I'm preparing an article about "Vocal Search", a.k.a. talking search engines. Ironically just today we heard the news about Google's new Voice Local Search service - an experiment from the Google Labs. While Google's service competes with other 411 services in the US, notably Microsoft's Tellme Networks, in my research of alt search engines I've found a lot of interesting voice services out there.
Many of the other talking search engines have very innovative UIs. In fact, as usual I find the alt search engines to be superior to Google - but see for yourself... Please take a few minutes and "talk" to these search engines, then come back and vote for the one you think does the best job in the poll below.
Ms Dewey finding results for Web 3.0 (just for our editor...)
In Jakob Nielsen's latest book, Prioritizing Web Usability, the usability guru presents his latest discoveries on how to design usable web sites. His meticulous research is based on lab experiments, with thousands of users of diverse backgrounds.
Dr. Nielsen and his assistants observed how these users interacted with a wide array of sites, ranging from corporate portals to small business stores. The book contains solid, sound advice that is useful for anyone building an online presence. The conclusion is evident in the title of the book - usability needs to be a priority.
Getting advice from the book is great, but how can you measure the usability of your site? A number of new tools for tracking site visitors are raising the bar for website statistics tools. Particularly, instead of tracking the flat lists of usage and showing you illegible user paths, the next generation of site trackers is focused on giving you the insights on how people use a site. In this post we discuss CrazyEgg, which offers innovative ways of doing just that.
In another excellent example of small Web Office vendors teaming up, Web Office suite provider ThinkFree has just launched a Wordpress Viewer Plugin enabling WordPress bloggers to embed MS Office docs, spreadsheets, and presentations into their websites. This allows readers of those blogs to view office docs inside the browser - i.e. they don't need to have desktop versions of MS Office or Acrobat installed. Perfect for all the Mac and Linux users out there! ;-)
ThinkFree is also shortly going to open up its Viewer APIs, for Web Services companies to mashup Viewer into new web apps. APIs will also be made available to Web designers to integrate Viewer, meaning they can insert .doc, .xls, or .ppt files directly within a service - regardless of OS, installed apps, etc.
This week Optaros released a free survey report entitled 'How Will Enterprises Deliver Next Generation Internet Applications?'. Over 400 senior decision makers responded to the survey, which looked at how enterprises will deliver the next-generation of Internet applications. A little background on Optaros: it describes itself as "an assembler of Next Generation Internet applications (NGI) leveraging open source components". So bear that in mind when reading the report (particularly with the custom development findings, mentioned below).
Key findings of the survey include:
Ozon.ru, which claims to be Russia's largest e-commerce store for books, audio and video, software, multimedia games, electronic and digital goods, received $18 million in funding this week from Index Ventures, Holtzbrinck Ventures (the venture arm of one of Germany's largest publishing companies) and Cisco. The money will help develop Ozon.ru's logistics system, expand its product lines and establish new distribution centers across Russia. The investment round was initiated and managed by Baring Vostok Capital Partners, Russia's leading private equity investor and controlling shareholder of Ozon.
According to The Public Opinion Foundation, Russia has the third largest population of Internet users in Europe - with Internet and broadband penetration rates rising rapidly and retail spend per capita expected to double over the next four years. Ozon.ru today offers more than 260,000 items for sale, divided into 12 product categories from more than 400 suppliers. More than 3,000 orders per day are delivered to its Russian-speaking internet audience worldwide from Ozon.ru's distribution center in Tver (160km North of Moscow).
A new report from the Leading Edge Forum proposes a new course for Enterprise IT - abandon the notion of creating the perfect intranet and instead live on the web.
In May of 2003 Nicholas Carr put forth the argument that IT Doesn't Matter. In case there was any lingering doubt about Mr. Carr's views of Information Technology departments in the workplace, The End of Corporate Computing appeared in the Spring of 2005. While the essays have come and gone, one thing that actually has remained is corporate IT departments. Indeed, walk into any company today and IT's relevance is abundantly clear in myriad forms and options: desktops, laptops, cellphones, mobile devices, WiFi, terrabytes of storage, etc. The question isn't whether IT will go away, but rather, given all these choices and complexity, what will IT become? Doug Neal, a Research Fellow at the Leading Edge Forum, in collaboration with a Consumerization Working Group comprised of Fortune 500 industry veterans, has been studying this issue for several years and was kind enough to share his research with Read/WriteWeb. Their report, entitled Harnessing Web 2.0: Enterprise Strategies for Living on the Web, proposes that IT embrace the development of the internet, trust your employees, educate them on tools and live on the web.
Read/WriteWeb has 3 passes to Web
2.0 Expo to give away, same as Techcrunch. I have to admit Mr Arrington came up with a pretty
cunning means to give away their 3 passes - he's asking for readers to
"attack any post published on TechCrunch". This will not only give him
constructive feedback, but will increase page views too (as people rifle through
the TC archives) ;-)
Well I am not brave enough to ask for people to trash R/WW posts, so I am going to settle for asking you to (ahem) define Web 3.0. C'mon, I know you want to... The 3 most creative and/or witty definitions for Web 3.0 will win a free pass to Web 2.0 Expo, valued at $1,500 each. Put your definition in the comments below - it can be just one line, or more if you like. I'll select the winners Tuesday afternoon PST next week (nb: if you can't make it to the conference, but want to enter anyway, please note that in your comment).
By the end of this week, the Thunderbird 2.0 Release Candidate will be launched. Thunderbird is Mozilla's open source desktop email client, similar to Microsoft Outlook in features. However with the 2.0 release, Thunderbird takes on more Web functionality from the Firefox browser (more on that below). Thunderbird is cross-platform and it works on Mac, Linux, Windows - including support for Vista in 2.0. It was originally released Spring 2003 and now has just under 10 million users.
The 2.0 Release Candidate will be the final 'test' version before the full public launch of Thunderbird 2.0 by end of April. I spoke to Scott MacGregor, Lead Thunderbird Engineer, about the 2.0 version and what new features it has.
The 2.0 version of Thunderbird signals the first major upgrade since v1.5 was released in January 2006. There are a number of new Web features in 2.0, which is why we're covering it here on Read/WriteWeb. The main changes from 1.5 to 2.0 are message tagging (similar to Web tagging, as in del.icio.us or Flickr), new webmail integration with Gmail and Apple .mac, folder views and message alerts.
The New York Times reported this morning that DoubleClick plans to launch an exchange for online advertisements. The system is described as follows:
"DoubleClick, based in New York, views the exchange as the centerpiece of a growth plan and may derive the majority of revenue from the new service within five years, said David Rosenblatt, the company‚Äôs chief executive, said in an interview yesterday. ‚ÄúWe already have the largest sellers and the largest buyers,‚Ä? he said. ‚ÄúThis will link them for the first time.‚Ä?
He described the exchange as a mix of eBay and Sabre, the airline reservations system that travel agents use. The service will let advertisers see information about what competitors bid for particular ads, in the same way that eBay shows visitors past bids. And it will let publishers try to ensure that they sell their ad spots at the highest possible price, the way that airlines try to do with the seats they sell."
DoubleClick was reportedly in serious talks with Microsoft about being acquired and later it was rumored that Google also became interested. According to the New York Times, the announcement of the exchange "may make DoubleClick a more attractive acquisition target, according to advertising industry executives."
Back in February, I came across a Kronus 55 piece Home Repair Tool Kit in a Radio Shack ad - all for just $29.99. This inspired me to assemble the first ever 55 Piece Mobile Search Tool Kit here on Read/WriteWeb; and my Tool Kit was absolutely free!
Well, it happened again. Walking through the local Sears store, there right in front of me was the Companion 85 piece Auto Repair Tool Kit! And the price? Also $29.99! What a country! Well, I knew what I had to do. I threw my new Tool Kit in the car and headed back to my home office.
I then dusted off the 55 Piece Mobile Search Tool Kit and neatly arranged 30 more of the latest Mobile Search-Related sites, which I have been collecting for the past six weeks. If Mobile is going to be "the Next Big Thing", you're going to need all the tools you can get in order to be prepared for every eventuality.
