Wolfram set for May 2009 release

wolfram
Stephen Wolfram (pictured) believes that his new search engine could be as important as Google

Wolfram is a new eagerly awaited search engine, that has been promising to be ‘as important as Google’ and is set for a May 2009 release. It is one of the research developments of the company ‘Wolfram Research’, named after it’s founder Stephen Wolfram (a British born scientist). The alpha version of the search engine (or knowledge engine) is available from the following link:

Wolfram Alpha 

So what’s so different about Wolfram compared to all the other search engines out there? Well there is certainly a lot of search engines out there, but Wolfram is very different from what currently exists. Wolfram claims that this system can understand questions given to it by a human user, and then actually compute an answer. This is very different to how search engines currently work, which is by referencing search terms against web pages saved in their index, and then displaying them for you ranked in their chosen order of importance. Wolfram said,

Fifty years ago, when computers were young, people assumed that they’d quickly be able to handle all these kinds of things. And that one would be able to ask a computer any factual question, and have it compute the answer. But it didn’t work out that way. Computers have been able to do many remarkable and unexpected things. But not that. I’d always thought, though, that eventually it should be possible. And a few years ago, I realized that I was finally in a position to try to do it.

Wolfram claims that by using extensive and extremely complicated algorithms and techniques, they have devised a method to “curate all data” from the millions of available web pages so that it is immediately computable. Then, in order to interact with the system they have started devising a system that can handle and understand natural language.

Of course, getting computers to deal with natural language has turned out to be incredibly difficult. And for example we’re still very far away from having computers systematically understand large volumes of natural language text on the web.

Wolfram believes that with combined efforts of human experts they have made a breakthrough into actually making it work. The first stage of the process “Wolfram alpha” is released in May 2009, although Wolfram says that it is a project that will never end. It will be very interesting to see how it is used in the early stages, and could signal a new way of using the web.

I think it’s going to be pretty exciting. A new paradigm for using computers and the web. That almost gets us to what people thought computers would be able to do 50 years ago!
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Google in late stages of Twitter sale

The latest news circulating around the internet is all about Google potentially buying Twitter. Apparently Google is in the final stages of an acquisition which could potentially lead to a successful sale. How much this business deal would go for is also causing a stir. Twitter is currently estimated to be valued at $250 million dollars, although they turned down a considerably larger deal from Facebook at the end of last year for $500 million dollars.

Google aren’t the only people trying to buy Twitter, there is also competition / interest from other internet giants including Amazon. The real value that has been seen in Twitter is it’s potential to become a search engine with a real-time database; something that Google will be very interested in (and also don’t currently have).

Twitter have also been working on developing their own functioning revenue model, and being aware of the potential for a real-time search engine is probably what is making their own valuations that much higher than what is being currently offered.

Aside from the real-time search, others believe that Google would introduce a charging scheme for Twitter or use it to combine adverts and other sales strategies. It would be very interesting to know exactly what Google’s plans are for Twitter, and most importantly, what would become of Twitter if the sale was to go through.

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1st April Page Rank update - April fools? (2009)

It seems as though the 1st April has seen the much anticipated Page Rank update take place by Google. The last updated happened on new years eve last year (31st December 2008) and signalled the start of the extended period between updates. What was once a monthly occurance is now only going to take place an estimated 3-4 times a year (quarterly basis), and so many Google dance takes hold!

Some people have seen increases as a result of the change, while others have seen dramatic decreases. Most people have seen little or no change at all. There can be some ongoing fluctuation as Google updates the algorithm across all it’s servers which can take several days to complete.

To find out more about increasing your Page Rank and why it is important, contact us.

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Google streetview causes controversy in Manchester

Streetview in Google maps has been a very popular addition for a lot of users, however the recent introduction of streetview in Manchester has caused a lot of controversy. For those that haven’t heard of streetview, it is functionality within Google maps that allows the user to explore around the map at ’streetview’.  This isn’t available on every location, only those which have been captured using a special camera. I have used this a few times for exploring locations such as Manhattan which I’ve found very interesting. To try it for yourself, go to Google maps, enter Manchester as your location and you should see the icon (picture below) light up when streetview is available. Click on this to begin exploring!

google-maps-streetview-icon

Streetview allows you to look all around the location due to the way it is captured with it’s multiple angle cameras mounted on top of a Google car. A lot of people now recognise the camera on the car, and lot’s of people can be seen waving as the car goes past!

google-maps-car

Although a lot of people think that streetview is fantastic, a lot of people are concerned about security and privacy issues now that the Manchester has been added. Some people think that it is a great tool for potential burgulars to scope out areas and houses online looking through the residential areas, whereas others are concerned that it may be a tool to aid potential terrorist attacks.

One feature of streetview, is that you can send any view to another user as a link, and the recipient can see exactly the view you’re looking at. This caused controversy last year when links were being sent around showing a drunk man asleep outside his house, and even a man leaving an adult bookstore!

Google stresses that it is not showing anything that people could view by simply walking down a street. Although I think that this is a great tool, I agree that there are potential implications with the technology.

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HTML 5.0 and SEO

HTML is an acronym for HyperText Markup Language, and HTML 5.0 is the fifth version of the programming language used to create web pages. This begs the question, what is going to be the effect on SEO? From an initial look, it appears as though the changes are going to be very beneficial through the addition of techniques such as ’segmentation’. Segmentation will allow search engines to break down a page and then analyse each part on an individual basis.

So why is this important? Well, ultimately it will enhance a search engines understanding of the page and enable it to more accurately decide upon it’s relevance. This will make it much easier to prioritise the content of your website by showing the search engine where your content is, which is especially useful for complex websites that are very code intensive.

So how does the segmentation work? It’s very easy to implement. There are a host of new tags including:

  • <article> for articles
  • <nav> for navigation
  • <header> for the header
  • <footer> you get the idea…
  • <audio>
  • <video>
  • etc

Once HTML 5.0 starts to become more popular with websites, search engines will be able to use segmentation on websites which will change the way you search engine optimise a website. It may be sometime before these techniques come into effect, but it is very important that SEO companies start planning for these changes and are aware of the potential effects and benefits. However, although HTML 5 looks very interesting it is still really in a draft stage (and probably will be for several years) and IE 8 and Firefox 8 have mostly no support for it! Safari and Opera also have some support for it, but given how small their holding is it will be a long time before anyone uses it in a production environment.

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