Hobgit Web Hosting News

A new search and “discovery” engine has been recently unveiled and made accessible to everyone online. The new search engine called Powerset, promises to improve the entire search process by allowing you, the user, to express your search queries via keywords, phrases, or simple questions. On the search results page, Powerset provides search results while also aggregating information from multiple sources and leveraging the best content available inside Wikipedia.

“Powerset’s goal is to change the way people interact with technology by enabling computers to understand our language. …Powerset is first applying its natural language processing to search, aiming to improve the way we find information by unlocking the meaning encoded in ordinary human language.”
(Source: Powerset)

Here, media and content business analyst John Blossom, takes you into a closer look at this new entry in the search engine marketplace:

Powerset: Transforming Publications Through Semantic Search Technology

by John Blossom

There are rocket scientists, then there are rocket scientists - and then there’s Barney Pell, long-time Silicon Valley startup maven and currently the Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Powerset. Barney is one of those rare people who has been a rocket scientist via both the NASA side of the term and the software industry side, an outlook that has helped him to assemble many teams through the years that have developed advanced search and language processing technologies.

Powerset Search Overview

Powerset has unveiled its first effort recently at a new technology to provide rich content from semantic searches, an interesting look at how one can completely reshape the face of a content product via enhanced search technologies.

Using Wikidpedia and as its primary target content, Powerset technology analyzes search phrases to come up with search results that match natural language phrases as well as keywords.

Powerset Road Test

This being a very early stage debut of technology some search targets work better than others and overall I’d have to say that it’s a technology that seems to do best with people and things as opposed to concepts.

For example, if you type in “Who is Bill Gates?” you get the screen similar to the top of the above screen grab, which includes a top deck of biographical information from the Freebase reference database followed by Powerset’s sets of semantic analysis called “Factz” that focus on what the Wikipedia article says about this prominent figure. One of these sets, for example, tells us that Gates gave testimony, a speech, an address, a demo, a presentation and a deposition. You can click on any of these terms to get more details from the underlying article.

Below the initial bio and Factz information is a set of search results for the initial query, including the best-match article on Microsoft founder Bill Gates. This is in essence the straight Wikipedia article with links mapped over to Powerset’s version of this content, along with a handy visual presentation of the article’s outline on the right or another listing of key Factz organized within the article outline. I like some of the inferences that it’s come up with in the Wikipedia definition of Content that I contributed a while back: “information provides value; experiences provide value; content provides value.” True enough.

I like how Powerset prefixes organic search results with federated content, taking a best stab at results on very focused topics that enable people to obtain knowledge more quickly and effectively.

The automatically generated Factz, though, suffer from the same problem that most semantic tools experience when they examine a very small data set: spotty inferences. For example, in the Factz about Bill Gates Powerset inferred that he founded Cher, an inference drawn from the fact that biographer Howard Johns was known for revealing the addresses of these and other celebrities. Hmm. Don’t think that I’d put that info down on my “final Jepoardy” slate.

I am also not so crazy about the organic search results, which tend to err on the side of word proximity.

Again, with a relatively narrow data set such as Wikipedia it’s not always easy to tune content analysis well to the capabilities of semantic text analysis in search engines.

Big Picture

The big picture for this early-days release of Powerset is that it is a great demonstration of how one particular source of content can be transformed through search and content federation technologies into an altogether different kind of publication.

Oftentimes I talk these days about search technologies being similar to datafeed technologies, but in this instance it’s important to recognize that search technologies are also end-publishing technologies in and of themselves that can aggregate, filter and organize content in altogether new ways that enhance the value of one or more core publications.

Using free content from Wikipedia and Freebase the Powerset technology does a good job of demonstrating this concept simply, albeit with some early growing pains.

Strategic Advice for Online Publishers

Publishers wanting to stay in the forefront of content markets are turning in droves to content federation technologies as a solution to add value to existing product sets, so expect to hear more from technologies such as Powerset that help publishers to add value rapidly.

Originally written by John Blossom for Shore and first published as “Powerset: Transforming Publications Through Semantic Search Technology” on May 13th 2008.

How do you find out rapidly which blogs are mentioning you or linking back to your recent article? If you are new to the world of online publishing you may still be trying to figure out how to search and be alerted when other sites out there are going to link or mention you or your web site. How do you track and monitor citations and link backs to you? Ego searching is the answer.

Ego searching is all about setting up a small set of blog search engines to search both for your name as well as for your main domain URL.

Here is my video on how to do it:

Robin Good explains how to do Ego Searching to discover who is talking or linking back to your site / blog

Ego-Searching - What Is It? + How To Do It

Fill English Text Video Transcription

Hi guys, here is Robin Good for MasterNewMedia and I am going to explain to you today how you can do ego searching.

Ego searching? Yeah.

Ego searching is all about searching for yourself and finding out who is talking about you, or your website, or your content on other websites.

Because, as soon as you start blogging and publishing your content online, sooner or later somebody, because they like you and sometimes because they want to duplicate your content, are going to pick up your name, the name of your website, or making actually a link back to your site which is the greatest thing that normally can happen to you.

So how do you do it?

Let’s go check it out: you take your browser, and you go to www.technorati.com, OK?

1) Press enter, let’s go.

2) And this is what you’re going to see when you’re there.

3) Then in the search box right here you’re going to type your name in between quotes, just like this.

4) Then you will see here in the results that two hours ago on this blog there was a mention of Robin Good! And then on this other one there was another mention. And then another one here, that was one hour ago, and another one 19 hours ago, and so on.

So that’s the first way to find out who’s talking, or mentioning, or siting, or linking back to your site.

The other way to do it is actually to go and type the URL, the main one of your site, and that will also show you what is the total number of mentions, of links coming back to your site as well as, in chronological reverse order, the sites linking back to you: one hour ago this site linked back to MasterNewMedia, and then this other one, and then this other one we saw when we searched for Robin Good, and so on.

Where else can you you do this?

I advise you strongly you do this in Technorati, and you also do it in Bloglines where there is a special feature up here called “Search for citations”. There you can do exactly the same stuff as we did just a second ago in Technorati, and get all the people mentioning Robin Good, all the links you have coming back, or you can use the URL.

And you can also use Google Blog Search, this one here, and again utilize the same approach: type your name or type your URL there and see all the mentions that you’re getting back to your site.

That’s all for Robin Good for MasterNewMedia.

Talk to you soon, ciao!

AdSense for Search is now powered by Google Custom Search. Yesterday, Google officially announced the availability of AdSense for Search for use in combination with the powerful Google Custom Search service, something not possible until now and potentially very welcome to both small and large professional web publishers looking for further ways to optimize their content monetization opportunities while helping their readers find more easily the information they are looking for.

With AdSense for Search now powered by Google Custom Search, professional web publishers have some truly advanced and very cool customization options to best monetize their search results pages through AdSense contextual ads.

Among some of the most powerful new customization options are a) keyword tuning, b) creating vertical search solutions, and c) customizing fully the placement of ads on your site Google search results pages.

The new Custom Search platform has significantly improved its indexing capabilities while fully integrating the power of AdSense for Search. AdSense web publishers like you can now create unlimited Custom Search Engines (CSEs) and take advantage of the most popular customization features already available within their AdSense accounts.

If you are not yet familiar with it, you should know that Google Custom Search is built on top of the very main Google index, though now it maintains its own index for enhanced coverage of sites included in CSEs. This improved indexing approach only affects search results within your custom-created search engine, not your own site rank and indexing level on Google.com.

Here more details:

Introduction to AdSense and Google Custom Search

Overview - AdSense for Search Integration With Custom Search

• Create a custom, personalized search engine in no time at all
• Customize the appearance of search results and ads
• Tune results and ads to your site’s content and audience
• Get more comprehensive site search results with improved indexing
• Earn revenue while helping your users find what they’re looking for

Key Features

• Site Search

  If you’ve worked hard to attract users to your site, so it’s understandable that you’d be concerned about those users leaving through web search. Now you can choose to provide just site search so users can find all the information they’re looking for on your site, and you can host the search results on your own pages so that they can find that information without leaving your site.

• Improved Indexing of your Pages

  Google has recently improved its indexing technology so that you can provide a more enhanced Site Search experience to your users. AdSense for search will now index even more pages of your site so that your users will see more results from your site in your AdSense for search results.

• Vertical Search

  You can also allow your users to search across multiple sites - this could be a network of sites that you own or other related sites that you think your users might find useful. If you write book reviews on your blog, for example, you can use vertical search to specify a list of online bookstores for users to search through. Other examples of vertical searches include computer forums, travel blogs, political sites you endorse, etc.

• Tuning Search Results and Ads with Keywords

  Search terms can have different meanings in different contexts, so you can now configure your search engine with relevant keywords. Let’s say you manage a site about yoga - you can enter keywords such as ‘yoga,’ ‘exercise,’ and ‘meditation’ so that when a user searches for ‘mat,’ the search results and ads will be more related to yoga mats and less to commercial floor mats. (You can see an example of this in the video below). In research experiments run so far it has been found that this tuning has led to an increase in earnings for web publishers.

• Choosing Ad Position

  Do you want your AdSense ads to appear at the top and bottom of your search results? Or along the right sidebar as well, just like on Google.com? Now you can make the call on where ads are placed. (Placing ads at the top and right monetizes the best for publishers.)

• Quick and Easy Changes and Modifications To Your Setup

  Just as you use Google ad management feature to quickly change the settings for your ad and referral units, you’ll be able to do the same for your search engine within your AdSense account. Your settings will be saved in your account, so you won’t need to generate new search code for each change.

Key Benefits

• Help Your Users Find What They’re Looking For

  Visitors come to your site searching for something specific. Whether that is information, a certain product, entertainment, or just a way to spend time, AdSense for search allows you to enable them to do just that. By offering you new customization options, like what to let your users search and specifying relevant search keywords to Google, AdSense for Search leverages your expert knowledge to show Google search results and targeted ads that are particularly relevant to visitors in the context of your site. As with all AdSense products, Google gives you control over the look and feel of the search results and ads to match your site’s look and feel.

• Utilize the power of the Google Custom Search Platform

  By integrating AdSense for Search with Google’s Custom Search platform, you, as a web publisher have more control over what your search engine searches across. For example, if you’re concerned about users leaving your site, you can allow them to search just your site. If your site is dedicated to a particular topic, you can create a vertical search engine so that your users can search across related sites of your choosing. From individual pages to the entire Web, it’s completely up to you to decide what your users will be searching across.

• Provide the Most Relevant Ads to Your Readers

  Provide keywords related to your site’s content, to help fine-tune ads and search results so that they’re even more relevant to your users.

• Seamless Integration with Your Site Design

  Here are some of the look and feel customization features you get with AdSense for search:

  • Customize the color scheme of your ads and search results
  • Choose where you want to place your ads
  • Opt to host the search results on your own site within your site’s template
  • Select from a variety of search box appearances

Getting Started

Get started with these new Google Search features by taking these specific steps:

1) Go to your Google AdSense account

2) Click on your Setup tab

3) Select ‘AdSense for Search’ as your product

4) Once you’ve set up your search box, you may wish to explore more advanced features such as site exclusion, labels, and collaboration.

To learn more, visit google.com/adsense/afs or the AdSense Help Center.

Google Custom Search - Business Edition

The Google Custom Search Business Edition is great for public websites that have a lot of web-based content that needs to be easily searchable and to companies wanting to leverage the maximum potential for content monetization available through the Google Custom Search Engine.

The Business Edition, allows you to:

a) Turn off ads.
Custom Search Business Edition turns off Google Adwords advertisements in search results that regularly appear in the free version of the Custom Search Engine.

b) Customize your search results through an XML feed
If you wish to significantly change the look and feel of your search engine, you can build your own user interface and integrate an XML feed of search results.

c) Put your own logo on the search results pages

d) Access enterprise-grade support

Here, a simple video demonstration of the Custom Search Business Edition:

also to watch:

Custom Search Business Edition video (25 mins)

Custom Search Business Edition is available in a number of plans:

• Search less than 5,000 web pages: $100 per year
• Search less than 50,000 web pages: $500 per year
• Search less than 100,000 web pages: $850 per year
• Search less than 300,000 web pages: $2250 per year

More Information on Google AdSense For Search

• Google Custom Search Help Center
• Custom Search expands to Adsense for Search
• Google AdSense for Search now powered by Custom Search
• AdSense and your CSE
• Labels, Refinements and Keywords
• Volunteering and Collaborating with Google Custom Search Engine

Recommended:

• Full Tutorial by DoshDosh on How to Set Up Your Own Google Custom Search
  by DoshDosh
• Google Custom Search with Adsense for Blogger or WordPress Blogs
  by Amit Agarwal

Ajax, the cool interface technology utilized to update and modify web pages without requiring a full refresh of the page is gaining more and more popularity on sites all over the Internet.

Photo credit: Davide Guglielmo

But as much as Ajax can significantly simplify and ease user interaction with specific forms and data, it can also become a liability when it comes to provide as much benefit to handicapped or visually impaired viewers.

Understanding where Ajax can fall short of its promises and considering some basic solutions that can be utilized in such situations is just the first basic step a professional online publisher should take to increase effective accessibility to everyone.

Here some starting points:

AJAX Accessibility for Websites

by Brigitte Simard

AJAX or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is an innovative way of using existing technologies to create highly interactive web applications.

AJAX allows portions of the page to be updated without having to refresh and reload the entire page. It can increase site performance significantly and provide cutting edge user interfaces.

Unfortunately it can also be a source of concern for delivering fully accessible web sites.

What is AJAX?

Photo credit: svilen001

AJAX is not a new technology in itself but a new approach to programming websites based on the following web standards:

• JavaScript
• XML
• HTML / XHTML
• CSS

The key word is asynchronous - AJAX applications work ‘behind the scenes’ with the web server to dynamically update the content of a web page.

JavaScript plays an important role in this process, trading data with the server and manipulating the information on the page.

Accessibility Benefits of AJAX

Photo credit: star-one

As well as significantly improving the user experience AJAX applications can also enhance accessibility. For example:

• Auto-suggest dropdowns can help both users with reading difficulties and motor impairments

  
  e.g. City and airport suggestions are offered as users enter text Screenshot of Kayak auto-suggest dropdown

• Drag & drop sliders can help users with reading difficulties due to their illustrative nature


e.g. A click-and-drag slider is used to filter search criteria Screenshot of Amazon drag & drop sliders

Accessibility Issues Caused by AJAX

Photo credit: forwardcom

AJAX and JavaScript are usually used to update page content. When this happens screen readers respond in a variety of different ways, depending on both the screen reader and the browser:

• Screen readers aren’t aware of the changes so will read out the unmodified version of the page. This means screen reader users don’t get the updated content of the page.
• Screen readers are aware of the changes but will only read the modified content when they naturally reach it. This is fine unless the modified content precedes users’ current location. If this happens, they’re unlikely to hear this content.
• Screen readers start reading the modified page but from the very top. This means that users have to essentially listen to all of the page content again. It can be difficult for these users to know which content has been updated and where in the page this content is.
• Screen readers are automatically taken to the modified content so users instantly know that page content has been updated - this can however severely disorientate users.

Screen magnifier users might not notice changes that have occurred outside the areas they’re interacting with.

They can therefore miss out on important information especially if the changed content takes place above their current location on the page.

Finally, AJAX requires JavaScript to be enabled.

Although assistive technologies can now handle many uses of JavaScript they don’t all provide complete support.

Recommendations for AJAX and Accessibility

Photo credit: sundesigns

There’s one key question to consider when planning the development of a website and the use of AJAX: Is there a real need to use AJAX?.

If the answer is yes, then ensure the following is true to ensure AJAX accessibility is optimised:

1. Inform Users Early in the Page that Dynamic Updates Will Occur

   Not all users are familiar with AJAX interfaces.

   Let them know that changes may take place so they can expect and look for these changes.

   This is particularly important for screen reader and magnifier users as they may be unaware that changes have taken place.

2. Highlight the Areas That Have Been Updated

   Using subtle changes to highlight areas that have changed, for just a short period of time, can be most helpful.

   It will inform users, in particular those with reading difficulties that updates have taken place.

3. Don’t Change the Focus

   Do not move the focus of the page to where the change has taken place.

   Changing the focus can be disrupting for screen reader and magnifier users especially if there are no mechanisms to return to the previous position.

4. Offer the Option to Disable Automatic Updates

   Allow users to manually request page updates, for example by providing links and/or form buttons to refresh the page on-demand.

   Screen reader and magnifier users may be unaware of on-the-page changes.

   It can also be difficult for users with reading difficulties to keep up with automatic updates.

   If possible, store users’ preferences for requesting page updates for future visits to the site.

5. Ensure the Site Works If JavaScript Is Not Enabled

   Build a standard application then overlay it with AJAX to improve its functionality.

   If JavaScript is disabled or not available then users will still be able to use the site.

In case of an advanced AJAX application, consider providing an HTML alternative.

If the AJAX application is impossible to use by group of users (e.g. if it relies on the use of a mouse, such as the drag & drop sliders) then a link to an HTML alternative is a must.

Originally written by Brigitte Simard for WebCredible and first published as AJAX accessibility for websites on March 2008

What to expect from the world of new media technology for 2008? Health, economy and alternative energy blogger Sepp Hasslberger, contributes his personal view on some of the major trends he sees coming down the line when it comes to new media, search engines, and tacit online cooperation.

Is Google losing its predominant position? How important is going to be the the view of your peers in the future? Are facebook, digg and other popular social media destinations a fad of some sort?

Even more interesting is Sepp Hasslberger’s analysis and vision for your renewable future spun by an interesting post on Mashable: is the green tech buzz another fad too? Is going to be government-led or are you going to take it on yourself to change the way we live and use up our natural resources?

Here the details:

New Media Future Overview

When it comes to new media trends, I believe we are living a period of great change, and it will continue throughout this coming year.

The collaborative network is taking hold, mainly thanks to social networking sites, both for personal networking - facebook and the like - and for collaborative exploration of the net.

I have noticed a distinct change on visitors of my blogs, coming from sites that allow anyone to say “hey, I saw this and I liked it“, and as these services grow in number, they make a difference taking some of the steam away from the traditional search engines.

Google May Be Starting to Lose Its Predominant Position

Even Google, undisputed king of search engines is (or if not, should be) feeling uneasy about changes on the horizon.

Google has big plans to take on Wikipedia with its own service, and to extend Google’s offerings far beyond the pure search engine results.

While Google’s revenue model is still very effective and is being refined to better please the advertisers, there is some serious competition coming up that probably hasn’t even properly registered on Google’s radar screens yet. What I am alluding to are services that realize the dream of the “semantic web“, a concept to which I first was introduced by Roger Eaton through his AntWeb, or Annotated Web, an idea he had some four years back.

While Eaton and his friends as true programmers were talking interface - some program that would run on people’s computers and allow the progressive annotation of the web by human contributors - the reality today is that this service or something very similar, is being offered on the web itself.

Specialized sites such as digg, stumbleupon, reddit and others are starting to make a difference as the number of their users increases fast. They start taking some wind out of Google’s sails by providing a more true measure of what people really like to read or watch.

Those sites add something Google does not have: the view of our peers.

Sure, Google attempts to provide just that but it can’t quite avoid its results being shaded by advertiser preference and by a certain kowtowing to the official line on important issues.

Not to criticize Google for that, those things come with a highly commercial set-up and with the sheer size the site has grown into.

But watch out Google … you might find that a lot of users of the net will prefer the more untainted viewpoint of the actual users that comes from peer-to-peer interaction, to the sanitized version you offer today.

Social Networking will Broaden

There is also another trend that may be worth noting: the transformation of the net from websites to dynamic (blog type) websites, to multi-media capable social interaction points.

Facebook, Linkedin, hi5 and other such services with the backup of YouTube and Google Video are definitely on the upswing, and they will become much more important than they are today.

Their ease of use, low cost to the user, and multi media capability will likely make them a preferred channel for citizen reporting, for the publishing of individually or collaboratively produced content.

But even here, the providers would be well advised to curb their dreams of commercialization of the service.

As is already the case with Google, alternatives will spring up from unexpected quarters. Some kind of divine justice that counterbalances the trend of individuals getting lost in the commercial jungle set up by those with money to invest.

Peer-to-peer services that offer the next generation social interaction tools are not far away and we may catch a first glimpse in this coming year.

Users will, and this, in a way, is a perpetual struggle, “take back the net from the corporations” despite all the sophisticated commercial planning.

Some of the great income opportunities that exist today for those providing access to the net or advertising-financed space for others to use may disappear, perhaps very rapidly in some cases.

Mobile computing comes into the picture as a factor in favor of a broadening social network.

The mobile phone and the personal computer will meet somewhere midway and their synthesis will be a boon to social networking. Hopefully there will be increased awareness of the health costs associated with our current microwave-based mobile communication hardware, stimulating a change to other systems that do not have these drawbacks.

The Price We Pay - Privacy

Of course there is a price to pay for all this free access to information.

The price is privacy.

Every time we use one of the social networking services, sign up for a blog or some other free service, we lose a bit of our privacy.

But we may well be turning necessity into virtue here.

As we voluntarily give up more and more of our privacy and our lives become transparent, that concept of transparency will gain importance in other ways as well. Since anyone who is on the net in any significant way is already transparent, we shall be in a much better position to demand that governments and corporations become transparent as well.

Citizen reporting is only a start. We will be turning the tables on government secrecy and with a good justification: We already gave up our privacy. Now it’s the government’s turn.

This is why I think we will be seeing a move towards more awareness on the issues of privacy and transparency.

The concept of privacy that today accompanies the right of governments to keep from us any significant insight into what they are up to, is losing weight as we have given up much of that privacy already.

One might say down with privacy, long live transparency!

A New Energy Revolution Is Coming

While Mashable “Stupid New Trends: Green Tech” article showcases the “official” and rather ineffective version of what could be another significant development that you may be witnessing in the coming year - here is my own take on cool green technology-based future.

Just like p2p is in the process of taking down the media monopoly, distributed power generation will be the death of the fossil fuel based energy monopoly.

We can talk about going green for a long time, but if we stay within the paradigm, nothing will change just as Mashable says.

What we need is real innovation in technology, where abundant natural resources are put to use that will make the need for oil and the wars for its control a concern of yesterday.

Much work is going into making those abundant resources available to us, but as with the net, the work is being done by individuals, not by corporations or governments.

The more conventional technologies range from energy conservation to solar, wind and water - tides, waves and river hydroelectric without a dam. A lot of work goes into making hydrogen a viable option as a transportation fuel, and into using hydrocarbons more efficiently. Battery technology is taking quantum leaps.

But what is really going to bring a breakthrough is the shift in thinking that is brewing in the undercurrents.

Some are bold enough to think that such forces as gravity, magnetism, and even the energy inherent in space all over the universe can be harnessed for our purposes.

Whatever the breakthrough technology will turn out to be, it will spell the end of the monopoly on energy production.

We will generate our own energy and feed part of it into the grid, reversing the top-down energy supply model into an interconnected one where each node on the network is stable, self sufficient and contributing to the efficiency of the whole.

To see what’s brewing in this direction check out: http://peswiki.com/index.php/Main_Page and
http://www.pureenergysystems.com/.

Originally written by Sepp Hasslberger for Master New Media and first published on December 27 2007 as “New Media Technology and Renewable Energy Trends and Predictions 2008 by Sepp Hasslberger”

About the author:

Sepp Hasslberger is a prolific independent researcher and scholar of physics, alternative energies, space exploration, health and alternative medicine, and more in general in researching and sharing with others ways that can empower individuals to be in greater control of their lives and future. He writes at Hasslberger.com and at Health Supreme and is also the editor of a very rich and informative multi-language health-freedom information site: LaLeva.cc

Personalized search is gaining in popularity, as information overload reaches a critical mass. Lijit takes this to the next level, allowing your site visitors to search across the variety of social networking platforms for your content, compounding your position as a trusted source of information. It would be nice to have a one-stop social networking service that fulfills all of your needs, but in reality you more than likely juggle a great many such services in the space of the average day. You might use a LinkedIn profile for business networking, a Twitter account for short bursts of sharing and inspiration, the ubiquitous Facebook account for general conversation, and so on. In each of these networks you share your thoughts …

RSS newsfeeds have become part of the mainstay of the new web. But where do you go when you want to search through the thousands upon thousands on offer? A new project has set itself the ambitious target of gathering no less than one million feeds together for you to search through. Here\’s how: MillionRSS, which originally launched in February, is that project and its simple goal has inspired hundreds of people to get involved. The website essentially offers a great, free way to promote your web content to interested readers, while contributing to a vast library of RSS news feeds freely accessible to anyone with a web connection. Bloggers benefit by tapping into the buzz around the project, and …