SOMEWHAT FRANK

Rojo Quietly Targeting Community Search?

Rojo, a San Francisco-based online feed reader company which I previously reviewed favorably on TechCrunch, has quietly launched a blog search engine feature based off the large abundance of feeds the online feed reader is currently tracking. The search engine feature also takes into account Rojo's feed reader rating system call "Mojo." Rojo has also recently expanded its "Mojo" feature to be used on any web page on the web via a bookmarklet. The Rojo blog explains it by saying:

"Think of it as feed reading meets smart bookmarking: tag pages, share them with friends - and find them again easily."

This expands Rojo's reach to not only the blogosphere but also to the web and positions Rojo into not only a feed reader but also a community or social search which could rival that of Eurekster's Swicki product among others.

I noticed the search text box appeared in the top right corner of the Rojo feed reader a few weeks ago but for some reason did not realize it was a new feature since I believe it replaced another text box which allowed you to add a new feed. I was made clear it was a new feature when I received an email newsletter from Rojo which point out how to add Rojo blog search to your Google Toolbar search toolbar.

According to a recent article by Mike Arrington on TechCrunch highlighting the launch of the Rojo blog search engine:

"This is just a first pass at search. Chris (from Rojo) tells me they will be relaunching with a new interface in a couple of weeks."

However, Rojo looks to be positioning itself for more than just blog search. Rojo appears to be targeting community search and we can expect Rojo to rollout even more search initiatives soon.

Yahoo CEO Joins The $1 Salary Club

Yahoo CEO Terry Semel's salary just got cut by $559,999. Yes, you read that last sentence correctly. Yahoo's board decided to cut the CEO's salary and instead compensate the officer by offering addtional stock options and grants. This move is not entirely unheard of since Google's co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and CEO Eric Schmidt all are in the same boat. Though, the sizable salary cut has shock factor but it might be a blessing from an income tax standpoint.

Is the $1 salary a new status symbol among top executives?

Hello Moto To Chicago Motorola Store

Taking a page out of the book of Steve Jobs, Motorola will open a retail store in its hometown of Chicago along the magnificent mile of Michigan Avenue. The new store called Apple Store Destination Q and is supposed to open soon (June 8, 2006) in the former home of the Terra Museum. The objective of creation of the store is to become:

"...a real-life manifestation of the Motorola brand."

Which is very similar to that of Apple or Nike or any of the other marquee stores on the Mag Mile
According to a recent Motorola press release, inside the store:

"Motorola experts will guide guests with hands-on demonstrations of Moto music, video, email on-the-go, IM and Internet all via the Motorola Q ... guests will immerse themselves in all that is Motorola and its latest “whoa” product."

We all know that Apple has a near cult following and has been successful with the Apple Store. I do not consider Motorola to have that same type of fan base. So I wonder it will be able to generate a similar following with the creation of its own store.

Blog Search Added To Ask and Bloglines

Ask.com and Bloglines, which are both owned by Oakland-based IAC/InterActiveCorp, have added blog search functionality. I think the blog search results on Ask.com look better than that of Bloglines however, it turns out both Ask and Bloglines each has its own implementation of the same search functionality.

The Ask.com blog search is loaded with a number of features which include saving a search result, posting a search result to Bloglines, digg, del.icio.us or Newsvines and subscribing to the feed related to the search result. My favorite feature is the binoculars feature (similar to the binoculars on web search) which allows you to hover over the icon to see the details of a post without actually having to visit the blog itself.

The Bloglines blog search offers the same search results as Ask.com but since the search is being performed in an online feed reader a result can be expanded to see the full content of the item. 

Mike Arrington recently posted about the new search on TechCrunch and mentioned how it has been a longtime coming. In addition, Mike points to an issue with the way that many of the current blog search engines operate. For example, Technorati measure the authority of a blog based on the number of inbound links. This means that anyone with lots of inbound links can go into Technorati and post about something they are not familiar with (i.e. basket weaving) and become the instant authority.

The new Ask.com blog search engines does not appear to remedy this problem since it bases its rankings on the number of feed subscribers a blog feed has. Sphere, another blog search engine, which launched last month takes a different approach by creating digital fingerprint of every since piece blog content and then uses an algorithm similar to a Google page rank to determine relevancy. Therefore, I believe Sphere offers the most relevant blog search results.