If you're in the practice of researching sites - trying to get a better idea of Web traffic or metrics - you've likely developed a workflow for gathering your information. Start with whois, jump to Compete, head over to Alexa, check Quantcast, search on Google, search on Twitter, and so on and so on. Even with a saved set of tabs or a handy bookmarklet, you're jumping all over the place.
Now, you can get at all of that information with one simple search at Dataopedia, a metasearch engine for Web site data.
Editor's Note: This list was contributed by Charles Knight, editor of AltSearchEngines, a former RWW network blog.
In terms of user experience, the gap between the major search engines and their alternatives continues to widen -- a lot. Google has been compared to a luxury liner that turns around very, very slowly, whereas the startups are speedboats that can turn (or innovate) on a dime. I guarantee that if you try any of these top 10 alternative search engines of 2008, you won't come away saying, "Hey, that was just like Google."
The Sunlight Foundation's mashup site Capitol Words relaunched this week and now offers a very handy way to see what keywords are being used in the US Congress in general and by particular congress members. If you pay only passing attention to politics, Capitol Words is a great way to familiarize yourself with politicians in a hurry. It's a mashup of several different ways to search the Congressional Record and it's fun to use.
Tunerec is an interesting new music service that automatically records songs from about 300 Internet radio stations for you, tags them, and makes them available for streaming through an iTunes-like web interface. Tunerec, which is based in Sweden, also features some social networking functions, including the ability to follow other users and share playlists with your friends. As the music has to be 'recorded' first, it takes a while for your playlist to be populated and the early selections can be rather quirky, but a bit of patience will ultimately be rewarded.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal this morning, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has finally realized the folly of its anti-piracy strategy and decided to abandon its mass lawsuits against those who share files over P2P networks. This strategy will now be replaces by a three-strikes rule, where ISPs will be notified of infringements by the RIAA. A number of ISPs have agreed to "reduce the service" of these file sharers if they continue to distribute files after receiving a first warning. After a third or fourth warning, the Internet service might be cut off completely. It is not clear which specific ISPs have entered into this arrangement with the RIAA.
With the apparent death of newsprint now upon us, journalists and others in the business are struggling to come up with a new model to save their industry. One new attempt to do so is the recently launched site News Mixer developed by a group of Medill School of Journalism students in conjunction with the Cedar Rapids Gazette. The site, integrated with Facebook Connect, lets users read and respond to stories as well as share them with their online friends.
TimeBridge is a San Francisco-based startup focused on making it easy to schedule meetings and appointments. In a relatively crowded market, the product has managed to show impressive growth over recent months, this week surpassing the 200,000 user mark, with over 12,000 businesses using the service.
Google's mobile phone OS "Android," will soon be updated with several new features as a part of a major roadmap update. One of those features will include support for a video recording mode that will also let users share the content. The update, code-named "Cupcake," has many speculating what that video sharing feature will actually look like. Some have suggested the possibility of being able to upload videos from the phone directly to YouTube. Now that's something we would like to see!
Socialmedian, a social news site designed to allow users to group around news networks, has been acquired by the German social network XING, a major international player with more than 6 million business users.
Clearly, this is a big win for Socialmedian, which only recently came out of private beta.
In the workaday world, it happens all the time. You get caught in a string of emails among colleagues, the thread grows and grows as everyone adds their two cents, and when the dust settles, you realize that you've managed to create a ton of good content. Unfortunately, you're now tasked with cutting and pasting all of that good content into a more formal document. If only you could press a button and turn that email into something more useful.
Now, you can. Thanks to Google Labs.
