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Surfers Surf Joins Pinterest

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 21:00:00 EST

Surfers Surf has joined Pinterest, a social network that lets users create virtual pinboards. Pinterest works best for very graphical websites. See our sister site Shopping Blog's Pinterest Page as an example.

You can find Surfers Surf on Pinterest here. You can also get updates from us on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

image: Pinterest

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Very Slight Gain for Google in February 2012 U.S. Search Engine Rankings

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 18:00:00 EST

ComScore, Inc. has released its search monthly search result rankings. Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in February with 66.4 percent market share (up 0.2%), followed by Microsoft Sites with 15.3 percent (up 0.1%). Yahoo lost 0.3% on the month. Here are the rankings for explicit core search, which excludes contextually driven searches.

Search	Jan 2012	Feb 2012	Point Change
Google Sites	66.2%	66.4%	0.2
Microsoft Sites	15.2%	15.3%	0.1
Yahoo Sites	14.1%	13.8%	-0.3
Ask Network	3.0%	3.0%	0.0
AOL	1.6%	1.5%	-0.1

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Google Releases Google Search Features Video

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 22:00:00 EST

Here is a video from Google that quickly teaches several search techniques. The techniques are basic ones, but they could be new to some users. Techniques in the video include pulling up sports scores, getting election results, findng movie listings, calculator, conversion function, sorting through recipes, voice search and photo comparison. Take a look:

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Senator Marc Rubio Withdraws Support for PIPA

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:00:00 EST

Senator Marc Rubio posted on Facebook that he has withdrawn his support for PIPA, an Internet censorship bill. He is asking Senator Reid to abandon his plan to rush the bill to the floor. He also says in a tweet, "After hearing from people with legit concerns, have withdraw support for #PIPA. Let's take time to do it right. http://on.fb.me/xxAl4F #SOPA"

That's great Senator Rubio has come to his senses, but the "Let's take time to do it right" part is disturbing. The entertainment and media giants already have plenty of tools to battle copyright violaters. There are already laws that make it illegal to steal a company's or person's content. There is no need for censorship. The sites that blacked out today and achieved success in this battle will have to remain vigilant. There are people in Congress that work for lobbyists and not for people. They will continue to try and put horrible legislation through on behalf of these companies without regard for the damage it causes to the Internet and freedom of information.

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Surfers Surf is Now on Google+

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 18:00:00 EST

Surfers Surf now has a Google+ page on Google+. Google+ is a new social network from Google. You can follow us on Google+ by clicking on the Google+ button below and adding us to one of your circles.

Surfers Surf is also on Facebook and Twitter.

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U.S. IE6 Usage Drops Below 1%

Tue, 3 Jan 2012 21:00:00 EST

Usage of IE6 has dropped below the 1% mark in the U.S. It is still over 7% worldwide. Microsoft is eagerly trying to get people off the old version of its Internet Explorer browsers.

E6 has been the punch line of browser jokes for a while, and we've been as eager as anyone to see it go away. In fact, we launched the IE6 Countdown site last March to help accelerate the process. Less than a year later, I'm thrilled to say that the United States has joined the ranks of Austria, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway in dropping below 1% usage of IE6.

Microsoft has a website, The Internet Explorer 6 Countdown, that contains data about IE6 usage and encourages people to upgrade to a newer version of IE.

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Google Launches Google Politics & Elections Page on Google+

Mon, 2 Jan 2012 14:00:00 EST

Google has launched a Google Politics & Elections page on Google+ just ahead of tomorrow's Iowa caucus. Google also has an Elections section, which features the latest news and trends. The Google trends page you shows the most searched candidates. For the GOP, Ron Paul is clearly the most searched candidate for the past week and month. Paul's searches will rise even more if he manages to pull of a win in Iowa.

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Facebook Official Song From Heart2Heart

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 21:00:00 EST

Heart2Heart has a song out called "Facebook Official." This is a pretty hilarious song that appears to mock boy bands. Unless these young guys are serious about this "Facebook Official" song. If they are serious, then it is kind of scary. Take a look:

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Google Chrome Now Has 200 Million Users

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 14:00:00 EST

Google CEO Larry Page announced in a post on Google+ that Google's browser, Google Chrome, now has over 200 million users.

Chrome--usage is going through the roof. We have now hit over 200 million users and still growing fast. Turns out people really care about getting to the web quickly and securely, and having a whole ecosystem of apps at their fingertips.

eWeek reports that Chrome hit 16.2% of marketshare in September and could climb to 20% by 2012.

Larry Page also said that over 190 million devices have been activated that are powered by Android. He also said a new version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, will soon be released.

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Use of Longer Search Queries Climbs in August 2011

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 15:40:00 EST

Data from Experian Hitwise shows that short search queries of just one or two words are the most frequent types of search engine queries. However, longer search queries are climbing. Search queries average five to eight words or more increase by 3% from July 2011 to August 2011. One word searches make up over 26% of all searches. That means over 73% of all searches involve two or more words. Very long search queries using eight or more words make up just over 3% of all search queries.

Source: Experian Hitwise

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Bing and Twitter Renew Realtime Tweets Deal

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 15:00:00 EST

Search Engine Land reports that Twitter and Bing have renewed their deal. The deal enables Microsoft to run current Twitter results on its search engine. You can get the results on Bing Social. The latest Twitter and Facebook results are searchable. Bing also lists some of the hottest social topics.

Google's Realtime Search was a wonderful search tool, unfortunately Google and Twitter do not currently have a tweets deal. Google's Realtime search is currently disabled, but Google is expected to bring it back using Google+ updates. It is not clear if tweets will ever return to Google's Realtime search. Google told Search Engine Watch, "We've temporarily disabled google.com/realtime. We're exploring how to incorporate the Google+ project into this functionality going forward, so stay tuned."

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Google Maps Adds Weather

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 18:00:00 EST

Google has added weather to its Google Maps service. The weather is a layer you can add to the map. You can zoom in and zoom out to observe different temperatures. You can also click to get a local forecast and additional weather details, such as humidity and wind conditions. Take a look:

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Study Finds Internet Explorer Users Have Lower IQ Than Users of Other Browsers

Mon, 1 Aug 2011 14:00:00 EST

Note: This story is bogus.

AptiQuant, a Psychometric Consulting company, gave free online IQ tests to over 100,000 people and then plotted the average IQ scores based on the browser the IQ test taker was using. Users of Internet Explorer scored lower than users of all other browsers. The red bars in the chart above shows the average IQ score for each browser in 2011. The IE browser versions are on the left side of the chart.

Users of Chrome, Firefox and Safari had slightly higher scores than the IE users. Users of Camino, Opera and IE with Chrome Frame had the best IQ scores - each topped the 120 mark.

Users of IE version 6 had the very lowest IQ scores. They had an average IQ score that was just a little over 80. This could explain why they are still using IE version 6, which was released nine years ago. It's time for an upgrade dummies!

You can view the complete report here (PDF).

Image: AptiQuant

(via PC World)

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Follow Surfers Surf on Facebook and Twitter

Sat, 9 Jul 2011 20:00:00 EST

You can keep up with the latest internet and web browsing news from Surfers Surf by following us on Facebook and Twitter. Our Facebook page is located here and our Twitter page is @internet.

Writers Write, Inc., the publisher of surferssurf.com, also publishes blogs covering books, business, games, science, shopping, technology and more. You can find the Facebook and Twitter accounts for our blogs at wwfeeds.com.

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Steven Levy: What Google Knows About You

Thu, 12 May 2011 14:00:00 EST

Steven Levy is the author of a book about Google called In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives. In this clip, Levy explains how Google knows a lot more about you than you think. Levy says Google keeps data about your searches for nine months. Google also tracks the websites you visit. Other sources Google uses to obtain information about you include Gmail and Google Latitude. Take a look:

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Google Adds Sort by Subject to Google Images

Mon, 9 May 2011 21:00:00 EST

Google now offers sort by subject when search the Google Images database. For example if you search Google Images for New York City and then click the "sort by subject" option on the left it will show the image results by different subjects, including "new york city skyline," "new york city at night" and "new york cities map." Another example is a Taylor Swift image search, which can be sorted into subjects like "fearless," "hot," "album," "hair," etc. Take a look:

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Google: Osama bin Laden Searches Surged 1 Million Percent Following His Death

Tue, 3 May 2011 22:00:00 EST

Google says searches for Osama bin Laden surged 1 million percent following his death at the hands of U.S. special forces. In a tweet, Google said, "On May 1 between 7:30-8:30 pm PST, we saw a 1 million percent increase in searches for [bin laden]." Google also shared the above graph showing the surge in tweets. No doubt a high rate of Osama bin Laden searches continues as news about this secret hideout and changes in the story of his capture continue to emerge.

Image: Google

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Yahoo Increases Search Data Retention Period From 3 Months to 18 Months

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 22:00:00 EST

Search Engine Land is reporting that Yahoo is extending the time it holds on to personal search records. The time will jump from a small three months to a much longer 18 months.

In 2008, Yahoo announced it would limit the time it held personally identifiable information related to searches to 90 days. The New York Times has a report of that announcement here.

Now, Yahoo is reversing its policy and extending the time it retains this "personally identifiable information" to 18 months, which is six times as long.

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Study: Women Who Base Self Worth on Appearance Tend to Share More Photographs on Facebook

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 14:00:00 EST

A study led by University at Buffalo researcher Michael A. Stefanone, PhD, found that females who base their self worth on their appearance tend to share the most photographs online. The study also found these women tend to maintain larger networks on online social networking sites. The study also found that women share five times as many photographs online as men.

In the study, 311 participants with an average age of 23.3 years -- 49.8 percent of whom were female -- completed a questionnaire measuring their contingencies of self worth. The subjects were also queried as to their typical behaviors on Facebook.

Stefanone says, "Those whose self esteem is based on public-based contingencies (defined here as others' approval, physical appearance and outdoing others in competition) were more involved in online photo sharing, and those whose self-worth is most contingent on appearance have a higher intensity of online photo sharing."

Stefanone also noted that the women in this study who base their self worth on appearance were also are the most prolific photo sharers. Take a look:

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Google Dictionary Switches from Collins to Oxford

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:00:00 EST

Google Operating System reports that Google Dictionary has switched its dictionary provider. Google Dictionary had been using the Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary. Now they are using the Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. The definitions from the Oxford dictionary are written in a more traditional dictionary style. It sounds like it was a smart move.

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Microsoft's Bing Grabs 12.7% of Search Marketshare

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:00:00 EST

The BBC is reporting that research from ComScore indicates Bing has grapped as much as 12.7% of the search market. Microsoft just launch Bing a year ago. The study also found that Google has 62.6% and Yahoo has 18.9%.

Satya Nadello of Microsoft's online division told BBC News they are in it to win. Nadello said, "We have barely gotten into double digits but we want this to grow into a significant business for Microsoft. It is a huge market where there is a significant profit pool that can be achieved. But we definitely wouldn't be in it if we were not going to play to win."

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Bing Closing Bing Cashback

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:00:00 EST

Bing has announed they are ending the Bing cashback feature.

Why are we doing this? When we originally began to offer the cashback feature, it was designed to help advertisers reach you with compelling offers, and to provide a new type of shopping experience that would change user behavior and attract a bunch of new users to Bing.

In lots of ways, this was a great feature - we had over a thousand merchant partners delivering great offers to customers and seeing great ROI on their campaigns, and we were taking some of the advertising revenue and giving it back to customers. But after a couple of years of trying, we did not see the broad adoption that we had hoped for.

The last day of Bing cashback will be July 30.

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Microsoft Losing Browser Marketshare

Sat, 22 May 2010 15:00:00 EST

The BBC reports that Internet Explorer continues to lose marketshare. The latest report has IE's marketshare below 60%. Firefox has 24.5% and Google Chrome has 6.7%. The BBC says a Nielsen report gives IE a larger marketshare of 70%. Here is the breakdown of browser marketshare from the NetApplications reports.

Internet Explorer - 59.9%
Firefox - 24.5%
Chrome - 6.7%
Safari - 4.7%
Opera - 2.3%
Opera Mini - 0.7%
Netscape - 0.46%
Mozilla - 0.16%
Flock - 0.06%
Lunascape - 0.04%

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Teens Flock to Anonymous Formspring.me Website

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 18:00:00 EST

Webware reports that teens are flocking to a website called Formspring.me. The site facilitates the posting of anonymous questions. Webware says the company claims it received 50 million unique visitors last month alone.

Since then, it went viral, attracting 50 million unique visitors last month, according to the company. Thanks to the service's success, the company is now bringing its offices to San Francisco after receiving $2.5 million from a group of Silicon Valley investors. Among the investors are Digg founder Kevin Rose and former Facebook executive Dave Morin.

The Web site is currently in its infancy; it has no revenue model or API. However, it does have the elements needed to attract, engage, and retain users around the globe, especially Generation Y.

The anonymous nature of the website can also lead to harassment and abuse. A support faq about the website says, "Unfortunately, there are people that misuse the system and abuse anonymity to harass others. Since formspring.me launched, we've been working on finding the right set of tools and options for users to protect themselves from abuse, while keeping room for all the positive things that can come from using formspring.me."

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Yahoo Turns 15

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 15:00:00 EST

Yahoo is celebrating its 15th birthday. Maggie Rodriguez spoke with Yahoo's Web Life editor Heather Cabot to see much the internet has changed our lives. Heather Cabot says the survey found that most people in 1995 were clueless about the Internet in 1995. Today, most people use the Internet for letter writing, find recipes and get the news. Take a look:

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iTunes Preview Lets You Browse Apps in Web Browser

Thu, 4 Feb 2010 18:00:00 EST

TechCrunch reports that iTunes now lets you view iPhone/iPod Touch apps in the browser. You can see an example of this here with Sunset Lake Software's Pi Cubed app. This is great because it keeps the iTunes application from opening and slowing things down. This should have been done a long time ago.

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Apple iPad Will Not Read Flash

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 15:00:00 EST

Apple's iPad promises an amazing web surfing experience but there is a major downside that makes the surfing experience less amazing: no Flash. Flash is used for many videos on the Internet. Many games also use Flash. The lack of Flash is especially frustrating considering the device was billed as a web surfing and entertainment device. Apple even claims the iPad is the "best way to experience the web, email, photos and video. Hands down." But it isn't a good experience at all if you can't experience something because Apple forbids you. The real reason Apple does not want to use Flash is because they want to force iPad owners to buy movies and games from the iTunes stores.

You can find more iPad coverage here.

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Twitter Reportedly Makes a Profit in 2009

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 18:00:00 EST

Bloomberg is reporting that Twitter is now profitable after providing data for Google's and Microsoft Bing's real time search engines.

An agreement that made Twitter's messages searchable on Google's site will generate about $15 million, said the people, who asked to remain anonymous because the terms aren't public. A similar deal with Microsoft's Bing search engine will earn Twitter about $10 million.

The multiyear agreements will allow Twitter to make a small profit in 2009, said the people, who estimate that its operating costs are about $20 million to $25 million a year. The San Francisco-based company, which started in 2006, has about 105 employees, according to its Web site.

$25 million in revenues leaves Twitter well short of its $1 billion evaluation but at least it shows the company is able to generate some revenues.

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Yahoo Testing Real-time Search With One Riot

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:00:00 EST

All the main search engine are launches real-time search these days to compete with Twitter. TechCrunch reports that Yahoo has chosen OneRiot as its real-time search partner. Yahoo says they will use it for some search results and are currently testing it.

Real-time search means different things to different people. For Yahoo!, we think of real-time search in terms of providing the most relevant, fresh information to people every time.

Yahoo! Search is currently testing a new search shortcut that will include real-time results at the top of the search results page. The shortcut will only appear on certain queries that will be determined by Yahoo. This is a test designed to discover if showing such content is useful to people using Yahoo! Search. Yahoo! is focused on creating the most innovative, easy-to-use and valuable search experience for people, and after this test we will carefully evaluate whether we should integrate such results for everyone using Yahoo! Search

OneRiot is a useful tool for searching Twitter. It helps you pull out the most relevant content without getting all the spam and retweets. Search engines need to add filters if they want to improve real-time search over what Twitter's own search engine provides.

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Zakta Launches Social Search Engine

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 15:44:00 EST

Zakta.com is a social web search engine. In addition to traditional searching, Zakta also allows users to edit their search results and build on the results of others.

Here are some of the features Zakta provides according to the press release:

Fully editable search results. Zakta's search results are completely editable and under the user's control. A user can delete results that aren't relevant. Drag-and-drop results to rearrange them, or add tags and annotations to any result.
Automatically saved searches. Zakta automatically saves all changes into a user's Zakta account so users benefit from their changes whenever they search again.
Tools to gather and save information from everywhere. Zakta provides tools like the Zakta ClipPad, the Zakta Plugin, and Zakta SearchPacks, to find information anywhere on the web and include it in the user's search process.
Easy knowledge sharing. Zakta enables users to share their results in the form of Zakta Guides.
Trusted collaboration. Users can invite other people they trust - such as colleagues, friends, or family members - to find information together and use a Zakta Guide as a living, collaborative document.

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Google Expands Its Search Options

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:44:00 EST

Google blogs that have expanded the number of search options they offer. The new search options include nine new search options: past hour, specific date range, more shopping sites, fewer shopping sites, visited pages, not yet visited, books, blogs and news. You can find them by searching Google and clicking "Show options" in the blue bar just under the logo.

The date option is very useful if you want more timely results. The visited pages feature only works best if you are signed in to your Google Account and have Web History enabled.

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Microsoft's Bing Launches Visual Search

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 18:00:00 EST

Bing has a blog post about its new Visual Search feature. They argue that if you are looking for things like an actor you can't remember or a new car sometimes it is easier and smarter to search visually instead of entering text.

Visual Search is a new way to formulate and refine your search queries through imagery, particularly for sets of results that tend to be more structured. We call these data groupings galleries. Simply go to www.bing.com/visualsearch and install Silverlight if you don't have it already. What you'll see is an amazing new visual search experience. Visual Search allows you to quickly scroll through the galleries or do a one-click refinement using the quick tabs on the left, which are specifically relevant to the type of results you are browsing through.

Now to find that movie you were looking for, click on "Movies" and scroll through the imagery to find "what's-his-name." Now that you found it, hover your mouse over the movie to view details including title, rating, reviews, and how much it grossed at the box office, all right under the search box. Think about how much time you saved using Visual Search.

Bing has lots of visual search categories available include dog breeds, digital cameras, tv shows, U.S. politicians, MLB teams and yoga poses. You have to install Microsoft Silverlight to use visual search.

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Wikipedia to Add Review Layer to Articles About People

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:00:00 EST

The New York Times reports that the online user-generated encyclopedia called Wikipedia is going to start reviewing changes that can be made to articles about living people. An editorial review layer will be added to articles so that a more experienced editor reviews article changes before they are live on the website.

Officials at the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit in San Francisco that governs Wikipedia, say that within weeks, the English-language Wikipedia will begin imposing a layer of editorial review on articles about living people.

The new feature, called "flagged revisions," will require that an experienced volunteer editor for Wikipedia sign off on any change made by the public before it can go live. Until the change is approved - or in Wikispeak, flagged - it will sit invisibly on Wikipedia's servers, and visitors will be directed to the earlier version.

The change is part of a growing realization on the part of Wikipedia's leaders that as the site grows more influential, they must transform its embrace-the-chaos culture into something more mature and dependable.

The article says the new editing procedures are already in place on the German version of Wikipedia. The Times says 60 million people now use Wikipedia each month. The Times notes that editing changes mean some Wikipedia editors will have more clout than others. The big concern is that new editorial review layer could delay important changes to the people articles.

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Know Your Meme: Three Wolf Moon Shirt

Tue, 4 Aug 2009 21:00:00 EST

This is a meme you should be familiar with. It's the Three Wolf Moon shirt that soared to the top of Amazon.com's clothing sales chart. Hilarious tongue-and-cheek reviews left on Amazon.com's product page allowed the Three Wolf Moon shirt to spread virally around the Internet. A funny song also boosted the shirt's sales. Rocketboom goes in-depth to explain how the shirt became a meme. Take a look:

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Yahoo Search to Be Bing Powered

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 22:00:00 EST

Microsoft and Yahoo have cut a 10-year deal that will see Microsoft's Bing search engine powering Yahoo's search results. Bing has been received positively and has been slowly gaining search marketshare. This probably helped convince Yahoo to do the deal with Microsoft.

The 10-year deal shifts control of Yahoo search results and ads to Microsoft, which will use Yahoo's better-trafficked site as a platform for its new search engine, Bing. Microsoft will pay for the expensive infrastructure it requires to run search technology, freeing up Yahoo's cash for that company's other operations. Microsoft paid no cash up front, and investors think Yahoo got the bum end of the deal - that company's stock plunged 12 percent the day it was announced.

The investors are probably right: Unless Yahoo's new CEO, Carol Bartz, can work miracles on Yahoo's other products, the company might regret getting out of the search business. In the long term, Microsoft and Yahoo probably had no choice but to band together against Google, which controls a monstrous share of the search market (nearly 70 percent). But in the short term, it could mean a tough restructuring that affects morale all over Silicon Valley.

Reuters reports that Yahoo is also looking at mining tweets to provide real-time data in addition to search results from Bing. Bing also has a tweet search tools called BingTweets.

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Hunch Helps You Make Decisions

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:00:00 EST

Hunch is a new type of website that attempts to help users make decisions. You might ask hunch for advice on something simple like what to put on your pizza. You can also ask Hunch about more complex decisions like, "should I buy or lease a car?" Hunch will then ask you a series of questions before it gives you an answer.

CNN has an interview with Hunch founder Caterina Fake. Caterina Fake was also a co-founder of Flickr, a popular photo sharing website.

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Google Launches Google Squared

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:00:00 EST

Sometimes it is easier to review information if it is contained in a database. Examples include baseball statistics and financial information. Google uses the example of rollercoasters in its explanation of its new search feature called Google Squared.

For instance, I'm a big fan of roller coasters. In the past I've used Google to search for information about roller coasters, such as which ones are the tallest, fastest, and have the most loops. Finding this information used to take multiple searches - I'd find roller coaster sizes on one website, heights on another, and speeds on a third. By manually comparing the sites, I could get the information I was looking for, but it took some time. With Google Squared, a new feature just released in Google Labs, I can find my roller coaster facts almost instantly.

The Google Squared site includes many different databases for mountains, dog breeds, presidents, poets, cloud types and more. Not everything is easier in a database form but it sure makes it easier when you need to make comparisons.

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Microsoft Launches Bing to Challege Google

Sun, 31 May 2009 15:00:00 EST

The name of Microsoft's new search engine is Bing. Bing can be found at bing.com. The search engine used to be called Live. Microsoft condiders Bing more of a decision engine than a search engine. Bing promises to deliver content and results in a way that will help people make decisions. Microsoft's Bing website has a "tour Bing" section here that introduces users to Bing.

The ad budget for Bing is said to be around $100 million. Any increase in its small 8% search marketshare would be an improvement for Microsoft. The company trails search leaders Google and Yahoo.

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Rocketboom Explains Single Serving Sites

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:00:00 EST

Rocketboom explains single serving sites in this episode. The single purpose websites like istwitterdown.com and isobamapresidentyet.com. Most single serving sites like doihaveswineflu.org are more humorous than informational.

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Rocketboom Explains Numa Numa

Sat, 4 Apr 2009 18:00:00 EST

Rocketboom explains the background behind the Internet meme Numa Numa. Gary Brolsma generated millions of a view and generated thousands of imitations. Gary's most recent appearance is with the Geico gecko. Rocketboom says there are over 6,000 people with their own versions of Numa Numa on YouTube.

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Search Engine Queries Are Getting Longer

Wed, 4 Mar 2009 18:00:00 EST

Internet Retailer reports that data from Hitwise found that Internet search queries of five words or more increased by 10% year over year in January. The number of queries with 8 or more words climbed 22%.

Hitwise data shows the rate of increase in the number of Internet searches steadily rising along with the number of keywords per query. The number of search queries consisting of four words rose 2% year over year in January; queries consisting of five words rose 6%; six words, 8%; seven words, 12%; and eight or more words, 22%.

In contrast, the number of single-word search queries declined 3%, two-word queries declined 5%, and three-word queries remained the same.

People are getting better at using search engines. There's also a lot more information on the Internet to comb through making it necessary to use multiple keywords when trying to find something.

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Google Maps Runs Over a Deer

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:00:00 EST

Wow! That's not very cool. It looks like the Google Maps driver hit a deer and then left it there. Hopefully, this is some kind of a fake. (via BuzzFeed)

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Facebook Backs Off Content Grabbing Terms

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:00:00 EST

Facebook recently put up new terms of service saying they could use and sell user's content and keep its user's content even if people deleted their accounts. This upset many Facebook users who have personal photos and other content on the Facebook service that they don't want Facebook to be able to use or resell. The anger at the new Facebook terms kept building to the point where Facebook finally had to retract the new terms. Facebook plans to post a new revision to the terms later which could anger Facebook users all over again. Rocketboom explains Facebook's terms and what it all means for users and content ownership in the clip below.

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Facebook Claims 150 Million Users

Thu, 8 Jan 2009 18:00:00 EST

Facebook has been doing very well every since they decided to open the social network up to everyone. Originally, the social network was just for high school and college students. Facebook announced that they have reached the 150 million people milestone.

Today, we reached another milestone: 150 million people around the world are now actively using Facebook and almost half of them are using Facebook every day. This includes people in every continent-even Antarctica. If Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia and Nigeria.

When we first started Facebook almost five years ago, most of the people using it were college students in the United States. Today, people of all ages-grandparents, parents and children-use Facebook in more than 35 different languages and 170 countries and territories.

The full potential of the web is to make the world more open, so everyone has a voice and can share what is important to them. With 150 million voices and counting, we can't wait for the rest of 2009, and we look forward to offering even more ways for you to connect with the people who matter most.

That's a huge number. We would be curious how many of these are active users.

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Online Holiday Shopping Declines 3%

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 15:00:00 EST

comScore is reporting that holiday season retail ecommerce spending for the holiday shopping season, beginning November 1 and ending December 23, shows a 3 percent versus the corresponding shopping days in 2007. comScore says this is the first decline for ecommerce sales since they started tracking it in 2001.

"The 2008 online holiday shopping season has declined 3 percent versus year ago, falling behind our expectation of flat sales this year," said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. "This marks the first time we've seen negative growth rates for the holiday season since we began tracking e-commerce in 2001. The combination of having five fewer shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas and the severe economic headwinds faced by consumers has made this a really tough season for retailers, both offline and online."

Online sales did not fall nearly as much as brick-and-mortar sales but it does show that even a growing area like online retail is not immune to this recession.

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AP Names Hulu Website of the Year

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 08:00:00 EST

AP has dubbed Hulu the Website of the Year for 2008. The website lets users watch full-length video content including the latest tv shows and movies. An AP article says the blogosphere was initially skeptical of the project.

"This is period of great experimentation in regard to media, in regard to online video," said Hulu chief executive officer Jason Kilar in a recent interview. "You've seen a lot, you're probably going to see even more in terms of various business models, various interface designs. I personally love to operate in moments of time like that."

Hulu officially launched March 12, a result of the unlikely collaboration between News Corp. and NBC Universal. Normally, such corporate fusion in new mediums doesn't pan out.

The blogosphere was, to say the least, doubtful. Before its name was announced, bloggers derided the project as "Clown Co."

Hulu is a great website and its very useful. It's usefulness depends on its ability to continue to be able to get new video content for its viewers to watch.

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Google Takes Chrome Out of Beta

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:00:00 EST

It's good when a product doesn't stay in Beta forever and ever. It probably helps to get out of Beta faster when you have so many people using your product. Google says they have already had ten million people download Google Chrome. Google has now taken its Chrome browser out of beta. Google also says they've increase the stability of plug-ins, the browser speed and improved the bookmark manager.

Better stability and performance of plug-ins (particularly video). Video and audio glitches were among the most common bugs fixed during the beta period. If you had problems watching videos with Google Chrome in the past, you should be pleasantly surprised with the performance now.

Even more speed. Google Chrome starts up fast, loads pages quickly, and just keeps getting faster. Since the first beta, the V8 JavaScript engine runs 1.4 times faster on the SunSpider benchmark and 1.5 times faster on the V8 benchmark - and there is more speed to come.

Bookmark manager and privacy controls. We heard you! Better bookmark features were a top request from our users. It's now easier to switch between another browser and Google Chrome with the bookmark import and export features, and we added a new simple way to manage large numbers of bookmarks, too. We also wanted to make it even easier for you to control your browsing data, so all of the features in Google Chrome which affect user privacy are now grouped in one place with detailed explanations for each one.

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Google's Search VP Talks Search Trends

Wed, 3 Dec 2008 18:30:00 EST

Google's Vice President of Search Product and User Experience Marissa Ann Mayer was on the Today Show talking about some of the trends. She listed some of the fastest rising searches in 2008.

Fast rising searches in 2008:

Obama
Facebook
AT&T
iPhone
YouTube

Marissa Mayer also talked about trends in economic searches and food searches. You can find more trends on Google's Trend feature. Here's the video:

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Firefox Reaches 20% of Global Browser Marketshare

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:00:00 EST

ReadWriteWeb reports that Mozilla is excited about a new report that shows Firefox with over 20% of the global browser marketshare.

The good folks at Mozilla are trumpeting a new report by global analytics service Net Applications that documented a 20% global market share for two out of four weeks in October. It's a new high bar of popularity for the 2nd most popular browser in the world.

Firefox is safe, standards compliant, extensible...and not made by Microsoft. That's what most people like about it and the number of fans is growing.

Sites focused on tecnology tend to have an even higher percentage of Firefox users which means the trend toward Firefox may continue to rise as the browser reaches more and more non-techies.

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Gmail Adds Voice and Video Chat

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:00:00 EST

Google has added voice and video chat to Google Mail. They say getting started is easy and all you need is a webcam. You can download the video chat software from Google here. Will this be what sends video chat into the mainstream? Here's a video from Google where Serge explains how Gmail video chat works.

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Phishing Scams in Plain English

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 21:00:00 EST

Phising is one of the biggest and worst types of scams on the Internet. Usually phising involves fraudsters pretending to be your bank or credit card company. They try to fool you into giving you your information by sending you an email that looks official. Here's some great advice about how to spot phising emails from commoncraft.com.

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Facebook Privacy Tips

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:00:00 EST

Here's some great tips from Gabe Mac at Mobuzz about how to handle the Facebook redesign. Gabe Mac shows you how to handle Facebook privacy how to select which friends can see which parts of your Facebook profile.

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Google Takes You Back to 2001

Thu, 2 Oct 2008 16:36:00 EST

Mental-floss reports that Google took its users back in time for its 10th birthday. You can now search an index from 2001 to see how things have changed. You can find the special search here.

In honor of Google's tenth birthday*, the search engine has posted a version of itself as it appeared in January 2001 (the earliest available index). It was a simpler time: only 1,326,920,000 web pages were in the index. Today it's over 8 billion, though Google stopped revealing the exact number in 2005, saying the index size was "meaningless." Doing a search on the 2001-era index reveals how much the web has changed since then.

Just like mental-floss we aren't in the 2001 index but our parent company WritersWrite.com is.

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Muxtape Shuts Down

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 15:04:00 EST

Muxtape was a service that was rapidly gaining popularity until it was suddenly shut down. Valleywag notes the fun music website's RIAA problem.

Muxtape, a New York-based online-music startup much favored by the Tumblr set, has shut down its website, citing a "problem" with the RIAA, a music-industry organization which polices copyright. Could it have anything to do with the ease with which users can download music files from the site, despite founder Justin Ouellette's efforts to block them? The company blog elaborates, barely: "No artists or labels have complained. The site is not closed indefinitely. Stay tuned."

A long note on Muxtape website now says the website will be relaunching in the future but as a service for bands.

Muxtape is relaunching as a service exclusively for bands, offering an extremely powerful platform with unheard-of simplicity for artists to thrive on the internet. Musicians in 2008 without access to a full time web developer have few options when it comes to establishing themselves online, but their needs often revolve around a common set of problems. The new Muxtape will allow bands to upload their own music and offer an embeddable player that works anywhere on the web, in addition to the original muxtape format. Bands will be able to assemble an attractive profile with simple modules that enable optional functionality such as a calendar, photos, comments, downloads and sales, or anything else they need. The system has been built from the ground up to be extended infinitely and is wrapped in a template system that will be open to CSS designers. There will be more details soon. The beta is still private at the moment, but that will change in the coming weeks.

An Ars Technica article lists a few alternatives. They include Songza.com, Favtape and Mixtube.

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Add Bling to Your Graphics With Blingee

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:00:00 EST

Blingee is a graphics tool that lets you add ridiculous bling to your photographs and graphics. You can find the help page here. Here's a Michael Bolton image that has been blinged up with Blingee.

Blingee's tools are a lot of fun but it can be overdone as you can see here.

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Google Launches a New Browser Called Chrome

Thu, 4 Sep 2008 15:00:00 EST

Google has launched a beta version of a new browser called Chrome. Google is pushing the security aspects of Chrome. The Chrome has a feature called the omnibar that pulls in the top three or four search results from Google. PC Magazine compares the Omnibar to Firefox's "Awesome Bar." Other features with Chrome include tabs and desktop shortcuts.

Topher Kohan handles search engine optimization for CNN.com and discusses Google's new Web browser in the video below. He calls the browser fast, quick and secure. Kohan mentions one problem - there is no "Home" button. You can add a home button though by changing the preferences. You can also configure Chrome to bring up several of your favorite sites upon launching.

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Iterasi Lets You Bookmark Dynamically Generated Pages

Tue, 2 Sep 2008 15:50:00 EST

Iterasi is a new bookmarking website that let's you save dynamically generated pages and Flash pages. You can see a video about the new service here.

At iterasi, we love the Web. So much so, that we want to keep it. Forever.

That's why we're taking steps to move beyond traditional bookmarking. Because, these days, saving the address of a page isn't half as important as being able to save the page you created.

Our first product, iterasi, makes it simple for any Web user to save the dynamically generated pages that are increasingly becoming the bulk of today's Web experience. With iterasi, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX, and database driven technologies, like PHP and ASP, can all be saved?in their current state?with the push of a button.

You can see up a scheduler to bookmark pages for you. You can also share the pages you have saved with others using a shortened URL.

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Survey Finds Centenarians Use Email, Google and Online Dating

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:00:00 EST

The third annual Evercare 100@100 Survey polled 100 centenarians. The poll shifts conventional stereotypes on aging by revealing that some of the oldest Americans are using the latest technologies to keep up and stay close - talking on cell phones, sending emails, "Googling" lost acquaintances, surfing Wikipedia and even online dating.

Here's some of the results from the survey that found some centenarians are web savvy.

Surveyed Centenarians are no technophobes: 19 percent say they use cell phones to keep in touch with friends and family. Other technology used to stay in touch includes: e-mail (7 percent), sending or receiving digital photos by email (4 percent), and text messaging (1 percent).

Love 2.0: As many Centenarians as Baby Boomers (3 percent) say they have dated someone they met on an online dating site. Twelve percent of Centenarians surveyed say they have used the Internet and some have "Googled" someone they have lost contact with (2 percent) or have visited someone's personal Web site (2 percent).

Use the online encyclopedia "Wikipedia" (3 percent)

Purchased a gift online (3 percent)

Used the Internet to research a health topic (2 percent)

Have visited a political Web site (2 percent)

Have made travel arrangements and plans online (1 percent)

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Xobni Microsoft Outlook Plug-in Getting High Praise

Fri, 8 Aug 2008 22:00:00 EST

Xobni is a plug-in for Microsoft Outlook that has been garnering a large number of positive reviews. The plug-in helps you organize your Outlook inbox with features like fast email search, email analytics, social network type features and threaded conversations. Newsweek reports that Bill Gates, speaking at the Microsoft Office Developer Conference, called Xobni "the next generation of social networking." Here's a review of Xobni from the WSJ's Walt Mossberg.

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Beijing Olympics Search Tools and Resources

Thu, 7 Aug 2008 15:00:00 EST

The main resources for the Olympics this year are the official website and NBCOlympics.com. There are also a large number of Olympic blogs and Twitters.

The search engines this year are also useful. Google is providing some useful one box results. If you search something like beach volleyball olympics you will see scores pulled in from the beijing2008.cn website. Google Maps has also added new feautures for the Beijing Olympics. There is also a downloadable Olympics Countdown Gadget.

Yahoo is also providing box scores if you type in searches like usa medal count and diving + Olympics. You can also quickly obtain athlete information. For example, if you type in Jingjing Guo Olympics you will get an athlete information box that looks like this:

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Web Humor: Baby's First Internet

Tue, 5 Aug 2008 21:00:00 EST

Baby's First Internet by Kevin Fanning and Kean Soo provides a hilarious look at some of the trends, habits and absurdities of today's online culture. From having to be the first to add a comment underneath a new blog post to the urge to photograph every single thing you eat this new baby book (that's not really for babies) covers a great deal with it's short insightful rhymes.

Metafilter connects the book to larger concerns about where the Internet may be headed. (via Babyosphere)

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Show Off Your Inbox Zero Victory

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:00:00 EST

An iniative called Inbox Victory from the F.A.T. (free art and technology) website is encouraging people to take pictures and screenshots of when they have managed to clear out their email inbox.

Have you ever been in the situation where you spend days trying answer all of your email only to accomplish your goal and have no one to share in your victory? All you want is a high five, a pat on the back, and a "job well done soldier!", and yet most likely all you are left with is an empty room and a cold cup of coffee. Inbox Victory is an initiative that says, "you deserve that high five!" And here is how you get it:

1) Get your email inbox down to zero. People have various methods for dealing with their email so 'inbox 0' is going to mean different things to different people. A basic rule of thumb, however, is getting it to a point where no further action can be taken.

2) Open up your webcam software and take a screenshot of yourself profiling in front of your defeated foe (See examples below).

3) Leave your screenshot in the comments of this post.

It can be very difficult and time consuming to get your email inbox down to zero. It is also usually a very short-lived experience because it isn't long before new emails come rolling in. This is a great way to keep a momento of your inbox success story. (via Boing Boing)

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China Has More Web Surfers Than U.S.

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:00:00 EST

China has more people surfing the Internet than the United States does according to an AP news story. China has about 30 million more web surfers than the U.S.

China's booming Internet population has surpassed the United States to become the world's biggest, with 253 million people online despite government controls on Web use, according to government data reported Friday.

The latest figure on Web use at the end of June is a 56 percent increase over the same time last year, the China Internet Network Information Center said. It said the share of the Chinese public using the Internet is still just 19.1 percent, leaving more room for rapid growth.

The United States had an estimated 223.1 million Internet users in June, according to Nielsen Online, a research firm. The Pew Internet and American Life Project puts U.S. online penetration at 71 percent.

"This is the first time the number has drastically surpassed the United States, becoming the world's No. 1," a CNNIC statement said.

China is also well known for having strict filters that block China's citizens from viewing many of the world's websites. During the recent situation in Tibet, China reportedly even blocked news websites like CNN and the BBC. U.S. organizations doing business in China - including MSN, Yahoo and Google - have been blamed for complying with China's filters in order to do business in the coutnry. You can read a couple older articles about how China filters the Internet here and here.

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20% of U.S. Population Has Never Sent an Email

Mon, 19 May 2008 18:00:00 EST

Not everyone is using the Internet. About 20% of the U.S. population has never sent an email or looked up information online according to a recent study by Parks Associates.

Age and education were significant factors cited in the study, which was conducted by researcher Parks Associates. Half of those who have never used e-mail are older than 65 and 56 percent had no formal education beyond a high school level, the telephone survey found.

"Nearly one out of three household heads has never used a computer to create a document," John Barrett, director of research at Parks Associates, said in a statement. "These data underscore the significant digital divide between the connected majority and the homes in the unconnected minority that rarely, if ever, use a computer."

Just 7 percent of the 20 million households without Internet access indicated during the survey that they plan to subscribe to an Internet service within the next 12 months. However, the study noted a steady decline in the number of disconnected households when comparing findings with previous years; the 2006 survey found that 31 million households, or 29 percent, of all U.S. households were without Internet access.

20 million households with no web access is signicant. It would be interesting to know how many are going without because they can't afford it and how many are simply uninterested. It would also be interesting to know whether there are still areas in the U.S. where it is simply unavailable.

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Paintings of Internet Memes

Thu, 1 May 2008 18:00:00 EST

Czech painter Jeremiah Palecek is now painting Internet memes. Featured below are his paintings of The Dramatic Chipmunk and the Star Wars Kid. You can see Palecek's paintings on his blog here (via Boing Boing).

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A Convention For Lulz

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:00:00 EST

Finally all those Internet memes will be honored with a convention. It's the ROFLCon. We really needed this convention badly right? LOLCats just doesn't get enough notice on the Internet. The Bosotn Herald says this lulz con is being held by MIT.

The best - and, well, the worst - of Internet culture will crawl out of computer screens across the globe and descend on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Friday and Saturday for the first-ever ROFLCon, a joint venture of the Harvard and MIT Free Culture programs that will feature more than 60 Internet celebrities, guest speakers and college professors.

"We're getting the Internet to appear in the real world," said ROFLCon organizer and Harvard senior Tim Hwang.

"And it's terrifying," laughed fellow coordinator and Crimson undergrad Carrie Anderson.

If you don't know that ROFL stands for "Rolling on the Floor Laughing," then chances are you've never marveled at the luminescent costume detail of Tron Guy, giggled to grammatically depraved kitty captions on the Web site "I Can Has Cheezeburger" or hopped aboard the meteoric rise of the "Stuff White People Like" blog. That site garnered 24 million hits over a few months and landed creator Christian Lander a book deal with Random House Publishing.

Laughing Squid says the Tron guy is going. Wired calls the convention a weekend of nerddom. The full list of guest stars is here.

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Online Video Views Soaring

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:00:00 EST

Data from Comscore says video views soared over 66% in February over the year before. Comscore also says TV networks are starting to fight back with sights like Hulu.com. This is also what the writer's strike was all about. Video is rapidly moving online and everybody wants a piece of the pie.

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Can You Scrub Away Your Digital Footprint?

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 21:00:00 EST

Every social networking website you have used likely still retains the information you placed there even after you abandoned the website. For some the Friendster social network may be a website they used and abandoned years ago. Forbes explains.

You may have forgotten about Friendster, the once-booming social networking site that faded as American Web users flocked to MySpace and Facebook. But Friendster may not have forgotten about you.

It still remembers, for instance, that John Smith from Salisbury, Md., enjoys hobbies including "comic books" and "copulation." And any Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) user can read a glowing testimonial written to Brooklynite Sam Brown, describing his habit of walking around his apartment drunk and naked, as well as his talent for using a certain part of his anatomy as a puppet.

In fact, Friendster is a ghost town of detailed personal information: The site received only 2.4 million unique visitors in the U.S. in January, but has more than 10 million American profiles, many of which publicly display information that users would probably prefer to keep private.

The Forbes article called "How To Disappear Online" goes on to explain how to get informaton removed from Facebook and how information is not always easy to erase - especially if it wasn't created by you. There are also companies that will help you erase your personal data for a fee. Some companies also help to remove negative information. This process is sometimes called Googlewashing. This video from MSNBC explains how it is done. The video mentions some web services that claim to perform these services. They include Reputation Hawk, Defend My Name and ReputationDefender.com. One expert argues in the video clip that removing all negative information is not possible so it is better to counter the negative information by creating lots of positive information about yourself.

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Rick Astley Interview About Rickrolls

Sat, 5 Apr 2008 21:00:00 EST

Rickrolling was very big on April Fool's Day. YouTube even rickrolled people who were clicking on its featured videos. For the very few who don't know rickrolling is when someone tricks you into clicking on a link that takes you to Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" music video. Astley told Web Scout that if he was a young kid looking at his old song today he would think it was pretty naff.

For his part, Astley was nothing if not modest about his new cultural role. "If this had happened around some kind of rock song, with a lyric that really meant something -- a Bruce Springsteen, "God bless America" ... or an anti-something kind of song, I could kind of understand that," Astley said. "But for something as, and I don't mean to belittle it, because I still think it's a great pop song, but it's a pop song; do you know what I mean? It doesn't have any kind of weight behind it, as such. But maybe that's the irony of it."

Astley would never put the song down, mind you. It's just that, as he says, "If I was a young kid now looking at that song, I'd have to say I'd think it was pretty naff, really."

(Wikipedia on "naff": British slang for "something which is seen to be particularly 'cheesy' or 'tacky' or in otherwise poor aesthetic taste.") "For me it's a good example of what some of the '80s were about in that pop sort of music way. A bit like you could say Debbie Gibson was absolutely massive, but if you look back at it now ... do you know what I mean?"

Rick Astley seems to be taking it very well. If "Never Gonna Give You Up" was a bad song it probably wouldn't be such a popular choice for something like a rickroll. It's the fact that the song gets your head - it is both catchy and cheesy - that makes it the perfect music video to trick someone into viewing.

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Adobe Launches Free Photo-Editing Software

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:00:00 EST

Adobe has launched a free web version of Photoshop - its popular photo-editing software - called Photoshop Express. Adobe was expected to make this move and some are saying the software wasn't quite a feature-full as they would have liked but it is still Adobe-powered editing software. There is also concern about the TOS. Photoshop Express will probably get better as time goes by and Adobe adds new features and services.

You can see a few reviews of the new software here, here, here, here, here and here. Below is a video from the AP about the launch.

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Add Places to Google Maps

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:00:00 EST

You can now add any place to Google Maps that does not already appear on the map. Suggestings from Google include "your favorite town square" or "little-known landmarks." It is a pretty nifty feature especially if you trying to give someone directions. You have to logged in with Google to add a place. Here is a video from Google showing how it is done.

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Create Search Engines at Topical

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:00:00 EST

A new website called Topical allows users to create search engines that will search a small number of websites. People can also take advantage of the search engines that have already been created on the website. ReadWriteWeb reports that the site is using a Wikipedia-type model.

The service, which went live today, uses a model similar to that of Wikipedia, allowing anyone to contribute to the creation and enhancement of their own vertical search engines.

To use Topicle, the process is simple. You first search for a search engine, using their current database of human-created engines. If you find one that fits your needs, you can use it. If not, you can create your own engine or add to an existing one to make it more suitable.

The Topicle website is using Google Custom Search tool to generate the search engines. ReadWriteWeb says the site is the brainchild of Steffen Mueller, a former Google Product Manger.

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RateMyCop.com Temporarily Shut Down

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 18:00:00 EST

A website called Rate My Cop that allows people to rate police officers that they have interacted with or have ticketed them was temporarily shut down by GoDaddy.com, an online domain retailer and website.

RateMyCop founder Gino Sesto says he was given no notice of the suspension. When he called GoDaddy, the company told him that he'd been shut down for "suspicious activity."

When Sesto got a supervisor on the phone, the company changed its story and claimed the site had surpassed its 3 terabyte bandwidth limit, a claim that Sesto says is nonsense. "How can it be overloaded when it only had 80,00 page views today, and 400,000 yesterday?"

Police departments became uneasy about RateMyCop's plans to watch the watchers in January, when the Culver City, California, startup began issuing public information requests for lists of uniformed officers.

Then the site went live on February 28th. It stores the names and, in some cases, badge numbers of over 140,000 cops in as many as 500 police departments, and allows users to post comments about police they've interacted with, and rate them. The site garnered media interest this week as cops around the country complained that they'd be put at risk if their names were on the internet.

Wired links to this ABC story which says police offers are very upset about the website. Police officers are particularly concerned that the site may contain personal information about them such as their home address, marriage status and children.

"I'd like to see it gone," says Officer Hector Basurto, vice president of the Latino Police Officers Association. He recently learned about Ratemycop.com and is furious.

"Having a Web site like that puts a lot of law enforcement, in my eyes, in danger because it exposes us out there," says Officer Basurto.

"Having a website like that puts a lot of law enforcement, in my eyes, in danger because it exposes us out there," Officer Hector Basurto, vice president of the Latino Police Officers Association, told ABC television affiliate KGO.

Wired says RateMyCop does not include information about undercover officers and there is no information about officers' home addresses.

RateMyCop.com is back online now. More discussion of the controversial website can be found at Slashdot, CNET, Ars Technica, Mashable, TechDirt, Jossip, Perilocity, Legal Pad, Killer Startups, la.metblogs and the L.A. Times.

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Coffeenatic: A Social Network For Coffee Lovers

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:00:00 EST

It's 2008. That means there is already a social network for everything under the Sun. Even coffee. Web Worker Daily reports that there is a new social network called Coffeenatic that is just perfect for coffee addicts.

Coffeenatic focuses on coffee products and recipes, with data coming from its users. Coffee reviews are get quality and price ratings, while recipes are sorted by quality and complexity. You can browse without joining the site, but to add your own content or comments you'll need to sign up for a free account. It's just recently launched, but already they cover some ways to enjoy the bean that I hadn't heard of before.

Slashfood notes that there are two other coffee-related social networks: Barista Exchange and Barista Connection. Now you coffee lovers have three sites to check out.

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Google Wants Some Kid Doodles

Fri, 7 Mar 2008 18:00:00 EST

Google always has interesting new versions of its logo for holidays and special events. Most of the Google doodles are created by Chief Google Doodler Dennis Hwang. Here is a video of Hwang doodling.

Now Google is turning to students for help creating its doodles. They are running a Doodle 4 Google competition. The competition gives U.S. students in grades K-12 the opportunity to design a doodle for the Google homepage. Google says students will be asked to draw a doodle that best represents the theme "What if...?"

A panel of expert judges and Googlers will select 40 regional winners, who will be invited to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California, in May. Four national finalists will be announced as the result of a public vote. From there, Dennis will select one lucky student whose doodle will be on the Google homepage for a day in the U.S. This winner will also receive a $10,000 college scholarship and a technology grant for his or her school.

Registration closes on 3/28/08, and entries must be postmarked by 4/12/08.

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DailyMotion Goes HD

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:09:00 EST

A video sharing website called DailyMotion has added high definition (HD) videos. The have also set up a page here that lets you view and share HD videos.

For more than a year-and-a-half we have offered High-Quality video encoding, but with the rise of HD digital video cameras we have seen more and more Creative Content submitted in High Definition. This is why, from today on out, all HD video uploaded by MotionMakers will be automatically re-encoded in 720p High Definition for playback on the site.

Anyone can watch videos in HD. To get the most out of Dailymotion?s HD, we recommend opening HD videos in full-screen mode or, even better, viewing the site on an HD-compatible screen. If your monitor is not big enough to enjoy HD, you can always connect your computer to your TV.

ReadWriteWeb reports that another video sharing website called Vimeo added video sharing last October. YouTube still doesn't offer HD but it is probably only a matter of time before they do. (via Techmeme)

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Internet Spurs Dance Fads

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 21:00:00 EST

The Internet is helping dance fads to take off according to this WSJ video. In the past it was parties and dance tv shows like American Bandstand that helped dance fads take off. The article also mentions the Soulja Boy Tell'em - Crank That hit. The WSJ is certainly correct about this trend. If you don't believe them then just look at the 27 million views and counting that the Soulja Boy instructional dance video has received. The article says this is a trend and savvy bands will be trying to be a part of it with clever choreography.

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HotorNot Sold for $20 Million

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:30:00 EST

TechCrunch reports (via Techmeme) that investors connected to a company called Avid Life Media have acquired the 8-year-old HotorNot website for $20 million. HotorNot began as a simple site that let users rate the hotness of photographs of people. It then expanded into a dating service.

San Francisco based HotOrNot, founded by James Hong and Jim Young in October 2000, has been acquired, we?ve heard from multiple sources.

The buyers are investors connected with Avid Life Media, and paid somewhere around $20 million for the site. Hong and and Young have been taking money out of the very profitable business all along the way - which we reported was another $20 million or in May 2007. HotOrNot never raised outside funding.

The investors are creating a new company, called HotOrNot Media (new site coming soon), and they may be acquiring more properties as well.

The website still looks pretty similar today. You can people by their age group now -- apparently people over the age of 40 are even using HotorNot. They also have a page showing the hottest people. The HotorNot site inspired a number of clones - you can see a few of them here in Yahoo's directory.

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OoVoo Now Lets Users Record Video Chats

Fri, 8 Feb 2008 18:00:00 EST

ooVoo has released a new version of its ooVoo video chat software. This software allows users to record video chats. These video chats can then be posted on video-sharing sites like MetaCafe or YouTube. ooVoo allows video conferencing with as many as six people. You can also add virtual features like a virtual moustache.

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Third Undersea Cable Damaged in Mideast

Fri, 1 Feb 2008 18:00:00 EST

The Middle East has been suffering from Internet and phone outages ever since two cables were cut offshore from Egypt. Now there are reports that a third cable is cut.

Ships have been dispatched to repair two undersea cables damaged on Wednesday off Egypt.

FLAG Telecom, which owns one of the cables, said repairs were expected to be completed by February 12. France Telecom, part owner of the other cable, said it was uncertain when repairs on it would be repaired.

Stephan Beckert, an analyst with TeleGeography, a research company that consults on global Internet issues, said the cables off Egypt were likely damaged by ships' anchors.

The loss of the two Mediterranean cables -- FLAG Telecom's FLAG Europe-Asia cable and SeaMeWe-4, a cable owned by a consortium of more than a dozen telecommunications companies -- has snarled Internet and phone traffic from Egypt to India.

There were widespread Internet access problems in India, Dubai and Egypt. Some of the Internet traffic may improve by rerouting traffic but these two cables carry a lot of the bandwidth between Europe and the Middle East. News of a third cut line (near Dubai) is going to raise concerns that intermittent web access may plague the MidEast for weeks or months.

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Everyblock Launches Local News Service

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 15:00:00 EST

A new site called Everyblock plans to use mashups to provide local news and maps down to your very block. They blogged about the launch of their service in three cities today.

For a long time, that's been a tough question to answer. In dense, bustling cities like Chicago, New York and San Francisco, the number of daily media reports, government proceedings and local Internet conversations is staggering. Every day, a wealth of local information is created -- officials inspect restaurants, journalists cover fires and Web users post photographs -- but who has time to sort through all of that?

Our mission at EveryBlock is to solve that problem. We aim to collect all of the news and civic goings-on that have happened recently in your city, and make it simple for you to keep track of news in particular areas. We're a geographic filter -- a "news feed" for your neighborhood, or, yes, even your block.

Everyblock has launched in three American cities: Chicago, New York and San Francisco. Technology Evangelist blogs that Adrian Holovaty, the person behind the Chicago Crime website, put together the team behind Everyblock.

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Time Warner to Test Tiered Internet Access Charges

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 21:00:00 EST

The Associated Press is reporting that Time Warner Cable is going to experiment with a new pricing structure for its high-speed Internet access where heavy bandwidth users will be charged more. Those "lucky" enough to live in Beaumont, Texas will be the first to experience the trial.

Company spokesman Alex Dudley said the trial was aimed at improving the network performance by making it more costly for heavy users of large downloads. Dudley said that a small group of super-heavy users of downloads, around 5 percent of the customer base, can account for up to 50 percent of network capacity.

Dudley said he did not know what the pricing tiers would be nor the download limits. He said the heavy users were likely using the network to download large amounts of video, most likely in high definition.

It was not clear when exactly the trial would begin, but Dudley said it would likely be around the second quarter. The tiered pricing would only affect new customers in Beaumont, not existing ones.

Time Warner may see this as a way of "improving the network performance" but customers are going to see it as nothing more than a way to charge them more money.

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PBS Launches PBS Kids Play Website

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 20:15:00 EST

PBS is opening the beta test for a new Internet-based educational service called PBS Kids Play. PBS says the website is designed to provide children ages 3 to 6 with a comprehensive early childhood curriculum. PBS Kids Play will be offered as a subscription service later this year. It uses interactive games and activities to provide a personalized learning experience at home.

The website's curriculum covers skill areas in math, science, language, literacy, creativity, healthy development, and social studies. Parents can read the learning objectives and instructions for each activity. The site also provides a progress chart that helps parents see how each child is advancing through the curriculum, including an indicator of how far the child has progressed in each skill area.

"A critical mass of families now has broadband Internet access and that creates an opportunity to take online learning to a whole new level for a new generation -- and that's exactly what PBS Kids Play is designed to do," said Lesli Rotenberg, Senior Vice President, PBS Kids. "PBS Kids Play is a natural extension of the PBS mission to advance children's learning with new, innovative media approaches."

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