My Technology Review

sell the most and sell the best

2006-01-24T23:18:00.000-08:00

Yahoo! gives up quest for search dominance

What do Yahoo, Apple and Ferrari have in common?

Dave Taylor gave us a view that the story isn't inevitably an ending to win or die. I agree to that. What I can't agree to, however, is that the analysis to compare Apple, Ferrari, and Yahoo!.

Apple and Ferrari are both differentiating them from their competitors. That's right. But is it true also for Yahoo!? That's a doubtful question. And the doubt doesn't come from what their strategy is, but from the internet business ecology.

Apple and Ferrari produce excellent products hard to imitate. The cost to manufacture similar computer or sport car is huge. It's unnecessary to mention the brand effect.

So how about Yahoo!? First, the cost to develop web sites similar to Yahoo!'s products is relatively low. That's because of the nature of the production in digital age. This is also a problem annoying digital content vendors, by the way.

We maybe all agree to the fact that Apple and Ferrari have excellent products. But how to define the word 'excellent' in internet age. Could it be said Google search product isn't good enough?

Of course Yahoo! doesn't necessary to be number 1 in search market in order to be useful and valuable to internet users. But with the shrink in market shares, Yahoo! inevitably can't be to hold its scale now and their influence anymore. Of course Yahoo! doesn't go to crumble if their rank fall down to number 2, 3 or even worse, but at that time, what's deal with Yahoo!?

Don't forget that the reason Ferrari can survive is they sell less but more expensive. And Apple almost went to fall away for a time. Apple comes to life and thrive because of its fine and popular product iPod. The strategy of iPod isn't the one "don't sell the most, sell the best"
, but "sell the most and the best!"
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Don't be a well-behaved baby

2006-01-19T22:12:00.000-08:00

Google will fight Bush Administration demand for search records

Google, Yahoo, MSN Subpoenaed In Anti-Porn Effort

Don't be a well-behaved baby.

所謂的以文找文

2006-01-19T21:45:00.000-08:00

蕃薯藤的新聞頻道最近採用了國內搜尋引擎業者宇匯知識科技的酷比「以文找文」技術。大約快一年前我得知國內有這一家公司，以及他們的核心產品「以文找文」技術。經過測試的結果，我認為這項技術並沒有特別的突破。基本上就是中文斷詞實作的產品化而已，將一篇中文文章加以斷詞，擷取出 frequent terms，然後用這些 frequent terms 當做搜尋關鍵字。其技術仍然架構在現今關鍵字搜尋上。

以這一篇女大學生卡奴悲歌每月三萬元上網找人包的新聞搜尋結果來看。蕃薯藤找出 16 篇相關文章。裡面有 5 篇跟卡奴有關，其它的包括：

大陸清大客座教授在台對博士班女伸鹹豬手
徐懷鈺撞傷人被控傷害　賠償4萬2千元和解
涉嫌以鑽子襲擊女學生怪客收押

等新聞。

從以上新聞的關鍵字看來，宇匯的「以文找文」技術從我們要求搜尋的文章中，擷取了卡奴、女學生等字眼，並進行關鍵字搜尋，得出以上搜尋結果。這種作法是不是能達到使用者的要求，其關鍵就在於演算法自動從文章挑選關鍵字的方法是不是精確。而從實驗中看起來，宇匯的作法似乎並不是那麼的成功。

這種 frequent terms 自動擷取的技術仍然有很多問題。一個 term 是不是重要，並不完全取決於 term 出現的次數與頻率。而即使像女學生這個在上文中出現多次的 term，卻不是該文的關鍵性概念。

draft of GPL v3

2006-01-19T20:25:00.000-08:00

GPL v3 draft analysis
New open-source license targets DRM

GPL puts more strict limitations on DRM and patent usage.

Some countries have adopted laws prohibiting software that enables users to escape from Digital Restrictions Management. DRM is fundamentally incompatible with the purpose of the GPL, which is to protect users' freedom; therefore, the GPL ensures that the software it covers will neither be subject to, nor subject other works to, digital restrictions from which escape is forbidden.

That means DRM products don't use GPL licensed softwares anymore.

Moglen said that DRM technology, which places limits on how consumers can play movies, music or other digital content, is "fundamentally incompatible" with the principles of the Free Software Foundation.

The change will instantly affect the DRM inbuilt devices using open source softwares like TiVo.

All encryption and authorization codes of GPL v3 software need to be included in the product distribution.

Complete Corresponding Source Code also includes any encryption or authorization codes necessary to install and/or execute the source code of the work, perhaps modified by you, in the recommended or principal context of use, such that its functioning in all circumstances is identical to that of the work, except as altered by your modifications. It also includes any decryption codes necessary to access or unseal the work's output.

Podzinger

2006-01-15T23:15:00.000-08:00

TechCrunch introduced Podzinger recently. It's a service you can harness to search thousands of podcasts. The ability to convert audio to text makes Podzinger enable to do exact search better than just searching description of podcasts. The charming feature of the service is that it allows users to listen just the audio snipper that contains the search terms. Michael Arrington said he encountered errors when trying this feature. I tried and it works well, but I don't know why it's. In search results, every result entry has some time marks and text showing where the your search terms occur in the podcast file. You can choose one of those marks to listen. Once you click those marks, you see the seeking indication showed besides the result entry. When it seeks the snipper it plays. Cool and useful service.

short trip

2005-12-30T19:59:00.000-08:00

CIMG0133
Originally uploaded by Sereno Hsieh.

At the end of 2005, I took a short trip to famous travel resort in Taiwan: Aowanda and Chingjing.

In the two days trip I photoed a number of dozens. New digital camera bought recently did me a excellent favor. And I put part of those photos on Flickr.

Baked Apple

2005-12-26T02:35:00.000-08:00

Baked Apple, get funny.

I'm using Apple's laptop for more than 3 years. The old G3 laptop still works well.
Following the newer version OS X operating system continuously released, the G3 engine
has no sign running slowly more but swifter. On the other hand, I usually come across the situation Windows laptop runs bluntly more and more.

I'm looking forward to the release of Intel-inside Apple laptop.

interoperable IMs

2005-12-23T08:09:00.000-08:00

The news to integrate Gtalk and AIM benefits for IM market and users. And it's a reasonable direction to follow.

Since Microsoft and Yahoo! have said the users of individual IM network will be communicate to each others, what users can look forward is the combination of the main four IM systems: MSN, AIM, Gtalk and Yahoo! messager, and yet that may be take a long time to realize when the population and influence scope of IM achieve the level to put enough pressure on those vendors.

Performancing for Firefox

2005-12-20T23:38:00.000-08:00

Performancing.com provides a excellent tools for blogging: Performancing for Firefox.

Performancing for Firefox is a full featured blog editor that sits right within Firefox.....

After installing, a small icon of note is showed below window. Clicking it brings a panel containing a WYSIWYG blog editor. It supports blog hosting lilke blogger.com, wordpress.com, typepad.com, livejournal, wordpress custom and moveabletype custom.

Yet another search engine?

2005-12-20T00:56:00.000-08:00

Japanese Government Looks To Develop Own Search Engine

Yet another search engine?

If the search engine is something like Google or Yahoo!, it's not interesting. More interesting for Internet users may be the univesal semantic search engine or search engines for different contents.

default search engine

2005-12-20T00:45:00.000-08:00

Yahoo! Instructs Firefox Users to Change Default Search Engine

Does the little search box really matter?

reviews everythere

2005-12-19T02:18:00.000-08:00

TechCrunch reported a site for aggregation of reviews from blogs: KritX.

KritX takes the leverage of hReview of microformats. Authors of reviews orgainze their reviews in hReview to reduce the doorsill to recognize reviews scattered on information on blogs.

A core component of community is review and rating system. Community sites usually have their review system. Because the formats they used vary a lot it's hard to index and make those reviews searchable. Microformats provides a basic semantic syntax for mark reviews.

If the way works well, more microformats-enabled microcontents and corresponding applications will coming soon.

StructuredBlogging.org and universal tagging

2005-12-14T00:50:00.000-08:00

StructuredBlogging.org launched recently. The idea behind the non-profit initiative is to post information when blogging with microformats-compatible semantic syntax.

The project provides plugins to represent microcontents on blogs. Those contents also could be converted to several formats like RSS 2.0, Atom and RSS 1.0. The formats it used will be mapping to common seen file formats like FOAF, iCal, etc.

TechCrunch has the idea to decentralized review aggregation. In order to achieve that, the information on blogs must to be understood by machines in syntax. Once information on blog is in syntax way to represent, search engines will be more effective and more accurate on their jobs. And also, a simple but working semantic search engine will be implemented easily.

In fact, I'm more like to see the univeral tagging system. Given a microformats like format called tag used to tagging arbitrary information on webs, different tagging on various sites will be integrated and interoperable.

sharing revenue with users?

2005-12-11T20:13:00.000-08:00

From InfoWorld:

Microsoft will share a part of its advertising revenues from its search engine with users, the company's chairman Bill Gates said in a panel discussion on an Indian television channel.

Gates said that search engines like Google Inc. get their revenues from advertising because people use these search engines.

Does it sound weird? So we will receive cash by using softwares from Microsoft, is it right? That's Microsoft get their revenues from softwares because people use their softwares. Reasonable inference?

the benefits of authors

2005-12-09T21:42:00.000-08:00

An old news.

I understand the concerns those authors have. But in fact, that's not reasonable.

In the news, Google said:

"We regret that this group has chosen litigation to try to stop a program that will make books and the information within them more discoverable to the world," the company said.

Authors worry if their books could be read on-line for free, who else wants to buy those books?

We know something called library, and we also have borrow books from libraries. Why don't authors have concerns of the situation? Because it's limited as you can't borrow to read the books already borrow by others. The ratio of free reading is limited under a certain level. In Internet the limitation is broken. Thousands of people search and same book on-line. Authors worry the usage has damage on their benefits.

But is it really damage? Or it will be an benefit for those authors if thinking again?

Somebody like to buy books. Somebody don't like to. If someone likes to read whole book in library, he/she will do it regardless of how great the book is. And the author of the book lose the benefit. In same condition, he/she still wants to read whole book on Internet. But what's happen now? By imposing copyright technology, it's hardly to do that. And large proportion of possible readers may be not have the require skills to break that facilities. At that time, the searchable materials of books on Internet increase profit authors receive because it widen the possibility those books to be discover by possible readers.

So, if one guy doesn't want to buy books, he/she doesn't buy whether you put it on-line or library or bookstore or elsewhere. Internet even provides the equipment to protect more thoroughly author's materials. For those like to buy books, better to authors is increase the probabilities possible readers (buyers?) to catch the wind of those books and to be roused their interesting of those books.

2005-12-09T01:40:00.000-08:00

Squidoo, a knowledge sharing community, looks cool.

It features the common tagging system. Users after signing up could create their own 'lens'. In lens you post tips in the domains you are good at.

Quote from Squidoo's faq:

A lens is one person's (lensmaster's) view on a topic he cares about.

It's like personal yellow page used to record information. Although sounds it the same with other existing on-line information management applications, it intends to become a knowledge sharing community. Using ranking and tagging system, making finding popular or specific lens possible.

Squidoo mentions "a co-op of experts". I think that's an exact description of the model Squidoo wants to be. According to their statement, Squidoo's profit model is to gain traffic as more as possible. And those traffic come from the attractiveness of the people they call "lensmasters". Lensmasters are a group of experts with strength of specific themes.

The combination of Squidoo and blog may be a good experiment. To start a blog is easy, but not always for promotion of a blog.

the imagination of media in Web 2.0

2005-12-05T19:06:00.000-08:00

Interesting article, talking about an analysis of the strategy of Yahoo! and the competition between Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!.

The article discusses Yahoo!'s strategy of being a media company is competitive and Microsoft and Google both have underestimated that the threat of Yahoo!.

The primary reason Yahoo may be a leader is the Internet's role in dismantling traditional media distribution.

...

"As opposed to Google, which is still essentially a search site and is known as such, Yahoo provides information and entertainment content, including interactive content. Yahoo is positioned to benefit from the proliferation of high speed Internet services like interactive gaming, streaming video, video and music downloads, and real-time media events."

In the article, it says losing focus is the risk of Yahoo!'s strategy:

"Yahoo is trying to be everything. Sure, Yahoo isn't in the line of fire, but it's also not great" in any one area. While offering a broad array of content, commerce and services, Dreze adds, the risk of Yahoo's strategy is that the company loses focus. "Everyone knows what Google does; it's a search engine. We know what Google is good at, but Yahoo is less clear.

Richard MacManus doesn't think so:

I don't totally agree, because I think Yahoo is very focused on being a read/write media platform for mainstream users - which requires a broad feature set.

The opinion is arguable, I think. The big risk Yahoo! faces is the imagination about what a Internet media company looks like. Yahoo! has their imagination. According to that, Yahoo! attempts

offering a broad array of content, commerce and services.

But we can't hard to question, is the way really right? If the imagination of Yahoo! eventually is proved wrong, what will happen next?

What a Internet media company should be we don't be very sure. In the past, media company play both the roles of content producer and distributor. Audience are hardly being sources of content. But in the environment of Internet, esp. Web 2.0, audience become where content come from. The importance of being content producer declines. In Web 2.0, a media company need to do is providing excellent platform for community growing. In other words, the media of Web 2.0 isn't a source of content but a mediator.

The Chinese word of media is "媒體", the meaning of linking. What I immediately think is search about that. In Web 2.0 we don't need a central content platform. The platform is distributed and scattered. The media company's duty may be to identify and make those content searchable for audience.

what's deal with Web 2.0

2005-12-04T07:16:00.000-08:00

Paul Graham talked about Web 2.0. And the main point is, using the web the way it's meant to be used. I think the most important is providing the tools and freedom for users to create their meaning.

Mathew Ingram gave some words about Web 2.0 and the idea related of "the Web as a platform". Irrespective of Web as a platform or something "you should use to build a platform", the point here is the interaction created by users and the meaning behind that interaction.

Paul Graham provided three components of Web 2.0: Ajax, Democracy, and Don't Maltreat Users. I won't give so much weight to Ajax. It's just a method to provide the opportunity to the meaningful interaction between users. Don't Maltreat Users is not a very accurate term, even though I know what he was meaning. It's better to call the component "Don't offer unmeaning stuffs to users". Flickr requires users to register but that doesn't matter because that's meaningful. A site providing free stuffs and extremely Ajax interface but unmeaning to its users still fails.

from meaningless search to meaningful search

2005-11-21T07:33:00.000-08:00

Web 2.0 becomes fashion recently. Everybody talks about that and if you don't know anything about that it seems that you will be thrown away.

Flickr attracts a lot of attention. Folksonomy way to do Internet business spreads everywhere. Every Internet company attempts to become more tagging.

My opinion is, if a Web 2.0 Internet will really be presented in front of us, finally. That must be a meaningful search based Internet.

Don't you think that what makes Internet such vital is that it brings what we need to searchable? That's why Google has so much success.

But the kind of search we use today is not enough for mankind. We need meaning. A meaningful search engine and a meaningful search based Internet is necessary for next stage.

What is meaning? You search the guys near your living town that have simialr interesting with you. That's meaningful for you. Those guys are not relevant for him or her, but just for you. That's meaningful.

Computer don't know the meaning. At least it doesn't today. But mankind need to know the meaning. What I want to know is location that the pizza store nearest my office. Not all pizza stores. The people I have interesting to know are those love fantastic novels.

The most products users desire to see are that give more contronls to them to put meaning onto. So Flickr succeeds, because it gives power to users to tagging their photos using their words, their meaning.

Sometimes I hear people talk about the Flickr way. For me, that's way along meaning.

Oh! Too late for sleeping. I gotta to do other thing. Talk next time.

Mobile search market

2005-07-31T01:45:00.000-07:00

A visit to Yahoo and the human touch

Mobile search market thriving:
Technorati Mobile Search
AOL Tests Mobile Web Search
Yahoo and Motorola Partnership Brings Content and Search To Mobile Users

2005-07-18T02:58:00.000-07:00

Podcasting White Paper: What You Don't Know About Podcasting Could Hurt Your Business.

Podcasting 作為一項商業公關利器。

Indeed job finding service.

之前已經提過 RSS 的可能應用之一：搜尋引擎加上 RSS feeds 支援。使用者將不用重複上搜尋引擎搜尋同一個主題的東西。新的相關資訊自動遞送到用戶桌面。

Related information is automatically delivered to users' desktop.

2005-07-16T22:01:00.000-07:00

MSN Shopping

當線上比價、產品資訊評價流通成為常態，商務經營的方式又會有什麼改變？

Yahoo! Research Labs

反觀，先前接觸一家國內做搜尋引擎的公司，只是故步自封地陶醉在自家產品中。

Google's CEO lectured: Perspectives on the Information Industry

2005-07-12T01:09:00.000-07:00

DrunkenBlog Covercast

集體 podcasting 實驗。

Monetization of Maps

2005-07-12T00:37:00.000-07:00

Redfin: Maps + Monetization

Maps, local search 的延展之一。

Odeo 正式啟用了

2005-07-11T07:22:00.000-07:00

Odeo service launched.

Odeo 是一個 podcasting 的 directory and folksonomy service，可以在上面訂閱、下載及錄製、發表你的 podcasting。之前只在測試階段，現在已經開放註冊，趕快去申請來玩玩吧。

Odeo is a directory and folksonomy service for podcasting on which you could subscribe, sync, recode and publish podcasting using the tools Oden provides. It was only in beta phrase before, but commences now. Go to sign up and have fun with podcasting.

2005-07-11T00:56:00.000-07:00

MediaGuardian: Public provides new dimension to media coverage,

A new world of media.

Weblogs prove their worth

The experience of a BBC correspondent blogging G8 summit. And the Technorati service's collapse.

Google SMS Service launched in US and UK

2005-07-09T22:48:00.000-07:00

繼 Yahoo! 釋出 SMS 搜尋服務後，Google 也不落人後，在美國、英國兩地開始 beta 版的 Google SMS 服務。

有興趣的人可以玩玩線上 Demo for US、Demo for UK。

2005-07-09T22:25:00.000-07:00

Yahoo! launched new RSS search site. But it seems just on test purpose and soon was pulled down.

RSS 搜尋是下一個搜尋引擎主攻的目標。

RSS 搜尋開始有點資訊媒合的味道了。搜尋引擎幫使用者找到所需 RSS feeds，然後使用者加以訂閱，接著新的資訊就會自動遞送給使用者。

2005-07-09T06:28:00.000-07:00

Yahoo launched SMS search service.

搜尋引擎的多角化經營是必然趨勢，mail service、personalized search...都是讓搜尋引擎觸角向外延伸的策略。只要有資訊需求的地方，搜尋引擎看來就會想盡辦法將版圖擴張到那裡。

只是看來國內的相關業者並未意識到這樣的趨勢。

台灣的學生人口玩相簿的人不在少數，這裡就有很多東西可以玩。譬如說，照相手機可以即時拍照傳送到相簿，省去再上網發佈相片的許多時間。

2005-07-08T21:52:00.000-07:00

UDN 數位文化誌的一篇文章認為微軟將於 IE、Longhorn 提供 RSS 支援，將使各 RSS reader 面臨終結。

其實就像有 Firefox、Thunderbird 的出現一樣，我倒覺得不需要太擔心這一點。雖然 Apple 的 Safari 早就內建了 RSS 支援，但我還是喜歡用 NetNewsWire Lite，因為它好用。況且 browser 跟 RSS reader 的使用習慣並不相同，這也是為何我不用 Safari RSS function 的理由。RSS reader 的使用習慣其實說起來會跟 mail client 比較像，所以在 Windows platform 上，我會用 Thunderbird 來閱讀 RSS feeds。

反之，微軟宣稱將支援 RSS 這件事，從另一個角度看來，倒可以看出微軟窮於追趕網路層出不窮的各項標準上的窘態。稍微熟悉網路技術的人都知道，RSS 並非多嶄新的技術，已應用多時，甚至更已發展出如 podcasting 等應用。以微軟這樣的牛步，當一項新技術出現，都得花去數年時間方得以併入其產品線，不禁讓人替其產品未來捏把冷汗。過去網路普及未如現今蓬勃，使用者對新技術的得知週期太長，微軟的速度還能夠追上新技術的出現，但如今，網路寬頻化、通訊技術使用率與涵蓋率廣，即使對技術不甚熟捻的一般使用者，也能透過人際網路、通訊網路等管道，在短時間內得知新技術的應用。而微軟產品卻無法即時追上這樣的技術浪潮。

這也就是為何開放源碼能在短時間內延燒全球。因為使用者不再願意忍受痴痴等待這些所謂的大廠牛步推出新版產品的速度。使用者需要即時可用的應用軟體，當 RSS 出現，使用者不想等四五年 IE 改版後，才能享受這項技術帶來的好處。開放源碼、自由軟體能比這些大廠，以更迅疾的速度推出可用的應用軟體。想想看，不僅是 RSS，Blog、Podcasting 等技術的情況都是一樣。

而且這情形會越來越明顯，越來越劇烈。

about spec

2005-07-06T06:52:00.000-07:00

Next step for RSS it is inevitable that vendors build more features they want on the RSS spec. However, that makes RSS not simple ever.

For mobile devices, RSS is still a valuable technique for conveying information. I don't exactly know whether there's any standard like RSS in mobile area. If not, RSS could become subscription tool for handheld device to transmit information.

RSS for advertisers

2005-07-04T21:51:00.000-07:00

In the radical condition there're sites used to carry only RSS feeds instead of html pages. The kind of sites play the role of conveying information to subscribers. That sounds a bit like mail list. In the mode information senders don't need elaborate web pages or a whole site to support their needs. What they want are just push-pull mode of information. They provide information to people they need that.

For advertiser it's also a good news. Why? Imageing the mode of newspapers subscription. Intentional readers are more valuable for advertisement because that improves efficiency of advertising. You don't need put your advertisements forcefully on browsers that have no desire to your advertisements and get a adverse effect you don't want to result.

continuing to talk RSS

2005-07-04T07:33:00.000-07:00

I thought something about the information mode of the Web.

In early days of the Web there're just few sites on the ground. It's not difficult to trace those sites all for updating information. Little by little sites grow in exploded speed, search engines arise over the Web as center of information. The search engine is a required phrase for information space like the Web needed to handle the complexity of information growth. If not, the exponential proliferation of information will soon rerail the way.

RSS will be the next phrase of a information space.

Users need a specified passageway to catch portion of information space that they're interesting a lot and filter trivial part for them.

RSS will take the place of the role the Web plays originally. And the Web will become much like a framework of new application in aid of techniques like Ajax and Web Services.

one of my noticed technologies: RSS

2005-07-04T03:40:00.000-07:00

Organized from technology presses RSS is one of my most noticed technologies. I guess that the form of the Web will accelerate toward two distinct ends rapidly. The Ajax technology will push the complicated applocation to sprout more and more on the ground. To be honest some certain applications like maps need more complex mechanism to achieve.

But in another end users are desireing for simpler tools to collect and integrate diverse information located in various places as a whole landscape to digest.

RSS is emerging for that intention. And it works well so far.

Like the early time of the Web it's just untimely to say how far RSS could reach. Enterprises start try to make RSS useful for them in either profitable way or not. At least we know RSS is good choice for communicate with public like customers or supplies. In fact RSS is just a mode of subscription such as your daily newspaper. But what makes it powerful is the possibilities of use under technology enhancement.

If we see a search result as an information source why not we identify a valuable searching outcome as a RSS feed and users could order that persistently. In auction situation, seekers would like have a RSS about what they're interesting like RSS of iBook, RSS of iPod being used for not more than 1 year, etc. Thus users don't need browser web everytime when they like to check whether something they desire occurs on the auction list. You know that's time wasting.

In more detailed and more complicated way search engines maybe integrate information to fit RSS readers' need in advance. Engines that remember read history of users could filter what's readed and what's new for certain readers.

Ok. the post is too long and I need to leave for dinner. Stay tuned.

intent of this blog

2005-07-04T03:13:00.000-07:00

I've not bloged for a not short time. Due to annoying chore of cleaning spam everyday I gave up hosting a blog by myself. Noticeing blogger service I start to think that maybe I could set up another blog but not involving into the mess of hosting. Like now, I spent a few minutes and a blog settled.

English isn't my mother tongue. I come from Taiwan, a island located in west Pacific Ocean. I purpose using English and Chinese simultaneously for blogging. That benefits my English writting as another profit of the blog.

Here I will write thoughts about technologies and related trends and development. Hope it'll be advantageous to you.