This week saw the launch of a much publicised and some might say over-hyped search engine called Cuil (Gaelic for knowledge and hazel). It has been developed by 3 ex-Google senior employees who started the venture in 2005. This should be a major advantage as they have the inside knowledge of the world’s largest search engine and will have bench-marked their new project against the mighty G at every point of development. Following a mass marketed initial launch, their first day looked promising, Cuil accounted for 1 in every 500 searches made in the UK (there are over 90 search engines available on the web - some have been in existence for over 10 years).
Why could it rival Google?
Index Size - Cuil claims to have a larger index size than any other search engine in existence (120 billion pages to be exact).
Speed - Cuil claims to be able to find and index web pages quicker than Google, using a different technology.
Privacy - Cuil claims that it does not hold any private information about what the user is searching for, unlike Google.
Results - Cuil claims their relevancy of search results reflect the information that is actually present on the page. Google uses an algorithm called ‘PageRank‘ which ranks each web page determined by the popularity of the page.
Will Cuil be Google’s demise?
It’s very unlikely. User feedback so far has indicated that their search results have not been to their satisfaction and the 3 column layout (as seen on the screen grab to the right) is a little confusing.
This week Google have launched a new online 3D world called Lively. It’s basically a chat application where you can customise your avatar and 3D environment (room) to meet your friends or invite newcomers.
Lively represents Google’s answer to a 5-year-old site, Second Life, where people deploy animated alter egos known as avatars to navigate through virtual reality.
Google thinks Lively will encourage even more people to dive into virtual worlds because it isn’t tethered to one website like Second Life, and it doesn’t cost anything to use. After installing a plugin, a user can enter Lively from other websites, like social networking sites and blogs. Second Life is different as you have to download a program, run it from your desktop and you have to purchase credits to build features in your new world.
Google has created a number of sample rooms that can be copied or altered, or users can start from scratch and build their own. Once you have created your “room” you can then embed it within your website or blog to enable your visitors to sign up and join you.
Google’s Lively looks to be a promising web product and has the potential for another advertising venue for Google once it becomes viral and attain the same level of popularity and usage as that of Second Life.
The founder of the internet, Tim Berners-Lee has revealed his thoughts on the future of web technology. He thinks that the internet domineering mogul Google could be superseded by a new company that will harness the power of the new technology.
The search giant had developed an extremely effective way of searching for pages on the internet, Tim Berners-Lee said, but that ability paled in comparison to what could be achieved on the “web of the future”, which he said would allow any piece of information — such as a photo or a bank statement — to be linked to any other.
Mr Berners-Lee said that in the same way, the current popularity of social networking sites like Facebook, Bebo and MySpace would eventually be superseded by networks that connected all types of things — not just people — thanks to a ground-breaking technology known as the “semantic web“.
“Using the semantic web, you can build applications that are much more powerful than anything on the regular web,” Mr Berners-Lee said. “Imagine if two completely separate things — your bank statements and your calendar — spoke the same language and could share information with one another. You could drag one on top of the other and a whole bunch of dots would appear showing you when you spent your money”.
“If you still weren’t sure of where you were when you made a particular transaction, you could then drag your photo album on top of the calendar, and be reminded that you used your credit card at the same time you were taking pictures of your kids at a theme park. So you wouldd know not to claim it as a tax deduction.
“It’s about creating a seamless web of all the data in your life.”
It sounds both exciting and daunting as it could potentially raise the bar of privacy issues that are already beginning to tie down the web at the moment.
The BBC have launched their new styled homepage (bbc.co.uk). In keeping with current ‘Web 2.0‘ trends they have introduced a ‘drag and drop’ interface that enables you to customise the homepage to suit your needs.
Comparing it to the old design, the new homepage comes across much more sleek and clean with large typeface and more visual content.
If you don’t like the colour scheme that they supply (it changes depending on the top right ‘advert’ image), you can customise it to your choice.
You can enter your location and it automatically tailors the content to your area - local news, weather and radio. If you don’t like the default elements you can choose to add others e.g. Blogs, Sport, Technology, BBC iPlayer, TV listings. If you don’t like the position of the elements you can ‘drag and drop’ these to different places on the page.
There are many different combinations to play with and if you get lost and you don’t like your creation, you can reset the homepage to it’s original default settings.
In order for your settings to stay the same, a cookie is placed within your browser so your preferences are loaded on each visit. With some users this could mean that they have to lower their browser security settings - which in some cases has deferred users from using the site.
Currently the news design is only present on the homepage but the development team have commented that they are looking at scaling out the design to the rest of the (incredibly large!) website.
All in all, I think this is a bold and adventurous but worthwhile change - the last homepage design was 8 years ago!
Three ex-Google employees launched their own streaming video site today, www.howcast.com. They envisage the site becoming the YouTube for instructional videos. Whilst employed at Google the three founders worked on the YouTube technology and also the Google Video platform.
The site has launched with professional instructional videos along the lines of ‘How to groom your cat‘. Each video has the same formula; an introduction explaining the resources you need for the task and a step-by-step guide - aided by a voiceover. You can view a text transcript of the instructions, skip to the different steps via the video controls and add your own tips below the video.
They are offering targeted advertising to business relating to the video content. For example; a painting and decorating company may want to advertise on the ‘How to paint a fence’ video page. Howcast are also offering product ads to be placed in the ‘resources you will need’ part of the video.
Howcast is leading the way in terms of advertising within and around video. It is in beta mode at the moment but I’ve no doubt it will change into full mode soon.
UK residents with an eye for a good video could earn a little extra with YouTube’s partner programme.
Originally launched in the U.S. and Canada last December, YouTube described the programme as “our way of enabling some of the most popular and prolific original content creators within the YouTube community to earn money from their videos”.
Once registered as a partner, any of their videos displayed on the YouTube website generates a revenue via adverts running alongside them, the partner then receives a portion of the revenue raised. Of course, the amount of revenue is largely dependent on how many videos are uploaded and how popular they become. YouTube states that in the U.S. it has users who already earn thousands each month from videos contributed through the program.
Not every video uploader can join the program though, you must meet the following criteria:
You videos contain original material
You own the copyrights and distribution rights for all audio and video content that you upload - no exceptions.
You regularly upload videos that are viewed by thousands of YouTube users.
You live in the US, Canada or the UK.
To apply for a partnership and start earning some easy money, head over to uk.youtube.com/partners.
Yes you heard it right, you can now download over 35 million songs (compared to iTunes’ 6 million) for free and LEGALLY! Qtrax - a new startup has collaborated with 4 major record companies (EMI, SonyBMG, Universal and Warner) to allow users to download song’s from their catalogues. There is one hitch though - you can only play your downloads via their in-house software - so you will not be able to transfer them to your iPod or burn them to CD.
You maybe thinking how on earth do the record companies and artists see any return on allowing their music to be downloaded for free? Well, Qtrax have created a platform where adverts are shown whilst the user plays their downloaded material via the Qtrax player. The ads will be targeted towards the user and then the information and revenue relayed back to the record company.
The service is only available on Windows at present, so Mac users are left out for now. The Qtrax website is currently unavailable completely (27.01.08) as widespread media interest has no doubt attracted overwhelming visitors.
Last year Google began a service ‘Print Ads’ to enable advertisers in the US to place advertisements in hundreds of US newspapers, via the Google AdWords system.
Google is currently in negotiations with several UK publications to scale out the service out here. Google takes a percentage of the advertising revenue for every ad placed - a middleman you could say.
Why the ‘real’ world?
Currently Google’s advertising platforms have concentrated on the online environment, so why make a move into the ‘real’ world? Well, most of the public do not have the capacity to take out an ad in a national newspaper. Google’s vision is to enable John the Plumber from Plumpton to place an ad, without going via the usual marketing/advertising moguls. It also means that the larger advertisers can try and squeeze a better deal by doing it online.
According to a British newspaper boss, the introduction of the service to the UK “is an interesting development, with the prospect of bringing new advertisers into our newspapers”, the Sunday Times reports.
“If advertisers find it to be an effective channel, then there is the prospect to form direct relationships on a more normal basis,” the executive added.
Click here to learn more about how Google AdWords Print Ads work.
Following a mass marketed initial launch, their first day looked promising, Cuil accounted for 1 in every 500 searches made in the UK (there are over 90 search engines available on the web - some have been in existence for over 10 years).
This week 
