Search the Internet the easy way – with Joongel

September 11th, 2008 by Charles S. Knight
Posted in Innovations, Newcomers, News | No Comments »

Joongel is a web application for searching and navigating through the most popular sources on the Internet. Our search method is based on the location of the user and traffic ranking from Google, Hitwise, Compete, Comscore, Quantcast and more.

We created Joongel while thinking about how to make the Internet easier for you. We believe that just like us, you find the Internet to be from time to time a little bit like a jungle. Instead of presenting you with an enormous amount of scattered results from different subjects and websites, Joongel provides direct search results from the ten most viewed websites in a specific subject or subcategory. The Joongel application can be used in different platforms such as search plugins, expert websites and the Joongel main website.  Source: Joongel

How many Alternative Search Engines can you identify?

By using the Joongel application you are given the skills of a search expert without a learning process, you save time and you find the highest quality of information that is 100% relevant to your needs.

Mi casa es Zoocasa? That’s not Canadian, eh?

September 11th, 2008 by Charles S. Knight
Posted in Global, News, Verticals | No Comments »


Zoocasa is a home hunting search engine that helps you find homes for sale and provides you with information at the local level to help you make decisions that are right for you in planning your future. Zoocasa is an online platform where you can search for the home of your dreams right across Canada!

Zoocasa offers the easiest way for consumers to quickly and easily find consistently excellent links to information on the Web. By utilizing its robust search and navigation platform, Zoocasa is focused on enabling consumers to make more confident, informed decisions about their home hunting needs.

Zoocasa is not a broker or agent and Zoocasa is not designed to assist you with your home buying transactions. Zoocasa makes no representations in respect of any of the home descriptions that may be found on or through the search engine’s links.

Zoocasa’s search platform provides consumers and business partners with a powerful portfolio of online home search and navigation services. This search engine – the only one of its kind currently in existence – uniquely connects interrelated concepts to provide a semantic organization and contextual presentation of home hunting-related information such as where to find the best schools and calculating home to work commuting times and costs.

When you are about to make the biggest financial decision of your life, we connect you with the information that matters—in your city, postal code and neighborhood. Whether you are moving down the street or across the country, Zoocasa is here to help you understand housing trends at the local level. Home hunting just got much smarter!

Source: Zoocasa

What’s up with Exalead?

September 11th, 2008 by Guest Author
Posted in Alts, Guest Authors, News | 1 Comment »

Courtesy The Zuula Blog:

Something is going on at the French general-purpose search engine Exalead.

And, no, we’re not talking about the new features and functionality of their image search, which they announced on their company blog today.

Instead, we’re talking about something much more visible; namely, what you see on the Exalead homepage.

Previously, the homepage looked like your typical search engine homepage. It had the Exalead logo, a big search box, some links for different search types … you get the picture.

Today, the homepage is chock full of content hawking Exalead’s enterprise search solutions. Sure, there’s still a search box on the page. But it doesn’t work! If you enter a search term and hit the return key, all that happens is that you’re returned to the exact same page.

Initially, we thought this was a sure sign that Exalead was getting out of the general Internet search business. But the real story seems to be a bit more subtle than that. Exalead is still putting its general search homepage up for use if you go to country-specific sites such as www.exalead.fr or www.exalead.de. And you can get the content that used to be at the .com site’s homepage by going here.

So, based on what we can see right now, it looks like Exalead is shifting its focus away from the global Internet search market, and choosing, instead, to focus on certain country-specific search markets (and, of course, its enterprise search business).

Anyone with the inside scoop care to enlighten us on what’s going on?

(As always, feel free to track this development using Zuula blog search or news search. And, of course, we’ll continue to include Exalead’s globally-oriented web and image search results at Zuula as long as they remain available.)

Update: It looks like this posting got the attention of some people at Exalead, because the global homepage at www.exalead.com is now back to the way it looked previously. Either the company has re-thought its strategic shift, or there was a major mix-up in regard to the .com homepage. And I describe the mix-up as “major” because — if it was a mix-up — it was visible to the rest of the world for several days. The first mention of the different homepage content was several days ago — see this posting on the Exalead feedback website.

Suffering from info overload? Try new Eluma!

September 11th, 2008 by Guest Author
Posted in Guest Authors, Innovations, News | No Comments »

By Paul Christen, CTO

If you’re anything like me, you crave information. You’re subscribed to a ton of feeds, participate in online discussions groups, visit lots of different websites throughout the day, you’re Twittering, you’re checking Facebook, IMing with friends, and more.

I’m always searching for the needles in the haystack, or more specifically, the most relevant information for me.  While those valuable nuggets may come from Google and CNN, it’s at least as likely they’ll come from a niche search engine, or via recommendations from friends, or from other people that share common interests with me.  Digg and del.icio.us are good for finding the most popular content among its users. Alternative search engines and some “social search” websites also help me benefit from the wisdom of crowds. StumbleUpon uses collaborative filtering to try to suggest content based on my specific interests (actually Digg is now offering a beta version of a recommendation engine in an effort to customize the content they present for each user). It’s all good!

Information junkies, like us love drinking from the fire hose, but what good is it if we are literally drowning in too much information?

Eluma is one single application that can help you be more organized around everything you’re doing online, to help you more easily process your incoming information and to make it easier to find things again in the future when you need them. If you’re finding new sites through Google and alternative search engines, tracking RSS feeds on an ongoing basis, subscribed to Friendfeed, visiting Facebook and Twitter throughout the day, researching a project at work with a group, planning a vacation for your family, or you Stumble Upon a new site that you want to quickly file away (with a flag or a tag or a note to remind you why you saved it) or share with your friends, Eluma can help.

We’ve built a synchronized set of applications that include browser plug-ins for IE and FF (to capture it as soon as you find it), a read-write web portal (for ubiquitous access to your stuff), and a desktop client (for performance, organization, and offline access) that makes it easy to collect information from anywhere, organize it all in one place however you want, and set filters and visibility on your items (including immediate pop-ups to your desktop if you choose).

You can share groups of content with other people.  Other people can add comments on top of the content if you let them.  And Eluma also helps you discover relevant content and groups of content within Eluma based on discussions and ratings happening on collections of content.

On Wednesday and Thursday, Eluma will be exhibiting at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York, where it will demonstrate new features including enhancements to its read-write web portal and new sharing capabilities; release an Eluma extension for Facebook users; and launch ‘Eluma Private Label,’ a brand-able version of the Eluma app, which offers online content providers (like bloggers, for instance) a great way to drive more traffic and increase loyalty with their visitors.  If you are attending the conference please stop by to check it out at Booths #1811 and #1813.

AltSearchEngines will be there!

Charles@ReadWRiteWeb.com

Just the FAQ on People Seach Engine iSearch

September 11th, 2008 by Charles S. Knight
Posted in News, Verticals | 1 Comment »

What can I find using iSearch?

iSearch provides data from different aspects of a person’s life, some information you may find from different sources include:
o Public Record Data: Current and prior location history, property area info, age, neighbors & relatives
o Professional Data: Work history, position title, education background, colleagues and classmates
o Social Networking Data: Screen name, friends, interests and lifestyle information
o White Pages: Address, public phone number
o Email: Location and presence of e-mail address
o News & Blogs: Articles related to the name

* Why do some profiles contain more information than others?

There are a few reasons some profiles contain more information than others.
o The individual you are looking for may not have an online social or other profile available
o iSearch does not provide private information and only aggregates available public data. If the individual you’re seeking is keeping some or all of their information private we do not have access to their data.

* How do I join, and what does it cost?

iSearch is a FREE search service and you do not have to create an account or log in to use it.

* Where does iSearch get its data?

iSearch gets the profile information from aggregating publicly available records, professional data, and social networks. iSearch only displays information that is publicly viewable at the time that data was collected. iSearch then categorizes and connects information from the various sources and applies them to a specific profile using proprietary algorithms.

* What information can I find on iSearch?

iSearch features information related to a person’s professional, social, virtual and basic profiles. This includes professional history, colleagues, companies, family, educational background, job title, professional history, age, location, photos, schools, affiliations, interests, names, Web pages, blogs, social network pages and more.

* How are family members and associates inferred on iSearch?

iSearch identifies relatives and associates such as colleagues by cross-referencing addresses, companies, schools and other linked public information from online and offline sources.

* What if you don’t want your profile displayed at iSearch?

As consumers continue to become savvy users of tools such as social networking, white pages and other search tools, they will become aware of the importance of managing their off and online identity as it is visible to the general public. iSearch does plan to offer a courtesy suppression service. We are currently determining the best process by which to verify and accommodate such a request. Details on this process are TBA. We also believe consumers will continue to recognize and reap the benefits of such tools – benefits including increased ability to remain in touch with friends and associates and opportunities to network and build communities.

* Can I update my iSearch profile?

No. iSearch is a data aggregator not a user generated content site. If you wish to update the information visible on our site, consider updating your social and professional networking profiles.

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