Bigmouthmedia search engine news: Main Headlines

FriendFeed introduces real time search

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:00:00 GMT

Following on from the success of Twitter's search function, FriendFeed has announced that it has now integrated a real-time search feature.

The new function on FriendFeed, an aggregator of social media sites, can be accessed through the regular search box. Users can also access the advanced options and saved searches to get real time results.

Unlike on Twitter, FriendFeed allows users to pause searches when they feel they're being overloaded with results.

On the FriendFeed blog, Jim Norris, one of the site's creators, said: "While we were testing this internally, we could barely keep up with the non-stop activity regarding Michael Jackson (That's when we knew we needed a pause button)."

As well as this update, FriendFeed has also taken a look at its appearance and decided to let users customise their pages with some new themes.

Real time searches are becoming more and more popular following the success of Twitter. In the same week Bing started to integrate tweets into its search results, Twitter has also been looking to improve its functionality, taking inspiration from FriendFeed.

Hashtags, a popular way of making tweets easy to find by searches, are now being turned into hyperlinks on Twitter - something that was already happening on FriendFeed and some Twitter applications - to allow people to go directly from a message to a real time search of that term.

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Bing starts including tweets in search results

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:00:00 GMT

Just a day after anti-internet maven Andrew Keen surmised in the Telegraph that "Google's glory years may lie in the past", Microsoft's has announced that its new - and increasingly lauded - search engine Bing will include real-time results from Twitter.

In a Bing Community blog post yesterday, Sean Suchter - general manager at the company's Search Technology Centre in Silicon Valley - announced that the search tool had begun indexing tweets from "prominent and prolific Twitterers". Examples cited include public figures like American Idol presenter Ryan Seacrest and politician turned environmental campaigner Al Gore, as well as major online industry figures like SearchEngineLand.com editor Danny Sullivan and Wall Street Journal tech columnist Kara Swisher.

To see these results, users simply need to type in the name of the figure they're searching for, followed by "twitter", "tweets" or even "@twitterusername" - for example, "@danny sullivan" or "ryan seacrest twitter".

A few celebrities have been included too, with Bing seemingly getting round the problem of fake celebrity twitter accounts by only including results from stars who are widely known to tweet themselves. For instance, tweets from Ashton Kutcher - supposedly the first person to have more than one million twitter followers - are included in a search for "@aplusk", but one for "Britney Spears twitter" but does do the same.

Suchter said: "We picked a few thousand people to start, based primarily on their follower count and volume of tweets. We think this is an interesting first step toward using Twitter's public API to surface Tweets in people search."

The feature is so far only available for users in the US (though users in other countries can change their settings to see US results). But it marks a major coup for the search engine, whose inventive features - such as letting users play 30 second video snippets within search results - are being increasing regarded favourably in comparison to Google's search offering.

Search industry pundits have been questioning for months now whether Twitter results will be featured in Google SERPS, to no avail. Although the recent introduction of Search Options means that Google users can filter results to only the most recent, this doesn't provide quite the same immediacy of information as real-time results from Twitter. And while Mountain View cites issues of spam and irrelevancy as its main reason for not including tweets, Bing's approach shows that it can be done - however tentatively - successfully.

Recent figures from StatCounter show Bing gaining on Yahoo! in search engine market share for the US in June, with Microsoft sites (including Bing, MSN Search and Live Search) rising from 7.81 to 8.23 per cent. Similarly, Hitwise statistics are indicating that traffic to Twitter has increased 22 fold over the last 12 months, with 93 per cent of growth happening in 2009 alone and taking the site from the 969th most visited site on the web in 2008 to the 38th most popular today.

With the micro-blogging site enjoying such a phenomenal rate of expansion, and Bing having nowhere to go but up, it makes sense that this enhancement will drive people towards the Microsoft search engine in the near future, and in the long-term if it develops the inclusion of tweets in its search results further. It only remains to be seen how Google will counter any move Bing may make in order to retain its increasingly unstable-looking search crown.

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Firefox does downloads again... and again

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:00:00 GMT

Reminiscent of the great Firefox Download Day of last year, where Mozilla Firefox version 3 hit a million downloads in record time, the latest update to one of the world's favourite browsers has seen a similar reaction to its release, with over a million downloads occurring within just hours.

And, just like last time, Mozilla hasn't been lazy when it comes to tracking just how excited about its wares fans have been getting. Currently, the software giant is running a site dedicated to counting the volume of downloads occurring worldwide, per country, per second. Yes, per second. And yesterday the stats were peaking at almost a hundred downloads per second, swiftly totting up almost 4,600,000 downloads at the time of writing today - which is an overwhelming result for the foxy browser.

The USA has proven to be the biggest fan of Firefox, with American downloads currently reaching towards the 1,200,000 mark. Following the US are Germany, France and the UK, all of which haven't hit a million yet but have numbers that are steadily increasing as more browsers are being downloaded.

Unlike the last time Mozilla launched a download frenzy, this time around it's learned from its mistakes and has the server power set to cope with the mass influx of visitors. Last time around, thousands of fans were left in the cold when the download site found its servers were overloaded and the site did not appear when people tried to access it. Yesterday's launch saw the servers coping admirably, despite Firefox 3's Guinness Record (over 8m downloads in 24 hours) only being midway to defeat.

The update focuses on Firefox's speed, claiming that it is much faster than previous incarnations - particularly in its JavaScript performance.

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OUP urges Congress to act on Google book deal

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:00:00 GMT

From its status as a news provider/publisher to online videos, copyright concerns have been par for the course in Google's day-to-day activities for some years now. But perhaps no Google initiative has proved more intractable that its Book Search project, which aims to digitise all the world's books and make them available online, bringing Google one step closer in its mission "to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful".

Since its October 2008 settlement with the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers (AAP), writers and publishers have certainly quietened down their justified furore over Google Book Search's copyright infringements. However, while the $125 million agreement will allow Google, authors and publishers to split between them any revenue raised by Book Search, it still doesn't address the problem of 'orphan books' - those that are still under copyright but have no clear owner.

It's this point that the US branch of Oxford University Press - the world's biggest university publisher - is taking issue with. OUP USA has accepted the Authors Guild and AAP settlement, but it's urging Congress to prevent Mountain View from gaining exclusive rights to orphan works. Writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education, its president Tim Barton said: "Making [orphan works] available again is a clear public good. Google's having exclusive rights to use them, as enshrined in the current settlement, however, is not.

"If the parties to the settlement cannot themselves solve this major problem, then at a minimum Congress should pass orphan-works legislation that gives others the same rights as Google - an essential step if Google is not to gain an unfair advantage. Despite significant advocacy, Congress has failed to legislate on this issue for 20 years; we at Oxford hope the spectre of Google having exclusive rights to use orphan works will spur heightened public debate and Congress to immediate action."

He added that works which are not online are "invisible" to students. And while many books published within the last decade are available electronically, he said that the vast majority of work published since 1923 was "effectively out of reach" to today's student.

Barton's comments add one more chapter into the drawn-out Google Book Search saga and, despite the Authors Guild/AAP deal, it's not over yet. Earlier this year, a New York judge added four months onto the original May 5 deadline given to authors who want to opt out of the settlement. What's more, in April the New York Times revealed that an anti-trust investigation into the deal was being carried out by the US Justice Department. And until all these strands are brought together - and officials take measures against a possible Google monopoly of orphan works - there will still be a question mark over whether Google Book Search can find a platform that will please more people than it offends.

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Swedish software firm takes Pirate Bay on board

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:00:00 GMT

The sensational Pirate Bay court case drew attention from all around the world earlier this year, and the guilty verdict could have dealt a deadly blow to the file sharing organisation. However, Swedish software company Global Gaming Factory X AB has offered the beleaguered pirates an unexpected lifeline.

Industry insiders and the general public alike watched enthralled as the Swedish file sharing company was subjected to what is sure to prove a seminal case for copyright and the future of illegal downloading. And, despite the posturing of its founders, times looked grim for The Pirate Bay foursome when they were sentenced to a year in jail and given a £2.4 million fine. It looked grimmer still when their claims that the judge was biased were overturned.

But the horizon looks a little clearer for the file sharing company as Reuters reports that Global Gaming will buy The Pirate Bay for 60 million Swedish crowns (£4.7 million) and seek ways to compensate copyright owners for downloaded material. The firm claims that The Pirate Bay's business model can be salvaged with the introduction of a new system that will satisfy copyright owners and content providers, as well as downloaders.

Global gaming chief executive Hans Pandeye said: "We would like to introduce models which entail [sic] that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site"

While this appears to fly in the face of the cut throat file sharing ethos of The Pirate Bay's founders, it seems that they may accept this offer of respectability. A statement on their blog responding to the breaking news story suggests that The Pirate Bay will not go quietly into a partnership unless its functionality remains unimpaired. It states: "A lot of people are worried. We're not and you shouldn't be either!"

According to the folks behind The Pirate Bay, in the roiling waters of the net it's the users' votes that count, and this is the greatest deterrent to anyone trying to drastically change the way the site works. Instead, they hope the sale will help them sail closer to the goals they identify as promoting "freedom of speech, freedom of information and the openess of the nets".

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Google SMS launches in Africa

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:00:00 GMT

In an attempt to give everyone access to the world's information, Google is launching a series of SMS-based services aimed at the African market.

It has always been Google's mission to simplify the way people seek knowledge and information, but while countries like the UK and the USA have succumbed to its charms, states with limited internet access have hindered this mission in a global context.

Africa is a classic example of this problem. According to Internet World Stats, there were around 54 million internet users in Africa in December 2008 - a 5.6% penetration - while only around 0.1% of the population were broadband subscribers.

For Google, the solution is SMS-based services. Computers - specifically those with internet access - are not widespread enough for Google to reach people in the same way it has done in more developed nations. SMS-enabled mobile phones, on the other hand, are prevalent throughout Africa - in fact, six times more prevalent than internet enabled devices.

Yesterday Google launched Google SMS, a suite of mobile applications that provide useful information via SMS for example information on news, weather and agriculture tips.

Included in the suite is Google Trader, an SMS based classified service that connects buyers and sellers, allowing mobile phone users to easily buy and sell, as well as find jobs.

Google SMS Tips, another application within the suite, is a 'query-and-answer' service which Google hopes will provide a similar experience to searching the web. Simply put, you enter a text-based query and the Google SMS algorithm returns the most relevant answer.

Although Google hopes to make these services available across Africa, Uganda will be the first country to experience Google SMS, with those on the MTN Uganda network able to access the SMS suite.

If successful, however, it is likely Google will launch the service across more African mobile networks.

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Michael Jackson's death challenges the net

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:00:00 GMT

The death of pop legend Michael Jackson has served to illustrate just how many people now turn to the internet for information on breaking news stories. Last week, the bigmouthmedia news team covered Twitter's struggles under the pressure of fans tweeting and searching for information on the death of the superstar. However, the weekend has revealed that Twitter wasn't the only service to be affected by the sudden influx of traffic.

Tech radar reports that even Google had trouble recognising the sudden traffic surge for what it was and Google News was so overwhelmed that the engine mistakenly identified the influx as an automated attack, resulting in the standard error page it returns when it believes it is under attack.

On the Official Google Blog, R. J Pittman, Director and Project Management, said: "The spike in searches related to Michael Jackson was so big that Google News initially mistook it for an automated attack. As a result, for about 25 minutes yesterday, when some people searched Google News they saw a "We're sorry" page before finding the articles they were looking for.

Despite the crash, Twitter and Google's coverage of the news has been admirable, although the tragedy is likely to encourage Google to invest even more heavily in creating a real time news function - a project that is already underway for the Mountain View search agency.

Unsurprisingly, Jackson's death also caused issues for Wikipedia, one of the sites that first highlighted the different ways that people search for real time news on the net. Last week, the online encyclopaedia was flooded with enough queries to return an error message for some users and the company was left struggling to decide whether to allow users to update his page as fans squabbled over the veracity of reports, continually changing the singer's status between deceased and comatose. Ultimately, Wikipedia decided to partially lock pages, displaying a message to users warning them of potential disruption.

Disappointingly, the search surge brought on by the death of the King of Pop caused cyber criminals and hackers to quickly jump on the opportunities offered by the sheer volume of users searching for information. Security company Websense highlighted the threat of new spam emails that appear to offer a Jackson related link to YouTube, but actually send the user to a Trojan Downloader hosted on a compromised web site.

Others attempted to cash in through sites such as eBay; The Sydney Herald reports that listings for Jackson related goods jumped from 1033 on Thursday to 4815 listings today. Jackson's greatest hits also saw a spik, as fans rushed to buy his albums from iTunes and Amazon, propelling the singer up best seller lists.

Sites may have initially been reeling under the strain, but it's clear that the internet is more than ready to supplant TV as the primary medium for breaking news and, judging by the vast number of people turning to computer terminals to keep updated, it looks like the general public may agree.

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Aardvark helps you search for friendly answers

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:00:00 GMT

With recent changes in the searchiverse like the release of Microsoft's 'decision engine' Bing, the re-rebranding of Ask Jeeves and the launch of Hunch - a search engine that helps you find what you're looking for by asking a series of questions - you'd be forgiven for thinking that the search market is looking particularly flooded at the moment. And that's before we even mention Twitter's new search functions, Google's recent preoccupation with real-time search and Facebook's experimentation in the same vein.

However, a busy playing field never stopped any business bent on success, and so new search service Aardvark has waded into the battleground. Last week, the company completed beta testing and the new service was opened to the public search sphere. So, how does Aardvark differ from the competition?

Aardvark utilises social networks to blend a wide range of knowledge and spheres of expertise, as well as social groups, to come up with its search results. When the user asks the engine a question, submitting it via IM or email, Aardvark determines what the question is about then searches through the user's social network to find the people available over the same mediums to find the correct match.

The site considers a number of factors, from related topics in other people's profiles to determining the people whose answers you trust most. At the moment, Aardvark is reliant on Facebook, but other social networks will be added in the future. Aardvark also does what so many search engines have faced privacy concerns over before - it uses the user's history to train itself to better answer questions. Cleverly, Aardvark also assumes that what may be the best answer for one person might not be the best answer or another - even if the question is the same.

One of the most innovative things about Aardvark is the way it makes use of instant messaging facilities - making the user feel as though they are being personally attended to. Available on Gmail Chat, Google Talk, AIM, MSN, Hotmail and soon the iPhone, Aardvark has been careful to cover as many bases as possible.

Aardvark aims to find personal answers to questions without users exhausting the goodwill of their friends and family - and it might just work, especially as it's piggybacking on the popular Facebook.

With the introduction of the latest search service, both established services such as Yahoo! Answers and newbies like Hunch certainly have a new competitor on their hands - with the benefit of what feels like a personal touch, Aardvark could really become a favourite with users looking for a more individual search experience.

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Pirate Bay judge found to be unbiased

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:00:00 GMT

The four founders of Pirate Bay have been denied a retrial by courts in Sweden after the site claimed the judge in their first trial was biased.

Pirate Bay's founders were found guilty of copyright infringement in April but they claimed that the judge, Tomas Norstrom, was biased against the site as he is a member of several copyright organisations.

The authorities have rejected these claims and said in a statement: "The Court of Appeal has come to the conclusion that none of the circumstances set out, individually or taken together, means that there are legitimate doubts about the judge's impartiality in this case. There has not been any bias."

It was put forward by Mr Nostrom that he needed to be in these organisations, as many other judges are, to keep up with the latest developments in copyright law. Although Judge Anders Eka declared that he should have been upfront about his memberships, he concluded that judges can't be called biased because they support existing laws.

The session was overseen by Judge Eka who, because he doesn't normally hear copyright-related cases, was seen as a fair choice; however, Peter Kolmisoppi, one of the Pirate Bay founders, has since tweeted: "The Pirate Bay will now file charges against Sweden for violation for Human Rights. More info later. (The bias-judge is himself biased...)"

There will be no retrial of this case by district court, but there have been indications that Pirate Bay is planning to go to an appeals court to overturn the original verdict that sentenced each founder to a year in jail and a shared fine of 30 million kronor (£2.3 million).

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Michael Jackson death causes Twitter to buckle under traffic

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:00:00 GMT

Last night, the news that the "King of Pop", Michael Jackson, had been rushed to hospital following a cardiac arrest broke out.

Entertainment site TMZ broke the story at around 10.20pm GMT, but the death was not confirmed by other new sources until around half an hour later. The news spread like wildfire across the internet and the first website be majorly affected was, of course, Twitter - which again proved its value as a real time search engine.

Within minutes of the news breaking, the trending term "Michael Jackson" had knocked 'iranelection' from the top. Strangely, it was removed (presumably) by Twitter and hasn't returned. At the time of writing, all but one of the top ten trending terms is taken up with Jackson related terms, something that is likely to continue for a while. One minor flaw of the trending system was exposed with "P Michael" and "P Micheal" both appearing, these being truncated from "RIP Michael" and "RIP Micheal". The misspelling "Micheal Jackson" also made an appearance.

In what may have been its busiest single hour yet in terms of traffic and tweets, Twitter held up surprisingly well. The fail whale made the occasional appearance and things moved pretty slowly at times, but there was no major downtime. This is more than can be said for TMZ, whose service was intermittent - and the LA Times, whose servers collapsed shortly after confirming the death.

Perez Hilton, whose servers must have been straining under the weight of his most recent controversies prior to last night's news, apparently gave up shortly after the announcement. The official Michael Jackson site is also "not available".

The news also caused an editing war on Wikipedia as users fought over whether the controversial pop star was dead or not. Ebay ticket touts will be disappointed at what they thought would be an easy payday and will now be hoping that the promoters are good enough to offer refunds for the 750,000 tickets sold for Jackson's forthcoming O2 shows in London.

As in life, it would seem controversy will surround Jacko in death. Certain websites have already taken advantage of the fact that the dead can't sue by speculating on unsavoury causes of death, though the truth will undoubtedly be revealed soon.

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