Microsoft launches MSN Spaces · 1261 days ago

After many months of development, MSN launches MSN Spaces.

Was 2004 the year of the blog? If it was, MSN has found a great way to end it with a bang with its new blog service, MSN Spaces.

After leaping into search last month and offering a news search service this fall, MSN has taken a much needed step into the online network realm and more or less updated themselves from a dusty old ad ridden web network to a major innovator with blogs.

MSN Spaces, is now open for public testing in beta and bloggers should have a great time figuring it out. MSN?s blog service will be funded by advertising, there is no word on if Overture will be providing contextually based ads.

People with MSN Messenger or Hotmail accounts will get the service for free. The AP reports that ?Microsoft is closely linking MSN Spaces with its Messenger and Hotmail programs on the premise that people will hop from one Microsoft product to another for online communications.?

Users can set up a system that alerts friends on MSN Messenger when they have new blog entries. Bloggers can choose to restrict access to a select group of friends and family, but guests will need to use Microsoft?s ?Passport? to log in. Blogs can also be updated via MSN email or messenger.

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, only 6 percent of adult Americans have created blogs, while 17 percent have read those of others. Between Google?s Blogger and other popular blog services, MSN should help grow that number. Will Yahoo be next to adapt their Korean Yahoo Blog service to a US audience?

Neowin reports that Microsoft?s goal with the project is to make getting (and running) a blog as simple as any other task.

After a simple signup process (you pick a name and url) you?re ready to tell the world your views.

Spaces have most of the common features seen on blogs (RSS, track back, etc) and a few more. Microsoft offers a variety of themes, ranging from the default, to a variety of others.

The 15 custom built themes were created by none other than The Skins Factory. The Skins Factory have been responsible for a number of high profile Windows Media Player skins too.

Source: Search Engine Journal
Sponsor: SEO India

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IBM wants to improve site indexing · 1261 days ago

IBM is preparing a software upgrade to its WebSphere Commerce Suite in an effort to better index web sites in the search engines.

New to WebSphere Commerce v. 6.0 is the ability to create static URL pages.

This lets spider technology used by search engine sites, such as Google and Yahoo, query the URL, grab the keywords, and push the page back to the search engine so it shows up in the search results.

Web-site performance-speed and accuracy-is only half the battle. The other is getting the consumer to the site.

Most consumers start the buying process searching on a word or phrase. The problem is that spider technology used by search engines can’t query and find search keywords on every Web site because most Web pages are dynamically generated, says Craig Stevenson IBM’s worldwide WebSphere E-commerce manager.

He says the new feature WebSphere Commerce release drove search engine results from three to 278 hits for an unnamed company that worked with IBM to develop the technology.

The feature will ship as an integrated function in WebSphere Commerce v. 6.0, scheduled for release sometime between April and June 2005. Customers who have purchased v. 5.6 are eligible for an update.

Source: Information Week

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Google Groups now in production · 1262 days ago

Google today permanently launched Google Groups (out of its beta testing).

This enhanced product enables users to create, manage, search and browse web-based groups, as well as subscribe to and track favorite groups.

Building on the foundation of the original service that currently includes more than 1 billion searchable posts from the Usenet archive, Google Groups now offers users the ability to join and follow discussions among different groups, keep in touch with family and friends, and share information more easily.

Using Google Groups, people can search and participate in a variety of discussions. Users looking for advice on treating carpal tunnel or disputing a cell phone bill can find discussions from other people who have experience in these areas.

In addition, family, friends, and official organizations like schools or community centers can keep their members informed via email lists and announcement-only newsletters through Google Groups.

Google Groups enables users to easily gather groups of friends, acquaintances, and those sharing interests together, and communicate with them directly via email, newsletters and message boards, said Jonathan Rosenberg, vice president, Product Management, Google Inc.

These online communities connect people with information they care about, and that furthers our commitment to enhancing the online experience for Google users.

Source: Search Engine Journal

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Google Guy says PageRank statement is false · 1262 days ago

Yesterday it was reported on a SEW forum thread that discussed a quote from a supposed Google representative saying that PageRank is for Entertainment Purposes only.

GoogleGuy has strongly commented on that forum post and others saying:

“I’d strongly disagree with the statement that the toolbar PageRank is for “entertainment purposes only”—millions of toolbar users use the PageRank display to judge the quality of pages”.

“I think it’s also a little irresponsible to quote John Galt claiming to talk to some random person at Google, and then for somebody to quote it as a response from Google, which makes it sound more official.”

“I’m happy to refute that this is any sort of official stance”.

Source: Search Engine Roundtable
Sponsor: Link Popularity

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AOL updates its SingingFish multimedia engine · 1262 days ago

The are rumors that Yahoo, Google and MSN are working on improved multimedia searching capabilities.

AOL entered into the field with their acquisition of Singingfish around a year ago.

Singingfish would be today announcing their updated services to cater to the increasing user base they have been getting since the acquisition. They started with few thousands of queries a day and now they are handling around 7 million queries a day!

The new services would include ability to save and share queries, refine searches and discover new multimedia content. According to the company, they are indexing around 14 million multimedia files in various formats (both streaming and normal) like Windows Media, Real, QuickTime and MP3.

Other engines currently providing similar searching abilities are AltaVista and AlltheWeb. Yahoo! incidentally happens to own both these search engines.

Source: Search Engine Journal

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