Xfernal's Techno-Dev Mumbling

Yahoo! released their beta version of Yahoo! Answers today. Their release of "answers" comes only 3.5 years after the release of Google Answers, leaving lots of "questions" to what took so damn long?

The first major difference between the 2 are that Google Answers utilizes about 500 handpicked researches, whereas Yahoo! Answers allows anyone to post an answer who has a Yahoo! account. While making it public seems to be a good idea at first thought, you have to consider the problems that wikipedia has faced with bad information. One of the first questions I looked at on Yahoo! Answers was COMPLETELY wrong.

Example:

What is the difference between an INC and a LLC?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

Its all about cya. In an Inc, the owners can have their personal property taken away. An LLC is designed to shield the personal property of the owners from lawsuits and bankruptcy. - Link to question

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

WTF?  I think Yahoo! Answers would be the LAST place I would look for business advice. Even worse is that the Asker accepted this as the best answer before anyone else could respond. Pathetic. Now, only comments can be added to this question.

The second difference is that Google Answers cost $ (starting at $2.50), while Yahoo! Answers is currently free.

I think I'd rather pay $2.50 for an answer on Google that has a better chance of being correct than relying on anyone to post the answer. Maybe a basic intelligence test and category questionaire would be appropriate before people could begin posting questions?

I will admit I do like the design and interface that Yahoo! has used better than Google's but I think I will wait a bit to see how everything pans out before I start relying on their answers.

 

The word is Microsoft is developing an online classified ad system code-named Fremont.

Features:

1. MSN IM alerts for buying/selling items
2. Buddy list only selling, or limiting by domain in email addresses
3. Geography based searching via ZIP
4. Free service

In the news:

Microsoft joins classified ad race

So, is Google planning on using Google Base as an online classified ad system as well? If it is true that Google is working on an online payment system and combines it with Google Base for ads, it would definitely be interesting and would generate much attention.

Supposedly Fremont would be a free service because the business model involves ad revenue. Lets just hope that they do not use image/flash banner ads like they do on the MSN home page. One thing I have always liked about Google is there are no ads on the home page and text only ads on their search results pages. Keep it clean!

What about Ebay? They bought Craigslist and they already have the online payment system PayPal. I doubt they will sit idle while this war is brewing, but I am afraid they will get stomped by one of the 800 pound gorillas being the smaller monkey they are. Eeeep!

 

 

I heard from a friend that Google Jet was in town at RDU last week. Shows how much I keep up with local news, just finding out about it a week later eh? Anyway, after looking around to see why Google was in town, I found this story: Google looks for local offices

While looking for other information about Google being in town, I ran into this interesting article: Google-Mart - Sam Walton taught Google More About How to Dominate the Internet than Microsoft ever did. 

"And unless Google comes up with an ecosystem to allow their survival, that means all the other web services companies will be marginalized. There will be startups and little guys, but no medium-sized companies. ISPs, which we've thought of as a threatened species, won't be touched, but then their profit margins are so low they aren't worth touching. After all, Wal-Mart doesn't try to own the roads its goods are carried over. And the final result is that Web 2.0 IS Google.

Microsoft can't compete. Yahoo probably can't compete. Sun and IBM are like remora, along for the ride. And what does it all cost, maybe $1 billion? That's less than Microsoft spends on legal settlements each year.

Game over." - Robert Cringely

A very fascinating prediction and with Google having billions in cash it is definitley do-able.

Is Google planning on starting a marketing office here in Raleigh, or maybe just recruiting local engineering talent with so many being in RTP? Or is it something more "evil" like buying up dark fiber that may have been laying around after alot of the dot bubble failures. Hell, there may not even be any dark fiber in Raleigh as I am sure TWC owns most it. I guess only time will tell, but I am betting Google's plan for Raleigh is simply a place to recruit top engineering talent in RTP. I guess we will see...

Google allows for a LSI keyword search. By prefacing a tilde (~) before the search term in Google, LSI keyword results will be returned.

Example search: ~automobile

Results would include many “car” related results with the LSI keywords bolded.

 

Example Results:

Toyota.com

Official Web site of Toyota Motor Corporation, USA, providing information on Toyota cars, trucks, SUVs, motorsports, as well as corporate information. www.toyota.com/ - 11k - Cached - Similar pages

Honda Cars Motorcycles Watercraft ATVs Engines Generators, Acura

Manufactures a wide range of products, including motorcycles, ATVs, generators, marine engines, lawn and garden equipment, and automobiles. (NYSE:HMC). www.honda.com/ - 20k - Nov 19, 2005 - Cached - Similar pages

Buy new & used cars online, research prices & dealers, sell your ...

Comprehensive site with vehicle profiles, dealer locator, and financing information. www.cars.com/ - 34k - Nov 19, 2005 - Cached - Similar pages

Car Talk

Home of the funny and useful NPR one-hour call-in radio show of the same name which is broadcast every Saturday. Past shows are archived and can be heard ... www.cartalk.com/ - 44k - Nov 19, 2005 - Cached - Similar pages

 

Notice “Toyota”, “Honda Cars”, “vehicle” are all bolded in the results. Very handy for getting more keywords

One of the best web log analysis applications is Urchin Web Analytics which was bought by Google. I had checked on the Urchin website about a month ago and saw where they were still charging $199 per month plus extra for high traffic. Now the website points to Google Analytics and it is free. All required is to register for an account and to add a JavaScript to your HTML Head. Logging into your Google account will provide detailed reports.

More importantly:

"If you have an AdWords account, you can use Google Analytics directly from the AdWords interface. Google Analytics is the only product that can automatically provide AdWords ROI metrics, without you having to import cost data or add tracking information to keywords."

You can signup here: Google Analytics

 

I found an interesting paper today on Probabilistic Latent Semantic Indexing. 

"We have presented a novel method for automated indexing based on a statistical latent class model. This approach has important theoretical advantages over standard LSI, since it is based on the likelihood principle, defines a generative data hmodel, and directly minimizes word perplexity. It can also take advantage of statistical standard methods for model fitting, overfitting control, and model combination. The empirical evaluation has clearly confirmed the benefits of Probabilistic Latent Semantic Indexing which achieves significant gains in precision over both, standard term matching and LSI."

This paper even provides a convenient algorithm to use. Built into the parser I am working on, some interesting results should be obtained.

Looking for podcast?

I was looking for more information on Latent Semantic Indexing since I am approaching the point in my newsfeed search project where I need to augment search results with similar keywords. While doing a google-search I stumbled across this great article that really defines LSI and how it is helping search engines become smarter. This is an easy read and breaks down LSI into layman terms for the uninitiated...The Need For Smater Search Engines

Google's White Paper

Google Launches Blog Search