Ask.com has just announced the next stage in its evolution as a major search engine. It is called Ask3D, a name which had me expecting an amazing new leap in Web UI (3D search!!) and then got me reminiscing about the time I saw that Jaws sequel in 3D... Turns out Ask3D isn't quite as innovative as its name suggests, but still it is an iterative improvement over the previous version, called AskX (more on that below).
So what is Ask3D? It is essentially a synthesis of Ask.com's technologies and it integrates content from various media types (web, news, blog, video, images, etc) onto one page. That is where the similarities to Google's Universal Search come in. Ask.com itself says Ask3D is about synthesizing "across the three dimensions of search: Expression, Results and Content."
I'm pleased to announce the second network blog under the Read/WriteWeb umbrella, AltSearchEngines. This blog will be focused on search engines, in particular the hundreds of 'alternative' search engines that compete with the big guns like Google and Yahoo. AltSearchEngines is edited by Charles Knight, author of the very popular Top 100 Alt Search Engines List (which started in January '07 here on R/WW).
In fact we're launching AltSearchEngines with the latest edition of The Top 100, in which Charles has chosen not one, but two Search Engines of the Month!
SynthaSite came out of stealth mode today and launched an alpha tech preview of their online web publishing platform. The goal of SynthaSite is to bring the offline functionality of a WYSIWYG web site editor like Frontpage or Dreamweaver to the browser in a rich Internet application. Though the tech preview is very rough around the edges, it is impressive and the team has an ambitious list of features that they promise to add before the beta version hits the web this fall.
SynthaSite is the product of a 6 person team from South Africa. It uses AJAX and is backed by three South African investment firms. The technology preview released today is very much a work in progress, but the team has a lengthy product roadmap outlining what they hope to accomplish before the wider beta test later this year.
At the Next Web conference in Amsterdam over the weekend, Tapan Bhat, the Yahoo! vice president of Front Doors, told attendees that search would not dominate the web in the future. "The future of the web is about personalization. Where search was dominant, now the web is about 'me.' It's about weaving the web together in a way that is smart and personalized for the user," he said.
Some see the remarks as evidence of Yahoo! throwing in the towel and admitting that Google has won the search wars. Asked to clarify his statement to the Times Online, Bhat said, "We're not admitting defeat. Search still matters, but we need to be providing a wrapper around search to turn the info search offers up into something more useful." So, what does that mean?
I've had a thing for WebOS products for quite some time. I first reviewed one of their number, EyeOS, in August 2006. Recent WebOS reviews I've done on Read/WriteWeb include DesktopOnDemand and Blake Ross of Firefox fame's Parakey. Also Emre Sokullu wrote a popular article on the still mythical GoogleOS, last November.
eyeOS hails from Spain and was one of the early entries into a market that, as yet, has little evidence of profitability. However eyeOS now boasts 120,518 users (compared to 53,500 in August 2006), so it is ramping up well.
The use cases for Twitter, the IM/blogging hybrid that has taken the blogger world by storm, continues to grow. Tonight I spotted Amazon.com using Twitter to announce Gold Box deals. I found out about this via (what else) Twitter, when bloggersblog pinged it - noting that Amazon has "a long way to go to catch @woot". And sure enough, woot is (at the moment I write this post) announcing a deal on a "Dyson DC14 Full Kit Upright Vacuum", for just $259.99. On closer inspection, it turns out to be "the (now) official Woot twitter bot" for an online e-commerce site called woot.
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(Yes, that was a bit of a rant from the Editor!)
Needless to say, Read/WriteWeb is continuing to grow - and keep an eye out for some more news on that front, first thing Monday morning PST...Here now are links to our sponsors. And ok, what follows is PR - but then the headline of this post clearly identifies that and it's not masquerading as news :-)
There is an old truism - we can not stop progress. The truism has been used to justify investments in technologies that could potentially not only harm people but wipe out the entire planet. While we cannot stop the progress, we still should think carefully about the consequences of the technologies that we invent. Particularly because since September 11, 2001, we are all wondering when will the next terrorist attack occur.
Today we learned of yet another plot. This time, the target was the JFK international airport in New York. Luckily this attack was prevented and three out of the four terrorists are already in custody. But during the report, CNN revealed a curious fact - terrorists have used Google Earth to get access to aerial views of airport facilities. Obviously it would be ridiculous to argue that tools like Google Earth should not be built because terrorists might use them. Yet, after hearing this on CNN one cannot help but wonder: what other seemingly innocent software technologies are we building that can be used to harm us?
The Next Web Conference happened today in Amsterdam. It was a one day event hosted by Scott Rafer of MyBlogLog fame and was a mix of presentations from startups and keynotes from various people in the industry. Marc Canter from Broadband Mechanics and Jeff Clavier a VC from the valley assumed the role of "Grumpy Old Men" to the left of the stage, to shoot down any of the speakers that might start talking nonsense.
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Here is a summary of the week's Web Tech action on Read/WriteWeb. Note that you can subscribe to the weekly wrapups, either via the special RSS feed or by email (see the sidebar on our website).
It was a big news week for Google, which continues to set the pace in the Web world. Probably the biggest news came right at the end of the week, when Google officially announced it has acquired Feedburner. This is a marriage of Google's analytical ability and advertising engine with Feedburner's data and ability to reach a staggering number of RSS readers - and it seems like a match made in heaven.
