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SearchWrite SearchNews
Caching Better Results in Search Marketing
Vol V, Issue 040 11.10.05
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CACHING THE LATEST RESULTS IN SEARCH MARKETING....

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Amazon's Mechanical Turk Provides "Artificial" (aka Human) AI
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When we think of interfaces between human beings and computers, we usually assume that the human being is the one requesting that a task be completed, and the computer is completing the task and providing the results. What if this process were reversed and a computer program could ask a human being to perform a task and return the results? What if it could coordinate many human beings to perform a task?

Amazon's latest brainchild  dubbed Mechanical Turk wants to add a dash of human ingenuity via a web services API for computers that integrates "artificial, artificial intelligence" directly into the transaction workflow by making requests of humans. 

What kinds of things can humans be doing for computers in the process of fulfilling transactions? Well, there are these examples: Adding keywords to images, cropping images to a particular size, correcting redeye, updating Wikipedia,  distributing telemarketing messages or warnings,  identifying Spam, writing emails to Congress, and many more.

The Amazon Mechanical Turk page (redundantly taglined "Artificial Artificial Intelligence) advertises "Complete simple tasks that people do better than computers. And, get paid for it."  Want to sign up?  Use the Mechanical Turk link below.

http://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome


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Desktop Search Wars: Microsoft Shortcuts Vs. Google Maps
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The latest version of Microsoft Desktop Search was unveiled for 100 or so Seattle Geeks (your trusty editor  among them) last Saturday at the Seattle Mind Camp think tank.  More than easy, touch-'n-go access to nearly everything that has been indexed on your hard drive (and externals), the new Desktop Search also includes system level shortcuts that are invoked with a simple key press.  Create "macros" to speed up almost everything you do on the Web, or on your desktop, including Search.

At the same time, Google Desktop 2 has come out of beta sporting some significant improvements -- like new sidebar panels, more plug-in development options, and better support for enterprise installations.

If you like maps on Google Local,  you'll like the new Personalized Maps panel. As you browse the web, this panel will display maps information related to the pages you're visiting, it can show you interesting places around the world, or you can directly navigate to your favorite spots. 


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Judy's Book Announces Free Online Marketing Services
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Judy's Book, Inc., the free consumer referral service that connects customers to merchants via word of mouth, has announced the availability of free online marketing services for any local business. For a limited time, the company is also rewarding top-quality merchants who receive high marks from the Judy's Book community by offering them a free trial of JBCalls(TM), a suite of services that includes sponsored listings and a pay-for-call trial.

With Judy's Book free online marketing services, local businesses will be able to leverage what has traditionally been one of the most effective forms of local marketing, word of mouth, by managing a listing created by consumers who have had a personal experience with their company. 

Any business in the U.S. can log on to www.judysbook.com, create an account for free and add or edit information about the business, including a description, hours of operation, product or service category and payment types accepted. In addition, each business can capture its customers' feedback using a feature called Rate My Business(TM).

Businesses with an average rating of at least four out of five stars are eligible for a free trial of JBCalls(TM), a pay-for-call service that provides a toll-free number that connects consumers directly to their business. As part of the free trial, merchants receive the first three calls to the toll-free number at no charge. After the first three calls, merchants can subscribe by paying for each subsequent call at a pre-determined rate depending on the type of business. As part of the subscription program, highly rated merchants will also receive a listing and premium placement above Judy's Book search results.

Facts about the Power of Local Word of Mouth:

-- The U.S. local advertising market is worth approximately $92B (Kelsey Group)

-- Every year $14B is spent on yellow pages advertising (Kelsey Group)

-- $3.9B will be spent on local online advertising in 2005 (Jupiter Research)

-- 88 percent of consumers trust "advertising" via word of mouth more than newspapers, radio, or celebrity endorsements (Intelliseek)

-- 65 percent of consumers trust friends for product recommendations (Intelliseek)


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Amazon Announces New "Amazon Pages" Program 
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Building on the success of its Search Inside the Book (SITB) program, Amazon.com has announced a new program that allows consumers to download specific pages, chapters, or an entire book for offline reading.

The  new "Amazon Pages" program will let people purchase online access to anywhere from a few pages of a book to an entire work. A corresponding program  known as "Amazon Upgrade" will let customers pay extra to be able to access books electronically that they've had shipped to them in printed form. In what could be the first step toward major publishers offering their works online, Random House said it will negotiate separate agreements with online booksellers, search engines, entertainment portals and others to offer the contents of its books to consumers for online viewing on a pay-per-page basis.

Digital books available for purchase are not a new idea but after this announcement, I would plan to see much more of it from many publishers, online book vendors, and databases. Of course, the issue of people wanting to read large portions of books in a non-traditional format is an issue. New technology could change this but many people want to hold the book in their hands. Of course, for reference use, online access can be very useful.


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RSS AdNetworks Taking Shape
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FeedBurner is expected to take the wraps off a new RSS ad network this week, which it's been quietly testing for around nine months. Separately, Feedster, which operates its own RSS ad network, is to announce a self-service capability which will allow more publishers to join.

Like Feedster, FeedBurner will let advertisers buy ads in a variety of categories. The new network will let advertisers choose among business, technology, current affairs, consumer electronics, entertainment and digital culture targets. Feedburner Vice President of Business Development Brent Hill says the company decided to go public with its initiative now that it's "reached critical mass."

Feedburner's technology channel allows advertisers to reach 150,000 subscribers and the business channel contains 100,000 subscribers. But the company doesn't de-duplicate between feeds, so the same subscriber could be counted more than once, Hill said.

Publications in the new network include the online properties of SmartMoney and IDG publications PC World, CIO, Computerworld and CMO. Blog networks Corante, Ars Technica and Gawker Media are also participating. Other publishers include Jeff Jarvis' BuzzMachine blog; the Daily Kos and Joshua Micah Marshall's Talking Points Memo and TPMCafe.


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Program Your TiVo via Yahoo
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Yahoo and TiVo (another verb for many, just like Google) have announced a partnership that will allow users of TiVo Series2 recorders to program their TiVo box via a special site on Yahoo. You'll need to have an email address and Yahoo account.

From any Yahoo TV episode page, users can click the "Record to my TiVo box" button, the companies said. The request is automatically sent to your home the next time your TiVo box connects. The companies suggest allowing for one hour of lag time if the TiVo is connected to broadband through a standard home network. Dialup users have to wait 36 hours for a request to take effect if the TiVo uses dialup.

A visit to the Yahoo TV page <http://tv.yahoo.com/>  will show "schedule now" on TiVo.
Instructions here. <http://tv.yahoo.com/onlinesch/tivo/introscreen>


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SEO Tip of the Week: The "Write" Way to Link Effectively for the Web
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Hyperlinks are the biggest difference between writing for print and writing online, and they can be used well or used badly. Keep in mind a couple of best practices when linking to other documents online:

* Make your link transparent. Tell the reader where it will lead to, either by citing the source or including explicit link text, or letting the reader know beforehand, especially when using URL-shortening services. See more on TinyURL etiquette.

* Use obvious link text. “Click here,” while enticing in a beckoning mystery meat kind of way, doesn’t say much about what the clicker is going to get. 

* Lead the reader to the link. While the beauty of hypertext is its ability to send the reader down any amount of paths off a document, multiple inline link references are difficult and distracting. Avoid the compulsion to link every single tangential reference and make the primary links very obvious. 

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