What do you do when you need to research something on the web? You just google it, right? Using a web search engine like Google is usually fine for casual searches, but when you need to delve deep into a subject, it just won't do. What you really need is a research engine that explores the unindexed reaches of the Deep Web. For that, there's now Infovell, "the world's research engine."
Zemanta, the blogging tool which harnesses semantic technology to add relevant content to your posts, has just released a major upgrade to their service. This new release allows you specify the sources you want to see in the suggestions list that Zemanta provides. You can now incorporate your own social networks, RSS feeds, and photos from your Flickr account into your blog posts. This makes Zemanta a lot more appealing to established bloggers who are in less need of suggestions and more in need of automation.
The photo sharing market is growing at a steady clip and new services are released regularly. In this round-up, we compare the features and usability of 10 of our favorite photo sharing sites. Two years ago, we published a similar list. So now seems a good time for us to revisit the topic.
Some of these sites focus more on mainstream users and photo-finishing, while others stand out because of their extensive social features. Note: we've included a full table of features for the services listed (see below).
A new report from Universal McCann discusses the rise of "a new breed of super influencers" that has been created by "the tools of the social media revolution." Before we all don our superhero capes, let's look more closely at the findings of the report.
Entitled When did we start trusting strangers? How the internet turned us all into influencers, the premise is that influence was moved beyond "professional and top down" (mainstream media) and into Web-enabled peer to peer influence. But despite McCann calling this a "democratisation of influence", all influencers are not equal. There are "super influencers" who are "extremely heavy users of social media, particularly in terms of content creation." Are you one of these people? Let's check out what the characteristics are...
A new report from Handango - a distribution network for smartphone applications across the BlackBerry, Palm, Windows Mobile, Symbian OS, and Linux platforms - states that gaming apps have jumped in popularity this year. In a report entitled First Half 2008 Handango Yardstick, Handango's regular review of the global smartphone content industry, it notes that "the Games category leaped from fourth place at year-end 2007 into the second spot behind the Entertainment category, for the first time in Yardstick history."
Together, entertainment and gaming apps account for 42% of unit sales of the top ten categories. Meanwhile, business and professional apps rank third with 15% and Productivity applications (e.g. address book and calendar) fourth with 9%. Note that these are similar trends to the iPhone App Store, where gaming also dominates. Handango also reported that the Blackberry had the most app sales. Below are the top 10 lists for each major smart phone that Handango covers, courtesy of the Yardstick report:
According to numerous reports, Microsoft has decided to cancel its controversial series of ads featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates after releasing only two ads. When the first ad was released, the reviews were mostly negative, though some commentators, including our own Sarah Perez, thought it was a good effort on behalf of Microsoft to enhance its brand. However, it seems Microsoft didn't think so itself and is now trying to salvage what is left of this campaign.
To us, it was never quite clear what this campaign was supposed to achieve. The first ad, in which Seinfeld and Gates go shoe shopping, was at least slightly funny. The second ad, which had both live with a 'normal' family to get back in touch with reality, was just awkward. Indeed, the whole campaign felt out of touch with reality and completely failed to enhance Microsoft's branding.
There was a time when managing finances from your computer meant you had to use desktop software. Today, that's no longer the case. There are now a number of applications that let you do your banking in the cloud, a trend we've dubbed "banking 2.0."
These sites aren't just simplified versions of our former desktop apps, either. Instead, they offer a number of features that take advantage of their "always on" status. Forget downloading updates and typing in your transactions line-by-line, these new banking 2.0 sites can offer you better insight into your financial situation with no additional effort on your part beyond just logging in.
Back in May, Google demonstrated their Street View technology on their upcoming mobile OS, Android. The app looked great, and naturally everyone assumed that Street View was going to be a big selling point for the Android phones. However, Google has just announced a new version of Google Maps for Mobile which brings Street View to mobile phones everywhere with only one glaring exception: the iPhone. With Android only days away, was Google afraid of stealing Android's thunder?
Microsoft only acquired the semantic search engine Powerset a little more than a month ago, but today, the Powerset team announced the first integration of its search technology into Microsoft's Live Search. Specifically, Live Search will now show better instant answers for queries like "San Francisco weather" and return better results based on Freebase and Wikipedia articles. Currently, these Powerset enhanced results will only appear for a random set of users, but over time, we assume that most of these features will be rolled out for everybody.
Earlier this year, we reported about a contentious debate among Wikipedia authors about whether writers should be paid if their articles were used in printed versions of the online encyclopedia. Today, that question has been answered.
German publisher Bertelsmann just released a printed, 992 page version of the German Wikipedia. It will sell for 19.95 Euros, of which 1 Euro will go to the Wikimedia Foundation.
