Stealth report – Zimbabwean search engine Onny

July 12th, 2009 by Charles S. Knight
Posted in Global, Newcomers | No Comments »

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A new Zimbabwean search engine could give Google and top search engines a run for market share after launching what the developers says is a faster search engine this week.

Onny has an uphill task to fight bigger and established search engines such as google and yahoo for market share and advertisers.

Most advertising revenue is now going online mostly to search engines and webs where costs are minimal and reaches a broader audience and users. Kingstone Kanyile, the brains behind Onny, said he was hoping to tap into the market through cheaper adverts for continental and international markets.

But first it has to establish a strong user base and be sure that the site is sexed up to appeal to new users.

Source: Zimbabwe Independent

Search for disability organizations with Disaboom.

July 12th, 2009 by Charles S. Knight
Posted in Health, Verticals | No Comments »

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Disaboom was founded by Dr. J. Glen House, a physician specializing in physical medicine and rehabilitation who is also a quadriplegic. His firsthand knowledge of the challenges faced by individuals with disabilities and those whose lives they touch has driven the Disaboom.com mission: to create the first comprehensive, evolving source of information, insight, and personal engagement for the disability community.

Disaboom.com is based on the following core beliefs:

Expertise comes in many forms. Often the best advice comes not just from medical experts but also from “peers” – others who’ve walked the path you’re on. That’s why in addition to providing solid medical expertise, we’ve also put together the largest online network of individuals to share their personal experiences with you, providing honest, practical answers to hard questions.

Knowledge is power – and so is community. Disaboom.com strives to provide you the tools and guidance you need to live active, engaged lives. But when it comes to sharing stories and personal insights, there’s nothing stronger than the power of community – which is why we’re connecting the millions touched by disability to both information and each other.

You don’t have to be disabled to be touched by disability. The Disaboom.com community is as diverse as the communities we live in, made up of mothers and models, surfers and surgeons, babies and baby boomers. Our network of 180 million and growing includes not just individuals with disabilities, but also medical practitioners, caregivers, employers, family members, teachers, and others. In so many important ways, people with disabilities may be anyone – and everyone.

The word “disability” may apply to us – but will never define us. We decide who we are, and what lives we will create. The goal of Disaboom.com is to provide the information, community, and connection you need to define who you are, and what life you will lead.

Disability organizations, national, international, regional or local, exist to help people with disabilities. They may focus on housing for disabled seniors, employment for people with disabilities, outreach services for people with disabilities or specific conditions such as multiple sclerosis or fibromyalgia, or programs for specific groups such as disabled American veterans. Their mission may be advocacy, or support, or information on topics such as adaptive sports or assistive technology.

Disability-Specific Organizations

Major Disability Organizations

Organizations for Living with Disabilities

Whitepaper – “Next Generation” Federated Search

July 12th, 2009 by Guest Author
Posted in Federated Search, Guest Authors | No Comments »

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By Guest Author Sol Lederman / source here.

(Federated Search Blog and AltSearchEngines ) Blog sponsor Deep Web Technologies has just published a whitepaper, “Next-Generation” Federated Search: Critical for Intellectual Property Research.

deepThe whitepaper explains why “Next-generation federated search technologies are quickly becoming an essential and indispensable tool for attorneys, paralegals, expert witnesses, and owners of IP to create, protect, monitor and litigate their intellectual property portfolios.”

Larry Donahue, Deep Web Technologies’ Chief Operating Officer and Corporate Counsel, authored the whitepaper. Mr. Donahue is licensed to practice law in New Mexico and Illinois and is a registered patent attorney thus he very well understands the information needs of the legal profession.

Intellectual property litigation is but one field of law in which missing important documentation in preparing a case can be a very costly mistake in court to say nothing of the loss in credibility. The right federated search solution, configured to search all the relevant sources, can serve to sufficiently widen the net to avoid missing critical information while keeping the legal staff out of overwhelm.

At just two pages, the paper is a quick yet impactful read.

And, of course, there are many industries outside of law in which the cost of missing information is high.

New academic text: Search User Interfaces (Part I)

July 12th, 2009 by Guest Author
Posted in Federated Search, Guest Authors | No Comments »

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By Guest Author Sol Lederman / here.

UC Berkeley Professor Marti Hearst has just completed Search User Interfaces, an academic book on the topic. Cambridge University Press will be releasing print copies in September but the full text is available online now for free.

The terms of service for the online version of the book does not permit posting any of its contents so, even though short excerpts from the book would probably be acceptable fair use, I’ll respect the terms of service and I won’t be quoting from the book in this article.

I don’t consider this series of articles to be a formal review of the book but more of a sampling of ideas I found interesting and instructive.

This is a book about search system usability, specifically about how to design and evaluate search user interfaces. The book also considers different models of the information seeking process, how users specify queries, how search engines present results, and other topics. I was delighted to see current discussions of faceted search, personalization, and visualization. The book’s final chapter discusses promising trends in search interfaces.

The book is geared to two audiences, academic people who want to research or teach search usability and developers of such systems. However, the book is approachable enough that someone like me who is in neither category finds it quite valuable. Although the book does not give any attention to federated search (the term does not appear at all in it) and references metasearch only four times, I imagine that most of the teachings of good search engine usability design apply to federated search systems as well. I do also acknowledge that federated search has its own unique usability challenges: displaying incremental results and organizing/navigating results from different sources are two that come to mind.

Chapter 1 explores the design of search user interfaces. Hearst discusses the importance of keeping the interface simple. She notes that 1997 search results from Infoseek look almost identical to those from Google in 2007. Presumably her point is that the search industry has been slow to adopt changes that improve usability. She further notes that, even with a simple search interface like Google, many users – in particular novice users – have many problems.

Hearst refers to a set of usability factors that she believes should influence user interface design: learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, and satisfaction. She also discusses seven guidelines for search interfaces that support the usability factors. Providing shortcuts for advanced users, for example, supports efficiency. Showing some results immediately and highlighting search terms also support efficiency. Chapter 1 is packed with very concrete suggestions for improving the user experience.

Chapter 2 tackles the question of how to assess a search user interface. In the discussion, Hearst refers to three main aspects of usability, as defined by ISO: effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. The goal is to measure search interfaces against these criteria, as objectively as possible. Hearst discusses a simple yet surprisingly effective approach to testing an early design which she refers to as low fidelity, or lo-fi, testing. Prototype screens of the application are made on paper. Potential users of the system interact with the various pages of the prototype and provide input on what works for them and what doesn’t. Hearts makes the interesting point that evaluators are typically less hesitant to criticize a paper prototype than one that looks like much work went into implementing it. Lo-fi designs lead to hi-fi implementations and further rounds of evaluation. Hearts discusses other approaches to assessing usability: employing usability experts to assess a design, and watching users “in the field” work with an application.

The chapter continues with detailed discussions of how to perform formal testing and controlled experiments. These studies are difficult to perform and require quite a commitment of time and resources. In performing a formal test, questions come up such as what to control for, how to obtain the right participants, how to measure their responses and preferences, and how to track their behavior over time. The rest of the chapter discusses how to mine search logs for helpful information, and presents cautions to consider when evaluating search interfaces.

Continued in Part II.

Recipe search engine FoodieView plans meals

July 12th, 2009 by Charles S. Knight
Posted in Updates, Verticals | No Comments »

fv1FoodieView, a leading food portal with a convenient “Google(tm)-like” recipe search engine providing one-stop access to the Internet’s largest and highest quality recipe collections, just announced the launch of its free “Meal Plan-of-the-Week” feature intended to save busy, budget-conscious individuals time and money by taking the guesswork out of low cost meal planning, grocery shopping and recipe preparation in full 7-day increments. FoodieView’s free weekly meal plans each feature seven lunch and seven dinner recipes from culinary experts that utilize economical and seasonal ingredients while also uniquely accounting for left-overs, which are incorporated into recipes later in the week. Each plan also comes complete with a corresponding grocery list to ease and expedite the shopping process.

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“While there are several services on the Web that charge fees for similar expert-based weekly meal plans and grocery shopping lists, we expect our free tool offering budget-friendly, yet delicious fare will resonate with time-stressed consumers — particularly during these tough economic times,” said FoodieView founder Howie Wang. “This new feature furthers our company’s mission of enabling fellow food-lovers to spend more time cooking, eating and socializing rather than planning, shopping and tirelessly searching for food-related information online. Our specialized food-specific portal approach, which combines unique recipe search engine functionality with relevant tools like this meal planner, information resources and an interactive community, is rapidly propelling our company’s growth as we achieve key goals.”

FoodieView posts a new “Meal Plan-of-the-Week” online at http://www.foodieview.com/mealplan each Thursday featuring 14 synergistic lunch and dinner recipes, giving users ample time to shop for meals to be prepared and consumed the following Monday through Sunday. The meal plans are thoughtfully devised by a group of FoodieView partner contributors who are culinary experts in their respective fields — a diversity that also assures menu variety. FoodieView’s weekly meal plan partner contributors include Lis of La Mia Cucina, Anne-Marie Nichols of “This Mama Cooks on a Diet” and “My Readable Feast,” Rachel Rappaport of Coconut & Lime, Paula Jones of Bell’alimento, Lynn Daley of Café Lynnylu, Michele Durante of Veggie Num Nums and Marika Collins of Madcap Cupcake, among others.

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In addition to its new “Meal Plan-of-the-Week” tool, the FoodieView also boasts the following features:

–Social Networking: By popular demand, food-o-philes may now interact with one another through FoodieView’s array of social network features, which include the ability to add, view and edit “Foodie Friends,” a “Fridge Door” bulletin board system for public comments, Private Messaging, personal Photo Galleries, Restaurant Lists, Reviews Lists, Cooking book and gear wish lists, and more.

–One-Stop Recipe Search Engine: Negating the need to visit individual Web sites to search for recipes one by one, through FoodieView’s unique and convenient recipe search engine users may quickly and easily query ALL of the Internet’s leading recipe sites — including Epicurious.com, AllRecipes.com, Recipezaar.com, FoodNetwork.com as well as boutique food sites and key food blogs — simultaneously from one single search tool. Users may search by ingredient, keyword, dish name, cuisine, chef, special occasion, dietary program or restrictions and more. The search results are then sorted both by relevance and user rating, also presented with additional “narrow down” refine search options, making it nearly effortless to find the most popular, promising recipes.

–Recipe Box: Once one or more recipes of interest are identified, this free Web tool allows users to store those recipes in a personal online “Recipe Box” for easy access at any time. Users may also share their personal Recipe Box through a dedicated Web link that may be easily sent to others via email.

–Metro Restaurant Guide: FoodieView takes the guesswork out of dining out with our comprehensive metro Restaurant Guide, which compiles “Best Of” lists and restaurant reviews from professional food critics, food bloggers, and regular folks just like you. Restaurants in 9 major markets — Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle — may be searched by name, or users may simply browse by cuisine category or geographic location. Users may also make lists and restaurant maps to share with others.

–Must Have Cookbook Reviews: To help our culinary constituents quickly locate cookbooks of interest, FoodieView offers a repository of cookbook reviews across a range of categories: Chinese, Japanese, French, Indian, Italian and General. Here users may read detailed cookbook descriptions, view cover artwork and ultimately click through to purchase those cookbooks of interest on Amazon.com.

–”Recipe Roundup” e-Newsletters: This weekly editorial feature spotlights the best of the food blogosphere. Each week a guest food blogger selects a delicious food topic and guides readers through his or her favorite recipes from all over the Web. The newsletters are sent to subscribers via email and are also archived on the FoodieView blog for continuous consumption.

–”Foodie Views of the Day”: Designed to gratify the visual cravings of FoodieView’s visitors and to celebrate the beauty and artistry of food, this daily feature showcases the best food photography from around the blogosphere. For this feature, food bloggers, photographers and enthusiasts may submit pictures they wish to share with the foodie community. FoodieView then hand picks the cream-of-the-crop for this popular daily feature, with visitors enabled and encouraged to vote on their favorite images.