Ik schreef vorige week al over het belang van het structureren van alle informatie die beschikbaar is op het web. Bij deze een interessante post over dit onderwerp...
"But the pages on the web aren’t simply discrete islands of information. Often they contain very similar information - from mundane things like contact details for individuals and organizations, to reviews of films, restaurants, books, to opinions about what’s worth reading online. Yet aggregating all those contacts details to create a distributed Yellow pages-like service, or those opinions about restaurants, books, films, gadgets to create decentralized versions of IMDB reviews, or Amazon books reviews, or Zagats, is very hard, because there are no standardized formats on the web for contact details, or reviews, and many many other kinds of commonly published information. The wisdom of the web, the collective opinions and attitudes expressed there are largely inaccessible, because software isn’t smart enough to recognize it."
zondag 27 augustus 2006
woensdag 23 augustus 2006
YouTube's perceived success
How successful is YouTube really? It's website generates 72 million pageviews per MONTH, and a 100 million videos are streamed every DAY. But where? And if it is not on www.youtube.com, how will they make money? Not this way probably... And if it's primarily (90%+?) on other websites, then how sustainable is their apparant success compared to services that are similar or even better? Everybody is writing about the success of YouTube while refering to YouTube as a destination website, but it isn't. At least not by the numbers you read everywhere....
The Google Base promise
December last year I wrote about Google Base "as a potential king of vertical search". Yesterday Google announced the Google Base API, a very important step in that direction. The API allows for entering, editing and retrieval of data on a large scale. Data essentially consisting of advertisements in several categories. What is so important about this is that all this content (which for the most part was already available on the web) is now structured so that it can easily be (re)used. By Google, but also by others that write applications that use data stored in Google Base. Structuring (now unstructured) data will be a very important element in the 'search engine war' between companies like Google, Yahoo en Microsoft. SimplyHired and Edgeio are other examples of this trend, they focus on niches. It would not surprise me however if an inportant part of their data will come from services like Google Base in the near future. And they will submit their own listings to Google Base in order to generate search engine leads.
Hoe succesvol is YouTube?
Aan het ontbijt hebben we met de Redmond4 (1, 2, 3, 4 + Joost & Arnout) een discussie over hoe succesvol YouTube nu eigenlijk is. Na wat zoekwerk blijkt dat YouTube 72 miljoen pageviews per MAAND heeft, en dat er 100 miljoen videos per DAG bekeken worden. Maar waar dan? En als dat niet vooral op www.youtube.com is, hoe zal er dan straks geld aan verdiend worden? En als het vooral (90%+?) op andere sites is, hoe 'sterk' is de positie van YouTube dan t.o.v. concurrenten die een vergelijkbare of zelfs betere dienst hebben? Er wordt vooral geschreven over YouTube als bestemming/website, maar het succes in termen van aantallen komt daar niet vandaan...
De Google Base belofte
In December vorig jaar schreef ik over Google Base "als een voorbeeld van een dienst die de koning van het 'verticale zoeken' zou kunnen worden". Gister kondigde Google de Google Base API aan, een heel belangrijke stap. Hiermee is het mogelijk om op grote schaal content in te voeren, te editen en op te vragen. De content bestaat primair uit advertenties in allerlei categorieen. Het belangrijke van deze ontwikkeling is echter dat al deze content (die in principe al op het web aanwezig was) gestructureerd wordt zodat deze eenvoudig (her)gebruikt kan worden. Door Google, maar ook door anderen die applicaties ontwikkelen gebruik makend van de data in Google Base. Het structureren van (nu ongestructureerde) data gaat een heel belangrijk onderdeel worden in de 'oorlog' tussen zoekmachines als Google, Yahoo en Windows Live. SimplyHired en Edgeio zijn andere voorbeelden van deze ontwikkeling, zij focussen zich op specifieke niches. Het zou mij niet verbazen als straks een groot deel van hun data komt uit diensten als Google Base. Ook zullen ze hun eigen data toevoegen aan Google Base om leads te genereren via de zoekmachines.
maandag 14 augustus 2006
A location independent career
I'm sure there will be more people dreaming of doing things differently after reading this article ;-)
"Still, many call the spread of high-speed Internet the most radical redefinition of the workplace since the Industrial Revolution. "It's a restructuring of rural places," says Bill Gillis, director of the Center to Bridge the Digital Divide at Washington State University. "Accomplished professionals are moving into rural areas, and young, educated people are not having to move away. There's a stronger tax base, and this feeds into schools and public services. "Ideally in a global world, people have choices about where they want to live and work — whether that would be Queen Anne Hill or a wheat field or the Methow. Broadband enables the opportunity. It doesn't necessarily guarantee the result."
"Still, many call the spread of high-speed Internet the most radical redefinition of the workplace since the Industrial Revolution. "It's a restructuring of rural places," says Bill Gillis, director of the Center to Bridge the Digital Divide at Washington State University. "Accomplished professionals are moving into rural areas, and young, educated people are not having to move away. There's a stronger tax base, and this feeds into schools and public services. "Ideally in a global world, people have choices about where they want to live and work — whether that would be Queen Anne Hill or a wheat field or the Methow. Broadband enables the opportunity. It doesn't necessarily guarantee the result."
Lokatieonafhankelijk werken
Er zijn vast meer mensen die na het lezen van dit artikel even zullen wegdromen;-)
"Still, many call the spread of high-speed Internet the most radical redefinition of the workplace since the Industrial Revolution. "It's a restructuring of rural places," says Bill Gillis, director of the Center to Bridge the Digital Divide at Washington State University. "Accomplished professionals are moving into rural areas, and young, educated people are not having to move away. There's a stronger tax base, and this feeds into schools and public services. "Ideally in a global world, people have choices about where they want to live and work — whether that would be Queen Anne Hill or a wheat field or the Methow. Broadband enables the opportunity. It doesn't necessarily guarantee the result."
"Still, many call the spread of high-speed Internet the most radical redefinition of the workplace since the Industrial Revolution. "It's a restructuring of rural places," says Bill Gillis, director of the Center to Bridge the Digital Divide at Washington State University. "Accomplished professionals are moving into rural areas, and young, educated people are not having to move away. There's a stronger tax base, and this feeds into schools and public services. "Ideally in a global world, people have choices about where they want to live and work — whether that would be Queen Anne Hill or a wheat field or the Methow. Broadband enables the opportunity. It doesn't necessarily guarantee the result."
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