Bing.com recently re-released the Live.com search engine under a new name and with a new purpose. Rather than have bing just be another search engine, Microsoft intentionally branded bing as a “decision engine”, claiming the the search results will be more relevant to the searcher by cutting the clutter and solving the query. Bing’s follow through on their decision engine claims is mediocre, but I suppose thay are mostly deserving of the title. If their were a king (or queen) of decision engines, hunch.com would definitely deserve the title.
Hunch.com launched within the last week with much fanfare and anticipation mainly because of the involvement of co-founder Caterina Fake’s (co-founder of flickr) involvement. Along with Caterina, hunch.com claims three other co-founders with most of the rest of the staff claiming common backgrounds in education at MIT and employment at SiteAdvisor.
Hunch is like a mashup of Yahoo! Answers and a mega-8ball. Hunch asks users a string of about 20 questions when they reach the hunch homepage and then offer suggestions on search queries after the string is complete. When a query is made, a few more questions are asked regarding personal preferences – and based on the input hunch spits back 5 answers/solutions to your question. [click to continue...]
It seems like this week, and last, have been big on the search engines. For the sake of continuity, what do you say we keep the search engine ball rolling with Spezify.com?
Spezify is the product of two Swedish startupists Felix af Ekenstam and Per Persson. These two nordic masterminds have extensive experience in developting digital products and decided to venture into the realm of compilation with their Spezify project. Spezify is a relatively new project. It opened for private beta in April of 2009 and made its official launch for public use on June 15.
Spezify is a “search engine” which displays its results by scraping content by any and all websites relevant to the query. Essentially, Spezify launches a bunch of “mini-searches” through [click to continue...]
Just less than a year ago a new search engine named Cuil was released. It was heralded by many as the search engine that could finally be the “Google Killer”. Cuil’s search technology was said to be much more thorough than Google, and more respective of personal habits and search trends. While the latter is certainly true, Cuil does not collect user data or personal search history, their thoroughness remains to be debated.
A query for the ever popular search phrase “make money online” on Google returns three quality websites in the top three positions of page 1 of the SERPs with excellent content focused on assisting internet users accomplish their goal of making money online. The same query entered into Cuil returned much less reliable results including [click to continue...]
BuzzFundis a truly remarkable idea by a man hoping to revolutionize the way students pay for college or at least minimize their college debt. BuzzFund allows students to make personal profiles stating their college info, a little information about themselves, and how much their current college tuition costs. Donors can also create profiles and choose students to give e-scholarships to in an effort to help with tuition costs.
The Good: BuzzFund takes advantage of the already popular and successful business of crowd-funding/micro-lending (i.e. Kiva, LendingClub, Prosper.com). The main difference is that BuzzFund does not process loans. Rather, BuzzFund is [click to continue...]
It is easily surmised from my previous posts and comments elsewhere that I am not at all impressed with Microsoft’s latest search engine gimmick passed off as bing.com. However, I do have something good to say about them. Thanks to their advertising superbudget a few excellent and borderline impressive commercials have found themselves on millions of TV screens worldwide. I should explain that I like thier commercials, and not their commercial fast-forwarding scheme. Check the vid:
While bing’s ad is somewhat true of other search engines, it is a bit deceptive. The related keywords that the man is reciting as search results from the “other” search engines most often occur in the form of sponsored listings – which Bing also Otherwise, the actual query results remain rather accurate. Bing is clever, but will they prove to be better?
P.S. – If you want to humor yourself, head over to bing and type in “traffic ticket”, and then see how many of the results match up to what the man recited in the commercial. It is funny how a few of the results are exactly what bing contends they shouldn’t be.
Most successful internet ventures (including but not limited to websites, services, videos, articles, etc.) are the result of organic growth turned viral. Before the Microsoft Network’s recent release of the new bing.com search engine I have never seen an online company/service want so virility and acceptance so badly.
Bing’s first major call for acceptance comes in the $100M+ that they are spending on marketing and advertising. Do a search for “search engine” and Bing is the #1 sponsored result. Couple that with Bing’s recent Bing-a-thon on Hulu, which turned out to be [click to continue...]
It’s all fun, good news, and games until you read the fine print and FAQs.
The#squarespace story. Super-simple website creation and hosting company SquareSpace is the latest company to throw out a twitter gimmick. For each of the thirty days running between June 8th and July 7th, SquareSpace has committed to give out 1 new iPhone 3G S. All that must be done to win is to write a twitter update containing the hashtag #squarespace. Sounds cool and simple right? It is. But then we read the official rules and detials.
5. Winning prize will include a $199 gift certificate to the Apple store, which may be used toward the purchase of an 8GB iPhone, or toward any other official Apple products or services. This is currently the price listed by Apple of the most expensive new iPhone, and we were advised by Apple that this is the best way to conduct the giveaway.
6. Should the daily winner choose to purchase an iPhone with their gift certificate, he/she will be responsible for establishing and paying for their own cellular/data network plan through AT&T (or whichever provider supports the iPhone in your country).
Financial stimulus packages are terms of the distant past (in internet time), and so it is time to shift attention to a mental stimulus package. If you are looking for a bit more brain exercise after reading your daily subscription of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, then let this list of websites guide you in your insatiable quest for knowledge.
Wikipedia. Wikipedia has established itself as the go-to resource for simple and quick online research and knowledge gathering. While it is constructed and written by anyone who decides to add to it, there lies a strong community of “moderators” insuring that the content is verified and can be accounted for in a concrete (book, article, etc.) source.
HubPages. HubPages is a bit less academic than wikipedia, and is a bit more practically informative and personal. Hubs can be found on any topic from the crazy looking Vibram Five Fingers Shoes to practical advice such as [click to continue...]
Niche stores are no longer the thing of small towns. The internet has given has given new life to the mom-and-pop retailers of all sorts of quirky trinkets and novelty products. Sure, online communities offering free e-commerce management do exist for sellers such as this (eCrater and etsy), but giving in to such an offering requires the seller to hang their brand on the back of another. Luckily, setting up a personally branded e-store is almost as easy as using a free service with the help of auto-installer software generally found on any good web-host.
Many aspiring online retailers intially turn to the ever popular osCommerce, ZenCart, or CubeCart platforms because they are free and open source allowing for [click to continue...]
Websites as desktop applications are becoming and increasingly popular trend as WiFi and mobile internet increase their reach and user base. Rather than connect to the internet and direct the browser to a specific website, the user can experience the website as a regular computer program. Many times desktop versions allow users to broaden their experience through increased or new features. I have chosen 5 websites of the tens of millions out there that I believe to be better experienced as a desktop application rather than through their actual website. Feel free to add your favorites in the comment section.
eBay. The popular auction website’s desktop app allows for more targeted searches so that shoppers can find what they really want. eBay’s desktop app also [click to continue...]
Bing.com recently re-released the Live.com search engine under a new name and with a new purpose. Rather than have bing just be another search engine, Microsoft intentionally branded bing as a “decision engine”, claiming the the search results will be more relevant to the searcher by cutting the clutter and solving the query. Bing’s follow through on their decision engine claims is mediocre, but I suppose thay are mostly deserving of the title. If their were a king (or queen) of decision engines, hunch.com would definitely deserve the title.
It seems like this week, and last, have been big on the search engines. For the sake of continuity, what do you say we keep the search engine ball rolling with Spezify.com?
Just less than a year ago a new search engine named 
BuzzFund
Most successful internet ventures (including but not limited to websites, services, videos, articles, etc.) are the result of organic growth turned viral. Before the Microsoft Network’s recent release of the new bing.com search engine I have never seen an online company/service want so virility and acceptance so badly.
Financial stimulus packages are terms of the distant past (in internet time), and so it is time to shift attention to a mental stimulus package. If you are looking for a bit more brain exercise after reading your daily subscription of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, then let this list of websites guide you in your insatiable quest for knowledge.
Niche stores are no longer the thing of small towns. The internet has given has given new life to the mom-and-pop retailers of all sorts of quirky trinkets and novelty products. Sure, online communities offering free e-commerce management do exist for sellers such as this (eCrater and etsy), but giving in to such an offering requires the seller to hang their brand on the back of another. Luckily, setting up a personally branded e-store is almost as easy as using a free service with the help of auto-installer software generally found on any good web-host.
Websites as desktop applications are becoming and increasingly popular trend as 
