Posts Tagged ‘Suchdienst’
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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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 mobil hört zu
30 Jul. 2008 | Author: AWo |
Die mobile Ausgabe der lokalen Suchmaschine Google Maps kann nun auch per Spracheingabe gesteuert werden. Allerdings befindet sich dieser Dienst noch im Test und ist bislang nur in den USA für wenige Handy-Modelle verfügbar.
Wie die Google-Mitarbeiter Jonathan Matus und Luca Zanolin im Google Mobile Blog berichten, können Besitzer von Black-Berry-Geräten (Pearl 8110, 8120 und 8130) in den USA nun ihre lokale Suchanfrage nach Unternehmen ins Handy sprechen, statt sie über die Tastatur einzugeben.
Besonders praktisch sei diese Art der Suche dann, wenn man gerade nicht tippen könne, der Name des Unternehmens lang sei oder man nicht wisse, wie der Name buchstabiert werde. Die Suche per Stimme sei einfach. Man halte – nachdem man die Kartenansicht auf den eigenen Standort zentriert habe – die Sprachwahltaste auf der linken Seite des Black-Berry und spreche den Namen oder die Branche des gesuchten Unternehmens. Darauf hin lasse man den Knopf wieder los, worauf die Spracherkennungstechnik die Frage interpretiere und das gewünschte Unternehmen finde.
Dieses neue Google-Maps-Feature nutzt die gleiche Spracherkennungstechnik wie die kostenlose computergesteuerte Telefonauskunft GOOG-411 des Suchmaschinenriesen (wir berichteten), erklären Matus und Zanolin. Allerdings scheint die Genauigkeit noch nicht vollständig zu überzeugen, denn die beiden Googler versprechen auch, dass sich die Technik im Laufe der Zeit, wenn mehr Leute diese Suchfunktion per Spracheingabe nutzen, verbessern werde.
Tour-de-France-Route in Google Street View
The 95th Tour de France has been taking place from July 5 -27, 2008. For this great cycling event, Google has placed its first Street Views of France on-line.
The 360° Views are to be found in Google Maps, Google’s local search wing. By clicking on “Street View”, a virtual view of the entire race routing is to be found. What’s more, the view is presented from the rider’s perspective, as was reported by Google employee Daniel Ratner in the Google Lat Long Blog. According to Ratner, the absolute latest features of Street View have been implemented for the 21-stage France tour, encompassing ‘Face Blurring’ and high image resolution (see our post).
So, for the first time users are able to access panorama views of Europe, via Google Maps. Until this introduction, users were only able to view USA cities, national parks and recreational areas in Street View. The Tour-de-France route is only the beginning ― Google has already announced that views of other European cities and areas will be forthcoming (see our report). At the moment, German cities are being documented (as noted in the Google Watch Blog). Street-View cars have been already spied in Munich and Berlin– confirmed by a report in the Berlin Tagesspiegel, which also mentions that Google is also shooting in Frankfurt am Main. When these Street Views will be posted on-line is any body’s guess.
Posted in Local Search per PC, Local Search, News, Local Search Engines, Practical features |
Tags: Frankreich, Google, google maps, lokale Informationen, Maps, Panoramaansicht, Panoramabilder, Radrennen, Straßenansicht, Streckenverlauf, street view, Suchdienst, Suchmaschine, Suchmaschinenriese, Tour de France |
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Euro 2008 Specials on local search services
The soccer Euro2008 has started. Many local search services are offering their users special Euro 2008 features, in honor of this grand event.
The city portal meinestadt.de for example, in its local online event calendar, lists times and locations of live TV broadcasts on large screens in public places (a.k.a. “Public Viewings”), as well as broadcasts and Euro 2008 parties in pubs or beer gardens, with listings of start times, locations and contact details. According to a press release, all schedules are also available for download via the portal’s mobile version. In a Euro 2008 Special, one can also check out the game schedule and much more.
Google has also put together an additional Fan portal. Accessible via google.de/23tage, the user can find, among much else, a Fan Map with lots worth knowing about Euro 2008 (e.g. teams, players, games and stadiums). A press report by Google Deutschland, posts also a personalized iGoogle Fan start page with loads of information about the contest, the participating teams and even a YouTube Fan Diary that one can add to.
Internet online directory YellowMap offers soccer fans a special Guide to the festivities, in cooperation with online-portal Raumobil, the Mitfahrzentrale [en=Ride sharing] and Quoka. Offers include information about the game-cities, with aerial views of the eight stadiums, a ‘tip’ game and a route planner. In addition, one can reserve hotels and accommodation in Austria and Switzerland, or nearby the hotels where the teams are bunked, and even offer or search for rides to the games.
On the City24 city portal, one can find the games schedule along side with stacks of news about this pan European sporting mega event. Here too, one can find the locations and details of public viewings or parties on offer. Further, users may personally add local parties and events around Euro 2008, using the so-called ‘CityScout’ feature.
The participation of users is also found as expected on Qype. The local search and rating platform, in its own blog, calls for users to add listings and reports on public viewings or sportsbars. Find these under the Groups search term “euro2008” or the Guides listings.
Sharing soccer-mania with other fans is made possible by the local search machine suchen.de. Here, one simply enters search phrases “Public Viewing” or “Sportsbar” plus a location, to discover where the games are to be broadcast in public places or bars.
Extensive listings of Public Viewings and Sportsbars are also to be found on the online directory DasÖrtliche.de and DasTelefonbuch.de. Both services offer a special search feature on Euro 2008, in cooperation with “Premiere Sportsbar”. DasTelefonbuch.de also allows its users to participate ‘virtually’ in the festivities – using the so-called “Virtual-Kicker League“. Whoever participates and wishes to ‘appear’ against other online-soccer players, can register online and receives a Player-Pass. According to DasTelefonbuch-Servicegesellschaft, the virtual game schedule parallels exactly the real Euro 2008, including all preliminary games. The parallel victories and defeats will run alongside the actual events.
Posted in Local Search per PC, Local Search, News, Local Search Engines, Practical features |
Tags: City24, DasTelefonbuch, DeTeMedien, EM-Features, EM-Special, Europameisterschaft, Fan Map, Google, google maps, GoYellow, lokale Informationen, meinestadt, meinestadt.de, Public Viewings, Sportsbar, Suchdienst, suchen.de, t-info, YellowMap |
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