Blog 882
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Ask.com first giant to copy alt search engines
At the San Francisco Altsearchengines.com meeting last April, the general opinion was that without those alternative engines, there would be little innovation in search. No new frontiers would be explored. Those search start-ups come with new algorithms, smart crowd source approaches, and different UI’s. But in the end, aren’t these engines just inspiration for the big guys who can copy the improved ways of searching withing a few months?
If you look at the new Ask.com, you’d say this is true. Although some say it looks like Mahalo, you can also state the engine has adopted several typical alt search engines features like:- Clustering of results: if you search for Obama, you’ll get a short description, picture, and links to the Official Site, films, music, Wikipedia, and the senatorial site.
- Related Searches. In the case of Obama his running mate, wife, and main rival.
- A collection of thumbnails with Obama’s face
My guess is that this will mark the beginning of a copy trend. Every successful alt search engine will see its main USP being adopted by the major search engines. -
G1 Emulator: Try out the GooglePhone yourself!
Want to know what all the fuzz is about? Try out the all new G1 (GooglePhone) here.
Unfortunately some of the more interesting features are not implemented yet so you won’t be able to browse, add contacts or make a phone call (duh!). But you will be able to experience first hand how extremely cool the iPhone is. And no, that wasn’t a typo.
Playing around with the G1 one of the first things I realized is how GOOD the iPhone looks in comparison to this ugly machine. Some people will say that this is just the 0.1 version so we should be patient. But hey, remember how extremely cool the iPhone looked when you first saw it? 2 years later the 0.1 iPhone STILL looks cool.
That was just my opinion. Now go ahead and form your own:
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Credit Crunch Customer Care from TechCrunch UK & Ireland
TechCrunch UK & Ireland has responded to the current economic gloom and doom by announcing that, for this week only, adverts on its Crunchboard Network will be provided free of charge.
Editor Mike Butcher announced this on Friday, and the free ads offer runs for all of this week.
“In recognition of the tough economic times we’re facing, and the fact that lots of startups are looking for people right now, I’m - perhaps naively? - going to have a go at kick-starting the market. But the “market” we are in is not just about jobs. It’s about office space. It’s about trying to find a mentor for your startup idea. It’s actually a bit like putting a band together - “drummer wanted, must also know Rails”! It’s about a lot of things that just don’t fit in to a box that most adverts try to shoe-horn you into.”
We think this is a really classy move. Of course, it helps TechCrunch to alert people to the existence of, low pice of, and (we’re sure) effectiveness of their ad platform. But it’s the timing, and the sentiment, that makes the difference - they’re recognising times are tough, and doing something simple to help. Good for them - they deserve a pat on the back, and your support - pass the word to anyone who might benefit from placing an ad at Techcrunch UK & Ireland, and take a look at what’s being advertised there.
The only thing we’d suggest is that Mike take a look at automating the process of getting ads live - the current system appears to be that you email him your ad, and he slaps the ad up when he has a moment. It’s nice personal touch, but perhaps it’s worth thinking about ’scaling’ that process - Craigslist and Ebay are sort of useful models to work from… -
A short chat with Loic Le Meur about blogging
As you might know, I’m co-organizing BLOG08 - the international blogging conference in Amsterdam on October 24 (see button in the sidebar). Edial Dekker and I have invited famous blogging heroes like Mashable’s Pete Cashmore, Gapingvoid’s Hugh MacLeod, and CEO of Lookery, Scott Rafer to inspire (corporate) bloggers all around the world. So far, people from Poland, the US, Sweden, Estonia, United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands have purchased tickets.
Nobody from France yet, but this might change as we recently ran into French hero Seesmic founder Loic Le Meur. Business Week just called him one of the 25 most influential web people. We couldn’t resist the temptation of interviewing him. He talks about why he started blogging, how his blog developed, the Les Blogs conference, and that we should focus on micro- and videoblogging.
(camera by Sacha Post)
By the way, if you want to come to BLOG08, buy your ticket before October 10th with the “thenextweb” code. Not only will you get a 45 euros discount (price: 150 euros) but you also have the chance of winning an invite for the speakers dinner at Boris’ place. -
Mischievous Monday Mornings: Deadpool or not? you decide!
Here is a funny game to test your knowledge of Web2.0 and start-ups. The app was built with Adobe Flex by Darren Stuart using the CrunchBase API. The point of the game is to test your knowledge of which companies are ‘deadpooled’ by Techcrunch and which ones are not.
Seems like a perfect little game to waste the rest of your Monday morning on:
“Deadpool or not? you decide!“ -
Ep5: Companies Who Make Money: Stylizer visual CSS editor
Following on from Patrick’s wish for a specific tool to edit the theme of Wordpress blogs, I want to introduce a company that I would love to use and have been drooling over but can’t because it is PC only and I am strictly a Mac man. However, they do solve a very real problem that I am constantly grappling with, they make money, and they could make a ton more if they designed a Wordpress plug in that solved Patrick’s problem and pain.
To edit a website’s design is currently a real hassle, as a developer you have to constantly fath about in a sort of trial and error mode, adjusting one color or parameter at a time. Of course once you change one, that changes everything so you often end up going around in circles for hours until you no longer know whether you’re coming or going (in my case it’s mostly the latter).
Styling is a very time consuming task which generally causes many arguments and frustrations between developers as they try to attain a unique, fresh and interesting look for their projects. With a product like Stylizer this pain is alleviated and the cream works in minutes. One can control the styles in a live fashion seeing how they change the overall look while simply turning knobs and watching the changes take place before your eyes.
As a nuts and bolts developer I personally struggle tremendously with creating a fresh clean look for my own projects. Only after attempting to create graphics yourself do you really gain respect for graphic designers. Earlier in my design carrier I have been constantly disappointed with graphic designers thinking they overcharge, are slow, produce substandard work, etc. In many cases it is often true and one area where I struggled to find a outstanding professional artist. Though I did eventually it is clear to me they are few and far between.
What is now also clear to me is how frustrating and difficult this task really is, I am certainly in the market and will pay good money for an elegant solution to this personal pain, hint, hint, Stylizer Mac version please!!! It is also a little odd that there is not a Mac version of this software (unless there is by someone else and I dont know of it
given all graphic designers I have ever worked with only ever used Macs.
So if your in the same boat, struggling with creating a shit hot look and feel for your own sites and you use PCs, give Stylizer a shot and let me know if this software is really as good as it looks! Do also do let me know if there something out there similar for the hardened Mac users.
P.S. This article was written by a human not a machine and following on from last weeks huge outcry about the automatic article generating software, we at The Next Web have pledged never to use such software, but the question remains! are the top blogs actually using it? As many sources I have spoken to still think they are
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Microsoft uses Europe as base for search market battle
Sometimes your blogger misses news throughout the week. Fortunately, there’s always the weekends to catch up. How about this one: “Microsoft steps up Web search R&D in Europe” on Reuters.com. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer traveled all the way to Paris to announce that his company is about to open three research centers in Europe. Why? Well, to catch up with Google on the field of Internet searching. The offices, or “hubs”, will be based in Paris, London, and Munich.
Quite a challenge, and an interesting new approach after Microsoft failed to acquire Yahoo, which now lures with Google. The current Microsoft budget for R&D in Europe is around $600 million a year, but this will increase dramatically. Since Ballmer said that “over the next few years we expect to employ several hundred people, software developers, in these centers in Europe.”
Ballmer told the press that he believes search is still in its “infancy” and thus there’s enough room for innovation. He called Microsoft the “challenger in search”. “For companies like Microsoft search is the key for unlocking huge new opportunities in advertising,” he said.
According to Web research firm ComScore, Microsoft has about 2 percent of the European online search market, compared with Google’s 79 percent. -
Financial blog Bankaholic.com acquired for a mere $15 millio
“Blogging has become a major business” says Patrick de Laive in his post about the perfect Wordpress theme. He couldn’t be more right, read on for some proof.
Bankaholic, a banking and financial blog, was bought by Bankrate for $15 million. They paid $12.4 million up-front, with up to an additional $2.5 million earn-out payment available at the attainment of certain performance metrics in the next 12 months.
One man show
That’s a sweet payment for Johns Wu, the owner and single employee of the almost two-year old, Wordpress powered blog.
Bankaholic provides rate information on savings products, such as certificates of deposit, savings accounts, and money market accounts, as well as insurance quotes and a comparison of the best credit card offers, which are currently powered by Bankrate. In addition, Bankaholic offers consumers advice and information that allows consumers to comment and rate banks and their promotions through social networking features.
Bankrate and Bankaholic had a previous business relationship and it seems Bankrate was so pleased with the results that the company decided to acquire Bankaholic. “Bankaholic is ranked high in natural search for both deposit and credit card keywords. We believe their organic traffic will increase our deposit and credit card revenue, and with a high composition of free traffic, will help to improve margins.” stated Thomas R. Evans, President and CEO of Bankrate.
Everybody wants financial info now
In these harsh economic times, everyone is seeking financial and banking information. Bankaholic is well positioned on this market, so Bankrate might have made a great deal. Compete.com shows a traffic of about 300,000 unique visitors last month from the US (double that and you have an approximate number of visitors from the whole world)
The management and operations of Bankaholic will be taken over by Bankrate immediately and the founder, Johns Wu, will be working with Bankrate until the transition is complete (and maybe after).
Too expensive?
This acquisition will inspire a lot of bloggers (financial bloggers or not). Although some say the price paid was too high. I think Bankrate can improve the blog by bringing in a team of financial journalists. More quality will probably mean more revenue.
Noah Kagan, lives in the same Berkeley dorm as Johns, gives us the moral of this story in a post titled “Bankaholic sells to Bankrate for 15 million and no one noticed”.
Focus. Johns started out just doing Credit Card rates and became the #1 term for it on Google. Then he expanded to other banking categories.
Relevance. There are 1,000s of personal finance sites. Most of the people just consume some information. You go to his site to find deals and sign up for them. That’s the point.
Monetize. Johns picked a lucrative category where clicks will pay out $50+.
Well, Noah, The Next Web noticed this and congratulates Johns, even now it’s a bit late! -
Three Twitter mash-ups that challenge Digg
Think about it, doesn’t it make more sense to share interesting links on Twitter instead of Digg? They don’t get lost in the clutter and all your friends and acquaintances get to see them right a way. When browsing around on a few Twitter streams, you can immediately tell that most people realize this. It’s one big treasure chamber full of interesting links.
Unfortunately, the whole Twitter chatter is too scattered around to find out which links are popular - and there noteworthy -, this is where Digg wins. At least, Digg did until recently, since more and more mash-ups try to track all the shared links on Twitter. Check out these mash-ups:
Social Tops
David Petherick tipped me about this brand new service (they don’t even have a decent about page yet). Social Tops already offers a good overview of popular links by tracking all the tweets that are posted real time. You can see which links are popular today, last week, last month, or all time. And yes, there’s an upcoming page like well, so you won’t miss the Digg experience too much. You can vote up links by, you got that right, tweeting about them.
Most popular links on Social Tops concern Palin and those other candidates, TechCrunch posts, and the Daily Kos. On all of these mash-ups actually.
Twitturls
This mash-up is less user-friendly, but it shows perfectly what’s buzzing around the web. I don’t even know why I’m sharing it here, since it delivered me some interesting stories before any of the European tech bloggers discovered it. Twitturls has a nice punk-like vibe surrounding it, although that doesn’t translate to your feed reader - which is, in the end, the right place for this mash-up’s content.
Twitturly
Twitturly brings more of the Twitter feeling with it, as the mash-up also shows the latest tweets containing the popular links. That makes the popular links less abstract (meaning more context) and more personal.
Twitturly also the brightest and best lay-out of the three mash-ups: it’s clean and accessible. But the feature that makes this a last best kind of thing, is the language filter. Whether you’re based in France, Holland, or Germany, you can request the most popular Twitter links from your country without any hassle. -
Social network for the death Respectance crosses the ocean
“Who dies in two years and doesn’t have a Tribute on Respectance.nl, didn’t have a lot of friends”, says Respectance founder Richard Derks in a press release issued today. He sure knows how to get attention, as you simply can’t ignore a statement like this. Let me explain you the situation here.
Richard Derks
Respectance.com is a social tribute network that offers people the opportunity to honor the lives of their deceased loved ones. That sounds more stylish than the no-friends argument and honestly, the site also ousts the loving family sentiment (with flowers, pictures of grandma - while she’s still alive, and clouds - a metaphor for eternity) instead of the “don’t die without friends”-one.
Anyhow, the reason Derks has sent out a press release is because he has launched a Dutch version of Respectance. It’s their first step in conquering Europe. Why Holland, you might ask - since it only has 16 million citizens. Well, it’s Derks’ home country.
Respectance’s launch in Europe is going to highlight some interesting cultural differences. Derks already told me about one when I interviewed him in November 2007:
“Even though we have no marketing activity going on outside the US, 55 percent of the visitors are foreign. Especially in Latin America and Scandinavia, Respectance is really popular. This reveals some pretty interesting cultural differences. For instance, a Norwegian web site for parents who lost their child, advised its visitors to visit Respectance. My American employees were shocked by the pictures of babies, and asked me to remove them. Naturally, I didn’t do that, since our slogan is ’share your memories’. Everybody is allowed to do so”.
Grandma is still alive now, but when she’s dead, I’ll make a tribute on Respectance.com