June 2, 2008

Internet Week Starts Tomorrow In NYC

Okay anyone in the tristate area who has not gone to Seattle for SMX this week and wants to get out of the office for an interesting floating conference, it is Internet Week here in NYC.

The conference offers a diverse collection of sessions and events - even an exhibit hall on Friday that runs for 4 hours in a city club! Now that is good marketing - after all it is Friday.

More of the creativity of the organizers is in its social nature. As the site notes "In the spirit of the Web, Internet Week is open to any and all companies and organizations working online, big or small. Whether you'd like to have a seminar, party or meet-up, we encourage you to participate!"

So if you wanted to be part of a conference watch for it coming to a city near you - or next year's event here in New York. The Wednesday Google Analytics event looks good.

Posted by Frank Watson at 8:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 5, 2007

Thoughts on Seth Godin's keynote at SES

Seth Godin provided the morning keynote on Tuesday morning at SES Chicago. His talk was an overview of his latest book, Meatball Sundae. He recently did a pre-show seminar that received excellent coverage from Kevin Newcomb and Lisa Barone, yours truly, and I also interviewed Seth about the book. In addition, every attendee to SES Chicago got a free copy of his book, a book which has not yet been released for sale to the general public.

Because of the prior coverage, this post will focus on offering some additional impressions about a few key points in his keynote. The first is that watching Seth on stage is like watching a nightclub entertainer. And it is entertaining. He also provided a compelling presentation that was completely text free. Every single slide was a live example of some point related to the Meatball Sundae.

The focus of the book is how to succeed in the new marketing environment. New marketing here refers in a general way to the environment that is emerging from the Internet. One of the big observations about this is just how much control a consumer has today, and also just how easy it is for them to express their opinion of your product or service.

If you are looking to truly capitalize on the new types of marketing opportunities that exist in the new marketing environment, there are a couple of major things that you should really think about doing:

1. Design your business around the new marketing. Older businesses that were not designed around the new marketing environment have difficulty in making the shift. Seth cites the example of Walmart's MySpace knockoff, called "The Hub" which was instantly doomed to failure from the start. One reviewer commented: "Dude, is there anything more excruciating than some lametard adult trying to speak to teenagers in their own language?"

Another example that he cites is Bud TV. This also had an underwhelming response.

The problem with these initiatives? It is really hard for a business built on one set of assumptions about the market to simply take on a new set of assumptions and change overnight. There are often major cultural and economic problems for them in making such a shift. For example, if your business is built on a model of delivering a product to a customer in a week or two, and you have a new competitor who delivers it to you in the same day, it will be very, very difficult to make that shift.

2. Design your busines to capitalize on major trends in the market. Seth itemized 14 in this presentation which are also featured in his book. There are more than 14, but these are the ones he has chosen to emphasize. The idea is if your business can is leveraging some of these trends (even just a few of them) you are more likely to "have the wind at your back"

For example, instead of worrying about what it means when the consumer is in control, turn this into an asset for your business. One fundamental way to do this is by completely unbundling your products, and/or offering a wide range of "long tail" solutions. People today want to have a lot of choices - so give it to them.

Don't worry that consumers can communicate to other consumers what they think about you, embrace it. Engage directly with the consumer. You can create mechanisms for doing this on your site, or you can go out to the web and find out where they are talking about your company or where they talk about the types of problems that your products or services are trying to address.

One key to this is being able to tell an authentic story. In other words, if you are trying to tell a story to the market, and people are able to figure out that the story you are telling is not genuine, you are going to be into a whole world of hurt.

Summary

Ultimately, major market shifts create new winners. That is why EBay rules auctions on the web, and not Sotheby's. Understanding what the major trends are, and the new marketing environment will put you one step ahead of the competition.

Meatball Sundae covers these things in much more detail than I have here, or that we collectively did in the articles referenced about. It's thought provoking indeed.

Posted by Eric Enge at 9:19 AM | Permalink

September 27, 2007

Live! From Microsoft Live Search: Trovix Search Found?

Trovix grew up in the Googleplex but would thrive down the road at MS SV Live Search. Searchification of boring resumes made a name for Trovix, leading to the launch of its free, live jobs search (read: white/blue collar) and recruitment site. Now job candidates can find more suitable jobs; and Jobs, more suitable candidates.

Why would Trovix find itself more at home in Microsoft Live Search than even at Google? Simple. Great artificial minds think alike.

Trovix search technology extracts attributes from job descriptions and CVs the way Microsoft Live Search extracts attributes from online content in key verticals (Shopping; Health, Entertainment, Local). In simple terms, by parsing words, phrases and acronyms their search technologies determine a database of intentions on the fly.

Trovix is a vertical search engine (people/jobs). Live Search aggregates vertical search engines in a SHEL game where the Microsoft prize is the searchers' true intentions; the ultimate payout: a bigger slice of online ad dollars.

Key Trend To Watch: Microsoft Live Search bucks the trend of human intervention in search. Sophisticated filters and algorithms improve relevancy.Lately Google has tried to put a human face on search, emphasizing they're more than just an algorithm.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 2:17 AM | Permalink

August 6, 2007

Search Marketing in Brazil: Report from SES Latino

I recently conducted an interview with Marcelo Sant’Iago the Director of Business Development of MídiaClick, a performance-based marketing agency from São Paulo, Brazil and a conference speaker at Search Engine Strategies Latino on the sessions, Search Landscape: US Hispanics & Latin Americans and Translate Or Create: Strategies For Those With English-Language Sites. Marcelo shares his experience and advice for search marketers to penetrate the Brazilian market, which today holds the largest internet population of any single country in Latin America.

For some background, Marcelo was the President of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Brasil between 2002-2006, and now is Chairman of the Advisory Board. He also serves as board member for Fédération Internationale des Associations de Multimédia. Sant’Iago blogs about interactive media and search engine marketing at www.poucas-e-boas.com, is one of the regional editors of Multilingual Search blog, writes monthly for Caderno Propaganda & Marketing newspaper, Webinsider.com.br and has articles and interviews published in Brazil and abroad.

SEW: Brazil has the highest amount of Internet users of any Latin America country. What do you attribute that to?

Well, first of all we are more than 186 million people. In the last 10 years, since the web was available for everyone, telecom companies were privatized. That helped to increase the number of fixed telephone lines, mobile phones and broadband connections. Also, inflation is under control for some years now, and more people can buy computers, even though we still have high interest rates.

Still, less than 20% of the population has internet access (33 million users according to Ibope NetRatings), and a large part of low income Brazilians will not have access to Internet in foreseeable future, keeping Broadcast TV as the key medium for major industry segments (CPG, Food, Retail).

But internet advertising is growing year after year: Q1 2007 growth was 32% compared to 2006. And that’s without search numbers, so everyone is very optimistic. According to NetRatings we lead the world in online time spent averaging 20 hours a month. Also, there’s a high penetration/usage of Internet among the upper and middle class, meaning that even with less than 20% overall penetration among the entire population, people with purchase power are online. This is a key target audience for majority of business and Brazilian behavior is favorable to new technologies, such as videos, social networks, and instant messaging.

SEW: Is there any data on the total penetration of Brazilians who use Search?

Actually not many people in Brazil know, but yes. Brazilian Internet Steering Committee has a survey about internet usage with very interesting numbers. 75% of users have search as main activity online. Main searched categories are goods and services, entertainment, jobs, health, and travel. The full survey is available (in Portuguese and English).

SEW: Do many US-based Brazilians frequent Brazilian based sites?

I have to say yes, since you won’t find many websites with content about Brazil in English. On the other side, many Brazilians are visiting US-based websites for content, such as music, international news, webmail, blogs. That is a good opportunity for advertising that most Brazilian agencies and marketers are not aware of.

SEW: Is there the same importance for US businesses to target Portuguese-speaking Latin Americans as there is with Spanish speakers?

Definitely! Brazil is one of the 9 countries where Google recently launched local versions of YouTube and the first having Yahoo’s Panama rolled out in Latin America. Why? Because it is a fast growing market, with highest purchase power when compared to Latin-american Spanish speaking countries; and, of course, we have more internet users, despite the still low penetration when compared to some other countries.

Here are some numbers to back that up: in 2006 online advertising in Mexico accounted for US$80 million, Argentina US$50 million and Brazil US$180 million; and Q1 2007 growth was 32%. And e-commerce in Brazil reached US$114 billion in 2006 (36.4% B2B;12.7% B2C), 82% growth when compared to 2005.

SEW: What advice would you give for US businesses who are looking to market to Brazillians, but do not have a physical business location in Brazil?

1. Use search engines to reach the customers. 2. Localize (not only translate) your ads into Portuguese. 3. Develop a good landing page strategy: create a Portuguese version before considering have all your website translated. 4. Forget PayPal, and provide multiple payment systems including creditcards, and boleto (a local bank invoicing system). 5. If you planning to sell goods, sending the purchases by mail; then watch out for high taxes and duties.

SEW: How do Google, Yahoo, and MSN compare with offering regional-based search advertising services for Brazil?

Google is far more advanced. I’m handling regional campaigns with them since 2004. Yahoo’s Panama is now up and running in Brazil, and we are all excited with the new capabilities. MSN is still under Yahoo Search Marketing flagship, so I think AdCenter won’t be around shortly.

SEW: How do Latin America-based search advertising companies like Directa and Performa compare?

They have a big inventory not only for CPC, but CPA deals as well, and that is interesting to a performance agency like MídiaClick. But our experience shows that SERPs always provide better conversions than contextual solutions. And I personally do not believe in-text advertising is effective.

On the nutshell, I think they’re an excellent option to add on our search campaigns and a fast way to reach Spanish speaking audiences within Latin America.

But, there is a bias, since Directa and Performa are part of a group which also owns a SEM Agency. But, if Google now owns Performics and Microsoft owns Atlas and Avenue/A, that shouldn’t bother me, right?

Directa and Performa recently merged as part of DirectaClick.FOX. What affect will that have for LatinAmerica based search advertising?

The fact is: Brazil is the only Portuguese speaking country, so language is one of the barriers keeping Latin-american companies out of our market. That is why you won’t find a publisher, vendor or agency from Argentina, Mexico, Chile or any other other country playing a lead role in Brazil. Even though, there are several companies based out of Miami telling US venture capital firms about their leadership in the region. What leadership, if you don’t have a strong presence in the leading market?

Let’s take SES Latino as an example: during one of the panels, a speaker listed what he said to be the most important community websites within Latin America. Even a website from Costa Rica was on his list, but none from Brazil! But Orkut, Google’s social network (witch is the #1 website in Brazil), accounts for 60 million unique users/month, and the vast majority of them are Brazilians. Some of those countries don’t even have 60 million internet users, total.

I think Brazilian companies are so busy doing business locally that they often forget regional opportunities. But I have to be fair: Spanish is a barrier for many brazilian executives, not to mention English. That means not everyone would be able to succeed regionally and probably aware of that, they keep its focus in Brazil alone, a much bigger market than several Latin-american countries combined.

Regarding to DirectaClick.Fox, they are a great company. We’re willing to do business with them and I admire Damián Voltes for his accomplishments, but this merge will not change Brazilian online market landscape, at least in the short term.

On a regional perspective, I believe Google will maintain its search dominance thanks not only to its performance, but brand awareness as well. But on the agency side, AgênciaClick, the leading interactive agency in Brazil and one of most awarded in international ad festivals around the globe, was acquired early this year by ISOBAR (part of Aegis Group and owner of Carat and iProspect) for US$31 million and have already started its regional expansion. That might change the regional landscape very quickly.

SEW: UOL Busca is supposed to be extremely popular in Brazil. Can you provide some background information on this portal site? What are some features with this portal that might not be typical of a portal site like a Google/Yahoo/MSN/Ask?

UOL is one of the top ISPs and top destinations in Brazil, and was the first major portal launched in Brazil. That gives it a lot of credibility among local users. They are a public company, and all of their info is available (in English) here. They also provide exclusive content from national and foreign media companies.

UOL Search is not a search engine per se: it’s a feature of UOL portal, the first major horizontal portal in Brazil (they are around for more than 10 years). That’s why I wouldn’t compare him to Google or Ask. UOL was part of Yahoo’s content network in Brazil, and just recently shifted to Google’s. You can read all the details online.

Posted by Grant Crowell at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 30, 2007

Search marketing to Latinos – Interview with Manny Ruiz of Hispanic PR Wire

Grant Crowell interviews Many Ruiz, President and CEO of Hispanic PR Wire on optimizing news releases for the Latino market.

How does Hispanic PR Wire (HPRW) distinguish itself from other news wire services? How does your company compare with the services these other new wire companies offer for targeting Latinos through search?

There really is no comparison between us and the. We have built a Latino-exclsuive network for almost 4 years now, building alliances with Hispanic news websites, most of which are print publications that are online, but we include other media outlets like radio and TV that will guarantee a news feed to Hispanic’s AdWire that we do in exchange. We have almost 100 Hispanic news web sites that give our clients preferred visibility on their websites. In many cases, you will see our clients on the front page of the news websites. In nearly 80 of those alliances, we actually power their news websites. We give them the news websites totally free – we design the website, we host the website, we do an advertising web share with them. We are actually business partners with a lot of the locations where we can immediately place press releases. This is something that other news wire services can’t do, nor can any other business. We have exclusive partnerships that prohibit our competitors from having that same advantage.

Tell us about your “Interactivo Release� and how it relates to search

The Interactivo Release has all the components of the Web 2.0 press release – hyperlinks, high res photographs, quote box, photographs, related info, pdfs, and a website preview. In the next month or two, we will also roll out the ability of putting in a video feed.

Your website advertises that you can reach over 2,400 media outlets, with a minimum of 100 guaranteed online placements. Could you name a few sites of particular importance?

We work exclusively with many of the crème de la crème of the news services. In Miami we have diariolasamericas.com, the second most important Hispanic publication in the Market. In Chicago we have LaRaza.com. Across the country we have many others, and we also have some that are very well known in English, such as Hispanic Business and Yahoo Telemundo. We have the majors, but we also have a lot of publications that may be overlooked, in places that are not the biggest Hispanic market, such as publications in places like Tulsa, Oklahoma. If there are Hispanic media outlets across the country, it is likely that we have online alliances with them. That is one of the things we love about what we have set up, is that we are in a lot of places that are commonly overlooked. We have worked really hard at getting great representation across the country. We have networks with them through our other divisions, like the Hispanic Digital Network, and we do an advertising network. It helps to get some dollars behind the press releases.

Being that the US Hispanic market is still more limited by comparison to the entire U.S. population, how are you helping your both your customers make sure that their press release are going to the right media outlets, and that those media outlets are receiving the most relevant press releases to their own business model?

The Hispanic media numbers is much more limited. There are like 1500 Hispanic media outlets across the country, and we are discovering others every week. Our goal is to reach all media that are interested in Hispanic news, wheatear they are Hispanic or not, English, Spanish, Bilingual. What we have done is identify those media outlets. We have 16 categories of news that ranges from arts and culture, automotive, business and finance, immigration, etc. We have a team of professionals that are media relations experts who contact media outlets and ask them to opt into the news categories that they want to receive. These news categories, some subscribe to one, some subscribe to all 16. We have had a lot of work behind the scenes making sure that you send news that is relevant to the market. We have a system that will filter which stories should go to which media outlets, and we distribute by email, fax, Web and RSS feeds. We are working with evolving formats, so whatever comes down the pipe in the future, we are ready for it. We also have the benefit of having BusinessWire, the world’s largest press release distribution service as our partner. We have been able to learn a lot from them, they have shared staff, resources, insight to be able to do Hispanic distribution with a Business wire standard.

You do provide an RSS feed every one of your target news categories. Does that mean if a customer selects a targeted category they want their press release to be featured in, does that mean their press release will show up in the RSS feed as well?

Yes. We do filter out some of the information in the feed, like contact information. This is because there are people out there who will try to use our system to try and get leads and call our clients, and we want to prevent that. There are very specific things we do and don’t do through RSS feeds. You have to be a certified, bonafide media outlet to receive the full unfiltered version of the story that our clients want us to push out.

What are the services and features that allow for a press release to be optimized for the search engines, and better able to reach Hispanic markets through the search engines?

When we launched our service in 2000, we never intended for the audience that would be visiting our web site to be anything other than media and Marketing. That is who we had focused on for most of our trajectory. Then about two years ago we noticed a huge spike in our traffic. We would get calls from just anybody, we were getting a lot of regular people who were not reading the whole press release, and they would contact us not realizing there was another contact. What we discovered was that search engines, especially Google, were leading a lot of people to our site. Our web site is embracing that. With Web 2.0, no longer are our press releases just a vehicle for marketing to the media, we want to make the press release appear in all its glory for the regular visitors. We are uploading PDFs, we are hyper linking, and we just began doing this last year. If you have a Google alert, you can pick up our stories for free, every day. We ourselves have a SEO expert that works with us.

Do you also target Latin America?

Our focus at HPRW is in providing our clients with U.S. Hispanic distribution. Whenever we do work in Latin America, we work with Business Wire Latin America, and they have a way of guaranteeing placement on websites of many leading Latin American Web pages and Portals. They have partnerships with all the major wire services, and major publications in Latin America as well. They also have partnerships with major publications in Mexico, Argentina, etc.

How would someone submit a release for Hispanic PR wire?

It is a little different than other services. They would submit a word document with an order form, through an email. The process takes about 5 minutes. We will get it out to the media outlets, usually within about 2 hours. There is a little more of a process than for traditional wire services, because we have to review it, and sometimes we’ll have an English version and a Spanish version. It takes twice the work to send a release through us than with a normal service because of the two languages.

Posted by Grant Crowell at 1:01 PM | Permalink

August 14, 2006

Microsoft Attacks Click Spam by Looking at Noisy Behavior

Sites in search results that rank highly while serving visitors only ads are the target of a number of papers by Microsoft, submitted to the SIGIR 2006 conference held last week. Michael Hickins wrote about them in Microsoft: Noise Improves Search Results, and Jeremy Reimer adds more details in Microsoft Research Peers into Search.

Both offer nice overviews of the papers presented by Microsoft at the conference, which cover topics such as query analysis, user behavior, and personalization. Eight of the thirteen papers are available at the Microsoft Research pages. If you are interested in how Microsoft might be ranking, and reranking, pages based upon measurements of human behavior, you may want to dive into some of these papers. A good starting point might be Learning User Interaction Models for Predicting Web Search Result Preferences (pdf), which details their approach to seeing how users' clicks and other activities might help them predict preferences for web search results.

Posted by Bill Slawski at 3:27 PM | Permalink

June 7, 2006

Presentations from the Future of Web Search, in Barcelona

When it was announced earlier this year that Dr. Ricardo Baeza-Yates would be joining Yahoo, part of the agreement involved him continuing to work with the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. An event sponsored by Yahoo and the Web Research Group of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, the Future of Web Search took place on May 19-20, 2006, and included a large cast of presenters on a wide variety of topics.

ResourceShelf's Gary Price noted yesterday that many of the slides from the workshop are now online. Here are a few of the presentations available:

Using Rank Propagation and Probabilistic Counting for Link-based Spam Detection

"Tuning": Error Optimisation in Ad-Hoc Retrieval

Current Approaches to Personalized Web Search

Applications of Mining Web Queries

Boosting Performance of Web Search Engines Using Query Logs

From Query Based Information Retrieval to Context Driven Information Supply

The presentation also included a symbolic opening of the Yahoo! Research Lab in Barcelona.

Javier Casares and Tomy Lorsch have a short interview with Andrei Broder, at ojobuscador, from the second day of workshops with transcriptions in both English and Spanish. The sound quality isn't great, but it provides a nice glimpse into the energy present during the two days of workshops.

Posted by Bill Slawski at 12:51 PM | Permalink

Presentations from the Future of Web Search, in Barcelona

When it was announced earlier this year that Dr. Ricardo Baeza-Yates would be joining Yahoo, part of the agreement involved him continuing to work with the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. An event sponsored by Yahoo and the Web Research Group of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, the Future of Web Search took place on May 19-20, 2006, and included a large cast of presenters on a wide variety of topics.

ResourceShelf's Gary Price noted yesterday that many of the slides from the workshop are now online. Here are a few of the presentations available:

Using Rank Propagation and Probabilistic Counting for Link-based Spam Detection

"Tuning": Error Optimisation in Ad-Hoc Retrieval

Current Approaches to Personalized Web Search

Applications of Mining Web Queries

Boosting Performance of Web Search Engines Using Query Logs

From Query Based Information Retrieval to Context Driven Information Supply

The presentation also included a symbolic opening of the Yahoo! Research Lab in Barcelona.

Javier Casares and Tomy Lorsch have a short interview with Andrei Broder, at ojobuscador, from the second day of workshops with transcriptions in both English and Spanish. The sound quality isn't great, but it provides a nice glimpse into the energy present during the two days of workshops.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:51 PM | Permalink

Presentations from the Future of Web Search, in Barcelona

When it was announced earlier this year that Dr. Ricardo Baeza-Yates would be joining Yahoo, part of the agreement involved him continuing to work with the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. An event sponsored by Yahoo and the Web Research Group of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, the Future of Web Search took place on May 19-20, 2006, and included a large cast of presenters on a wide variety of topics.

ResourceShelf's Gary Price noted yesterday that many of the slides from the workshop are now online. Here are a few of the presentations available:

Using Rank Propagation and Probabilistic Counting for Link-based Spam Detection

"Tuning": Error Optimisation in Ad-Hoc Retrieval

Current Approaches to Personalized Web Search

Applications of Mining Web Queries

Boosting Performance of Web Search Engines Using Query Logs

From Query Based Information Retrieval to Context Driven Information Supply

The presentation also included a symbolic opening of the Yahoo! Research Lab in Barcelona.

Javier Casares and Tomy Lorsch have a short interview with Andrei Broder, at ojobuscador, from the second day of workshops with transcriptions in both English and Spanish. The sound quality isn't great, but it provides a nice glimpse into the energy present during the two days of workshops.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:51 PM | Permalink

Presentations from the Future of Web Search, in Barcelona

When it was announced earlier this year that Dr. Ricardo Baeza-Yates would be joining Yahoo, part of the agreement involved him continuing to work with the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. An event sponsored by Yahoo and the Web Research Group of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, the Future of Web Search took place on May 19-20, 2006, and included a large cast of presenters on a wide variety of topics.

ResourceShelf's Gary Price noted yesterday that many of the slides from the workshop are now online. Here are a few of the presentations available:

Using Rank Propagation and Probabilistic Counting for Link-based Spam Detection

"Tuning": Error Optimisation in Ad-Hoc Retrieval

Current Approaches to Personalized Web Search

Applications of Mining Web Queries

Boosting Performance of Web Search Engines Using Query Logs

From Query Based Information Retrieval to Context Driven Information Supply

The presentation also included a symbolic opening of the Yahoo! Research Lab in Barcelona.

Javier Casares and Tomy Lorsch have a short interview with Andrei Broder, at ojobuscador, from the second day of workshops with transcriptions in both English and Spanish. The sound quality isn't great, but it provides a nice glimpse into the energy present during the two days of workshops.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:51 PM | Permalink

May 19, 2006

Building Better Search Interfaces: A Workshop About Exploratory Searches

When someone uses a search engine to try to locate information about a subject which they know very little about, a simple search interface isn't very helpful. These types of endeavors have been referred to by information scientists as exploratory search activities, where the target of the search is mostly undefined.

Gary Price, at Resource Shelf, pointed earlier today to a paper from a University of Maryland workshop held last year, which brought together researchers from the "fields of Information Seeking (IS), Information Retrieval (IR), Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Information Visualization (IV)" to take a closer look at how to make it easier for searchers to perform exploratory searches.

The workshop, Exploratory Search Interfaces: Categorization, Clustering and Beyond, was part of The Human Computer Interaction Laboratory’s 22nd Annual Symposium, hosted at the School last June. The main issue explored at the workshop is nicely stated in the report:

Although the Semantic Web is making new richer and more flexible kinds of Web-based querying possible a burning question remains “Are current search technologies enough to meet all user demands?”. The answer of course is yes and no. Search engines, bibliographic databases and digital libraries provide adequate support for users whose information needs are well-defined. However, they do not work well in situations where users lack the knowledge or contextual awareness to formulate queries or navigate complex information spaces. For example, what if you want to find something from a domain where you have a general interest but not specific knowledge? How would you find classical music you might enjoy if you do not know what Beethoven or Berlioz sounds like? What a Sonata is? The difference between Baroque or Romantic? What do you type into Google?

Some experienced searchers have developed strategies to help them with these exploratory searches, but part of the impetus behind the workshop was to consider interfaces that may make such searches easier and more useful. One conclusion of the workshop participants was that interfaces that could aid searchers "are a vital (and missing) part of most current mainstream search technology."

They offer a number of suggestions in their report on the workshop for future study on the subject and the development of user interfaces that could be created involving:

• The context of searches,
• The support of different searching strategies,
• Testing methodologies for those interfaces, and;
• The creation of workspaces for searchers - from simple note taking to collaborative authoring environments.

More information about the workshop is available on the workshop homepage, which includes some excellent slide presentations from participants, like the one by Abdur Chowdhury of AOL on How good is Web Search and Does Clustering Help?. (Some interesting numbers on one of his slides showing a breakdown of queries by category at AOL in 2004.)

The 23rd Annual Symposium of the University of Maryland's Human Computer Interaction Laboratory will be held on June 1-2, with the Symposium itself on June 1, and workshops and tutorials on June 2. While today isn't the last day that you can register, they note that they need registration and payment by today to "guarantee reservation of lunch and materials." This year's event doesn't have a workshop on a search related topic, but there are some presentations during the first day that do involve search.

Posted by Bill Slawski at 4:26 PM | Permalink

Building Better Search Interfaces: A Workshop About Exploratory Searches

When someone uses a search engine to try to locate information about a subject which they know very little about, a simple search interface isn't very helpful. These types of endeavors have been referred to by information scientists as exploratory search activities, where the target of the search is mostly undefined.

Gary Price, at Resource Shelf, pointed earlier today to a paper from a University of Maryland workshop held last year, which brought together researchers from the "fields of Information Seeking (IS), Information Retrieval (IR), Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Information Visualization (IV)" to take a closer look at how to make it easier for searchers to perform exploratory searches.

The workshop, Exploratory Search Interfaces: Categorization, Clustering and Beyond, was part of The Human Computer Interaction Laboratory’s 22nd Annual Symposium, hosted at the School last June. The main issue explored at the workshop is nicely stated in the report:

Although the Semantic Web is making new richer and more flexible kinds of Web-based querying possible a burning question remains “Are current search technologies enough to meet all user demands?”. The answer of course is yes and no. Search engines, bibliographic databases and digital libraries provide adequate support for users whose information needs are well-defined. However, they do not work well in situations where users lack the knowledge or contextual awareness to formulate queries or navigate complex information spaces. For example, what if you want to find something from a domain where you have a general interest but not specific knowledge? How would you find classical music you might enjoy if you do not know what Beethoven or Berlioz sounds like? What a Sonata is? The difference between Baroque or Romantic? What do you type into Google?

Some experienced searchers have developed strategies to help them with these exploratory searches, but part of the impetus behind the workshop was to consider interfaces that may make such searches easier and more useful. One conclusion of the workshop participants was that interfaces that could aid searchers "are a vital (and missing) part of most current mainstream search technology."

They offer a number of suggestions in their report on the workshop for future study on the subject and the development of user interfaces that could be created involving:

• The context of searches,
• The support of different searching strategies,
• Testing methodologies for those interfaces, and;
• The creation of workspaces for searchers - from simple note taking to collaborative authoring environments.

More information about the workshop is available on the workshop homepage, which includes some excellent slide presentations from participants, like the one by Abdur Chowdhury of AOL on How good is Web Search and Does Clustering Help?. (Some interesting numbers on one of his slides showing a breakdown of queries by category at AOL in 2004.)

The 23rd Annual Symposium of the University of Maryland's Human Computer Interaction Laboratory will be held on June 1-2, with the Symposium itself on June 1, and workshops and tutorials on June 2. While today isn't the last day that you can register, they note that they need registration and payment by today to "guarantee reservation of lunch and materials." This year's event doesn't have a workshop on a search related topic, but there are some presentations during the first day that do involve search.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 4:26 PM | Permalink

Building Better Search Interfaces: A Workshop About Exploratory Searches

When someone uses a search engine to try to locate information about a subject which they know very little about, a simple search interface isn't very helpful. These types of endeavors have been referred to by information scientists as exploratory search activities, where the target of the search is mostly undefined.

Gary Price, at Resource Shelf, pointed earlier today to a paper from a University of Maryland workshop held last year, which brought together researchers from the "fields of Information Seeking (IS), Information Retrieval (IR), Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Information Visualization (IV)" to take a closer look at how to make it easier for searchers to perform exploratory searches.

The workshop, Exploratory Search Interfaces: Categorization, Clustering and Beyond, was part of The Human Computer Interaction Laboratory’s 22nd Annual Symposium, hosted at the School last June. The main issue explored at the workshop is nicely stated in the report:

Although the Semantic Web is making new richer and more flexible kinds of Web-based querying possible a burning question remains “Are current search technologies enough to meet all user demands?”. The answer of course is yes and no. Search engines, bibliographic databases and digital libraries provide adequate support for users whose information needs are well-defined. However, they do not work well in situations where users lack the knowledge or contextual awareness to formulate queries or navigate complex information spaces. For example, what if you want to find something from a domain where you have a general interest but not specific knowledge? How would you find classical music you might enjoy if you do not know what Beethoven or Berlioz sounds like? What a Sonata is? The difference between Baroque or Romantic? What do you type into Google?

Some experienced searchers have developed strategies to help them with these exploratory searches, but part of the impetus behind the workshop was to consider interfaces that may make such searches easier and more useful. One conclusion of the workshop participants was that interfaces that could aid searchers "are a vital (and missing) part of most current mainstream search technology."

They offer a number of suggestions in their report on the workshop for future study on the subject and the development of user interfaces that could be created involving:

• The context of searches,
• The support of different searching strategies,
• Testing methodologies for those interfaces, and;
• The creation of workspaces for searchers - from simple note taking to collaborative authoring environments.

More information about the workshop is available on the workshop homepage, which includes some excellent slide presentations from participants, like the one by Abdur Chowdhury of AOL on How good is Web Search and Does Clustering Help?. (Some interesting numbers on one of his slides showing a breakdown of queries by category at AOL in 2004.)

The 23rd Annual Symposium of the University of Maryland's Human Computer Interaction Laboratory will be held on June 1-2, with the Symposium itself on June 1, and workshops and tutorials on June 2. While today isn't the last day that you can register, they note that they need registration and payment by today to "guarantee reservation of lunch and materials." This year's event doesn't have a workshop on a search related topic, but there are some presentations during the first day that do involve search.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 4:26 PM | Permalink

Building Better Search Interfaces: A Workshop About Exploratory Searches

When someone uses a search engine to try to locate information about a subject which they know very little about, a simple search interface isn't very helpful. These types of endeavors have been referred to by information scientists as exploratory search activities, where the target of the search is mostly undefined.

Gary Price, at Resource Shelf, pointed earlier today to a paper from a University of Maryland workshop held last year, which brought together researchers from the "fields of Information Seeking (IS), Information Retrieval (IR), Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Information Visualization (IV)" to take a closer look at how to make it easier for searchers to perform exploratory searches.

The workshop, Exploratory Search Interfaces: Categorization, Clustering and Beyond, was part of The Human Computer Interaction Laboratory’s 22nd Annual Symposium, hosted at the School last June. The main issue explored at the workshop is nicely stated in the report:

Although the Semantic Web is making new richer and more flexible kinds of Web-based querying possible a burning question remains “Are current search technologies enough to meet all user demands?”. The answer of course is yes and no. Search engines, bibliographic databases and digital libraries provide adequate support for users whose information needs are well-defined. However, they do not work well in situations where users lack the knowledge or contextual awareness to formulate queries or navigate complex information spaces. For example, what if you want to find something from a domain where you have a general interest but not specific knowledge? How would you find classical music you might enjoy if you do not know what Beethoven or Berlioz sounds like? What a Sonata is? The difference between Baroque or Romantic? What do you type into Google?

Some experienced searchers have developed strategies to help them with these exploratory searches, but part of the impetus behind the workshop was to consider interfaces that may make such searches easier and more useful. One conclusion of the workshop participants was that interfaces that could aid searchers "are a vital (and missing) part of most current mainstream search technology."

They offer a number of suggestions in their report on the workshop for future study on the subject and the development of user interfaces that could be created involving:

• The context of searches,
• The support of different searching strategies,
• Testing methodologies for those interfaces, and;
• The creation of workspaces for searchers - from simple note taking to collaborative authoring environments.

More information about the workshop is available on the workshop homepage, which includes some excellent slide presentations from participants, like the one by Abdur Chowdhury of AOL on How good is Web Search and Does Clustering Help?. (Some interesting numbers on one of his slides showing a breakdown of queries by category at AOL in 2004.)

The 23rd Annual Symposium of the University of Maryland's Human Computer Interaction Laboratory will be held on June 1-2, with the Symposium itself on June 1, and workshops and tutorials on June 2. While today isn't the last day that you can register, they note that they need registration and payment by today to "guarantee reservation of lunch and materials." This year's event doesn't have a workshop on a search related topic, but there are some presentations during the first day that do involve search.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 4:26 PM | Permalink

April 11, 2006

Matt Cutts Requests Spammers To Document Search Spam Techniques

Matt Cutts of Google posted a funny entry where he notes that he will be on the program committee for AIRWeb, Adversarial Information Retrieval on the Web, this year. He sarcastically asks search spammers to submit their tricks and ideas on how to spam search engines. If you really want to submit your techniques, the call for papers can be found here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:50 AM | Permalink

Matt Cutts Requests Spammers To Document Search Spam Techniques

Matt Cutts of Google posted a funny entry where he notes that he will be on the program committee for AIRWeb, Adversarial Information Retrieval on the Web, this year. He sarcastically asks search spammers to submit their tricks and ideas on how to spam search engines. If you really want to submit your techniques, the call for papers can be found here.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 8:50 AM | Permalink

Matt Cutts Requests Spammers To Document Search Spam Techniques

Matt Cutts of Google posted a funny entry where he notes that he will be on the program committee for AIRWeb, Adversarial Information Retrieval on the Web, this year. He sarcastically asks search spammers to submit their tricks and ideas on how to spam search engines. If you really want to submit your techniques, the call for papers can be found here.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 8:50 AM | Permalink

Matt Cutts Requests Spammers To Document Search Spam Techniques

Matt Cutts of Google posted a funny entry where he notes that he will be on the program committee for AIRWeb, Adversarial Information Retrieval on the Web, this year. He sarcastically asks search spammers to submit their tricks and ideas on how to spam search engines. If you really want to submit your techniques, the call for papers can be found here.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 8:50 AM | Permalink

February 5, 2006

The Ethics and Politics of Search Engines

A panel discussion, "The Ethics and Politics of Search Engines," is coming up on Monday, Feb. 27, from 5:30-7 p.m. at the Benson Center, Santa Clara University. Panelists include Peter Norvig (Google director of research), Terry Winograd (professor of computer science, Stanford), and Geoffrey C. Bowker (executive director, Center for Science, Technology and Society, Santa Clara University). The panel will be moderated by Kirk O. Hanson, executive director, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Admission is free, though you must RSVP to attend. More information can be found here.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 1:28 PM | Permalink

The Ethics and Politics of Search Engines

A panel discussion, "The Ethics and Politics of Search Engines," is coming up on Monday, Feb. 27, from 5:30-7 p.m. at the Benson Center, Santa Clara University. Panelists include Peter Norvig (Google director of research), Terry Winograd (professor of computer science, Stanford), and Geoffrey C. Bowker (executive director, Center for Science, Technology and Society, Santa Clara University). The panel will be moderated by Kirk O. Hanson, executive director, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Admission is free, though you must RSVP to attend. More information can be found here.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:28 PM | Permalink

The Ethics and Politics of Search Engines

A panel discussion, "The Ethics and Politics of Search Engines," is coming up on Monday, Feb. 27, from 5:30-7 p.m. at the Benson Center, Santa Clara University. Panelists include Peter Norvig (Google director of research), Terry Winograd (professor of computer science, Stanford), and Geoffrey C. Bowker (executive director, Center for Science, Technology and Society, Santa Clara University). The panel will be moderated by Kirk O. Hanson, executive director, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Admission is free, though you must RSVP to attend. More information can be found here.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:28 PM | Permalink

The Ethics and Politics of Search Engines

A panel discussion, "The Ethics and Politics of Search Engines," is coming up on Monday, Feb. 27, from 5:30-7 p.m. at the Benson Center, Santa Clara University. Panelists include Peter Norvig (Google director of research), Terry Winograd (professor of computer science, Stanford), and Geoffrey C. Bowker (executive director, Center for Science, Technology and Society, Santa Clara University). The panel will be moderated by Kirk O. Hanson, executive director, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Admission is free, though you must RSVP to attend. More information can be found here.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:28 PM | Permalink

December 15, 2005

Search Execs Talk at MIT Forum

Via Searchblog, word of this just released podcast of a forum that took place at MIT about a week ago and featured an all-star lineup of search execs from Google, Microsoft and Yahoo along with Oren Etzioni from the University of Washington.

The Panel Urs Hoelzle, Google Fellow, VP of Operations Gary Flake, Microsoft, MSN Technical Fellow Eckart Walther, Yahoo, VP of Yahoo Search Products Oren Etzioni, UW Professor, Madrona Venture Group

The Modereator Safa Rashtchy from Piper Jaffray

Background here, direct to podcast (MP3) here.

Posted by Gary Price at 4:40 PM | Permalink

Search Execs Talk at MIT Forum

Via Searchblog, word of this just released podcast of a forum that took place at MIT about a week ago and featured an all-star lineup of search execs from Google, Microsoft and Yahoo along with Oren Etzioni from the University of Washington.

The Panel Urs Hoelzle, Google Fellow, VP of Operations Gary Flake, Microsoft, MSN Technical Fellow Eckart Walther, Yahoo, VP of Yahoo Search Products Oren Etzioni, UW Professor, Madrona Venture Group

The Modereator Safa Rashtchy from Piper Jaffray

Background here, direct to podcast (MP3) here.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 4:40 PM | Permalink

Search Execs Talk at MIT Forum

Via Searchblog, word of this just released podcast of a forum that took place at MIT about a week ago and featured an all-star lineup of search execs from Google, Microsoft and Yahoo along with Oren Etzioni from the University of Washington.

The Panel Urs Hoelzle, Google Fellow, VP of Operations Gary Flake, Microsoft, MSN Technical Fellow Eckart Walther, Yahoo, VP of Yahoo Search Products Oren Etzioni, UW Professor, Madrona Venture Group

The Modereator Safa Rashtchy from Piper Jaffray

Background here, direct to podcast (MP3) here.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 4:40 PM | Permalink

Search Execs Talk at MIT Forum

Via Searchblog, word of this just released podcast of a forum that took place at MIT about a week ago and featured an all-star lineup of search execs from Google, Microsoft and Yahoo along with Oren Etzioni from the University of Washington.

The Panel Urs Hoelzle, Google Fellow, VP of Operations Gary Flake, Microsoft, MSN Technical Fellow Eckart Walther, Yahoo, VP of Yahoo Search Products Oren Etzioni, UW Professor, Madrona Venture Group

The Modereator Safa Rashtchy from Piper Jaffray

Background here, direct to podcast (MP3) here.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 4:40 PM | Permalink

December 3, 2005

Collaborative Web Tagging Will Be Topic of Workshop at WWW 2006

Collaborative taggers should tag the following item, "workshop."

The RawSugar Blog (RawSugar is a social search engine (beta) with over 135,000 URLs tagged by members since its public beta launched 2 months ago) is announcing that a collaborative web tagging workshop is a go at the 2006 World Wide Web Conference (WWW2006) in Edinburgh in May. So far Frank Smadja, RawSugar’s VP of Engineering, Scott Golder of HP Labs and Andrew Tomkins from Yahoo Research are set to participate. Others who have been invited to speak are listed in the blog post. Contact Frank, Scott, or Andrew if you're interested in contributing.

More about RawSugar itself in this just posted interview with its CEO, Ofer Ben-Shachar.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:13 AM | Permalink

Collaborative Web Tagging Will Be Topic of Workshop at WWW 2006

Collaborative taggers should tag the following item, "workshop."

The RawSugar Blog (RawSugar is a social search engine (beta) with over 135,000 URLs tagged by members since its public beta launched 2 months ago) is announcing that a collaborative web tagging workshop is a go at the 2006 World Wide Web Conference (WWW2006) in Edinburgh in May. So far Frank Smadja, RawSugar’s VP of Engineering, Scott Golder of HP Labs and Andrew Tomkins from Yahoo Research are set to participate. Others who have been invited to speak are listed in the blog post. Contact Frank, Scott, or Andrew if you're interested in contributing.

More about RawSugar itself in this just posted interview with its CEO, Ofer Ben-Shachar.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:13 AM | Permalink

Collaborative Web Tagging Will Be Topic of Workshop at WWW 2006

Collaborative taggers should tag the following item, "workshop."

The RawSugar Blog (RawSugar is a social search engine (beta) with over 135,000 URLs tagged by members since its public beta launched 2 months ago) is announcing that a collaborative web tagging workshop is a go at the 2006 World Wide Web Conference (WWW2006) in Edinburgh in May. So far Frank Smadja, RawSugar’s VP of Engineering, Scott Golder of HP Labs and Andrew Tomkins from Yahoo Research are set to participate. Others who have been invited to speak are listed in the blog post. Contact Frank, Scott, or Andrew if you're interested in contributing.

More about RawSugar itself in this just posted interview with its CEO, Ofer Ben-Shachar.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:13 AM | Permalink

Collaborative Web Tagging Will Be Topic of Workshop at WWW 2006

Collaborative taggers should tag the following item, "workshop."

The RawSugar Blog (RawSugar is a social search engine (beta) with over 135,000 URLs tagged by members since its public beta launched 2 months ago) is announcing that a collaborative web tagging workshop is a go at the 2006 World Wide Web Conference (WWW2006) in Edinburgh in May. So far Frank Smadja, RawSugar’s VP of Engineering, Scott Golder of HP Labs and Andrew Tomkins from Yahoo Research are set to participate. Others who have been invited to speak are listed in the blog post. Contact Frank, Scott, or Andrew if you're interested in contributing.

More about RawSugar itself in this just posted interview with its CEO, Ofer Ben-Shachar.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:13 AM | Permalink

November 7, 2005

Yale Law Holding Regulating Search Symposium

I got invited to take part in the Regulating Search symposium at Yale Law School next month and desperately wish I could have made it, but SES Chicago 2005 begins on Dec. 5, my flight plans were already set for that. But Gary might be taking part, and there are plenty of other good speakers and interesting panels, including:

• Search Engines and Public Regulation
• Search Engines and Intellectual Property
• Search Engines and Individual Rights

I'm looking forward to hearing what discussion comes out of the event. Interested in attending? More info is here, and registration prices here (it's cheap, only $165 for corporate types and much less for students and academics).

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:27 PM | Permalink

Yale Law Holding Regulating Search Symposium

I got invited to take part in the Regulating Search symposium at Yale Law School next month and desperately wish I could have made it, but SES Chicago 2005 begins on Dec. 5, my flight plans were already set for that. But Gary might be taking part, and there are plenty of other good speakers and interesting panels, including:

• Search Engines and Public Regulation
• Search Engines and Intellectual Property
• Search Engines and Individual Rights

I'm looking forward to hearing what discussion comes out of the event. Interested in attending? More info is here, and registration prices here (it's cheap, only $165 for corporate types and much less for students and academics).

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 7:27 PM | Permalink

Yale Law Holding Regulating Search Symposium

I got invited to take part in the Regulating Search symposium at Yale Law School next month and desperately wish I could have made it, but SES Chicago 2005 begins on Dec. 5, my flight plans were already set for that. But Gary might be taking part, and there are plenty of other good speakers and interesting panels, including:

• Search Engines and Public Regulation
• Search Engines and Intellectual Property
• Search Engines and Individual Rights

I'm looking forward to hearing what discussion comes out of the event. Interested in attending? More info is here, and registration prices here (it's cheap, only $165 for corporate types and much less for students and academics).

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 7:27 PM | Permalink

Yale Law Holding Regulating Search Symposium

I got invited to take part in the Regulating Search symposium at Yale Law School next month and desperately wish I could have made it, but SES Chicago 2005 begins on Dec. 5, my flight plans were already set for that. But Gary might be taking part, and there are plenty of other good speakers and interesting panels, including:

• Search Engines and Public Regulation
• Search Engines and Intellectual Property
• Search Engines and Individual Rights

I'm looking forward to hearing what discussion comes out of the event. Interested in attending? More info is here, and registration prices here (it's cheap, only $165 for corporate types and much less for students and academics).

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 7:27 PM | Permalink

October 6, 2005

Wink & Web 2.0 Search Panel

Web 2.0: Looking for new ideas in search is a short rundown on new entries into the search space talking at the Web 2.0 conference this week. Search Panel - Web 2.0 from ClickZ covers the same panel. Both focus mainly on Wink is a tag-based search engine and backing TagCamp to help create a standard tagging taxonomy. PubSub also talked of wanting to have more standard ways to structure information.

In case you missed it, tags were hot but don't seem to be as hot as in the past, as the problems with tagging that anyone should have expected have cropped up. But now "camps" are hot in the wake of FooCamp and BarCamp (for those not lucky enough to be invited to FooCamp) and campish-Web. 2.1. So add some camp to your tags, and they're hot again!

Actually, camps sound pretty cool. I want to do SearchCamp, except it would be for kids, teaching them to search better.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:39 AM | Permalink

Wink & Web 2.0 Search Panel

Web 2.0: Looking for new ideas in search is a short rundown on new entries into the search space talking at the Web 2.0 conference this week. Search Panel - Web 2.0 from ClickZ covers the same panel. Both focus mainly on Wink is a tag-based search engine and backing TagCamp to help create a standard tagging taxonomy. PubSub also talked of wanting to have more standard ways to structure information.

In case you missed it, tags were hot but don't seem to be as hot as in the past, as the problems with tagging that anyone should have expected have cropped up. But now "camps" are hot in the wake of FooCamp and BarCamp (for those not lucky enough to be invited to FooCamp) and campish-Web. 2.1. So add some camp to your tags, and they're hot again!

Actually, camps sound pretty cool. I want to do SearchCamp, except it would be for kids, teaching them to search better.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 9:39 AM | Permalink

Wink & Web 2.0 Search Panel

Web 2.0: Looking for new ideas in search is a short rundown on new entries into the search space talking at the Web 2.0 conference this week. Search Panel - Web 2.0 from ClickZ covers the same panel. Both focus mainly on Wink is a tag-based search engine and backing TagCamp to help create a standard tagging taxonomy. PubSub also talked of wanting to have more standard ways to structure information.

In case you missed it, tags were hot but don't seem to be as hot as in the past, as the problems with tagging that anyone should have expected have cropped up. But now "camps" are hot in the wake of FooCamp and BarCamp (for those not lucky enough to be invited to FooCamp) and campish-Web. 2.1. So add some camp to your tags, and they're hot again!

Actually, camps sound pretty cool. I want to do SearchCamp, except it would be for kids, teaching them to search better.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 9:39 AM | Permalink

Wink & Web 2.0 Search Panel

Web 2.0: Looking for new ideas in search is a short rundown on new entries into the search space talking at the Web 2.0 conference this week. Search Panel - Web 2.0 from ClickZ covers the same panel. Both focus mainly on Wink is a tag-based search engine and backing TagCamp to help create a standard tagging taxonomy. PubSub also talked of wanting to have more standard ways to structure information.

In case you missed it, tags were hot but don't seem to be as hot as in the past, as the problems with tagging that anyone should have expected have cropped up. But now "camps" are hot in the wake of FooCamp and BarCamp (for those not lucky enough to be invited to FooCamp) and campish-Web. 2.1. So add some camp to your tags, and they're hot again!

Actually, camps sound pretty cool. I want to do SearchCamp, except it would be for kids, teaching them to search better.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 9:39 AM | Permalink

September 16, 2005

Google Zeitgeist 05: Featuring Press & Bloggers But No Blogging Or Coverage Allowed

So I'm reading a discussion over at Threadwatch about those going to our SEW Forums Live Anaheim event next month, and member eWhisper notes he can't make it, as Zeitgeist ends that day? Zeitgeist? I follow the link. Zeitgeist '05: The Google Partner Forum is happening on Oct. 25-27, the first "customer innovation conference" Google says it has ever held. About 400 people are on the invite only list. Speakers on the agenda range from the top three Google Guys, Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmdit to IAC's Barry Diller to MSN's Yusuf Mehdi to Yahoo's Terry Semel to Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble. The traditional press is well in attendance, with James Fallows of the Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker staff writer Malcolm Gladwell, the chairman and publisher of the New York Times Arthur Sulzberger and others. Excellent, can't wait to hear what comes out. Wait a minute! The FAQ says:

All speeches and discussions at Zeitgeist are off the record. To ensure that our presenters and attendees can speak openly, no press coverage or blogging is permitted.

This will be good, to see if you can keep open discussions among 400 people, some of them bloggers, many of them press, somehow off the record.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:46 PM | Permalink

Google Zeitgeist 05: Featuring Press & Bloggers But No Blogging Or Coverage Allowed

So I'm reading a discussion over at Threadwatch about those going to our SEW Forums Live Anaheim event next month, and member eWhisper notes he can't make it, as Zeitgeist ends that day? Zeitgeist? I follow the link. Zeitgeist '05: The Google Partner Forum is happening on Oct. 25-27, the first "customer innovation conference" Google says it has ever held. About 400 people are on the invite only list. Speakers on the agenda range from the top three Google Guys, Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmdit to IAC's Barry Diller to MSN's Yusuf Mehdi to Yahoo's Terry Semel to Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble. The traditional press is well in attendance, with James Fallows of the Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker staff writer Malcolm Gladwell, the chairman and publisher of the New York Times Arthur Sulzberger and others. Excellent, can't wait to hear what comes out. Wait a minute! The FAQ says:

All speeches and discussions at Zeitgeist are off the record. To ensure that our presenters and attendees can speak openly, no press coverage or blogging is permitted.

This will be good, to see if you can keep open discussions among 400 people, some of them bloggers, many of them press, somehow off the record.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:46 PM | Permalink

Google Zeitgeist 05: Featuring Press & Bloggers But No Blogging Or Coverage Allowed

So I'm reading a discussion over at Threadwatch about those going to our SEW Forums Live Anaheim event next month, and member eWhisper notes he can't make it, as Zeitgeist ends that day? Zeitgeist? I follow the link. Zeitgeist '05: The Google Partner Forum is happening on Oct. 25-27, the first "customer innovation conference" Google says it has ever held. About 400 people are on the invite only list. Speakers on the agenda range from the top three Google Guys, Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmdit to IAC's Barry Diller to MSN's Yusuf Mehdi to Yahoo's Terry Semel to Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble. The traditional press is well in attendance, with James Fallows of the Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker staff writer Malcolm Gladwell, the chairman and publisher of the New York Times Arthur Sulzberger and others. Excellent, can't wait to hear what comes out. Wait a minute! The FAQ says:

All speeches and discussions at Zeitgeist are off the record. To ensure that our presenters and attendees can speak openly, no press coverage or blogging is permitted.

This will be good, to see if you can keep open discussions among 400 people, some of them bloggers, many of them press, somehow off the record.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:46 PM | Permalink

Google Zeitgeist 05: Featuring Press & Bloggers But No Blogging Or Coverage Allowed

So I'm reading a discussion over at Threadwatch about those going to our SEW Forums Live Anaheim event next month, and member eWhisper notes he can't make it, as Zeitgeist ends that day? Zeitgeist? I follow the link. Zeitgeist '05: The Google Partner Forum is happening on Oct. 25-27, the first "customer innovation conference" Google says it has ever held. About 400 people are on the invite only list. Speakers on the agenda range from the top three Google Guys, Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmdit to IAC's Barry Diller to MSN's Yusuf Mehdi to Yahoo's Terry Semel to Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble. The traditional press is well in attendance, with James Fallows of the Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker staff writer Malcolm Gladwell, the chairman and publisher of the New York Times Arthur Sulzberger and others. Excellent, can't wait to hear what comes out. Wait a minute! The FAQ says:

All speeches and discussions at Zeitgeist are off the record. To ensure that our presenters and attendees can speak openly, no press coverage or blogging is permitted.

This will be good, to see if you can keep open discussions among 400 people, some of them bloggers, many of them press, somehow off the record.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 12:46 PM | Permalink

May 25, 2005

Research Workshop On Sponsored Search

Workshop on Sponsored Search Auctions is a workshop covering research about paid listings and sponsored search, being held as part of the ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce in Vancouver. It happens on June 5.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:30 PM | Permalink

Research Workshop On Sponsored Search

Workshop on Sponsored Search Auctions is a workshop covering research about paid listings and sponsored search, being held as part of the ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce in Vancouver. It happens on June 5.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:30 PM | Permalink

Research Workshop On Sponsored Search

Workshop on Sponsored Search Auctions is a workshop covering research about paid listings and sponsored search, being held as part of the ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce in Vancouver. It happens on June 5.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:30 PM | Permalink

Research Workshop On Sponsored Search

Workshop on Sponsored Search Auctions is a workshop covering research about paid listings and sponsored search, being held as part of the ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce in Vancouver. It happens on June 5.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:30 PM | Permalink

May 15, 2005

PageRank, Wrappers, Ranking News and More: Papers from the WWW 2005 Conference

The WWW 2005 Conference took place last week in Japan and many of the papers presented at the conference are now available via the online proceedings. More papers are linked in this April, 2004 compilation I put together for the blog. The complete proceedings is available here.

Here are links to some of the "search related" papers/presentations that might be of interest. Papers are in PDF. Make sure to review the complete list. Something for everyone! (-:

Keynote: WWW at 15 Years: Looking Forward by Tim Berners-Lee Slides from the presentation are also available.

+ Semantic Similarity Between Search Engine Queries Using Temporal Correlation S. Chien, (Microsoft Research) N. Immorlica, (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

+ Fully Automatic Wrapper Generation for Search Engines H. Zhao, W. Meng, (SUNY at Binghamton) Z. Wu, V. Raghavan, (University of Louisiana at Lafayette) C. Yu, (University of Illinois at Chicago)

+ Ranking a Stream of News G. M. Del Corso, A. Gullí, F. Romani, (University of Pisa)

+ Web-Assisted Annotation, Semantic Indexing and Search of Television and Radio News M. Dowman, V. Tablan, H. Cunningham, (University of Sheffield) B. Popov, (Sirma Al EAD)

+ Sampling Search-Engine Results A. Anagnostopoulos, (Brown University) A. Z. Broder, (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center) D. Carmel, (IBM Haifa Research Lab)

+ CubeSVD: A Novel Approach to Personalized Web Search J.-T. Sun, (TsingHua University) H.-J. Zeng, (Microsoft Research Asia) H. Liu, (Arizona State University) Y. Lu, (TsingHua University) Z. Chen, (Microsoft Research Asia)

+ Automatic Identification of User Goals in Web Search U. Lee, Z. Liu, J. Cho, (University of California at Los Angeles)

+ User-Centric Web Crawling S. Pandey, C. Olston, (Carnegie Mellon University)

+ PageRank as a Function of the Damping Factor P. Boldi, M. Santini, S. Vigna, (Università degli Studi di Milano)

+ Object-Level Ranking: Bringing Order to Web Objects Z. Nie, (Microsoft Research Asia) Y. Zhang, (Peking University) J.-R. Wen, W.-Y. Ma, (Microsoft Research Asia)

+ A Uniform Approach to Accelerated PageRank Computation F. McSherry, (Microsoft Research)

+ Scaling Link-Based Similarity Search D. Fogaras, (Budapest University of Technology and Economics) B. R´cz, (Computer and Automation Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences)

+ WebPod: Persistent Web Browsing Sessions with Pocketable Storage Devices S. Potter, J. Nieh, (Columbia University)

Posted by Gary Price at 2:21 PM | Permalink

PageRank, Wrappers, Ranking News and More: Papers from the WWW 2005 Conference

The WWW 2005 Conference took place last week in Japan and many of the papers presented at the conference are now available via the online proceedings. More papers are linked in this April, 2004 compilation I put together for the blog. The complete proceedings is available here.

Here are links to some of the "search related" papers/presentations that might be of interest. Papers are in PDF. Make sure to review the complete list. Something for everyone! (-:

Keynote: WWW at 15 Years: Looking Forward by Tim Berners-Lee Slides from the presentation are also available.

+ Semantic Similarity Between Search Engine Queries Using Temporal Correlation S. Chien, (Microsoft Research) N. Immorlica, (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

+ Fully Automatic Wrapper Generation for Search Engines H. Zhao, W. Meng, (SUNY at Binghamton) Z. Wu, V. Raghavan, (University of Louisiana at Lafayette) C. Yu, (University of Illinois at Chicago)

+ Ranking a Stream of News G. M. Del Corso, A. Gullí, F. Romani, (University of Pisa)

+ Web-Assisted Annotation, Semantic Indexing and Search of Television and Radio News M. Dowman, V. Tablan, H. Cunningham, (University of Sheffield) B. Popov, (Sirma Al EAD)

+ Sampling Search-Engine Results A. Anagnostopoulos, (Brown University) A. Z. Broder, (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center) D. Carmel, (IBM Haifa Research Lab)

+ CubeSVD: A Novel Approach to Personalized Web Search J.-T. Sun, (TsingHua University) H.-J. Zeng, (Microsoft Research Asia) H. Liu, (Arizona State University) Y. Lu, (TsingHua University) Z. Chen, (Microsoft Research Asia)

+ Automatic Identification of User Goals in Web Search U. Lee, Z. Liu, J. Cho, (University of California at Los Angeles)

+ User-Centric Web Crawling S. Pandey, C. Olston, (Carnegie Mellon University)

+ PageRank as a Function of the Damping Factor P. Boldi, M. Santini, S. Vigna, (Università degli Studi di Milano)

+ Object-Level Ranking: Bringing Order to Web Objects Z. Nie, (Microsoft Research Asia) Y. Zhang, (Peking University) J.-R. Wen, W.-Y. Ma, (Microsoft Research Asia)

+ A Uniform Approach to Accelerated PageRank Computation F. McSherry, (Microsoft Research)

+ Scaling Link-Based Similarity Search D. Fogaras, (Budapest University of Technology and Economics) B. R´cz, (Computer and Automation Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences)

+ WebPod: Persistent Web Browsing Sessions with Pocketable Storage Devices S. Potter, J. Nieh, (Columbia University)

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 2:21 PM | Permalink

PageRank, Wrappers, Ranking News and More: Papers from the WWW 2005 Conference

The WWW 2005 Conference took place last week in Japan and many of the papers presented at the conference are now available via the online proceedings. More papers are linked in this April, 2004 compilation I put together for the blog. The complete proceedings is available here.

Here are links to some of the "search related" papers/presentations that might be of interest. Papers are in PDF. Make sure to review the complete list. Something for everyone! (-:

Keynote: WWW at 15 Years: Looking Forward by Tim Berners-Lee Slides from the presentation are also available.

+ Semantic Similarity Between Search Engine Queries Using Temporal Correlation S. Chien, (Microsoft Research) N. Immorlica, (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

+ Fully Automatic Wrapper Generation for Search Engines H. Zhao, W. Meng, (SUNY at Binghamton) Z. Wu, V. Raghavan, (University of Louisiana at Lafayette) C. Yu, (University of Illinois at Chicago)

+ Ranking a Stream of News G. M. Del Corso, A. Gullí, F. Romani, (University of Pisa)

+ Web-Assisted Annotation, Semantic Indexing and Search of Television and Radio News M. Dowman, V. Tablan, H. Cunningham, (University of Sheffield) B. Popov, (Sirma Al EAD)

+ Sampling Search-Engine Results A. Anagnostopoulos, (Brown University) A. Z. Broder, (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center) D. Carmel, (IBM Haifa Research Lab)

+ CubeSVD: A Novel Approach to Personalized Web Search J.-T. Sun, (TsingHua University) H.-J. Zeng, (Microsoft Research Asia) H. Liu, (Arizona State University) Y. Lu, (TsingHua University) Z. Chen, (Microsoft Research Asia)

+ Automatic Identification of User Goals in Web Search U. Lee, Z. Liu, J. Cho, (University of California at Los Angeles)

+ User-Centric Web Crawling S. Pandey, C. Olston, (Carnegie Mellon University)

+ PageRank as a Function of the Damping Factor P. Boldi, M. Santini, S. Vigna, (Università degli Studi di Milano)

+ Object-Level Ranking: Bringing Order to Web Objects Z. Nie, (Microsoft Research Asia) Y. Zhang, (Peking University) J.-R. Wen, W.-Y. Ma, (Microsoft Research Asia)

+ A Uniform Approach to Accelerated PageRank Computation F. McSherry, (Microsoft Research)

+ Scaling Link-Based Similarity Search D. Fogaras, (Budapest University of Technology and Economics) B. R´cz, (Computer and Automation Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences)

+ WebPod: Persistent Web Browsing Sessions with Pocketable Storage Devices S. Potter, J. Nieh, (Columbia University)

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 2:21 PM | Permalink

PageRank, Wrappers, Ranking News and More: Papers from the WWW 2005 Conference

The WWW 2005 Conference took place last week in Japan and many of the papers presented at the conference are now available via the online proceedings. More papers are linked in this April, 2004 compilation I put together for the blog. The complete proceedings is available here.

Here are links to some of the "search related" papers/presentations that might be of interest. Papers are in PDF. Make sure to review the complete list. Something for everyone! (-:

Keynote: WWW at 15 Years: Looking Forward by Tim Berners-Lee Slides from the presentation are also available.

+ Semantic Similarity Between Search Engine Queries Using Temporal Correlation S. Chien, (Microsoft Research) N. Immorlica, (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

+ Fully Automatic Wrapper Generation for Search Engines H. Zhao, W. Meng, (SUNY at Binghamton) Z. Wu, V. Raghavan, (University of Louisiana at Lafayette) C. Yu, (University of Illinois at Chicago)

+ Ranking a Stream of News G. M. Del Corso, A. Gullí, F. Romani, (University of Pisa)

+ Web-Assisted Annotation, Semantic Indexing and Search of Television and Radio News M. Dowman, V. Tablan, H. Cunningham, (University of Sheffield) B. Popov, (Sirma Al EAD)

+ Sampling Search-Engine Results A. Anagnostopoulos, (Brown University) A. Z. Broder, (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center) D. Carmel, (IBM Haifa Research Lab)

+ CubeSVD: A Novel Approach to Personalized Web Search J.-T. Sun, (TsingHua University) H.-J. Zeng, (Microsoft Research Asia) H. Liu, (Arizona State University) Y. Lu, (TsingHua University) Z. Chen, (Microsoft Research Asia)

+ Automatic Identification of User Goals in Web Search U. Lee, Z. Liu, J. Cho, (University of California at Los Angeles)

+ User-Centric Web Crawling S. Pandey, C. Olston, (Carnegie Mellon University)

+ PageRank as a Function of the Damping Factor P. Boldi, M. Santini, S. Vigna, (Università degli Studi di Milano)

+ Object-Level Ranking: Bringing Order to Web Objects Z. Nie, (Microsoft Research Asia) Y. Zhang, (Peking University) J.-R. Wen, W.-Y. Ma, (Microsoft Research Asia)

+ A Uniform Approach to Accelerated PageRank Computation F. McSherry, (Microsoft Research)

+ Scaling Link-Based Similarity Search D. Fogaras, (Budapest University of Technology and Economics) B. R´cz, (Computer and Automation Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences)

+ WebPod: Persistent Web Browsing Sessions with Pocketable Storage Devices S. Potter, J. Nieh, (Columbia University)

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 2:21 PM | Permalink

May 2, 2005

Summarizing The Search Engine Meeting

Gary blogged earlier about presentations being online from the annual and venerable Search Engine Meeting. Short of time? Search Engine Meeting Low-Down (Boston) from the Search-Science blog from Xan Porter is a nice read that hits the highlights of presentations.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 4:09 PM | Permalink

Summarizing The Search Engine Meeting

Gary blogged earlier about presentations being online from the annual and venerable Search Engine Meeting. Short of time? Search Engine Meeting Low-Down (Boston) from the Search-Science blog from Xan Porter is a nice read that hits the highlights of presentations.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 4:09 PM | Permalink

Summarizing The Search Engine Meeting

Gary blogged earlier about presentations being online from the annual and venerable Search Engine Meeting. Short of time? Search Engine Meeting Low-Down (Boston) from the Search-Science blog from Xan Porter is a nice read that hits the highlights of presentations.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 4:09 PM | Permalink

Summarizing The Search Engine Meeting

Gary blogged earlier about presentations being online from the annual and venerable Search Engine Meeting. Short of time? Search Engine Meeting Low-Down (Boston) from the Search-Science blog from Xan Porter is a nice read that hits the highlights of presentations.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 4:09 PM | Permalink

April 25, 2005

Presentations from the 2005 Search Engine Meeting are Now Available Online

The 2005 Search Engine Meeting took place in Boston on April 11-12 and I've just noticed that most of the presentations from the meeting are now available online. Plenty of interesting reading from many big names in the industry. Links to a few of the presentations are listed below. Links to all of presentations can be found here.

+ Internet Search Engines: Past and Future By Jan Pedersen, Yahoo

+ What We Know About User Behavior (And What We Are Not So Sure of) by Carol Tenopir, University of Tennessee, School of Information Sciences

+ Content Management on the Web: the Next Killer App for Search by Tom Wilde, FindWhat.com

+ Personal Information Retrieval: Helping Finders become Keepers by Susan Dumais, Microsoft Research

+ The Google Legacy by Steven Arnold, Arnold IT

+ Next Generation Search Technology Advancements by John Lervik, FAST Search and Transfer

+ Search Immersion by Oshoma Momoh, Microsoft

+ New Solutions for Old (Search) Problems by David A Evans, Clairvoyance

+ Arguments for Clustering and Meta-Search as a Universal Norm for Information Retrieval by Raul Valdes-Perez, Vivisimo

+ Structuring the Unstructured Web for Specialized Searching by Ammy Vogtlander, Scirus/Elsevier

+++ MANY more presentations are available here.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:14 AM | Permalink

Presentations from the 2005 Search Engine Meeting are Now Available Online

The 2005 Search Engine Meeting took place in Boston on April 11-12 and I've just noticed that most of the presentations from the meeting are now available online. Plenty of interesting reading from many big names in the industry. Links to a few of the presentations are listed below. Links to all of presentations can be found here.

+ Internet Search Engines: Past and Future By Jan Pedersen, Yahoo

+ What We Know About User Behavior (And What We Are Not So Sure of) by Carol Tenopir, University of Tennessee, School of Information Sciences

+ Content Management on the Web: the Next Killer App for Search by Tom Wilde, FindWhat.com

+ Personal Information Retrieval: Helping Finders become Keepers by Susan Dumais, Microsoft Research

+ The Google Legacy by Steven Arnold, Arnold IT

+ Next Generation Search Technology Advancements by John