Digg: I Want My PageRank Back!

Update 1: I think there is a possible fix for the Digg new behavior. It involves the usage of a new HTML directive in the form:

  <link rel="canonical" href="ORIGINAL_URL" />

but I don't know how many search engines are using this information. For more details about rel='canonical' see the Resource section.

Update 2: There is already a PHP script for denying access to the page when it is referred from a short Digg link. You can find it here. The idea is simple: look for the Referer request header.

Update 3: Engadget is blocking DiggBar.

Update 4: Some are saying DiggBar is not evil.

You've been blogging for a while and with some blood, sweat and tears you've been able to build some PageRank , so your blog would sometimes really appear on the Google searches.

You've also tried to bring more traffic to your blog, so you've submitted your stories to Digg, Reddit, etc hoping that someday you'll reach the homepage and that will generate thousands of visits.

Anyways, by launching the DiggBar and introducing the new internal URLs for stories posted on Digg, Digg has decided that getting some traffic from Digg is enough reward for your posts and your PageRank is worth nothing. By loading your page in an IFRAME they made sure you'll get no PageRank at all and that all future search engine generated traffic will go to Digg.

I do understand that you need a way to feed your well overstuffed company, but I'd expect something else from a 'web legend' like Kevin Rose. Thanks for understanding the web Digg!

Digg-ing this post entry requires my prior consent.

By the way: I've already removed Digg from the initial bookmarks options for this blog.

Resources:

• About rel=canonical
• PHP script for blocking Digg

Idea: RSS Feed Filtering

We are discovering new information sources every day and in our attempt to keep up with the news we are trying to cover everything. Sooner or later, we are realizing that it is just way too much.

Idea Analytics

We were visiting tones of sites to fetch our news and then we've got the RSS feeds. We were reading tones of feeds and then we've got feed aggregators. We were using different IM protocols and clients and then we've got Meebo. We have been using various emails and then we've got GMail. We have joined social networks and started to microblog and then we've got FriendFeed.

So far we have solved one side of the content flood problem: aggregation. But this is definitely not the end of the game. The next step will be indexing all this information and the search giant is not yet doing much in this direction. And finally we will need smart AI-based content filtering.

Regarding too many feeds, I think there is an untapped market for very intelligent filtering and recommendation tools.

Eric Burke on Twitter

The future is not FriendFeed. The future is for aggregators plus smart/AI filters. Those that will figure it out will lead the content market.

Me on Twitter

Implementation

FilterMyRss is a simple feed filter that uses keywords to identify only the posts that may be interesting.

Matoumba uses a Digg-like approach for learning from your behavior. By voting up or down the stories in your feeds, you teach Matoumba what are your fields of interests and prefered feeds and in time Matoumba will be able to tell you which information should be important to you within all the feeds you suscribed to, or even within the feeds from users who share the same interests as you.

Details

The approach taken by FilterMyRss is simple and resembles the way we are using search engines. Probably its best use is for tracking the apparition of the terms of interest on various I can think of how marketers can be using it while searching for feedback about their products.

On the other side Matoumba seems to have learned from others (Digg, Reddit, etc.) and is using a smarted approach that aligns with the current social media filtering approaches.

Related:

• Does Google Own the Search?
• FilterMyRss
• Matoumba

Idea: Video Comments - Love or Hate?

In a time where rich media is used everywhere, Loic Le Meur's idea of creating video comments is starting to get a lot of traction.

Idea

Replace traditional text based comments with video.

Implementation

I have been talking about Seesmic, a company whose founder is Loic Le Meur, in a post where I was remarking that more and more content is produced in video format. Loic's bet is that the traditional text comments can be replaced by short videos where the person replying is expressing his thoughts on camera. Seesmic currently provides a WordPress plugin and plans on distributing plugins for more blogging systems.

One of the first sites that added this feature was TechCrunch, but at that moment I have thought that this decision was based on the fact that Mike Arrington has invested in Seesmic.

However, as crazy as this idea seemed originally, people like Jason Calacanis and Alexis Bonte are starting to praise it.

Today I'm glad to say I was 100% wrong about Seesmic. I still hate the name, but I love where he has taken it. Video comments on blogs are brilliant.

Jason Calacanis

Alexis uses the "100%, 40%, 10% rule" to explain why video comments, even if sometimes difficult to produce, are are a good idea.

Details

While I do love rich media content (just check my site InfoQ.com where we've been using rich media for quite a while) and find it refreshing, I am still concerned by a couple of aspects of video content for which we are lacking some important tools:

• it is still hard to be indexed and searched
• it is hard to skim over video content and measure its relevance
• it is quite impossible to reference/quote specific fragments
• it is way quite hard to produce high quality content, while producing low/crappy quality is way too easy

Related:

• Video Content Everywhere
• Why a Video Blog

Idea: Does Google Own the Search?

Tim O'Reilly, Mike Arrington and a lot of other people are discussing the latest Microsoft moves in the search market. Some are believing Google has won this battle, at least for now.

Idea Analytics

Should Microsoft and Yahoo stop fighting for the search market and just leave it in Google's hands?

Microsoft is dropping the Live Book Search, but launches Live Search Cashback. Where does Microsoft want to be positioned in the search market?

Details

This whole discussion started when Tim O'Reilly has published in a blog post the following advice:

my advice to Yahoo!: continue with your plan to outsource search to Google, just like you did before 2002, and plow those increased profits and reduced costs into your own innovation, strengthening the areas where you are #1, exploring new ideas that will make YOUR users insanely happy, and generally focusing on what makes Yahoo! great, rather than on what doesn't. That is, unless Microsoft makes you so good a deal for your search assets that you just can't say no. But either way, let yourself be quit of the destructive competition and focus on adding real value for your users.

My advice to Microsoft: outsource your search to Google too!

Tim O'Reilly

In reply, Mike Arrington is raising quite a few good points

• We are just getting started in search.
  There are so many areas on search that remain to be conquered. Semantic search. Real language/AI search. The deep web. Media search.
• Search monopoly and a healthy internet are mutually exclusive.
• [...] the CPC (cost per click) model is flawed, but in Google’s favor because it puts fraud risk inefficiently on the advertisers, who have no way of controlling it at the search engine level. CPA (cost per action) models work much better, but Google has done little more than test them.

Mike Arrington

Not far ago, I was also expressing my concerns related to video content search, even if there are quite a few contenders on this market.

In the following comments and new Tim's post, both have finally agreed that Tim's original advise was not about leaving Google approach to search unchallenged, but rather something that sounds more like Seth Godin's Purple Cow: instead of playing the catch up role, Microsoft and Yahoo should be investing their money and energy into researching something new, worthy and remarkable.

I also think that Tim O'Reilly opinions were triggered by the Microsoft's attempts to monetize search through the introduction of Microsoft Live Search Cashback, a new service on which the opinions are quite disputed right now.

However, there are signs that Microsoft is starting to look differently at the search market, as it has currently dropped the Live Search Books project (which was a reaction to Google's Book Search).

Related:

• MicroHoo: corporate penis envy?
• Why search competition isn't the point
• The Importance Of A Competitive Search Market
• Online video content search engines
• Video content everywhere
• The Empire Strikes Back: Our Analysis Of Microsoft Live Search Cashback and Microsoft To Offer Cash Back To Search Engine Users In Effort To Fight Google
• Microsoft To Shut Live Search Books

Online video content search engines

In the previous post Video Content Everywhere I was mentioning a couple of concerns related to video based content. Today, I am listing two some of the existing video content search engines.

People are now looking for the videos in search. It’s gone from serendipitously finding videos or someone forwarding it to you, to actively going out and searching for it. (Bill Tancer)

After looking at a couple of video content sites I have expressed a couple of personal concerns related to this type of content:

• it is still hard to be indexed and searched
• it is hard to skim over video content and measure its relevance
• it is quite impossible to reference/quote specific fragments
• it is way quite hard to produce high quality content, while producing low/crappy quality is way too easy

so I have decided to look what solutions are available at this moment. I have put together a list of the major solutions:

• Altavista Video Search
• AOL Video
• Blinkx
• Fooooo
• Google Video
• Lumerias
• Mamma Metasearch
• mefeedia
• Pixsy
• Truveo
• uLinkx
• Y! Video

blinkx, which claims to be the world's largest and most advanced video search engine, explains what is needed to achieve good indexing results while working on video content:

blinkx listens to the sound track using speech-to-text technology, looks at the images on screen using advanced video analytics, and reads other information embedded into the file by using media-analysis plug-ins to extract, for example, closed captioning. In this way, blinkx is processing as much information as possible to enable both extremely accurate search, and more advanced operations such as automatic hyperlinking of related content or implicit query, which understands the content a user is producing and viewing.

Most of the above video search engines (those that are not directly hosting video content) have developed partnership networks with some of the most well known video sites, but I guess the next step would be to have their technologies adopted or plugged directly into these so that the search can be performed on site.

In case I have missed any of the existing video search engines, please leave a comment and I will update the above list.

Related:

• Video Content Everywhere
• Web Search Engines Lead Way to Video
• Narrowing the Search in Online Video