Archive for August, 2008
“Fire Eagle” delivers locality-based user data
28 Aug. 2008 | Author: In March of this year, Yahoo! started up its new localization service “Fire Eagle” in a closed beta-version. It was recently opened up to the public at large and now is freely accessible, albeit only in English at present.
A Yahoo! press release describes Fire Eagle as an open platform, enabling its members to publish their actual geolocation on the website. Developers are enabled to access this information and integrate the data into their services. This model saves Yahoo! development costs and the complex construction of its own locality-based services.
Stated differently: Fire Eagle is not its own independent network, but rather a central data node for localized user data, enabled to be used by other applications – whether web, desktop or mobile. User can thus determine which services may access their information. According to Yahoo! Fire Eagle is already enabled with over 50 services, including Dopplr, Pownce, Moveable Type and Outside.in. If the user changes his location, his new location can be automatically updated, for example by mobile phone, if so desired. Users can also manually submit location changes using the Fire Eagle website or via SMS. Thereafter all approved location services will be updated to reflect the new location, allowing those services to react and adjust their service offerings.
Users may decide freely on which and how much information may be passed to the partner services, but are also able to hide their location, amend approved services or erase their saved data on Fire Eagle. This however has raised some security red flags, according to a BBC report. Although the user is able to delete their data on Fire Eagle, any previously shared data can still be stored by service partners and continued to be used. Yahoo! also recognizes this danger and urges its users (via its Help page) only to trust their data to reputable/credible third-party services.
Posted in Web Communities, World Wide Web, Localization technology, News | 
Tags: Datenschützer, Fire Eagle, Lokalisierungsdienst, Schnittstelle, Userdaten, Yahoo | 
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GoYellow sells GoLocal
GoLocal.de only started up in March (2008) (see our report). The ratings portal has just changed hands for two million Euros.
GoYellow Media AG announced this in a press release. Until now, the ratings portal has been operated by GoLocal GmbH & Co. KG, a daughter company of GoYellow Media AG. According to the report, the mother company, which owns the online-directory GoYellow.de, among other companies, has sold all their shares in the daughter company to GoLocal Holding GmbH & Co. KG – pending approval from regulators. Associates of the new purchaser include various directory publishers.
GoYellow Media AG will still however continue to operate the directory information portal GoYellow.de, in an ongoing cooperation with the yellow-page publishers that has continued to be expanded since April 2007. GoYellow Media AG intends to concentrate on the national and international development of the online telephone service PeterZahlt.de [translated as 'PeterPays'].
Posted in Web Communities, Local Search per PC, Local Search, News |
Tags: Bewertungsportal, GoLocal, GoYellow, Informationsservice, lokale Informationen, Verkauf, web2 0 |
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YellowMap sets importance on local search
“Welcome to the secrets of your local world!” is the slogan greeting the users of lokaleauskunft.de on its start page. The portal is a product of YellowMap AG in Karlsruhe, which is also the operator of the online-directory YellowMap.de.
The difference between the sibling-services is not easily seen at first glance. For example, both portals offer directory search, a telephone directory, city plans, city information and a personal user area.
However the emphasis differs. Whereas YellowMap.de centers on the localized directory search, lokaleauskunft.de weighs in much more on its coverage of extensive local content for individual cities, which until now have been lacking. The new portal, still in beta-phase, is still under development. It plans, according to information provided to Lokale-Suche-Blog, to become in the medium-term an “information-source for all local information” – presumably comparable with city-pages similar to meinestadt.de. When this is to happen has not been announced.
In contrast to YellowMap.de the users of lokaleauskunft.de are as yet unable to rate or describe found service providers; this is to change soon, according to the operators of the new service. In the mean time, the city plans are more user-friendly. Here one can display results using map, satellite, hybrid or bird’s eye views, using cartographic material from Microsoft Virtual earth. Noteworthy is lokaleauskunft.de’s route planner, with which one can not only find the fastest or shortest route, but also the most economical. Additionally it also provides route plans for pedestrians and cyclists, alongside motorists
More knowledge with Cuil?
The Gallic word “cuil,” pronounced as “cool” in English, means knowledge, and is the name of a new English-language search engine, which launched unexpectedly and without a Beta-phase, at the end of July 2008.
Launched in Menlo Park, CA, by former Google and IBM employees, Cuil has generated really high expectations. The operators themselves (in a recent press release) very consciously speak of its “innovative search offering”.
Cuil is intended to deliver better search results than its competitor, by concentrating on the content relevance, rather than their opposition’s analysis and level of awareness of their generated links. Additionally the results are to be displayed in detail, with images, sorted in groups and by category. Cuil’s makers promise the complete protection of the privacy of its users. Their theory is that the collection of user information is unnecessary for a search engine generating via content rather than popularity. With their 120 billion websites, Cuil has trawled three times more sites than its competitors and is therefore the largest search machine on the web. This is important to the Cuil folk, as (in their opinion) the other search providers are not able to keep up with the constant growth of the internet.
The above was the modus operandus with which Cuil debuted, which sounds convincing. However reality is something else– as yet the new search engine has not been able to fulfill these high expectations. On the contrary– already in the first days after launch, there was a media hailstorm of criticism, and not unfounded. Excluding that the layout of the results (in a choice two or three columns) was an acquired taste and that the search engine is English-based, but the generated results left much to be desired. And the successful recognition of content relevance is also not fully realized. Christian Stöcker of Spiegel Online points out that Cuil is also a ‘victim’ of the old “miserable failure” search… which like Google before it, links to the homepage of President George W. Bush as one of the first results, indicating that Cuil’s reliance on link frequency is indeed higher than envisaged. Further, parallel to the web search, no further functions are in evidence, such as specialized image results or local search results. The latter results are in today’s climate, of critical importance for a search engine, that wants to hold its own against the big players.
Can Cuil in reality present itself as a serious competitor to Google and Co?
Posted in World Wide Web, Discussion, New Search Machine Interest |
Tags: cuil, Suchdienst, Suche, Suchmaschine |
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Google Maps is pepped up!
At the beginning of August, Google’s local search feature, Google Maps, displayed a new face and overlooked a few new features.
According to the motto “Less is More”, the revised Google maps start page now presents a single entry screen, with which one can search the map as well as research services and providers at a desired location. The route planner has been banished from this view, but is to be found via a link in the blue navigation bar above the search results.
Almost at the same time as the appearance of the new layout, Google treated its users to a variety of other new functions. So, alongside its pedestrian navigation (see our report) in the route planer, there is now the possibility to refine routes by “avoiding toll roads”, which is above all useful for trips outside of Germany.
Especially practical are also the new print functions for the route planner, as indicated by Google programmers Andrew Gove and Jonathan Siegel in the Google Lat Long Blog. Users gain simplified options to print practical/relevant information that will help them en route. To do this, after generating the relevant route, click on “Print” in the blue navigation bar above the map view. On top of the resulting print-view of the map, once can choose whether one requires text descriptions for each leg of the route, or rather generate a “Street View”. In addition the user can choose whether the overview map (showing the overall route) is to be printed or not.
For those who only need descriptions, maps or Street-View pictures for certain legs of the journey, the “Text” link can be chosen. In the route description, one can have a map or street-view generated for each step of the way. This can be chosen with a mouse-over/contextual-option choice. The link “Street View” appears however only when there are existing photos of the chosen location/route. This has yet to appear on the German website.
Posted in Local Search per PC, Local Search, News, Local Search Engines, Practical features |
Tags: Druck, Google, google maps, lokale Informationen, Maps, Straßenansicht, Suchmaschinenriese |
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Meinestadt.de soon to offer local news
From September 2008, users should be able to keep informed about all local news, using the new feature of meinestadt.de. The town and city portal plans to integrate local news on its current town-pages website.
Local news will be provided by the Web 2.0 news platform webnews.de, where registered users can link to local and regional news pages, as well as uploading self-created articles. The operators of meinestadt.de, Allesklar.com AG, refer to the cooperation in a press release.
The cooperation between the two operators is not however limited to the integration of news – Allesklar Media, a unit of Allesklar.com AG (launched in May 2008) will also in the future be marketing webnews.de.
Summer cleanup at Yahoo! Maps
Yahoo! has updated its USA maps and route portal Yahoo! Maps, offering some new features. Through this, the integration of local services has been improved, said Product Manager Gus Maldonado in the Yahoo! Geo Technologies Blog.
The route planner has become more user-friendly, with the left column with the route description has been widened, the font enlarged and thus made more legible. The Print View page has also been revised, allowing individual stages of the route, to be hidden in the event that their content is already known, thus saving paper and ink. For each change of direction/turn on the route, it is now possible to display a detail map. This feature now brings interactivity to the Print Version, by allowing zooming in or out, shifting the area (by mouse) to adjust its view ‘window’ or to display different areas. And these improvements are only just the beginning, according to Maldonado, who promises a further update in 2008.
Yahoo! actually does not limit its special map and route planner portal to the USA. This can also be found in Germany under the name Yahoo! Lokale Suche Routenplaner. It is however still in beta-phase and is nowhere near (or at least not yet) as user-friendly as the USA-version.
Posted in Local Search per PC, Local Search, News, Local Search Engines, Practical features |
Tags: lokale Informationen, Maps, Yahoo, Yahoo! Local Maps, Yahoo! Maps |
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Google allows a glimpse backstage
The search engine giant wants to in the future provide its users with more information as to how personalized search results are generated. This was announced by Rachel Garb in the official Google Blog.
Google adjusts its search results according to each user. This means that the same search request may generate differing results, according to the location of the user, or between different users. The undertaking wishes to explain which data it thereby accesses. In so doing, Google has actually expanded its web search functionality by introducing a new feature, according to Garb. In the future, above and to the right of personalized results there will appear a short note, detailing which criteria were used in generating the results. The details may be expanded further by clicking a relevant link.
In order to personalize the search results, Garb says Google uses the latest search requests of the user, and also evaluates the recent web history of the logged-in web user, but only when this function has been explicitly activated by the user.
Further, the search engine also considers approximate (geo)location of the user when generating the personalized results. this is achieved usually by using the IP-Address of the computer being used. Google is able to usually ascertain the city in which the user is located and can adjust the search results accordingly. Whoever wishes to enter another search location can also do this, but a Google Account is a prerequisite for this feature. It is interesting that these location details are not used for the personalized search results of the web search, but actually are used for the improvement of the results of Google Maps.
The new feature should, at least in the USA edition of Google, be accessible in the next few days. There is no current information as to when or if Google plans to integrate this into its German-version.
Points at youbizz.de
The start of 2008 saw the appearance of a new German online-branch book called youbizz.de. Above all the service was to provide free advertising for companies – however not many firms have availed themselves of this offer, as after more than half a year, the search results are really sparse.
The portal is operated by Reed Business Information GmbH in Munich, a daughter company of the worldwide specialist publishers Reed Elsevier plc. In a press release, it was stated that Reed Business is concentrating in Germany on four market segments: architecture, medicine, technology and e-business, and publishes ten specialist magazines, including titles such as “Detail:, “Ärztliche Praxis” [en=Medical Practice] and “Digital Production”.
With youbizz.de, Reed Business wants to enable companies and undertakings to advertise their services free online, in an innovative manner. However at first glance, this service does not appear to present anything innovative. Similar to other local search services, one one can enter a keyword (e.g. by category or products) as well as a location name or postal code, and generate a results list. In comparison to other web-directories or local search engines, the number of generated results seems wanting. There is also no map search, however the location of chosen results are able to be displayed on a Google-Map. And there is no route planner.
New and different on youbizz, is that every service provider/undertaking can decide individually how prominent their firm is to be placed in the results list. This is determined by so-called Bizz-Punkte [en=Bizz-Points]. Every undertaking can be rated for free by providing detailed information about themselves and thus be awarded with a ‘points’ rating. As explained by Reed Business, points can be accrued by the provision of detailed contact information, news updates, press releases, or uploaded logos and corporate data. Additionally, users have the ability to recommend company profiles. For these recommendations, firms are also able to collect further Bizz-Points. The more points a firm collect, the better the placement in the results listing.
The points, according to Ramon Parma of Reed Business Information GmbH, are used not only by the advertising undertakings, but also by the searchers, as the points indicate detailed and current information about firms. Firm which enter themselves on youbizz.de are not required however to conform to any specific category system. As a result they are required to suggest their own keywords, thus determining their preferred search term under which they would like to be identified. In this way, not only companies can avail themselves of this service, but also products could be used as keywords.
Posted in Local Search per PC, Local Search, News |
Tags: Branchenverzeichnisse, Informationsservice, lokale Informationen, Reed Elsevier, Suchdienst, Suchdiensten, youbizz |
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Google Maps now with pedestrian navigation
Google Maps now appears not only in a new, simplified layout. Approximately a week ago, the search engine giant integrated a new service. Until now, route planning on Google concentrated exclusively on the needs of motorists; now this has expanded and pedestrians are also now able to find their way…
On the newly revised layout and now predominantly blue start page of Google Maps, the user is now able to access the pedestrian feature by a click on “Calculate Route”. Using a dropdown menu, users can choose whether to generate directions per car or foot.
As laid out by Google programmer Andy Schwerin in the Google Lat Long Blog, for a pedestrian route plan (contrary to those for motorists) one-way streets or “no left turns” are of course ignored, and parks and pedestrian zones are now included in the results.
At present, not everything functions correctly. In our own test, conducted by Lokalesucheblog.de searching for a route in Stuttgart, Google for example ignored paths through major city parks, such as the Schlossgarten, and completely missed smaller green areas. Suggested were also routings where no paths exist. This problem has been recognized by the Googlers… Schwerin explains that for this and other reasons, the program is still in beta-testing. the Googlers are working on the issues, actively gathering new data on footways. Google also encourages user feedback, so that this feature can be improved upon.
Interestingly in the post, Schwerin mentions that the link “Footpath” [de=Fußweg] only appears when the foot-route result is no longer than ten kilometers. This was not the case on the old site, but has apparently now been changed. However, one can actually view the foot-route from Stuttgart to Hamburg, which takes five days and 17 hours, assuming the walker does not take any breaks. According to the site (at present) a walker could wander from Munich to London in eight days and ten hours.
Google Maps is not the only local search service offering pedestrian navigation. Services such as the local search engine suchen.de has long offered a pedestrian option, limiting the distance of the route to twenty kilometers. Suchen.de, contrary to Google, does indeed cover parks, and doesn’t deliver routings without sidewalks. Live Search Maps, Microsoft’s local search service also offers foot ways up to 30 kilometers.
Posted in Local Search per PC, Local Search, News, Local Search Engines, Practical features |
Tags: Fußgänger, Fußweg, Google, google maps, lokale Informationen, Maps, Microsoft, Navigation, Routenplaner, suchen.de, t-info, zu Fuß |
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