SOMEWHAT FRANK

Opera Web Browser Is Now Free

To compete with the free web browser offerings of Firefox, IE and the soon to be released social browser Flock, Opera has decided to start offering all version of it's Opera browser free of charge. Previously, they offered two versions, a free version with advertisements and a pay version without ads. Now they have just one version and you can get it for free by going here. I wonder how they are going to compensate their current paying customers? Also check out this wonderful browser comparison chart on Wikipedia.

MSN and AOL Rumored to Join Forces

It was not very long ago that Microsoft was the clear king of software, the desktop and online, with Internet Explorer, MSN dial-up and Hotmail offerings but things have changed a bit in the last five or six years. Google has emerged and become an applications powerhouse and invaded the desktop space with its products like Picasa and Desktop Search. Yahoo has also been a solid player in the online space for ten years with its portal, search and mail offerings. Things might change even more in the near future with Microsoft.

According to a Wall Street Journal report last Friday, Microsoft has realized this and is rumored to be talking with AOL Time Warner to work out some sort of working agreement or possible acquisition. Investment bankers have not been involved yet so it appears the talks are preliminary but it would be interesting to see what a MSN/AOL merger would do to the landscape of the online space. You might these talks ironic since AOL and MSN used to be arch rivals in a heated battle to attract and lock up dial-up users. Though, the adoption rate of broadband and the settlement of an anti-trust lawsuit seem to have diluted that rivalry. Now they appear friendly with one another and could possibly to team up and take on Google and Yahoo. It will be interesting to see what happens next since the right type of move could vault them up the online space hierarchy.

5 Blogs Before Lunch points to an Ad Age Report on the potential impacts of an MSN/AOL merger. VOIP Now and Bloggoff also give their perspective on a potential deal. Finally, check out this Red Herring article for more information.

Yahoo Mail Soon To Have A New Look

Yahoo has announced that is has started testing a new version of it’s free email service Yahoo Mail. This new Yahoo Mail version is said to look and feel more like a desktop solution like Microsoft Outlook but still function over the Internet. Many of the changes have been made to keep up with other competitors like Google Gmail, AOL Mail and MSN Hotmail. However, according to these numbers posted on Wired News, "Yahoo's e-mail service is currently leading the pack, with 63.6 million U.S. visitors during July, according to the most recent figures from comScore Media Metrix. AOL ranked second with 48.7 million visitors followed by MSN's Hotmail (44.4 million), Comcast's Webmail (5.6 million) and Google's Gmail (5.4 million)."

Yahoo says the changes to Yahoo Mail are the most significant changes they have made to the mail product in 8 years. According to several reports Yahoo has leveraged the acquisition of the email start-up Oddpost last year and incorporation dynamic HTML to allow users a sleeker look and feel with less paging and more scrolling ability. I have not had a chance to see the new Yahoo product yet but it sounds like it is going to be innovative.

Check out this post on Silicon Beat and this article on Wired News for more details.

The Wall Street Journal Blog Search Engine Race

The Wall Street Journal article New Search Engines Help Users Find Blogs is worth reading especially if you are new to blogging or the blogosphere. The article highlights the blogosphere and explains the search engines (i.e. Technorati, Feedster, & IceRocket) race to become number one in blog search. Though I thought the article's mention of DayPop could be helpful for the novice blog reader, it is probably not a site I would regularly visit since it does limit it's results to only certain popular blogs. The article also talks about Microsoft and how MSN Search is currently including blog search results however they have not offered a "blog only" search function to users. However, you probably notice the MSN site search on Somewhat Frank. The reason I am using MSN and not another blog search engine is because I found that MSN indexes Somewhat Frank the best out of all of the other search engines. I want users to be able to find all of my content and feel MSN Search offers them the best opportunity.

Ironically, this article is very similar to a previous post I wrote (July 10, 2005) titled Who Will Be #1 In Blog Search. I just re-read that post from July and realized I was ranting a bit about Technorati's technical issues which they seem to still have at times. Though Technorati released Blog Finder last week which was received with a few grumbles from the blogosphere since it was seen as nothing new but repackaging current functionality. Personally, I like the Blog Finder functionality. Since I did not use IceRocket at the point of writing that article I did not mention them. However, I have used IceRocket quite a bit since. I have implemented their Link Tracker functionality to determine how many blogs are linking to my individual posts in IceRocket. I also talked about Yahoo or Google possibly making their move.

The WSJ article basically says that the race is to become the "Google of blogs" and I have to agree I still wonder if Google will enter the race to be the "Google of blogs".

Spam + Blog = Splog : How Is It Affecting The Blogosphere?

I just read a post by Mark Cuban that explained it simply as spam in the form of a blog. What is splog?

Spam + Blog = Splog

Clever naming convention I know, but splog is creating an astrericks next to the validity of blogging numbers in the blogsphere as decreasing the quality of blog search engine search results.  Mark believes and I agree Google's blogger.com and other free blogging services it make it too easy start a bogus blog or splog. Though I find that offering free blogs is a wonderful thing for the good willed blogger it offers a free tool for nasty sploggers to unleash their garbage. These splogs are clogging the blogsphere and need to be handled in some way. IceRocket hinted at plans to stop indexing free blog offerings to help clean up their search results. I think this is a great idea but unfortunately will hurt the "good willed" blogger thus taking away some of the blogospheres freedom. This lose of freedom is the unfortunate part as these sploggers are really acting as blogosphere terrorists and need to be stopped.

Mark Cuban in closing offered this thought and I am going to take it as a call to arms:

"The intellectual property that is available in the blogosphere is an amazing source of ideas, facts and imagination. Now is the time to do something before the splog overwhelms it and make it difficult to discover new and exciting blogs."

I have a suggestion for Mark and IceRocket and any other blog search engine that will take it and run with it, I think you need a splogger patrol. Ad a link to your search results that allows the "good willed" bloggers of the blogosphere to report any blogs they find to be splogs in nature. Call it splog reporting or the splog patrol. I recently launched beta for a simple website called SplogReporter.com where "good willed" bloggers can report sploggers. Verification will then be made on which submitted items are truly splogs. So please bookmark the Splog Reporter site and report any splogs you come across. The goal is to create a master directory of splog URLs to have removed from the search engines. So "good willed" bloggers of the blogosphere, this is your call to arms to rid the blogosphere of splogs.

Does anyone have any other suggestions on what can be done to take action against splog without having to eliminate free blog offerings from blog search engine results?

Is Technorati Really For Sale?

Rumors have been swirling that Technorati is about to be sold to a large search engine company. I tried to trace these rumors to their source and all roads lead to BL Ochman. Her recent post titled Technorati About To Be Sold stated that a deal will occur within a week or so. She guesses Yahoo is the large search engine company doing the purchasing. However, I started to play the "what if" game and thought, what if Technorati is sold to the team of Mark Cuban and Blake Rhodes at IceRocket, or MSN decides to play hardball in the blog search arena or Google decides to flex its muscle for that matter? Would they create a blog search called Goognorati?

This could help us to find answers to the question: Who Will Be #1 In Blog Search?
What do you think is in store for Technorati?

UPDATE: I emailed Technorati Community Manager Naill Kennedy to try to get his insight on these rumors and he pointed me to a post on his personal blog here.

Are Mapping Software's Putting Armed Forces At Risk?

With the recent releases of the mapping software's  Google Earth and MSN Virtual Earth users have been empowered to explore places they have never seen before. Many users are uncovering some interesting aerial shots of high security locations. This makes me wonder if the proper security measures were taken into account when producing these satellite images and converting them to an easy to access mapping software. For example, many of the United States armed forces air fields are shown with fighter jets in plain view. Check out this link which is an aggregation of all the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird plane locations in the United States. It uses the Google API to plot all of the locations. While the Blackbird has been out of service since 1990,  it still makes me wonder if there are other planes and top secret weapons that are in plain view. When you take into account our current war on terror I wonder, is this software putting the armed forces at risk of attack? Is this a national security breach? What do you think?

Text Messaging Services and Resources

A number of mobile products have recently emerged and are currently available for use with SMS text messaging. Engadet recently highlighted some of the major mobile search providers. Somewhat Frank has also offered up information on Google SMS. However, I wanted to take it a step further and mention a few other SMS services that could be useful to you.

MSN Traffic Reports
http://autos.msn.com/everyday/trafficreport.aspx
This free service allows you to sign up with your .NET passport account and send traffic alerts directly to your cell phone.

FeedBeep
http://www.feedbeep.com
This paid subscription service allows you to receive RSS feeds to your cell phone.

Smarter SMS
http://www.smarter.com/sms
This free service allows you to enter the SKU or model number of any product and Smarter.com will quickly reply with the lowest online price for that item.

UPOC
http://www.upoc.com
This free social networking service connects people via SMS.

411SMS
http://www.411sms.com
This free directory service could save you from dialing 411 for information.

Check out the services I mentioned and let me know what you think of them. Also if there is a favorite SMS text messaging service that I failed to mention please let me know.

MSN Personalizes Screensaver

MSN recently released a beta of MSN Screensaver. This new screensaver is offered to users to download and install and allows them to:

• Personalize with background photos, news and weather information from MSN or any RSS feeds from websites you choose.

• Search the Web and click news headlines directly from the Screen Saver.

• Stay connected with MSN Hotmail, MSN Messenger, and MSN Spaces.

I think it would be safe to assume the term "personalize" is a hot buzz word right now.

MSN RSS Search Rumors Swirl

According to Naill Kennedy Microsoft is looking to debut RSS search. His first post stated this new functionality debuting as soon as Monday, however after checking into it further he retracted a Monday launch date, but verified MSN RSS Search is coming soon. Interestingly, Naill based his speculation on the  analysis of log files after noticing spidering from these IP addresses, "207.68.146.41 and 207.68.146.47 to see the initial probe and 207.68.146.53 for the deeper revisit."  Check out the rest of Naill's post here. Also check out Steve Rubel's post here.

MSN Virtual Earth Battle's Google Earth

With the recent release of Google Earth it was only a matter of time until we heard from one of Google's competitors.  MSN Virtual Earth was announced on May 23rd at the D3 conference by Bill Gates himself. Apparently it stole some of the thunder away from a presentation by Apple's Steve Jobs which informed everyone of Apple unleashing podCasting in iTunes.

This image was produced using Google Earth. It is looking North down Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois.

MSN Virtual Earth
For more information on MSN Virtual Earth click here. 
For a video demo click here.

Google Earth
For more information on Google Earth click here.