Few months ago, Google was dragged into court by a couple of European newspapers in regards to copyright issues, specifically, Google’s cached function that the tool uses to capture text that has been published previously on websites. The newspapers claimed that Google did not have the right to provide access to such content that has become premium content.
After reading the latest blog entry on Search Engine Land, “EU Group May Serve Google With Letter Over Data Retention Policies“, I’m beginning to wonder if search engines will be under attack from content providers that are seeking to generate revenues. Search engines that provide “cached” like functions will be easy targets in the future and will be prompted to find new way to present achived information on the web.
It is truly remarkable how Google has enter the lives of many. Of course, as users of the internet, we are familiar with the search tool however; the recognition of the search tool has expanded offline.
Google has been deemed the world’s most valuable brand. According to research consultancy Millward Brown’s second annual brand survey, Google leads General Electric, Microsoft and Coca-Cola. It is truly amazing given the fact that more individuals have greatest access to products from GE, Microsoft and Coke.
I do not mean to be some kind of a competitive intelligence snob, but I’m becoming a bit tired of the frequent articles on competitive intelligence that are indexed by some news search tools. My problem with these articles… THEY ARE ALL THE SAME.
Yes, the practice is relatively young as compared to other business functions however; is it necessary to drag out the same definition everytime to explain it. With sources such as Wikipedia and Answers.com, I believe that there is not a need to have hundreds of articles that elaborates on the term of “competitive intelligence”. How about using a few examples to demonstrate the processes needed for efficient competitive intelligence gathering, analysing and sharing? How about presenting a few issues to have readers think about regarding competitive intelligence?
Have you heard of Ask X? If not, you are probably a dedicated Google user and will not consider using another search tool.
Ask X is a search tool that has a pretty neat way of presenting its results. Ask X divides its results page in several parts depending on the type of information that is available online. The screenshot below presents the results for the keyword, “Montreal”.
The page presents:
- Results from the web regarding Montreal (center panel)
- Current weather information in Montreal
- Current time in Montreal
- Images of Montreal
- Maps of Montreal
- Definition of the word, “Montreal”
Ask X is available at http://www.ask.com/
Earlier this week, Yahoo unveiled its new blogging application for the Chinese market. The application is a part of a Web 2.0 package that includes a social networking platform.
If you are probably wonder what is the big deal about this news item? Well, it is all about content and information that will be available in a difference language. Blogs in Chinese will only prompt the translation industry to turn out online translation applications for blogs to enable non-Chinese readers to access information that may not be available elsewhere on the web.
I do not know if this is a small crawling glitch that Google has occasionally but I have noticed that non-news content has been creeping into results from Google News.
Upon obtaining my news alerts for the keywords, “competitive intelligence”, I read two hits that were total non-news related. They were results from informit.com, a portal regarding “programming, networking, web development and design, operating systems, and IT and project management“. The actual results as seen below are bios and related book and article information for two authors within the field of competitive intelligence…Not actually news, right?
YouTube is great. Missed a video clip from the past, it is probably on the platform. Want to share a video clip with friends, YouTube is the tool for you.
The issue that I have regarding YouTube is when it becomes a source of news for news outlets. I cite the recent case of the video clip, “Claude lui relance ses mégots!!!” and the local Montreal press. (The clip captures a man witnessing a cigarette smoker dumping his car’s ashtray contents on the sidewalks of Montreal. Thereafter, the man decides to gather the butts and ashes in his hands and tosses the content back into the smoker’s car.)
The clip first aired on local television within the first 10 minutes of the 6 pm news broadcast with a two minute interview with the two principal individuals in the clip. The two were lauded for capturing a litterbug on tape. The next day, there was an article in the local newspaper and talk radio was discussing the clip the entire morning. Needless to say, it was the talk of the town.
The very next day, the two individuals admitted that the entire clip was a hoax. The individuals confessed that it did not mean to attract the media’s attention. They claim that the media came to them to get a story.
If this is true, one has to question why did the press use a platfom such as YouTube to find a story?
According to State of the Blogosphere / State of the Live Web, a report by Technorati, the number of weblogs grew to more than 72 million this year. Despite the large amount, it is not close to the number that was projected by industry experts. Growth was scheduled to double every six months however, it has slowed to once a year.
Yahoo is currently testing a new tool which permits meta searches of their web properties and the crawling of additional internet sources as specified by users. The tool pulled content from the following sources:
- Flickr
- Yahoo! Web Search
- Yahoo! Answers
- Yahoo! News Search
- YouTube
The screenshot below presents the results from YouTube for the keyword, “New York Knicks”. (See the right hand corner of the image.)
Alpha is available at http://au.alpha.yahoo.com/
If you are a regular reader of my blog, you probably know my take on Wikipedia. If you are not, let’s just say that I’m not the BIGGEST fan of Wikipedia due to credibility issues.
Well I discovered today, Citizendium, “a project aimed at creating a new free encyclopedia online.”
Wonderful. In the Citzendium press release, the platform is described as a project that “aims to improve on the Wikipedia model with accountability and academic-quality articles as cornerstones of its work. To achieve this, Citizendium requires contributors to use their real names. As a result, the four-month pilot project has created a thriving, productive and vandalism-free community.”
I can see where this is going. Both platforms will be executing some pretty heavy duty public relation activities to prove that their respective platform is the most credible in terms of content, contributors and editors.
