Rob Dolin's space: Search

Does the Associated Press (AP) not understand Page Rank?

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:13:15 GMT

BetaNews reported that the Associated Press is going to start attempting to charge bloggers for excerpting their articles. IMHO, this move exposes either massive ignorance about both Search engines (particularly page rank algorithms) or a business model inconsistent with their website (www.ap.org.)

Page Rank and similar algorithms are used by search engines to determine relevance of a particular web page by looking at the inbound hyperlinks to that page. Thus, if a web page representing a news story gets a bunch of inbound links (like from bloggers) then the story will rank higher in search engines like Google as well as in news and blog search engines like Technorati.

If the AP wants their content to be the content that is as the top of the list when a major story breaks, the should let bloggers excerpt quotes (and link to it.)

Alternatively, maybe the AP sees itself as a news sharing network for traditional media outlets. If so, that's totally cool; but then they should not be posting content on their websites as it under-cuts their news agency customers.

If the AP is a news source catering to newspapers, TV networks, and other mainstream media, then they should not post their content on their own site so that the primary content source (and link destination) is the websites of their customers.

I hope someone at the Associated Press wakes-up and smells the web 2.0 before they alienate either their likely most avid readers (bloggers) or their customers in the media industry.

Live Search MetaKeywords and TestMash.com

Fri, 09 May 2008 23:26:10 GMT

Back in October 2006, I wrote a blog entry about how the MetaKeywords functionality from Live Search can be used to filter a people search query on Windows Live. IMHO, support for these MetaKeywords is one of the coolest features of Live Search and I'm not aware of anything like it from Google, Yahoo!, Baidu, etc.

I've been playing around with this idea on a small (personal) test site: http://www.testmash.com/ to build search results pages that pull together content from Windows Live. For example:

So as you probably noticed, the site is a pretty rough prototype, but if you think the idea is cool (or is lame), please leave a comment. Thanks--
--Rob

SEO Tip: Add you (real) Friends on WL Spaces for more search coverage

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 01:34:17 GMT

I was looking at data of what impacts indexing of Spaces page by Live Search (since they have a nice API) and it looks like the strongest correlation (among a statistically insignificant limited sample) :) is number of friends:

As you can see, while there is a general correlation between Blogs, Photo Albums, and Friends, the number of friends is the strongest indicator of a larger number of search results.

If you're a Messenger or Hotmail user, you can go through your Messenger or Hotmail contacts and invite them to be your Friend on Live Spaces. You can also:
1. Go to http://spaces.live.com
2. Sign-in
3. Click the "Invite a Friend" link (top right)

Happy Winter Solstice :) --
--Rob

A few random ideas on TestMash.com

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 21:11:02 GMT

As some readers know, I play around with MashUp ideas on http://www.testmash.com. I recently posted a few new "ruminations" and I'd appreciate feedback:

Resizing Search Results

The concept I've tried to illustrate here is showing more (or less) information and a larger (or smaller) thumbnail picture with the search results depending on a user selection. Click the x t S M XL or T in the top right to change your view. This is of course built on top of data from Live Search.

If you're looking to build your own, the Live Search Interactive SDK is a great resource and if you're looking to search across Spaces data, check out the blog entry on "Secrets of Searching Spaces" ;)

Mashing Entertainment Info and User-Generated Content

Another idea that I've been ruminating on is mashing-up entertainment-related data (like a top music videos list) with user-generated content (UGC) results like fans, music lists, and blogs. In this case, I used lists of "top" music videos, celebrities, and movies from MSN Entertainment's RSS feeds.

When you click on one of the items, you'll get results of fans (from Windows Live profiles), blog entries (from Windows Live Spaces), and (in one case) music lists. Please check it out and let me know what you think.

Caveat

These are just ideas that I've been batting around. These are NOT necessarily related to my day job, my volunteer activities, etc.; but I'd appreciate your feedback (or pointers to other cool mash-ups you've been doing.) Please leave a comment or trackback. Thanks--
--Rob

Technorati Tags: Mash-up, API, RSS, Search, Blogs, Social Networking, Windows Live, MSN, Live Search

TestMash.com gets discovered

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 05:27:03 GMT

For the last few months, I've been attending Search MashUp days. These are approximately monthly get togethers where a bunch of folks gather and build Mash-ups. Jon Pincus is a driving force behind organizing these events but they only could happen with the help of a ton of volunteers.

Since I'm using public API's, I figured I might as well grab a domain (www.testmash.com) and some web space and maybe even work on some of these in my spare time since I'm really excited by possibilities around mashing-up search and social network data.

About 6pm tonight my co-worker Mike showed me that screenshots from TestMash.com had been posted on the web:

* http://microsoft.blognewschannel.com/archives/2007/02/07/windows-live-running-test-site-for-spaces-search/
* http://www.mstechtoday.com/2007/02/07/enhanced-search-for-windows-live-spaces/

Even though they're just some prototype code that I hacked together in my spare time, it's nice to hear feedback like "the advanced search page is more advanced than any I’ve seen."

If you're looking to build similar mashups, I highly recommend a blog entry I wrote on Searching Spaces data: http://spacesplatform.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!AEA03ADE93DDFB95!156.entry and the Live Search SDK: http://blogs.msdn.com/livesearch/archive/2007/02/06/live-search-soap-api-updated.aspx.

I'd love to hear feedback on the ideas that are on http://www.testmash.com and see any cool Spaces mash-ups that you create. Please leave a comment. Cheers--

--Rob

P.S. I don't know if any of these ideas will ever get coded and shipped by the Spaces or Live Search teams, but if there's something you think is cool (or something you think would be cool with a few tweaks), I'm all ears and I think a few other people are too ;-)

Local 3D is awesome!

Sat, 11 Nov 2006 17:38:29 GMT

I remember the day Google Earth launched and spending an hour scrolling across Interstate 90 from Spokane to Seattle to see the satelite imagery. For a while, I had felt that Windows Live Local was a me-too product with Microsoft playing catch-up.

A few weeks ago, my friend Greg showed me the technology that was released this past week as the 3D map views in Live Search. This is really cool. I was amazed at the detail of downtown Seattle and downtown Chicago. They got the nine columns of the Sears Tower right and seeing Wrigley Field was awesome! I also was impressed that I could get all the way down the block level and even see the roof of the house that I grew-up in. I understand why Dare's favorite team is Live Local. Although I hear Windows Live Spaces is his second favorite :)

Political bloggers trying to game search engines

Sun, 29 Oct 2006 18:50:47 GMT

Chris Bowers over at the liberal MyDD metablog had a post this past week encouraging his readers to "Google Bomb the Elections." Effectively, they're trying to increase the rank in search results of negative articles about Republican candidates. Chris is encouraging his readers to include content in their blogs that has Republican candidate names hyperlinked to negative news stories. According to Chris, this was done by conservative bloggers to John Kerry during the 2004 elections.

Ms. Dewey - interesting but slow

Sat, 21 Oct 2006 22:10:20 GMT

A bunch of folks have been blogging about "Ms. Dewey" and I think the idea of having a Flash avatar provide search resuls it interesting, but I'm not sure if it is the wireless connection in my hotel room in Champaign, IL or something else, but Ms. Dewey was unbelieveably slow this afternoon. If you're experiencing a similarly slow experience but want to see what the search results look like, check out the screenshot from Back in Skinny Jeans.

While some geek bloggers may be underwhelmed by Ms. Dewey, I think it's more interesting that this is getting play outside of the "technosphere."

Nobel Prize for Long Tail banking: Grameen Bank Founder Muhammad Yunus

Fri, 13 Oct 2006 13:52:46 GMT

Back in college economics, I remember reading about a guy who started making very small loans (or micro loans) to people afflicted with poverty without demanding collateral. He did this not as a charitable effort but as a business (with a conscience.) Giving people enough money to break-out of a poverty cycle would be both repaid and if done at scale could be a successful business; not to mention hepled people to overcome poverty.

This week, that founder of the Grammean Bank was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. You can read more on MSNBC: Yunus wins Nobel Peace Prize - Europe - MSNBC.com

I decided to blog about this in the "Search" category as I see this as another "Long Tail" scenario where instead of a small number of "head" loans for large sums of money, there is a successful business in a large number of "tail" loans for (very) small sums of money.

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Congratulations YouTube; I think

Mon, 09 Oct 2006 22:38:51 GMT

I just read news that YouTube was bought by Google for $1.65 biiiiilion dollars (say it like you're Dr. Evil )

IMHO, this says a number of interesting things about YouTube and Google:

YouTube did not think it had a viable-enough business model alone (or at least not one worth $1.65B)
YouTube's investors are getting PAID
Google believes it has solved (or will solve) cheap storage (for video) and cheap bandwidth
Google did not have either a strong offering or a strong uptake in its Google Video service

With YouTube now owned by Google, it's interesting to look at the landscape of amateur video hosting. Most of the video I see linked on smaller sites is either YouTube or Google Video. I guess now that they are merging, we may see folks looking for an alternative to Google from Yahoo (video.yahoo.com), Microsoft (MSN Soapbox) or a dot-com.

Search within a Space

Tue, 29 Aug 2006 05:58:59 GMT

A recent comment on Nikhil's Space reminded me to post this Search trick: If you want to search within a Space, you just need to add "site:URL" (like "site:robdolin.spaces.live.com") to your search query. For example, if you use this URL: http://spaces.live.com/default.aspx?page=searchresults&qn=site%3Arobdolin.spaces.live.com+basketball and replace "robdolin" with your own Space alias and replace "basketball" with your search query, you'll be searching within your Space.

Searching Windows Live Spaces

Wed, 02 Aug 2006 16:05:43 GMT

Hey all, I've seen a few questions about Search so I wanted to post this quick overview. This is a companion to the screenshots I've posted.

There are six types of search results you can view and I'll describe how to get to each below:

Triple search (up to 5 Spaces, up to 5 People, up to 5 Blogs)
1. From any page in spaces.live.com, enter a text query in the Search box at the top of the page (see screenshot)
2. Click the button
Spaces Search (up to 15 Spaces + paging)
1. Do a Triple search
2. Click the "Spaces" section header
People Search (up to 15 People + paging)
1. Do a Triple search
2. Click the "People" section header
Blog Entry Search (up to 15 Blog Entries + paging)
1. Do a Triple search
2. Click the "Blogs" section header
Interests Search (up to 15 people who have indicated that interest in their public profile)
1. Go to the home page (http://spaces.live.com)
2. On the left side, click "Interests"
3. Enter your query in the box and click the button OR click one of the interests listed (see screenshot)
Advanced People Search (up to 15 people matching the criteria you select)
1. Go to the home page (http://spaces.live.com)
2. On the right side, click "More search options"
3. Set your criteria (see screenshot)
4. Click the "Search button"

For more of what's in Windows Live Spaces, check out the team blog, The Space Craft and my blog entry "Welcome to Windows Live Spaces"

Social Networking taking Search Ad $$?

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 18:32:24 GMT

From BigMouthMedia:

The social-networking phenomenon that's sweeping the Web is getting the Search Engines and investors excited

Social-networking is impacting search related advertising as millions flock to sites such as MySpace.com and Facebook.com. They have huge appeal, particularly - but not exclusively - amongst younger web users, and are now up there with the Big Five in terms of search ... volumes. This has Wall Street taking note as it impacts the $14 billion online advertising business....

While I'm personally glad that Wall Street is realizing that Social Networking is not a fad, I'm hopeful that investors will also realize that this is not just about selling advertising but about helping users find trusted information and contacts from their personal networks via Social Search and other experiences.

How to get an RSS feed from a Spaces search

Sun, 11 Jun 2006 18:50:05 GMT

If you're interested in getting an RSS feed from a Search in Spaces, you can do so by clicking the "RSS" button at the bottom of a Spaces search results page.

Search Within a Space

Sat, 20 May 2006 16:30:22 GMT

Sometimes when I'm reading someone's MSN Space or any site, I want to search for more on a specific topic, tag, or phrase, but I don't just want to do a CTRL-F (or Edit | Find...) on a single page, I want to do it on the entire site. Well, the fine folks at MSN Search and Google both enable this; and they do it the same way!!!

You simply ad "site:<URL>" to what you type into the search box. For example, you can search for "Social Networking" on my site like this: "Social Networking site:spaces.msn.com/robdolin" And this works on both MSN Search and Google. Enjoy.

Search for Spaces

Sat, 20 May 2006 15:44:40 GMT

The last few weeks, I've picked-up another area at work: Search for MSN Spaces. I'm loving the opportunity to learn a ton about how Search works and to work with some great people like Nikhil, Tony, and folks at MS who know a ton about Search. You can expect to see me blogging about Search for Spaces including a previous post and I might even get to post some tips and tricks on our team blog, the Space Craft.