearly-new Ad Units for Yahoo! Takeover

If you find yourself at Yahoo!'s home page on Thursday, you'll see Intel's implementation of what Yahoo! calls its "Expando East" and "floating element" ad units. In non-Yahoo-ese, that's a 300x250 rich media ad down the right side of the page, which resolves to 300x100, along with a floating rich media unit that moves around the page outside the traditional ad space.

The implementation has only been done once before, by Pepsi's Mt. Dew in August. The ad, featuring pro skateboarder Tony Hawk, is part of its new Centrino campaign pushing the entertainment power of its latest processors, and it really is a break from the specs-based ads most tech companies use, or even from Intel's own surreal Blue Man Group ads.

"A lot of technology advertisers will do more traditional advertising -- the 'speeds and feeds' kind of thing," Elizabeth Harz, category development officer for technology at Yahoo!, told ClickZ News. "This is a great example of a marketer talking about the benefits of technology, and really making the connection between technology and life benefits, instead of technology for technology's sake."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb on October 5, 2005, 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Court Says Yahoo Speech Engineers Can Continue Working

A California judge has not issued a restraining order and 12 speech software engineers at Yahoo will be able to continue their work for the time being. The other day I blogged about Nuance, a speech tech company, filing a lawsuit against Yahoo saying that a group of engineers that moved from Nuance to Yahoo were now providing Yahoo with trade secrets. A hearing about the case is schedule on November 14th.

The order issued Monday in Santa Clara County Superior Court said the court was unable to properly assess whether any wrongdoing had occurred, and therefore declined to grant Nuance's request for a temporary restraining order against Yahoo and the engineers.
"We are pleased with the result today that the court did not grant the request for a temporary restraining order," Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo said in a statement. "We continue to believe the allegations in the lawsuit are without merit, and we plan to continue a vigorous defense."

Posted by Gary Price on October 5, 2005, 1:18 PM | Permalink

New Video Engine Debuts; Chat With Founder of TVEyes/Podscope

Two video search items on my desktop today.

First, word of a new video search engine named SearchforVideo. I plan to take a longer look at this one in the future but for now I can report:

+ RSS based Keyword Alerts Available
+ Desktop Search App Available
+ Video clips come from a wide variety of sources including local tv stations (for example, here are a few I found via KNBC in LA)*, Wall Street Journal, MSN Video, Yahoo News, Fox Sports
+ Appears many of the local tv station video clips come via Feedroom.com, another company we've blogged about in the past.
+ Default sort of search results is by date (most recent first)
+ From what I can tell you're conducting a metadata search, in other words you are not searching every word spoken in a video clip
+ Ability to submit your RSS video feed.

After a quick look, SearchforVideo reminds me of a metasearch video service for new, often news video content, that compiles material from numerous sources.

Second, for months I'be been blogging about TVEyes (a fee-based service) that is well worth checking out especially for those of you who monitor media mentions and their free, Podscope service that allows you to keyword search transcripts of podcasts. Today, Robin Good has a great interview with the founder of the company, David Ives. An audio version of the interview is also available. Btw, TVEyes/Podscope just signed a deal with AOL.

Posted by Gary Price on October 5, 2005, 1:18 PM | Permalink

Calishain and Her Kebberfegg

Our friend and fellow Web Search University faculty member, Tara Calishain, has release yet another new RSS tool named Kebberfegg (Keyword Based RSS Feed Generator) (now that's a name for you) that makes it quick and easy to create and then receive keyword-based RSS alerts from numerous sources. At the moment, over three dozen feeds are available.

Using Kebberfegg is easy.

First, enter your keyword strategy into the search box.
For this demo, I'll use the query "multimedia search."
Then, I select a category or categories of feed sources I would be interested in receiving.
I decided to select the following categories: Web Search Engines, Technology, Press Releases, and Multimedia.
You can choose the output as a plain ol' RSS link on an HTML or OPML, that you can import into a feed reader
OK, I chose the HTML option and now have a page of direct RSS links (preconfigured for my "multimedia search" query, ready to add to my aggregator.
You'll see an RSS button or a second button to add the feed directly to My Yahoo.

Where are the feeds coming from? Lot's of places. My Kebberfegg results pages included feeds from PR Newswire, Ice Rocket, and Blogdigger Audio Search.

Finally, Tara welcomes suggests for sources that offer keyword based feeds. In fact, I suggested a few early this morning and she's already added them.

Postscript: Tara, how about adding a direct link (link you do with My Yahoo) to add feeds to Bloglines?

Posted by Gary Price on October 5, 2005, 12:59 PM | Permalink

Play The Google Earth Contest

Some Google Earth devotees out they might be interested to learn about a new Google Earth contest from a Denver company.

From the site:

Using Google Earth placemarks and web pages, we've created the world's biggest interactive game.

In order to beat the GameMaster, you must follow the clues and utilize the Checkpoint feature to move ahead.

Once you've beaten the first GameMaster, you'll advance to the BIG GAME of EARTH CONTEST where you'll compete with other self proclaimed super sleuths for BIG REWARDS!

A list of "big rewards" is not provided but a few of the pages mention that if you "win" you get an "unlocked" expert version.

Aside from that material and a basic tutorial, that's all the info provided. An email address is also included.

Team play is available and according to this page, "encouraged."

That's it. It looks like fun and one of these days I might give it a go. If you play, share your thoughts (good, bad, indifferent) in the SEW Forums.

Posted by Gary Price on October 5, 2005, 11:42 AM | Permalink

New Save Jeeves Blog & Campaign

Barry at Search Engine Roundtable points to the new Save Jeeves blog, started by a former Ask Jeeves employee who wants the butler mascot to stay. Whichever way it goes, one thing is for certain. Controversy over whether the butler should go will only help raise awareness of Ask.com. Look for:

MSN to consider whether the butterfly should be stuffed into a collection jar.
Yahoo to debate whether it should love the exclamation mark from Yahoo! (yes, please. I mean yes, please!)
Google to announce a competition for a better logo (someone blogged about it needing one recently, can't find the link, sorry. But I doubt they were the first to say publicly the Google logo, well, could be a lot better).

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 5, 2005, 11:18 AM | Permalink

ClickTracks 6 To Offer New Analytics Features

ClickTracks 6 is coming out on October 12. The popular web analytics tool, which I use myself, will offer a variety of new features including:

Time Splitting: Seeing visitor behavior at different times on one screen
Site Archiving
A/B Split Tracking
Sales Funnels
Browser-based, rather than client-based, report viewing
Page-based keyword reporting

A rundown on what's coming is here. Andrew Goodman's been through a demo and gives it a thumbs-up in his review at Traffick here.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 5, 2005, 10:48 AM | Permalink

VNU Buys Into Blogs; Denton Giggles to the Bank

This is the first blog publishing deal that feels really corporate.

A pact was reached between Nick Denton's Gawker Media and VNU, publisher of Billboard and Adweek, to expand tech blog Gizmodo into European markets. Posts from the English language blog will be translated into five languages -- including French, Italian, German, Dutch and Spanish -- and augmented with entries geared toward local markets. These are written by VNU bloggers.

For Denton it looks like a slam dunk. He lends the Gizmodo brand and content, and gets a chunk of whatever ad revenue results. For VNU, this is clearly a test: Can we buy our way into blogs by licensing popular titles? (all due respect to Adweek blog Adfreak)

Posted by Zachary Rodgers on October 5, 2005, 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Group Formed To Help Develop Mobile Search

Group Plots Future of Mobile Search from ClickZ covers a new "Mobile Search Working Group" that's been formed by the Mobile Marketing Association. The MMA group aims to help carriers bundled branded mobile search solutions into their service packages. Frankly, I'd like the group or any group to bang carriers over the head that I don't want to be tied to any one search solution. I want the freedom to choose whatever I like. The groups home page is here, but the additional information the page points you at has yet to actually go live.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 5, 2005, 10:39 AM | Permalink

Yahoo Acquires Upcoming.org Events Listing Service

Yahoo has announced on its search blog that it has acquired events listing and calendar service Upcoming.org, which it expects will help improve the offerings of its Yahoo Local service. You might recall in my recent write-up of Yahoo Local changes that I mentioned it was unclear where Yahoo was getting its events information. I still need to (and will) follow up on that, but Upcoming obviously will be playing a role now, too -- if it hasn't been already. The Yahoo blog points to posts that each of the Upcoming partners have to say on the move, and Jeremy Zawodny does a nice all-in-one quote roundup of that here.

Postscript: Yahoo tells me doesn't disclose its current events feed partners, but that Upcoming content will eventually flow into Yahoo Local. Yahoo also plans to maintain Upcoming as a standalone site.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 5, 2005, 10:29 AM | Permalink

Google Names Princeton President Shirley Tilghman To Board

News from Google that it has appointed a new member of its board of directors, Shirley M. Tilghman, president of Princeton University and professor of molecular biology there. She's not yet been added to the full board list, which you will find here. Tilghman brings the board up to 10 people, and she becomes the first and only woman on the board.

Posted by Danny Sullivan on October 5, 2005, 10:18 AM | Permalink

AOL Bolsters Web Search

AOL has rolled out a number of new features on its search.aol.com service. Although AOL search is powered by Google, it has a very different look and feel, and the new features make it a compelling alternative to the web search powerhouse.

More details about AOL's new offerings in today's SearchDay article, New Features at AOL Search.

Posted by Chris Sherman on October 5, 2005, 10:12 AM | Permalink

On Library Card Catalogs, OPACs, The Perfect Search & Teaching Searchers

My mind is going a million miles a minute over the whole "Perfect Search" discussion that kicked off this week. Instead of getting it all out now, I plan to do in small doses while at the same time, hopefully, sharing some cool resources at the same time. Let me add a few comments to Danny's most recent post and add a few additional views on other issues.

First, while the human-edited model might have scalability issues, it doesn't mean that these types of tools (for example, general web directories) from non-commercial organizations are now, no less valuable to many searchers.

Sure, they're not the biggest in overall size (vs DMOZ) but the quality of the sources in these tools and their often meticulous maintenance is often what matters to a web researcher. For example, take a look at the LII, Infomine, and the Resource Discovery Network (here's an overview of the service that I wrote for SearchDay).

Remember, a good library does not have everything in its collection. "Collection Development" is a major part of library education and these directories, are good examples of this concept brought to the web. They also show that having some human involvement from subject specialists, librarians, etc. can prove useful.

Danny wrote:

The human-compiled card catalog looks only at book titles and short human-written descriptions of the books, maybe 25-75 words in all.
The crawler-compiled card catalog will let you scan every word on every page of every book in the library.

Let's stop using the term "card catalogs." They haven't existed in years. In an overwhelming majority of cases, card catalogs are now electronic databases that are called Online Public Access Catalogs ("OPACS") for short. Too long of a term? No problem. Consider them an "electronic library catalog" or the "library database". One thing is for sure, very rarely will you find paper cards. Yes, those good old paper cards had/have value but today's OPAC also offer lots of features.

For example, some allow you to get new book announcements via RSS. By the way, many libraries make these databases searchable for free over the web. Services like RedLightGreen allow you the chance to search hundreds of library catalog databases simultaneously and then allow you to customize for your local library's holdings. Heck, RedLightGreen will even format your bibliography for you. More about this service here.

Also, OPAC records of today often contain much more than the 25-75 words that Danny writes about (though to be fair, he's talking about web directories versus web search, rather than library paper card catalogs versus electronic library catalogs). Frequently, you'll find tables-of-contents, book reviews, snippets, web links, and more. The Library of Congress has an entire department called the Bibliographic Enrichment Team doing work in this area. Yesterday, Syndetic Solutions released even more info that can included in library catalogs.

Oh, how could I forget? Library book catalogs are not the only database tools available via the web (for free). Here's an article about some of what's out there. Lots of specialty databases (full text articles, too).

Second, Danny writes that the crawler-compiled OPAC will let you scan every page of every book in the library. Yes, in theory that's true and well, could be a great thing. Here's the problem. More unstructured data (words) could mean more false drops especially when you add-in the fact that most people only enter a few words in a web engine and only look at the first few results.

This is true whether or not the material comes from scanned books or just plain old web pages. If I had searchable access to every word in every book and entered "Football" I'm going to get back with millions and millions of hits and also have issues with precisely what the term means? American football? What most of the rest of the world calls football (aka soccer)?

Sure, the power searcher will have the skills to create a great search strategy from the outset and then refine as needed using the right tools. However, to this point, the typical open web searcher doesn't do anything like this and likely doesn't even know that have some of the tools to do it. Who is going to show them?

What I'm trying to say is that a bigger database doesn't necessarily mean better and in fact often means less precise results, especially when you're dealing with primarily, but not entirely, uncontrolled content. Some electronic databases also attach subject headings, descriptors and the like to help the searcher focus. Folksonomies could help but, IMHO, the jury is still out on their use and application. One thing is for sure scalability is an issue, I'm not denying that in the least.

Another part of a library school education is something called the reference interview. It involves a human working with a researcher and help them determine specifically what they're looking for and then provide the tools and search strategies to find the info. Good interviewing is a difficult skill to master. Perhaps what we need automated Q&A technology to help the searcher determine what they're looking for and then help them find it. Regardless of how good it is, it's still will not be a human.

Of course, dynamic clustering (we can talk about that at another time) might also play a role especially in the area of subject access and scalability. As Vivisimo says, its technology can quickly offer "selective ignorance" and help the searcher eliminate from a large results set what they don't want to see or need. In other words, increase precision with little work by the searcher while at the same time letting the page speak for itself.

Next, Danny writes, "It will find not just all the matching pages but often rank them so you are getting the very best ones." True in theory but as databases grow larger and larger, this will become more and more (increased recall lowers precision) of a challenge given the fact that very few people take advantage of the tools that are already available that can produce better search results. Udi Manber from A9 said a few months ago that search engines (at least for now) are not mind in the mind reading business and will have to invest in better thinking. He's right.

I also want to comment about what my friend, Jim Lanzone, from Ask Jeeves said:

That is not how people search, and neither you or I or any number of Web Search Universities is going to change that for the vast majority of searchers.

Look, I've been a "faculty" member of Web Search University (Chris, too!) since the first WSU met in 2001 and fully realize that we're only reaching a small, very small, number of people who are primarily professional searchers. However, and I think Lanzone would agree with me, web search training or as Eszter Hargittai calls it "practice," especially for students and educators, can only be a good thing.

As I've said many times, a little goes a long way. Search engines (with the money to offer training) should think of it as both a way to attract new users (in an age where many think there is just one search tool) and also as a public service.

Hargittai wrote in 2003:

Results from a study I conducted on average users' ability to find information on the Web suggest that there is great variance in whether people can locate different types of content online and their efficiency in doing so. These findings imply that simply offering an Internet connection to those without access will not alleviate differences or the so-called "digital divide." Rather, providing training is a necessary component of making the medium a useful tool for everyone.

So, do we have a new digital divide forming? Those who can access info quickly and efficiently and those who can't. I wonder if Rheingold has commented on this?

Finally, one more issue (for another time) is not only the ability to find and access information efficiently and in a timely manner but also having the skills to analyze the content for accuracy, currency, bias, etc. These skills are equally important to just being able to find what you want in the first place, especially in the web age.

Posted by Gary Price on October 5, 2005, 8:06 AM | Permalink

Pimp My Searching: Internet Movie Database

Danny mentioned yesterday we've been planning a "Pimp My Search Engine" series to help readers get more out of their favorite search engines. Well, we're off! However, today I won't be telling you how to pimp one of the big, major search engines. Instead, I want to help pimp you as a searcher by getting you to a great specialty/vertical search engine. That's none other than the very popular Internet Movie Database from Amazon.com.

IMDB has become a standard and respected reference database for film and TV information. For film, TV, and pop-culture freaks, it's also a great deal of fun.

The IMDB is more than just a "enter a movie title or actor's name and get results" type of place. Sure, that type of search works fine, but it only scratches the surface of what IMDB offers.

Buried, deep (and I mean deep) within the IMBD web site is this amazing Power Search page search interface that can help you find an incredible amount of movie/TV info within seconds. I learned about this interface when a news librarian asked on a listserv I monitor to come up with a solid list of movies filmed in Denver. IMDB got me a list in about 10 seconds.

Specifically, I went to the Power Search page, and in section two, entered Denver in the "location" field and got nearly 200 matches. A perfect list? Probably not, but no reference tool is 100 percent accurate.

Sure, I could have gone to Yahoo, MSN, or Google and started searching and searching but they aren't the best tool for this type of specific reference request. This IMDB interface understood the context of my search was about TV and movies and only that.

I probably could have called Denver or the Colorado Film Commission to get a list. Well, that's true, but I'm not sure everyone would think to do that and heck, this was easier and faster. Plus, this interface offers many more options. How about comedy movies that filmed in Denver between 1970-1980 and were rated R? No problem! (There were four, by the way, including that Clint Eastwood classic, Every Which Way But Loose.

By the way, this is not the only other specialty search interface the IMDB offers. Another favorite is the Name Search/People Working Together database. Just enter names and see if they've appeared or worked together.

For example: How many movies (if any) have Gene Hackman and James Gandolfini been in together? Put both of those names in the "Names" box, click "Start Name Search," and a new page loads with both actors listed. Check the boxes next to their names, then click the "Look up joint ventures" button. Back comes the answer:

Crimson Tide (1995)

Get Shorty (1995)

Mexican, The (2001)

Have fun!

Posted by Gary Price on October 5, 2005, 7:51 AM | Permalink

See More Posts From:

This Week | This Month