SquirrelNet

The original GoTo.com is now called "Yahoo! Search Marketing Services"

Here's a bit of history for those of you who have been SquirrelNet.com fans since our launch in 1999.  Back then, we had picked a site called GoTo.com as our top rated search engine, while Yahoo was rated low due to poor search performance at the time.  (Way back then, Google was just getting started.)  We liked GoTo.com because they had a simple interface and, at the time, were the best at serving up relevant search results.  In fact, they summarized their positioning by the statement "Search Made Simple".

For some reason, GoTo.com changed their name to Overture Services in 2001, perhaps to reposition themselves as a company that serves search results to other companies (which is what they were doing then, moving away from their original "Search Made Simple" moniker).

In 2003, Yahoo bought Overture Services for $1.6 billion, an amount most nowadays consider cheap given that the acquisition of Overture Services is what is driving most of Yahoo's revenue and profit today.

Now in 2005, Yahoo has formally changed the name of Overture Services to Yahoo! Search Marketing Services.  Of course, by now most have forgotten about Overture and GoTo.com, that's why we wanted to deliver this history lesson.

We miss you GoTo.com!

People who underestimate weblogs

While it's understandable that many people don't really understand the power of weblogs (or "blogs") due to their novelty, it's not acceptable when professional researchers and newspaper columnists just don't see the situation clearly.

Take this USA Today column ("Once blogs change everything, fascination with them will chill") written by Kevin Maney, the article basically says that blogs are over-hyped and that no one will really care about them in the future.  But Mr. Maney, who ironically is a Technology columnist, misses the point completely.

Blogs make publishing internet content easy.  Period.

That is why there are now 50-75 million blogs in the world (or 60 million or more according to The Blog Herald).  In fact, it's conceivable that there could be 250 million blogs by 2010.  In either case, blogs have already caused "Rathergate" and gave a boost to Howard Dean in the last US presidential election.

Another misguided piece of work entitled "Buzz, blogs and beyond" was co-authored by professional market research companies Pew Internet and Buzz Metrics.  The Blog Herald has written two excellent reviews on what has become known as the "Pew" article:  "Guess how big the Pew sample was?" and "It's time to boycott Pew Internet".  Basically, the research only considered 40 blogs.  Let's see, 40 blogs is certainly less than the 50-75 million that exist in the world, certainly not enough to warrant sweeping conclusions about ALL blogs.  As The Blog Herald eloquently and jokingly points out:

How about I visit Hicksville, USA, and poll the views of 40 locals and then put out a statement to say that the finding reflects all Americans.  The results would read: Yes Guns, No Gays, Nuke Iraq, burn the Koran and Women in the Kitchen.  Would it be fair if I did this? No, and neither is the rubbish being peddled by Pew and used by others as a means to attack the blogosphere.

On top of that, Pew is confusing spurious correlation for a cause-and-effect relationship.

I do have some suggestions for the USA Today and Pew Internet:

1. Read lots of blogs, not just 40, but millions.  No, make that tens of millions.  And if you want to understand the analytics behind blogs, we recommend using a quality company like Intelliseek's BlogPulse (which has an excellent blog tracking tool called Trend Search).
2. Explain to your audience why these tens of millions of people are investing their own time in maintaining blogs.
3. Stop thinking like "old school" columnists and researchers.  The paradigm is changing.
4. Or, if you want ratings, continue writing stupid things and we'll be happy to blog about you.

Yahoo's Movie Recommender is Very Cool

The Yahoo Movies Recommender is a great free service where, after telling Yahoo some movies you like, the recommender spits out a list of recommended movies.  The recommendations include movies in theaters, on TV, and new DVD releases.  On top of that, the recommender also provides a list of "Movie Fans Like You". 

What's even cooler is that the rater and recommender are fully integrated into Yahoo Movies.  This means not only that you can browse Yahoo Movies and rate movies at your leisure, but also that it will usually try to predict if whether or not that you'll actually like a movie you haven't seen (see "You'll probably like this movie" on pic to the left).

The recommender isn't always perfect, but at least it does offer up interesting recommendations.

Review of Personalized "MyGoogle"

Google recently introduced a beta version of the Google Personalized Homepage (aka MyGoogle), a free service that puts GMail (Google's web-based email), weather, news updates and a few other facts beneath the standard Google search box (click on pic to enlarge).

Response has been fairly positive to this beta release as reported by SearchEngineWatch.com.  However, I tend to agree with ResearchBuzz's opinion that the release is "thin" and "weak".  It's worth noting, however, that Google makes rearranging a page easier than MyYahoo since the mechanism is a simple drag and drop.

I'd like to see Google move away from the MyYahoo "portal" model.  In fact, Google insists that the Google Personalized Homepage is not meant to be a portal, even though it currently looks like one.  Here are my suggestions for MyGoogle:

• Use to list recent searches or saved searches, integrated with Google's My Search History
• Show the day's hottest search items
• Suggest a website or two that would be fun or informative to visit

Search engine sites recommended by Stanford University

Just wanted to send a quick thanks out to Stanford University's Libraries and Academic Information Resources department for linking to SquirrelNet's Top 20 Search Engines list from their Subject Guides Prepared by the Swain Library.  You may also want to check out some of the other sites the recommend.

What are permalinks?

The rapid growth of the 10 million or so weblogs means a new infrastructure is starting to take place on the internet, one which requires new navigation techniques.  Most weblogs have something called permalinks.

Permalinks, like the name sounds, are permanent links to an article posted on a weblog.  They are needed because weblogs are continually updated, with the new content always being added to the top (forcing other articles down on the list).  Thus, if you ever want to cite or permanently bookmark a specific posting, you should cite the permalink.

Where do you find the permalink?  Permalinks are found at the bottom of a posting.  Just click on the "Permalink" will take you to a permanent listing of the article.  Here's an example (click to enlarge):

Visual Google vs. Yahoo Comparison

Here's a cool site created by langreiter.com that makes a visual comparison of search results between Google and Yahoo.  The site lists Google's results for the search across the top, represented by circles, while putting Yahoo's results on the bottom.  Instances where Google and Yahoo have the same results are indicated by a blue line connecting two solid blue dots.

Here are the Google vs. Yahoo comparison results for squirrelnet.

Click on pic to enlarge.  Thanks to Lee Odden and his Online Marketing Blog for pointing this out.

Dogpile unveils MissingPieces and SearchSpy

Dogpile recently added a new feature and changed the way their web search results are displayed.  First, their Missing Pieces tool shows you that the overlap in the "top 12" results between Google, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves is smaller than what you might think.  Unfortunately, this application is merely a visual tool and won't allow you to click through to the resulting sites. 

Next, they changed how their meta-search results are displayed.  Now, instead of displaying the results between the different search engines sequentially, they will instead shuffle the results so that what you see is a combined list.  However, this is something that Metacrawler has been doing for a long time, so Dogpile is basically admitting that their results page wasn't as user-friendly as Metacrawler.  It's for this reason that Dogpile does not appear in SquirrelNet.com's Top 20 Search Engines list.

Dogpile will now also allow you to compare listings of search engines side-by-side.

Finally, a tool which Dogpile has that is interesting is called SearchSpy.  This tool enables you to see what things people are currently searching for.

Friday the 13th

Today is Friday the 13th.  How strong are superstitions regarding Friday the 13th?  According to this Wikipedia entry:

The Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina estimates that in the United States alone, $800 or $900 million is lost in business each Friday the 13th because some people will not travel or go to work.

Interestingly, the anxiety caused by Friday the 13th means that the day turns out to be unlucky for some.

Psychologists have found that some people are especially likely to have accidents or fall ill on Friday the 13th.

Those who have a fear of Friday the 13th are called "triskaidekaphobes".  How should triskaidekaphobes combat their fear?  According to a National Geographic article ("Friday the 13th Phobia Rooted in Ancient History"):

They need to realize that they have the ability to create much of their own good and bad luck," he said. "And they should concentrate on being lucky by, for example, looking on the bright side of events in their lives, remembering the good things that have happened, and, most of all, be[ing] prepared to take control of their future. - Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield, England

OK, as they say in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, "Don't Panic!"  But what is the historical root of the Friday the 13th fear?  One theory, posted on About.com, says:

Primitive man had only his 10 fingers and two feet to represent units, so he could not count higher than 12, according to this explanation. What lay beyond that — 13 — was an impenetrable mystery, hence an object of superstition.

Yet many other theories abound, according to the Wikipedia:

The origins of the Friday the 13th superstition has been linked to the fact there were 13 people at the last supper of Jesus, who was traditionally crucified on Good Friday, but it probably originated only in medieval times. It has also been linked to the fact that a lunisolar calendar must have 13 months in some years, while the solar Gregorian calendar and lunar Islamic calendar always have 12 months in a year. Another suggestion is that the belief originated in a Norse myth about twelve gods having a feast in Valhalla. The mischievous Loki gatecrashed the party as an uninvited 13th guest and arranged for Hod, the blind god of darkness, to shoot Baldur, the god of joy and gladness, with a mistletoe-tipped arrow. Baldur was killed and the Earth was plunged into darkness and mourning as a result.

Some also say that the arrest of Jaques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, and 60 of his senior knights on Friday, October 13, 1307 by King Philip IV of France is the origin of this superstition. That day thousands of Templars were arrested and subsequently tortured. They then 'confessed' and were executed. From that day on, Friday the 13th was considered by followers of the Templars as an evil and unlucky day.

Why I like to open links in new windows

There are two kinds of people in this world:  those who like to open up links in new windows and those who do not.  If you're like me, you like to open up links in new windows because there are often two or more links from one article I'd like to read and opening them in new windows is the fastest method.  This is often the case if you use RSS or MyYahoo where you scan many news sources simultaneously.

For instance, let's say you're reading an article and want to read more on 10 links provided in the article.  By opening all 10 links in a new window, you are only causing 10 new page views.  In addition, you have 10 windows open and can close those windows at your leisure depending on how valuable they are to you.  If you're writing a school paper, you might want to keep some windows open to extract the info you need, which gives ample time to property capture the reference URL.

Now, if you prefer to view the links in your current window (without opening a new window), this will cause at least 10 new page views plus the loading og 10 other pages either via your browser's cache or, in some cases, via fresh re-loads of your original page.  In either case, this takes longer.  Also, you have to view the pages sequentially, meaning you have to decide one-by-one on the value of a given page, without being able to directly compare to other windows you'd have open.

If you'd like to try open a link in a new window and have a PC, right-click on this link to SquirrelNet's home page then choose "Open in New Window".  (If you have a Mac and run the Safari browser, hold down the Cmd key and click on the link.)

So which kind of person are you?