However you define a great holiday, unplug and go do it!

All the best to you and yours. I’ll be back blogging in 2008.

I’s been an enjoyable ride these past few months, thanks to all for reading and contributing!

diversion | 1 Comment »

So, the speculation about Google’s entry into 411 as a tool for building their own voice search foundation has been confirmed. It seemed like the right scenario awhile back, now it’s confirmed from the head of Google Search Products & User Experience.

Explained here, Marissa Meyer confirms the suspicions I raised awhile back. From an interview with Infoworld

” …So we need a lot of people talking, saying things so that we can ultimately train off of that. … So 1-800-GOOG-411 is about that: Getting a bunch of different speech samples so that when you call up or we’re trying to get the voice out of video, we can do it with high accuracy.”

411 | No Comments »

For those of you who follow the trend towards increased personalization of search, this interview with Google’s lead engineer on search personalization is a treasure trove.

the importance of location

“Location is one of our stronger signals in personalized search.”

“The two signals that we use right now are the search history and the location. We constantly experiment with other signals, but the two signals that have worked best for us are location and search history.”

we’re not searching things that interest us?

(more…)

search | No Comments »

A Google search on “darwinism” delivers wikipedia ironically into the top search result.

The blogsphere is abuzz this morning with the announced movement of Google into the world of Wikipedia. With the posting of a new project known as “knol”, Google signals its intent to own the space currently being dominated by Wikipedia. Presumably sending that many users to a foundation just seemed too darn sub-optimal (or “break stuff” as Kedrosky labels it).

The stakes are pretty meaningful. October stats are excerpted from comScore below (more…)

publishing, strategy | No Comments »

We’ve long differentiated between searching and browsing. I like the new term “Discovery” because browsing is about to be expanded in bold ways by the newly forming connective tissue known as the “social graph”.

Consumers have been using the internet more and more frequently for information exploration; Building on this behavior, Discovery will emerge to become an increasingly critical dimension of consumer shopping and purchase behavior. Far more personal than search, Discovery can smartly traverse paths forged or suggested (directly or indirectly) by people you know, trust or admire. (more…)

social, local social, strategy, OpenSocial | No Comments »

Every teen (that isn’t locked up in a Waco training camp) has some form of self-publishing technology entrenched into their daily lives. Every college student in North America, and increasingly around the globe, has some active engagement with the new commons - Facebook and their facsimiles. Let’s face it, online self-expression and conversation is embedded into the social fabric of the next gen local consumer.

But this is way beyond being just a teen thang. (more…)

social, local social, strategy | No Comments »