Just read an interesting discussion on the future of libraries ... the author thinks that they'll transform into decentralized, sparsely staffed (I agree) ... basically glorified study areas. Read the article at: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/09/24/libraries.

 

Saw this one while it still was in beta (I think), and it has certainly progressed ... I could have used it last year at a previous consulting assignment. Go to: http://www.jisc-adat.com/adat/home.pl ... you can compare academic databases, and it provides overlaps, etc. Very nice. (try comparing Scopus and WOS ... note the overlap, but also the wide range of unique journals to each ... there still isn't a global database that can claim to be comprehensive!

Of course, it would be nice to also see Google Scholar alongside as well.

I wish Microsoft would/could just buy Yahoo and get it over with ... at least the combined companies would have a better (albeit very small in my opinion) of offering an alternative to Google. A bit of pressure would be good for Google. Anyway, read more about the traffic stats (Yahoo vs Bing) at: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/Microsofts-Bing-May-Not-Have-Lead-on-Yahoo-After-All-502719/?kc=EWKNLINF06102009STR5.

I hope Wolfram Alpha does well ... I really do. I've thought for awhile that Google really needs a viable competitor, which will help drive search forward. However, I'll wait until the site is launched before announcing them as a serious competitor (even then, I'm willing to give them months or years if their product holds promise, AND they demonstrate the ability to roll out improvements on a regular basis). I'd also be interested to see if they have an API, and how easy it would be to tap into their system to create vertical apps. 

So here's the link for today from the popular (non tech press) ... article is a bit too hopeful IMHO: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/an-invention-that-could-change-the-internet-for-ever-1678109.html.

ReadWriteWeb covers the release/beta of the WolframAlpha Computational Search Engine here:  http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/wolframalpha_our_first_impressions.php.

I agree with them that this isn't a Google killer (and unless Google REALLY screws up, nothing is out there that could challenge them); however, their focus on enhancing results with automatically generated charts and graphs, as well as other features should be interesting. Of additional interest will be how they'll make any money off this venture. 

WolframAlpha launches in May. 

I'll be following this story ... Jeremy Shoemaker, owner of Shoemoney.com, is suing a fellow he claims used his trademarked property in Google Adwords. The kicker is this guy MAY be an employee of Google ... read more at: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/07/shoemoney-sues-google-employee-for-adwords-violations/.

Not a lot of time for blogging this week, so here are a few links of interest regarding federated search.

• http://www.altsearchengines.com/2009/01/11/federated-search-finds-content-that-google-cant-reach-part-i-of-iii/ 
• http://www.altsearchengines.com/2009/01/12/a-federated-search-primer-part-ii-of-iii/
• http://www.altsearchengines.com/2009/01/13/a-federated-search-primer-part-iii-of-iii/ 
  

Have a great week!

Check out a (FREE) whitepaper from Thomson/Reuters on techniques to identify KOL (Key Opinion Leaders) in your industry. I've often used academic databases, coupled with citation analysis and other tools (Dialog's RANK command can be useful for this) to find opinion leaders. Click here to access the whitepaper summary (registration required to view the entire article). I've also used tools like the fee-based Scopus and its free cousin Scirus to discover KOLs ... Scopus in particular can be a very powerful tool for this.

See: http://www.opthink.com/, for a product review search engine. I tested this out by searching for product reviews for some 42 inch LCD TVs, and found that it did a pretty good job at finding and indentifying product information. This could be a useful tool for individuals, as well as companies monitoring their online reputation and brands.

Check out www.paperofRecord.com, an online repository of newspaper articles (most from Canadian papers), complete with full images of the original product.

Quick post on Joongel (www.joongel.com), a meta search engine that aggregates and searches the ten most popular sites in many categories, including:

1. Images
2. Music
3. Videos
4. Shopping
5. Social
6. Q & A
7. Health
8. Torrents
9. Gossip

I like how Joongel lists the sources they search; this is helpful to know, and it can actually help you find new sources to monitor. Thus far, I've found Joongel valuable for scoping out topics and doing preliminary research; I usually like to use advanced search facilities on the individual search engines or online services when I'm working on a project. Joongel offers a web-based search on their site, as well as desktop and browser plugin versions.

I've bookmarked Joongel and will no doubt use them again.  

Anyone needing to find/track newsgroup posts might want to go to www.nnseek.com, which just launched in what the company terms as a beta. Searching was fast, with the search results displayed, as well as a list of newsgroups that included your search terms.

I'd like to see them include the ability to setup RSS or XML feeds for search results; this would provide a valuable service to anyone needing to do media monitoring ... without some of these advanced features, there really isn't much to differentiate them with Google's newsgroup search. 

BlogCatalog recently launched a new blog / social search engine; view it at: (http://www.blogcatalog.com/search).

The search pulls results from BlogCatalog's directory, blog postings, discussions, blog tags, post tags, and social search. The search results are well organized, and retrieve relevant postings. I'm not sure about the breadth of this search engine, and will have to do additional testing to review this resource.  

Yelp is serving up a vertical portal on cities ... not a bad effort overall. Looks like they're trying to create communities of users to rate and review all sorts of things (restaurants, nightlife, shopping, education, automotive, etc. ) in a city. They're currently rolled out in major metro areas (St. Louis included!), and look to add more in the future.

Yelp faces a problem most portals have ... how can they drive traffic to their sites? Most people still will go to Google for this sort of content ... they might not find exactly what they're looking for, but they'll find something, which is generally sufficient (unfortunately).

Visit the site at: http://www.yelp.com/stlouis (St. Louis).  

Just a few links of interest for Saturday.

Check out Scour, a new search engine that uses social characteristics (people vote on search results, which Scour uses to improve the results). While this is still in beta, it is worth checking out ... access it at: http://scour.com/.

Hakia, a new semantic search engine is also worth a look. Take a look at: http://www.hakia.com/. How will Hakia improve your search results? Basically, they try to bring more relevant search results (quality vs quantity ... or popularity) back using their proprietary technology that attempts to extract the meaning from a web page, automatically categorizing them and adding additional value, such as highlighting the search terms (read more about the technology at: http://company.hakia.com/technology.html). Search engines like Hakia may hold some promise in dealing with the increasing amount of information on the web.