SOMEWHAT FRANK

Somewhat Frankly Outages Happen

Both Flickr and MySpace have had down time in the past. Most recently YouTube had its first outage as well. So what better time than now for Somewhat Frank to join the crew and also go down. Due to the large amount of traffic that Somewhat Frank handles on an everyday basis the flux capacitor (shown to the right) got overheated and Somewhat Frank was offline four hours today (August 17, 2006). Sorry for the inconvenience.

Social Search Web 2.0 Sites Categorized

With the evolution of social media, social search has been taking a shape of its own. There are a number of social search products that have emerged and become very powerful in a very short period of time. Search Engine Watch recently published a two part series written by Chris Sherman which first describes social search and its history and then introduces all the various types of social search products currently available. The second article breaks the social search products into six categories:

Shared bookmarks & web pages
        Del.icio.us, Shadows, Yahoo's MyWeb, Furl and Diigo

Collaborative directories
        Prefound, Zimbio and Wikipedia

Taggregators
        Technorati, Rojo and Bloglines

Personalized verticals
        Eurekster, Rollyo and Yahoo! Search Builder

Social Q & A sites
        Yahoo Answers, Google Answers, Answerbag, Wondir, Yedda
        and Live QnA

Collaborative harvesters
        Digg, Netscape, Reddit and Tailrank

I would highly recommend checking this article out for more detailed analysis of each of the six categories. 

Sam Sebastian Speaks About Google Local

Sam Sebastian, director of Classifieds & Local at Google, spoke at a lunch engagement today (August 15, 2006) at his former employer Classified Ventures in Chicago, Illinois. Sam heads a sales team that focuses on developing working relationships with real estate companies and other local advertisers to advocate the use of Google Adwords and other products.

Sam talked about the growth of Google which included his arrival in April. Sam left Classified Ventures in April 2006 after leading Homescape for seven years. Sam expressed his feeling on his new role and Google Local by saying:

"Google Local is the least sexy of the verticals which is perfect for me."

He went on to say that Google currently has 8,000 employees and is hiring 12 new employees a day. So obviously, the company is growing quickly to handle all the different directions that Google is going.

Sam is not a product engineer and is slightly removed from the Googleplex brain-trust (Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt and Marissa Mayer), so he did not too many "nitty gritty" product details to report. Though, he did express the importance that Google puts on staying on top in search. He explained the 70/20/10 rule that engineers are to follow at Google. The rule has engineers working on search 70% of their time, working on other Google products 20% and working on whatever projects they want 10% of the time (not necessarily Google related). Sam highlighted Google's focus and attention on video and mobile space. He also pointed to the release of a new Google Local product, Google Local Coupons, which was reportedly launched today.

During the Q & A session the audience most notably asked about the Google Base strategy which includes an integrated search widget which could pose as a potential threat to the online classified business. Sam explained how Google is not looking to get into the business of selling the job, car and real estate listings but instead wants to aggregate the listings into its search results. Google would then be able to return more granular listings that send traffic back to the original listing web site. Google is trying to push the adoption of Google Base to build up its result sets in local markets by both educating local businesses and making it free to anyone with a listings feed. Both initiatives could be a threat to the online classified business since most business models in the space are built around the premise that someone pays to place a listing online. However, Sam specifically explained Google is not looking to attack the online classified business but instead help them generate more search traffic via Google search so it will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

I-GO Big City Car Sharing Option

With gas prices at a high and parking in small supply in larger cities it makes sense to not own your own car. Though there are several alternatives to driving (i.e. public transportation, biking, walking, etc.) sometimes you just need to to drive a car.

I-GO Car Sharing, a not-for-profit car sharing services based in Chicago, gives people yet another transportation option in the city without the hassle of owning a car. I-GO allows you to pay a one time enrollment fee ($75) and schedule to borrow a vehicle by the hour 24/7. You don't have to pay for gas or insurance and instead pay an hourly rate (starting at $6 per hour) plus mileage ($0.50 per mile) for usage of the car. Check out all the specific pricing details here.

I-GO uses technology to enable its users to have access to vehicles in any location at any time. Each member receives a Smartcard and each car is equipped with a Smartcard reader.  Upon retrieving a car you simply:

• Place your new I-GO Smartcard over the card reader on the front windshield to unlock the doors.
• The car key is in the glovebox and is now attached to a green key fob which is stored in a specific slot.

I-GO was developed by the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) and offers a number of car sharing locations throughout the city of Chicago and also has expanded to other cities such as New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, Washington D.C. and Portland. For more information on the Chicago program check the I-GO Chicago web site or go to the Chicago I-GO blog.

AOL Acquires Userplane

AOL continued its torrid announcement frenzy today by releasing details of its acquisition of Userplane for an undisclosed amount. Userplane, a Los Angeles-based company, offers a suite of online communication tools which include chat, audio and video messaging to help power online communities. The full list of Userplane products includes:

Webchat - full-featured, text/voice/video multi-user chatting
Webmessenger - live text/voice/video instant messaging
Webrecorder - record and share voice/video messages
Sitesearch - advanced, natural-results user searching
Presence - web and desktop-based live user presence

AOL plans to use the product to implement into the AIM Network. It sounds like it could provide Skype-like features to any application or site which could provide some powerful features for an online community.

Jeff Clavier, founder of SoftTech VC (an angel investment and consulting firm), worked closely with Userplane for the past couple of years and reflected:

"Ever since I met Mike Jones at BlogOn 2004, Userplane’s founders had earned my respect for having built a sustainable business purely on cashflows, without ever taking outside investment capital."

Jeff went on to say that he thought it was a "smart move" by both AOL and Userplane. TechCrunch seems to agree. I also think it is a great move for AOL as it continues to position itself to attract the masses with exciting new open and free services.

Don't Say You "Googled" It!

A recent report by Independent Online Edition which was recently highlighted by Steve Rubel has Google sending legal notices to the media telling them to not use Google as a verb (i.e. to google). Wait a minute, isn't any press good press? And the fact that Google is being used as a verb only goes to show that the word google has replaced the action that you perform on Google which is search. I find this interesting since I do not know how many times I have seen the Pontiac commercials that specifically tell people to "Google Pontiac." This should be the ultimate complement and I cannot believe Google sees it differently.

I guess Google is concerned that the use of Google as a verb could delute its brand recognition. For example, if searching for something was consistantly considered "googling for it" then maybe you "google" for something on another search engine other than Google itself with your search experence related to Google when in fact they were not even involved. I know this whole situation sounds far fetched, maybe we should just google the word "xerox" to better understand what Google is concerned about.

13 Resources Focused on Ruby on Rails

Are you interested in finding out more about Ruby on Rails? If so, I would recommend checking out this recent list of the top 13 Ruby on Rails presentations pulled together by TechKnow Zenze. For a more comprehensive and live web resource I would also check out this post on Somewhat Frank which points out Rail-a-Rama!

AOL Search Data Put To Good Use

The release of AOL search data last week was an admitted mistake by AOL which prompted them to apologize and express anger for its release. With the NY Times identifying the first person, AOL searcher 4417749, based on her search query data AOL representatives once again apologized. I like the way AOL handled the situation. With the damage done, the event can be leveraged into a wonderful lesson as it brought to light the fact that search companies have personal and identifable data that could be released to the public at any time.

So the question is, what should search companies do with search data? Should they hold on to it? Or should it be deleted after a few months? It is a debate that I am sure will take some time to determine the correct course of action. In the meantime, web users should realize that when using the web a footprint is being left that can be traced back to your foot - or in this case your search history.

Focusing on the positive, Lee Odden pointed me to an interesting tool called the AOL Keyword Analyzer. It offers keyword search information and domain name popularity derived from the AOL search data that was released. I think this is the type of useful resource AOL had in mind when they released the search data in the first place so I am happy to see someone followed through and created it.

Kiboze: Group Text Messaging Made Easy

Have you ever had to meet a group of people at a restaurant or bar only to find out upon arriving that the place is packed and you and your group needs to plan on heading elsewhere? As a result you may have to make several individual phone calls or send a number of text messages to coordinate the change of plans. Wouldn't it be nice if you could send the group a text message at once?

Kiboze, a company recently founded by Jay Cody and backed by a group investors with loads of old media experience, may be the anwser to the text messaging dilemna I just described as it enables users to send text messages to a group with ease. When you send a message to Kiboze and it then sends a message to all your friends. If they are logged in to Kiboze, they will receive the message on their cell phones. If they are on IM, they will receive the message on IM. Kiboze has created nine basic message types which act as commands for Kiboze to perform a messaging action. The message types to send from your mobile phone are as follows:

Arrived - Text your friends to let them know your location by sending message to arrived [at] kiboze.com.
Block - Block another user from your Kiboze network by sending an IM name or phone number to block [at] kiboze.com.
Connect - Join someone else's network on Kiboze by sending the number of the person's network you want to join to connect [at] kiboze.com.
Info - Get gig and event information about a band by sending a the band name to  info [at] kiboze.com.
Login - Login in to Kiboze to start receiving your friends' messages by sending "on" to login [at] kiboze.com.
Logout - Log out of Kiboze and stop receiving your friends' messages by sending "off" to logout [at] kiboze.com.
Meetup - Plan a meetup at a particular venue by sending the venue name to meetup [at] kiboze.com.
Shop - Compare prices. Kiboze returns the best prices it can find on the Web by when you send the product name to shop [at] kiboze.com.
Shout - Send a shoutout to your buddies, for example to ask who's up for seeing a movie or going to the beach by sending a message of your own choosing to shout [at] kiboze.com.

I think Kiboze is a very cool service which draws some comparisons to Dodgeball, the SMS messaging service purchased by Google in May 2005. The only thing that disturbed me with Kiboze was the number of required fields in the registration page. It seemed to be a lot of information for a text messaging system. For example, why would Kiboze need to know my education level? However, there could be some other reason that this information might be important to Kiboze and I would be interested in find out what to it is.

Kiboze is positioned to promote local events and venues via text messaging. Basically, they can determine the location of individuals via the meetup and arrived message types and then send addition local venue and event promo messages - including plugging local bands. I am not one hundred percent sure what other types of promo messages Kiboze is looking to send but I assume it will be related to local events and venues.

In summary, Kiboze appears to be a forward thinking startup which leverages SMS text and IM messaging via mobile phones to create a wireless social network of users thus making it easy to send a text message to a large group of friends.

For more information and product updates be sure to check out the Kiboze blog.

Blogosphere 50M Strong: NPR Discusses

Earlier this week, chief executive and founder of Technorati, David Sifry released his quarterly, State of the Blogosphere report. David revealed that Technorati is currently tracking approximately 50 million blogs which means the blogosphere is still doubling every five to six months. This is pretty amazing growth and one would think it would eventually start to trail off. The report was summarized as follows:

• Technorati is now tracking over 50 Million Blogs.
• The Blogosphere is over 100 times bigger than it was just 3 years ago.
• Today, the blogosphere is doubling in size every 200 days, or about once every 6 and a half months.
• From January 2004 until July 2006, the number of blogs that Technorati tracks has continued to double every 5-7 months.
• About 175,000 new weblogs were created each day, which means that on average, there are more than 2 blogs created each second of each day.
• About 8% of new blogs get past Technorati's filters, even if it is only for a few hours or days.
• About 70% of the pings Technorati receives are from known spam sources, but we drop them before we have to send out a spider to go and index the splog.
• Total posting volume of the blogosphere continues to rise, showing about 1.6 Million postings per day, or about 18.6 posts per second.
• This is about double the volume of about a year ago.
• The most prevalent times for English-language posting is between the hours of 10AM and 2PM Pacific time, with an additional spike at around 5PM Pacific time

As a follow-up to the report, David Sifry discussed the numbers on NPR in a conversation with Scott Simon. You can listen to the discussion here.

Social Networks Battling the Portals

Compete, the US web statistics company, is predicting that the Internet portals like Yahoo and Google will soon be surpassed by social networks site like MySpace and Facebook. Are social networks going to be more popular than portal sites? 

There is definitely a trend in that direction as the graph above from Compete.com shows.

Viacom & Disney Map Converse Online Video Content Strategies

Viacom, the parent company of a  number of first class brands like MTV and VH1, made several big moves this week which further emphasis its focus in distributing video online. The first move was a deal with Google to distribute video content via Google’s Adsense for Video product. The move enables anyone using that can insert Viacom video content into a web site to help in distributing it. The second deal, was the acquisition of Atom Entertainment, the online video and gaming entertainment site, for $200 million. This move appears to be further bolsters and diversifies Viacom’s stockpile of youthful online content assets like Neopets, iFilm and XFire. Additionally, there are rumors swirling around the web that Viacom is in a bidding war with News Corp for the social networking site, Bebo. Bebo recently surpassed MySpace in the UK in weekly visits (according to a Hitwise report).

With Disney's reported earnings skyrocketing 39 percent, it appears they are taking a different road than Viacom when it comes to distributing online video content. Robert Iger, chief executive at Disney recently declared Disney would not lock in with one of the content portals like Yahoo or Google to distribute its content assets. It might suggest that Disney is sticking to its guns and longtime premium content approach which consisted of physically locking video content up in a place called the “Disney Vault.”

Is Iger made it sounds like they may be thinking of transcending the "Disney Vault" into an on online destination portal and distributing their content themselves?

I do not know if that will work in today’s online world as barriers of entry  for an individual to produce and syndicate video content have been diminished by web 2.0 (visit YouTube to see the phenomenon in action). Nonetheless, it will be interesting to see what happens as both Viacom and Disney look to take strategically separate video content routes.

Snakes On A Plane Star May Be Calling

Snakes on a Plane, the movie that has been a viral marketing case study dream, is set to be released soon (August 18, 2006). Interestingly, I just receive a personalized phone call from Samuel L. Jackson telling me to go see the movie. You can listen to my personalized message from Sammy L. here. If you would like to send or receive a similar personalized message from the star be sure to visit here - just fill out a few personalized fields and you are all set.

Video Tries to Answer: What is Web 2.0?

The question "What is Web 2.0?" among other things was pondered recently by Mike Arrington with a number of startup CEOs and executives on a video filmed deep inside the Silicon Valley echo-chamber. Here are some interesting tidbits which were blended into the 24 minute video: 

• TV is being eroded by Web 2.0.
• Web business models need to be advertising based.
• "Word of net" is far faster than the "word of mouth."
• Friendster created the market of social networking and crushed the idea you pay for personals.
• Content is king but if you are a publisher you need to fuse together the long tail.
• Blogging is a superset of publishing.
• Publisher are going to be packaging content.
• Firefox AJAX, Flash, consumers, producers and user generated content were all discussed.
• There was even on interesting Star Wars analogy (the republic vs. the empire).
• VC money, the bubble and business models were also discussed.
• The IE vs. Firefox browser debate.

Everyone has their own definition of Web 2.0 - so what does web 2.0 mean to you?

Swicki & Rollyo Here Comes Yahoo! Search

Yahoo released a new search builder tool today which could directly compete with the Eurekster Swicki community search product (shown in the right rail) and Rollyo which allows you to roll your own search. The Yahoo Search Builder product will enable the production of a customized search results.

The release falls in line with the social or community direction that Yahoo! has been moving and makes sense. With Eureskster Swicki and Rollyo as the most direct competitors to the new Yahoo Search Builder, I find it ironic that Swicki uses the Yahoo search API on the back-end. So would Yahoo! consider gobbling up Swicki to gain some of Swicki's technological advantage over the past year? Eurekster was named one of the hottest startups! Rollyo recently launched a blog search feature which further differentiates itself from the field. I wonder what Jennifer Allen at Eurekster thinks of the release of Yahoo! Search Builder?