Five More Search Tools You Should Know

Have you ever needed to see the search results for another city — maybe because you want to see what PPC ads are shown somewhere else?

Have you ever needed to see search results from a different country, or in a different language? Maybe you’re into real time search, and you’d love a place to find the latest photos and videos being shared on Twitter. Or perhaps you’re planning a vacation abroad, but you’re not sure when is the best time to visit Europe.

It’s time again for another roundup of the latest and greatest search tools and search engines, and in this article, I’ll share five such sites that will answer the above questions (and more). This is the fourth in my occasional series profiling under-the-radar search tools. Links to the previous three are at the end of this article.

SearchMuffin

Look, I don’t name ‘em, I just use ‘em and write about ‘em if they’re cool. And this one is SearchMuffin has a simple premise: Type in a keyword and choose a city from the dropdown menu, and it’ll show you the Google search results that match. Think of it as a sort of geo-targeted competitive research/PPC research tool. It’s about the easiest way I know of to see the PPC ads that appear in other cities.

And best of all, it’s not just limited to major U.S. cities; at the moment, there are 262 choices in the dropdown menu, including such non-metropolises as Roseville, California, and Arvada, Colorado. (No disrespect intended to Rosevillites and Arvadians.)

Glearch

Let’s expand our horizons beyond 262 U.S. cities. What if you needed to quickly see some search results from other countries and/or other languages? Glearch (again, I don’t name ‘em) is an international meta search engine that lets you search by country, by language, and/or by search engine. You can take those three options and customize each to build just the query you want.

Roooby

We’ve written a fair amount about real time search in the past few months, but we haven’t focused too much on the visual element — people posting photos and videos of what they’re doing now. Roooby is one of several real time search engines that capture media, but one of the few that surface both photos and videos. (Although, to be frank, Roooby could do a better job of finding videos by scanning sites such as Qik.com, TwitVid.io, and others that host live video.)

Roooby isn’t the only player in this space. TwitCaps, TwitPicGrid, Pingwire, and Twicsy offer similar real time image search engines.

Spezify

Speaking of media and images, here’s the most visual search tool I’ve ever seen: Spezify. The best way I can describe it is a sort of visual meta search engine. It pulls in results from Yahoo, Bing, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and even eBay and Amazon to create a fairly stunning search results page.

This is serious eye candy. There’s a settings page where you can choose the sources and types of content (images, text, video) you want included. But to be frank, the focus on visuals means the search results have no context whatsoever. You can move vertically and horizontally through the results, but you have no idea why you’re seeing what you’re seeing. It’s innovative to be sure, but for this searcher, it’s too lacking in functionality.

Joobili

Finally, here’s one for our readers in Europe, or for our readers traveling to Europe. It’s called Joobili, and it’s a travel/event search engine with a twist: Rather than telling the search engine what you want to do or where you want to go, you tell it when. There’s a cool date-based slider on the home page to get you started, and once you’re in the results, Joobili lets you see results based on categories (Arts, Sport, Nature, etc.), by country, or by keyword.

If you create an account, Joobili will let you save events to a wish list or a “went” list. You can also rank events to help other users make decisions on what to do and where to go. It’s a clever approach, but as I hinted above, it only covers Europe.

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Source:

http://searchengineland.com/five-more-search-tools-july09-22766

Tags:

TwitCaps, TwitPicGrid, Pingwire, Twicsy, real time image search engines, Spezify, SearchMuffin, Glearch, Joobili, Roooby, real-time Web search, Google, Twitter search, PageRank, Yahoo, Bing, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, eBay, Amazon, Qik.com, TwitVid.io,

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Corporate Profits a Boost for US Industry

Corporate America took another step along its long road to recovery on Tuesday as companies from the industrial heartland of Peoria to the technology hubs of Silicon Valley reported stronger-than-expected profits and bullish outlooks.

Read more here:

http://globaleconomicnews.blogspot.com/2009/07/corporate-profits-boost-for-us-industry.html

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Tags: Apple, Yahoo, DuPont, Coca-Cola, Credit Suisse, Merck, iPhone, BNY ConvergEx, DJIA, Dow Jones, Caterpillar, Wall Street, Nasdaq Composite, Silicon Valley, United, Continental, Southwest.

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Ballmer: All Traditional Content Will Be Digital In 10 Years

Steve Ballmer said Wednesday that the global advertising economy has been permanently “reset” at a lower level, warning that media companies should not plan for revenues to bounce back to pre-recession levels.

Speaking at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, Ballmer argued that traditional broadcast and print media would have to plan business models around a smaller share of the advertising market, as revenues continue to move to digital outlets. “I don’t think we are in a recession, I think we have reset,” he said. “A recession implies recovery [to pre-recession levels] and for planning purposes I don’t think we will. We have reset and won’t rebound and re-grow.”

Ballmer, named media person of the year at this year’s festival, also painted a bleak picture for the future of traditional media, arguing that newspaper publishers have failed to generate new revenues from the digital opportunity. He said that within 10 years all traditional content will be digital and yet, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) aside, publishers are failing to generate serious digital revenues.

“All content consumed will be digital, we can [only] debate if that may be in one, two, five or 10 years,” added Ballmer. “There won’t be [only traditional] newspapers, magazines and TV programmes. There won’t be [only] personal, social communications offline and separate. In 10 years it will all be online. Static content won’t cut it in the future,” he added.

“Some say that the ad-funded model has not led to profitability. Google’s search site makes money but past Google is there a publisher with an ad-funded or fee-based model that has made lots of money? No.”

For media businesses to successfully evolve they must provide the right combination of context and relevance to make a compelling online proposition for consumers, according to Ballmer. “There are problems with digital advertising. Start with content and the website environment and [ask] is it suitable for advertising. [That] question is somewhat in the balance as we move forward,” he said. The old approach of simply trying to replicate a print newspaper online is doomed to fail, Ballmer added.

During a question and answer session after his speech, Ballmer was also asked about Microsoft’s interest in acquiring Yahoo.“We have no interest in acquiring Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO). What we have said is that we will continue to remain open to a partnership with Yahoo,” he responded.

Source: http://paidcontent.org/article/419-microsofts-ballmer-all-traditional-content-will-be-digital-in-10-years

Tags: Steve Ballmer, Microsoft, Technology Prediction, Digital content, Analog content, google, Yahoo, Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, Ad-funded model, Global Best Practice, Print media,

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Yahoo CEO: Stop Comparing Us To Google

Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz asked shareholders to stop comparing the Sunnyvale Internet company to Google, its biggest rival, at a sparsely attended and subdued annual meeting Thursday morning.

The meeting marked a break from the past, when shareholders have repeatedly voiced their disappointment with Yahoo's management and its failure to respond to competitive threats and increase the value of the company's shares. Last year, shareholders withheld support from the board of directors in record numbers after the company rejected a bid from Microsoft to buy Yahoo for $47.5 billion or $33 a share.

"I was hoping that the Microsoft deal would go through, not because I'm a big Microsoft fan but because I don't think the share price will get that high again," said Richard Hackenbery, who became a Yahoo shareholder in 1999. Hackenbery and his wife, Marilyn, drove from Berkeley to the meeting, which was held at the Santa Clara Marriott, to hear Bartz, who became CEO in January, replacing co-founder Jerry Yang.

Yahoo's shares traded at $15.53 on Thursday, up 8 cents and up from a low of $8.94 in November last year. At the meeting, Bartz said if and when there is a deal with Microsoft, they would announce it; otherwise, she had "nothing to say." Yang, who sits on the board of directors and holds the title Chief Yahoo, attended the meeting but did not address it. He later chatted informally with shareholders. David Filo, the other co-founder, did not attend.

Directly addressing shareholders for the first time, Bartz said they should think of Yahoo as the largest online media company, "the place where millions of people come to check what is important to them every day and organize their lives." She also described how she was streamlining Yahoo's organizational structure and shutting down poorly performing properties, which she described as "space debris."

When asked why Yahoo continues to lag Google in financial performance and employee productivity, Bartz said it was time to stop comparing the companies to each other because they have different business models. "Please, this direct comparison model to Google is not fair and is frankly not relevant," she said.

While Google is purely a search-advertising company, search is only part of Yahoo's business, she explained. Bartz also said that Yahoo did not have a "vision problem" but that it had an "execution problem," which it was working hard to fix.

"I was very impressed with her," said Marilyn Neuterman, a retiree living in San Jose. "She gave good, clear answers and conducted a nice meeting." In formal business at the meeting, shareholders re-elected the board of directors and followed the company's recommendation on four additional proposals, including three that dealt with appointing an accounting firm, the stock plan and employee stock options. Shareholders vetoed a fourth proposal that would have given them a say on executive pay.

Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_12688924?source=email

Tags: Yahoo, Google, Carol Bartz, Jerry Yang, David Filo, Microsoft, Santa Clara Marriot, Global IT News, Shareholders, AGM, Annual General Meeting, Search, Chief Yahoo, Executive Pay, Online media,

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Bad Text Messaging, E-Mailing Manners Can Be Costly

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A political coup in New York's statehouse can be traced back to an incident in which a top lawmaker so enraged a wealthy backer by peering at e-mails on his BlackBerry that his patron engineered his ouster.

One of the newer forms of poor office etiquette -- paying more attention to a hand-held device than to a conversation or business meeting -- happens so frequently that businesses are complaining it upsets workplaces, wastes time and costs money.

"It happens all the time, and it's definitely getting worse," said Jane Wesman, a public relations executive and author of "Dive Right In -- The Sharks Won't Bite."

"It's become an addiction," she said.

A third of more than 5,000 respondents said they often check their e-mails during meetings, according to a March poll by Yahoo! HotJobs, an online jobs board.

Such habits have their price, said Tom Musbach, senior managing editor of Yahoo! HotJobs.

"Things like BlackBerries fragment our attention span, and that can lead to lost productivity and wasted dollars because people aren't focused on their work, absolutely," he said.

REPRIMANDED FOR BAD MANNERS

In other Yahoo! HotJobs research, nearly a fifth of respondents said they had been reprimanded for showing bad manners with a wireless device. Yet even those who rail against such behavior admit to their own weakness.

"I catch myself driving in the car with my husband. He's talking to me and I'm downloading my e-mails," said Wesman. "You can't help yourself. There's this need to know what's going on."

But the constant pursuit of an e-mail fix may be costly. Research shows such multi-tasking can take more time and result in more errors than does focusing on a single task at a time.

"We know that if you have a person attending to different things at the same time, they're not going to retain as much information as they would if they attended to that one thing," said Nathan Bowling, an expert in workplace psychology at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.

"If you're attending to multiple things at the same time, you often times don't learn anything," he said.

Then there's the risk of making someone really mad.

In the New York state political coup, billionaire businessman Tom Golisano said he grew angry after meeting this spring with state Democratic majority leader Malcolm Smith, who paid more attention to his BlackBerry than to issues at hand.

"I thought that was very rude," Golisano told statehouse reporters. Golisano is known for hefty campaign contributions and for funding his own unsuccessful bids for governor.

Irked by Smith's behavior, Golisano reportedly approached other legislators, who this week voted out the Democratic leadership and voted in the Republicans. "One should not play with one's BlackBerry (or anything else) when billionaires who have helped elect you have traveled to your office to talk to you," Henry Stern, former head of New York City's parks department, wrote on a Yonkers Tribune blog.

COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE WORK BEHAVIOR

People who text message when they should be doing something else are engaging in what Bowling called counter-productive work behavior, which also includes harassment, showing up late or playing endlessly on the Internet.

"Technology allows us to do counter-productive things that we weren't able to do 10, 20 or even five years ago," he said. Business etiquette coach Barbara Pachter said there is a "learning curve" to new technology such as BlackBerries.

"We're still at that point where we're being rude," she said, adding that people's behavior is likely to improve in the next year or two. "We're just not there yet."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE55A6XZ20090612

Tags: Blackberry, RIM, Yonkers Tribune Blog, Democrat, Republican, Wright State, Technology etiquette, Global Best Practice, Tom Golisano, Jane Wesman, Yahoo!, Hotjobs,

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Why VeVo Could Become The Hulu Of Music

Universal Music has apparently seduced a cortortium of indie labels, A2IM, to join its video site Vevo. That follows last week’s news that Sony (NYSE: SNE) Music Entertainment has also signed up for VeVo, which Universal is launching with help from YouTube, the Google (NSDQ: GOOG) video site.

Assuming it doesn’t run into some unforeseen obstacle, VeVo could easily become a mainstream digital platform for the struggling music industry, much like Hulu has become for the TV industry.

—The labels will probably work together better this time, providing consumers with a robust, complete content offering. The labels likely learned their lesson from the failure of digital music download services launched in the early 2000s, including pressplay (Sony and Universal) and a venture powered by MusicNet (EMI and BMG).

Consumers rejected those services for their complicated licensing procedures and lack of choice in the acts offered for sale. This time around, it looks like the labels are ready to be more collaborative—a release announcing Sony’s participation said it would include a broad array of its artists on the site.

—Demand for digital music videos is strong, and different types of programming could increase users’ appetites. Four of the top-five professional channels on YouTube are music related—Universal Music, Sony Music, Britney TV and Hollywood Records.

So there is no question that people are watching and listening to a lot of music online. Most of the videos on these channels are fairly basic; Universal has said it plans to complement its usual offerings with exclusive interviews, reality programming and exclusive performances.

—Advertisers will likely embrace the service. Many video sites are evolving to try to meet advertiser interest in professional content. YouTube recently started streaming professional TV and movies, while competitor Metacafe, responding to advertiser feedback, added more professional content and organized it in hubs. Music reaches an elusive, young demographic, which, of course, is attractive to advertisers. One caveat:

As of now, it appears that Universal Music Group will be selling the ads for VeVo, and it remains whether people steeped in promoting records can also sell premium ad packages.

Source: http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-why-vevo-may-be-the-hulu-of-music/

Tags: Vevo, hulu, digital music, universal music group, youtube, google, yahoo, sony music entertainment, metacafe, Hollywood records, A2IM, musicnet, EMI, BMG, Global IT News Blogspot,

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Gartner: Windows collapsing under own weight

This recent article from ZDnet discusses a Gartner report purporting the end of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

“Microsoft's Windows juggernaut is collapsing under its own weight, as it tries to support 20 years of applications and becomes more complicated by the minute, according to analyst firm Gartner.”

“Speaking at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Las Vegas…, Gartner analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald asked the audience whether Microsoft needed to radically change its approach to Windows; around half of the managers and executives gathered in the room raised their hands. "Windows is too monolithic," said Silver.”

There is no doubt that in the OS world, MS Windows is a dinosaur.

The Gartner analysts raise an interesting point by highlighting the fact that Windows is saddled by 20 years of legacy code and interoperability standards that may no longer be relevant in a world quickly adopting the cloud computing model.

When does Microsoft reach the tipping point, where they benefit more from starting over then they do by maintaining and updating outdated code?

Now that Google is overtly targeting MS Office for extermination by offering free, web-based apps such as Google docs, Microsoft may be faced with the reality of a need for a serious self-reinvention.

Perhaps Microsoft should look in the direction of the Salesforce.com “Platform as a Service” model, as their next sortie in the software wars. Or maybe, just maybe, the gang up in Redmond has a little more up its sleeve with the proposed Yahoo purchase, than everybody has thus far imagined.

Stay tuned…

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39384073,00.htm?r=2

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