Search Assist Review

SeekingAlpha follows PredictAd's model for AutoComplete ticker..

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 13:19:00 +0000

SeekingAlpha - a financial site dedicated to stock market news, opinion & analysis has taken notice of the value present in their site's autocomplete stock ticker, and has begun displaying sponsored listings within the suggestion menu. As any advertiser will notice, the sponsored listing gets a lot of attention and is not susceptible to "banner blindness" - leading to a higher CTR (click through rate) and a better branding experience than those annoying flash banners that are prevalent on most websites. In fact, I wrote about PredictAd's similar offering on SocialPicks some time ago. It seems as if someone took notice..

Google Porn Search

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 10:58:00 +0000

I was checking Quantcast out to find some interesting search-based sites and noted a certain site called askjolene.com. This is a porn search engine that seems to have caught some traction as Quantcast projects them to have 1.4 million unique users in the US. What is more interesting than askjolene.com is the fact that if you type askjolene.com into Google than Google will update your search landing page with an in-line search box so that you can search directly into askjolene.com. Wow!

I'm assuming that Google automates this process, and askjolene.com probably designed their site in a way to avoid the Google porn censors, but you have to admit that it raises an eyebrow for Google to offer a direct search box into a porn search engine. It's no secret that adult-related searches are probably amongst the top searches performed throughout the web, but an in-line search on Google for porn is a little much if you're asking me - especially considering that Google is amongst the most trusted brands not only on the web, but in general.

Google Suggest graduates from Google Labs - going live on homepage!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:39:00 +0000

Since I first started writing this blog in late 2007 I've mentioned Google Suggest quite a few times. I suppose I should have seen the writing on the wall once Google implemented its Suggest feature on YouTube. Low and behold, Google has finally caved into the pressure from this high-powered blogger and decided to add Google Suggest on a default basis to its homepage ; )

In my humble opinion Google would rather have not added the Suggest feature - I mean, they've had the feature in their labs since 2004! But with all the wannabe competition popping up with neat autocomplete menus - Google began to seem a little Web 1.0ish without the feature (see Yahoo!, Cuil, Mahalo, etc.). Not to mention that there's actually a firefox plugin that adds Google Suggest on a default basis.

It has been my contention that Google will probably see less clicks on their Adwords listings as a result of going live with Suggest - the reason being that users will enter more accurate search queries, which will ultimately lead to better Adwords listings and more efficient clicks. So while I believe that this could hurt their bottom line in the short-term, the long-term payoff will be there simply because it's a much better search service.

Now the only search goliath that is without an autocomplete feature is Microsoft Live. But after speaking with a few Microsoft product developers at SES San Jose I can assure you that Live will be live with autocomplete soon. As per these product managers, "Microsoft has been following Google's experimentation with Suggest closely, and plan to unveil a feature of their own within a couple of months". Should be interesting to see what the fallout is from Google's announcement - although Google is one of the innovators of Autocomplete its hard not to say that they're simply following the pack with this decision.

E-commerce monster Ebay tweaks search..

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 02:32:00 +0000

I was wondering how long it would take Ebay to catch on to the hoopla and add some new search functionality to its offering. I confess that I'm not an Ebay user but I found myself on their site today and decided to test the search when I noticed a cool and accurate autocomplete menu drop down and offer me some great search suggestions. I checked out Ebay's blog and noticed the following update on the tweaking of its search engine (as per August 8, 2008)

Two new features are coming to search: search suggestions and a new Refine Your Search.

Search suggestions means that the search box will offer suggestions to help you complete your query as you type. The search suggestions feature will make searching faster and easier than ever. If you don’t like it, though, don’t worry, you can always turn suggestions off.

The changes to Refine Your Search will make it easier to find and select options like 'Search including Title & Item Description' and show only 'Auctions'.

More detail on the changes will be available soon.

Who knows? Maybe Ebay execs have been reading this blog and noting how helpful search suggestions are to the overall search experience, and how it is an especially helpful feature for e-commerce sites (see this post, or this one, or this one ; ).

Yahoo! Search Assist flexes muscles on special Olympics page..

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 18:09:00 +0000

Yahoo Search Assist, long championed by this blog as the authority on autocomplete functionality, has done its users another favor by adding a really cool & effective autocomplete menu to its special Olympics section. The menu instantly searches athletes, sports and countries as users are typing, and has a really cool look & feel. I like how Yahoo! continuously adds new functionality to its search assist and am really fond of how they've taken this technology to the next level with uber-customization to its different features and sections.

Yahoo! continues to set the bar in terms of search assist and there par excellence is something that helps them retain their stronghold as the #1 portal in the world.

TradeVibes, the best way to discover, find and share opinions on cool startups via autocomplete..

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:11:00 +0000

TechCrunch's Michael Arrington started a very successful new trend of wikis when he launched Crunchbase in October 2007. Since then a handful of new web 2.0 wiki communities have popped up - with notable success. One of the latest and most interesting of these is TradeVibes, a site that provides a community for people interested in startups, allowing users to share opinions, ratings, and discussions about them.

Although they're both very impressive sites in their own right, this article isn't about TradeVibes or CrunchBase as web portals (although it would be interesting as is seems the negative vibes have been flowing about the startup through TechCrunch itself - watch out!), but rather about the cool autocomplete menu that TradeVibes has embedded into its search box!

There's no doubt that just by adding a pretty simple yet engaging autocomplete menu TradeVibes has found a way to make their portal a little more lively than its competition. Personally, I think the menu looks good and is functional enough to pass my rigorous 8-point test - even if it sucked (which it doesn't) than it would still be better than having nothing at all (CrunchBase).

I mean, these are startup companies, meaning there names range from Zwinky to Xangati (those names aren't made up!)- so like, an autocomplete menu helps me find them a lot easier than not having an autocomplete menu. TradeVibes gets that, hence they get this blogger's endorsement as a useful resource for the world of web 2.0 ..

PredictAd now reaches over 800,000 monthly unique users in the United States..

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 22:50:00 +0000

The latest stats on PredictAd's rapidly-growing network. For more information about PredictAd's search assist technologies visit www.predictad.com.

Lyrics.com - the largest searchable lyrics database..

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 09:23:00 +0000

Largely unnoticed, some of the highest-traffic and most active websites on the web are searchable music lyrics databases. These sites host a plethora of song titles, artists, videos and most importantly - Lyrics! One of the bigger problems with these mammoth databases is helping the user finding the content they're looking for quickly and easily. It's hard remembering the name of the song, artist, etc. that you just heard on the radio or at a night club (especially if you've had a couple of cocktails), and there's nothing more frustrating than sitting in front of your computer and trying to remember. Solution forthcoming...

Lyrics.com and PredictAd have recently teamed up in order to solve the "too much content" problem. Now as you search for a title or an artist on Lyrics.com you will receive community-powered search suggestions that help lead you to the song or artist you're looking for. Try it out for yourself by thinking of a title of a song randomly - go to Lyrics.com and start typing it in the "song title" search box. Let's see how many letters you type before the song of your choice appears. Not bad, huh?

In terms of the ads placed in the PredictAd menu - you can notice yourself how much more effective this display is than the Google Ad in the print screen above. This will lead to more quality clicks on your site, and as we all know, More Clicks = More Cash!

PredictAd Leverages Israeli Partnerships for Global Growth

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:35:00 +0000

A great post about PredictAd's autocomplete service written by the one and only Ayelet Noff (aka Blonde2.0).

read more | digg story

Facebook Phonebook takes autocomplete to a new level..

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 10:57:00 +0000

I noticed that someone amongst my Facebook friends had changed their phone number as per my news feed. I'm assuming I got this feed because I recently added the Facebook Mobile app (mistakenly thinking that it would work for Israel). To make a long story shorty this led me into a phonebook directory that I didn't know existed of all my Facebook friends - ingenious! As I started snooping around I noticed the search box - my heart started racing (ok, that's a slight exaggeration)! As I began typing in names Facebook's regular people search came up but under the user's name and picture was their phone number! Bam, Pow, Zabang..that's pretty cool! You can also request phone numbers from certain friends that either haven't added Facebook Mobile or haven't listed their numbers.

This type of individual user engagement is something I have yet to see in the wonderful world of search assist. I'm hoping that this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as new Facebook autocomplete additions.

Newcars.com: E-commerce on steroids..

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:08:00 +0000

It's nice to see that the people at Internet Brands are adding some cool features to their next generation of websites. One thing I never understood about the net was why all those great domains (cars.com, realestate.com, etc.) had such bland and uninteresting websites. The reason is obvious, they don't need great content if they have a great destination URL. But that trend is changing - as opposed to Cars.com, which gets tons of traffic but is rather Web 1.0ish, Newcars.com has upped the ante. They've added a very slick and visually impressive autocomplete feature that shows not only the make, model and price tag - but gives a nice thumbnail of the car. I'm not crazy about the order in which the cars are listed - there seems to be no rhyme or reason (if you type 'mer' you'll get a bunch of "mercury" listings and only one "mercedes" suggestions at the bottom of the box). Nonetheless, it's refreshing to see the feature on their site and I think they are showing that search assist adds a ton of value to e-commerce sites.

Yahoo! Shopping vs. MSN Shopping - and the winner is..

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 09:27:00 +0000

In the Blue Corner:
Weighing in at roughly $40 billion and ranked #2 via Compete - Yahoo! has taken the plunge and has begun offering its search assist service Yahoo-wide (player search, crossword puzzles, etc.). Its most recent plunge is integrating the service into Yahoo! Shopping, already seen as one of the leading retail destinations on the web.

In the Red Corner:
Weighing in with way too much money at its disposal, and ranked #3 via Compete - MSN has begun testing autocomplete functionality on MSN Shopping.

Tale of the Tape:

Look, feel & design: If Yahoo! Search Assist is the beauty than MSN Shopping autocomplete is the beast with a nasty hangover. MSN has decided to take the Google Suggest approach to autocomplete (clean & simple). But for crying out loud - at least make sure that the drop-down is the same length of the search box! You simply can't compare the two. Advantage = Yahoo!

Functionality: One of the main reasons to integrated autocomplete into search is to predict the users searching pattern and to offer suggestions accordingly. I made a simple test by beginning to type in the word "lipstick", stopping at "lips". While Yahoo! is offering me relevant suggestions such as lipstick, revlon lipstick, etc., MSN Shopping is offering me tulips and men's money clips. Uggh! Not bad as the 7th or 8th suggestion, but not as one of the first. Yahoo! also offers a neat drop-down that helps refine the search suggestions you've queried. Advantage = Yahoo!

Other features:
Yahoo! offers a bunch of helpful features such as a button to close the suggestions, and an arrow that helps you scroll the relevant suggestions. Moreover, Yahoo's search assist only appears when it senses that the user is stuck in entering their search query. On the other hand, MSN's autocomplete appears on the 4th letter consistently, doesn't automatically remove the firefox autocomplete plugin (making the menu very confusing to look at), and doesn't offer a close button for those who would rather not use the suggestions. Advantage = Yahoo!

Conclusion:
Picture Mike Tyson in his prime boxing against Pee Wee Herman.

Bottom Line: Looks like Microsoft should have upped their bid another $10 billion.

PerfSpot - PredictAd team up to power social search..

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:55:00 +0000

With all the buzz surrounding Facebook it is easy to overlook PerfSpot - a wildly successful social network that boasts more than 30 million unique users worldwide. I think a lot of PerfSpot's success is based on it offering social networking applications with more of a portal-like feel to the site. Unlike Facebook, I can very easily stream music, watch online videos or search through local classified ads. This is a much more user-friendly style of web-surfing than browsing through endless Facebook apps that too often have limited functionality and often frustrate due to Facebook's slow response time.

Less than a month ago PredictAd and PerfSpot teamed up in order to power their video, music, blog and groups search. PredictAd geo-targets the search suggestions it displays on PerfSpot to over 230 countries. So if someone from Canada, and another person from India begin searching for music they will see different suggestions displayed based on what is most popular in that geographic location.

Beyond just improving the search experience on PerfSpot - PredictAd's community-powered search suggestions offer a new approach to searching on social networks, which falls under the category of "social search". Wikipedia defines social networks as a

service [that] focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others.

Think about it, all the buzz about social networks is the USG (user-generated content) factor, so why shouldn't the search powering these social networks adapt the same modus operandi? Well, it seems as if one of the more successful social networks is in tune with this thought process - and kudos to PerfSpot for setting the trend!

Chickipedia - engage your users with Double D's!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:43:00 +0000

Hats off to one of the most brilliant autocomplete integrations I have seen..although there is some lag time here and there, the results more than make up for it!

According to its site:

Chickipedia is the world’s largest web-based, women-based, wiki-based database of hot chicks on the planet. It is entirely user generated, making it the first female-only encyclopedia of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Mazel Tov!

Yahoo Sports adds autocomplete to its player search

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:12:00 +0000

It seems like autocomplete is all the buzz this week..this time Yahoo has adapted its search assist capabilities to a subject of great importance - fantasy sports! So if you're a fantasy geek like myself you will now be able to breeze through MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL player lists. This is especially helpful with the influx of foreign-born players into professional sports - seriously, try spelling Khabibulin or Fukudome without autocomplete! This is just further proof that while Google might be #1 in search, Yahoo clearly takes the prize in search assist.

CustomizeGoogle Firefox Plug-in

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:01:00 +0000

I know I'm a little late on the game on this but I just added a killer firefox add-on that amongst other things adds Google Suggest on a default basis whenever you search on Google. Here's a brief summary of some of the add-on's other features:

CustomizeGoogle is a Firefox extension that enhance Google search results by adding extra information (like links to Yahoo, Ask.com, MSN etc) and removing unwanted information (like ads and spam). All features are optional and easily configured.

There are some pretty impressive stats that go along with this firefox extension.

It seems that fans of the extension are rather enthusiastic about seemingly trumping Google - here's just one of the many comments on CustomizeGoogle:

Great add-on! Especially I like the feature "Anonymize the Google cookie ID" and "Don't send any cookies to Google-Analytics". In combination with other privacy add-ons, this is great. To get sure, Google stops spying, always use a proxy and put Google-Analytics on your blacklist. Beat Google! Beat em hard! Google shall bow down and eat dust!

Personally, I just like the fact that Google Suggest is embedded into the platform of the app..

Wikipedia joins the AutoComplete club..

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 10:02:00 +0000

In a move largely unnoticed by the blogosphere,Wikipedia - the open content online encyclopedia has decided to embrace the wonderful technology of autocomplete ; )

This makes it two of the top 10 global web properties adapting autocomplete within the week (YouTube being the other)! Honestly, the tool is great there and in my opinion will lead to additional page views and site activity. Why? Simple. As you can see in the screen shot I was simply looking for a Chinese lexicon and got a bunch of helpful suggestions - this will be the case with most terms, which will in turn pique user interest and increase searches.

If you are a reader of this blog you will know that PredictAd already implemented an autocomplete feature on a Wiki widget in the past. As always, PredictAd welcomes the move and encourages more of the big dawgs to follow the Yahoo/YouTube/Wikipedia example..

Advertisers taking notice of PredictAd's rapid rise..

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:41:00 +0000

These are the latest metrics from Compete.com - the crazy thing is that we're growing much faster in the international arena than in the US. If these numbers keep up that will soon change..

YouTube adds Autocomplete!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 11:05:00 +0000

In the biggest industry news since Yahoo launched its search assist platform - video giant YouTube has recently implemented a Google Suggest-like autocomplete feature throughout its bigillions of pages. A summary of the feature from an unofficial Google blog

The latest enhancement is an auto-complete feature that shows query suggestions as you start typing characters in the search box. You'll notice the obvious similarity between this feature and Google Suggest, a project that is about to finally graduate from Google Labs. YouTube Suggest has its own list of queries obtained from YouTube users, so it should offer decent suggestions.

This is big news in the autocomplete industry and is a welcome move that is long overdue. As the giants of the internet world continuously adopt autocomplete into their search platforms there will be more and more demand from the non-giants of the internet world who either can't afford to develop this on their own or simply don't feel the need when there is a free version that makes you money - PredictAd.

While I give a lot of credit to YouTube for adopting autocomplete into its search platform, it is hardly the first video portal to do so. Two noteworthy video portals that have previously made the switch are PureVideo.com and social-networking mover & shaker PerfSpot.com (more news on PerfSpot later).

All in all I will say that this is a job well done by YouTube/Google! - now it should be interesting to see how long it takes the YouTube copycats of the world to follow their encouraging example, and even more interesting..when will Google finally make Google Suggest a feature that is standard or at least optional throughout their search platform?

SocialPicks - search stocks in real-time..

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 21 May 2008 08:38:00 +0000

SocialPicks is a community for stock market investors to share investment ideas, exchange market research, and track peers' investment performance - in brazen terms it's a social network for finance gurus. SocialPick's platform also powers Reuters Stock Buzz.

As is common with most financial sites (cnnmoney, yahoo finance, etc) - the user experience is much improved when you offer autocomplete on the ticker symbols. As such, PredictAd and SocialPicks hooked up to do just that. The bottom line is that an instant stock ticker is a must have feature for all finance sites. I'm sure even the Warren Buffet's of the world forget a ticker symbol here and there. With PredictAd, SocialPicks is not only giving its users a great stock search tool, but its doing it while creating an additional advertising medium as well.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 19 May 2008 12:11:00 +0000

PredictAd improves user experience on retail sites..

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 14 May 2008 09:29:00 +0000

I have previously posted on the absolute necessity for retail sites to implement autocomplete functionality of some fashion in order to help the consumer find what they're looking for quicker and easier. It seems as if one shopping comparison portal has heeded my advice!

Shoppersneeds.com enables users to search, shop, and save on thousands of products from trusted online merchants. The site's purple theme color is a twist and I presume is geared towards a more female audience. I think if you perform a search on shoppersneeds.com you'll notice how much easier it is to find the product you're looking for - it also exposes you to other products that may pique your interest. Go ahead and try it out, put a few dollars on the old AMEX and make your daily contribution to the global economy ; )

Ownskin.com - Free Nokia Themes, Nokia Theme Creator, SonyEricsson Themes

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:07:00 +0000

Naruto anybody?! Ownskin.com enables users to create your own mobile themes with a free online theme creator or downloads from the best mobile theme library with more than 2 millions free Nokia themes. The site has been one of the fastest growing throughout the entire world wide web over the past year and it continues to grow.

PredictAd's autocomplete menu helps users find mobile skins in a breeze. The menu looks niiiiiiiiice!

Ownskin's even got a cool Facebook app that you can check out. All in all this is another mega-site that proves that UGC is no passing trend..

Swagbucks.com - Search & Win!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:19:00 +0000

Swagbucks.com - search & win is a search engine that offers you the chance to win cool prizes every time you search. According to their website Swagbucks believes

very strongly in rewarding our users for their loyalty and our prizes are our way of thanking you. No registration is required. Try it, you'll be hooked - we guarantee it!

It's a very nice concept that offers unique search pages that represent your favorite music artists and sports teams. Swagbucks has added an autocomplete menu in order to better the user experience on the domain and to help find what you're looking for faster. As more and more sites are starting to offer lucrative incentives in order to attract users (this business model is also used by popular pic-sharing site shareapic.net), maximizing search revenue should be a #1 priority in order to ensure the success of such a model.

Maybe in a couple of years the "free service" model will be out-of-date...who knows?! Maybe Google will start splitting their search revenues with their users?! Ok ok, probably not - but I wouldn't be surprised if some big players in the internet industry start experimenting with this business model further. Until then portals such as Swagbucks will keep on winning..

MComet.com - Upcoming Movies, Movie Trailers and Reviews, Celebrity Photos and News

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:19:00 +0000

MComet.com, a popular entertainment website that offers all kinds of movie reviews, trailers and photos has recently added autocomplete functionality to their search. The suggestions are geared towards MComet's content and are given additional weight based on what users of the site search for. Overall, the service looks great and adds a lot to the site. I really like the way that the ads in PredictAd don't affect the cleanliness of the page its on. I think this is a major point to consider. In the future I think more and more sites will be cleaner from junk ads (you know, the "you are the 999,999,999 user - click here" ads) and monetize through advertising services that don't mess with the site's look. This is one of the bigger advantages of text ads, as we've witnessed throughout the Google revolution taking place over the past half-decade or so. Services like PredictAd will continue to add to this ongoing "webolution", while annoying and obtrusive advertising services (notice how I didn't mention Kontera) should subside over time.