Search with Meat Loaf

If we are going to talk about making cakes with bacon I think it only follows that we should talk about doing internet searches with Meat Loaf.

So, if you know Gypsy the musical, you know that to make it, you’ve gotta have a gimmick. Well SearchWithMeatLoaf is just that; a gimmick wrapped around a search engine (powered by Google and Ask.com).

The premise is pretty simple. It is a search engine and at random times they decide to give out Swag Bucks. If you win enough Swag Dollars you can enter the Swag store and buy some Meatloaf related products (some vinyl, a Meat Loaf etched Ipod Nano or Classic or a etched Macbook) and a ton of other prizes including classic vinyl, a Starbucks’ card, a Nintendo Wii, a year of Netflix, a Starcaster guitar and Amp by Fender, etc., you get the idea).

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Poodwaddle

Yes, it sounds like gibberish, but apparently it is an all-in-one search engine/desktop utility- It has a clock, calendar, notepad, calculator, Google-powered search engine, plus a number of other links, features and functions.

What I really like about Poodwaddle isn’t any of that- it is the special clocks page.

So you click on the clocks link and it takes you to a page with a number of different style clocks, big deal. But if you look closely at the top there is a set of scrolling clocks that track various statistics based on previously recorded data, watch as 18 people a day contract leprosy, or keep an eye out for the 100,000,000 person is born this year (should be happening in about 2 or 3 days), or as other species become extinct (approx. 52 so far today or almost 20,000 this year). It is interesting to watch the various statistics. There are other clocks to checkout, but this one is by far my favorite. Neat little site to just check out though.

Green Website

Ok, well that title just doesn’t seem right, especially when the website in question is Blackle. Blackle is the first website designed keeping a green ideology in mind. Based on the Google model (and even using the Google search engine) but with slightly less functionality (no image search, maps, etc.) Blackle is a search engine with a black background instead of a white one. The concept is that folks who are using CRT monitors (standard tube based monitors) need to power each pixel on their screen that shows a color, including white. On the other hand, black is not a color that is powered, on monitors at least, black is the absence of color. Keeping this theory in mind Blackle uses an all black back ground with gray lettering (which is easier to read against black then white is, instead of there being massive amounts of white space (like on Google) that needs to be powered there is a lot of black space which allows the pixels to ‘rest,’ and the monitor to use less power. Theoretically this will also prolong the life of the monitors. If you are using an LCD screen however, which is pretty standard these days, well, then it makes no difference, there are no individually powered pixels and the whole screen is powered at once. But, you know what they say: Every little bit helps.

Search Engine 2.0

In the beginning there was Archie. The there was Veronica and Jughead. No, we aren’t talking about the Senior Class at Riverdale High, those are the names of what are considered to be the first 3 search engines. Since those days, Search Engines have come a long way.

Most people when searching on the web today go for the biggies- Google.com, MSN.com, Yahoo.com, these are your typicalsearch engines, pulling up a long list of entries to search form.

But now there is a new group of search engines hitting the block. Visual search engines are becoming all the rage these days, engines like KartOO and Quintura present us with a whole new way to search for information. Instead of listing out entries and possible suggestions, it visually lumps thing together, showing you related search terms you might want to consider or further research. While old folks like myself might not be totally about these new fangled searches, we all might want to just take a moment to familiarize ourselves with them, you know so we don’t look totally lost when chatting with those Millenials.

(Archie picture courtesy of Robby Reed’s www.dialbforblog.com.)

Google Labs: Wall Street

Picking up on John Battelle’s concept of the database of intentions, I was thinking yesterday about where Google and its rivals will eventually end up in the business world. All the major search portals are adding new features everyday, and acquiring new companies in a race to become the most sought after site on the Internet. This basic model is what you’d expect, because more visitors and more users means more advertising revenue. However, advertising seems like it could eventually become just a side business for the giants of search, a stopping off point in their development.

There are a number of things happening, which lead me to the conclusion that search advertising, while a lucrative business, is really just the beginning of something huge. I haven?t read Battelle?s book just yet, but I believe that his thesis is similar. According to Battelle the database of intentions is, ?The aggregate results of every search ever entered, every result list ever tendered, and every path taken as a result.?

Google stores everything that it possibly can store about its users, and if you use Gmail, Google stores and scans all your most personal information as well. When properly analyzed, all this data reveals what people are interested in at a particular moment in time. This includes their wishes, desires, passions, fears, everything. All other databases and information sources are being made public domain by the big search companies, but the one database that they are all keeping to themselves is this one precious database, or at least their piece of it.

These companies covet their precious piece of the pie, because with this database of intentions they can predict markets and make the right business decisions with a much higher accuracy than ever before. The possibilities of what might come out of this database have only just begun to be explored. Right now, Google, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL talk about targeting advertising to their users, so that results are more relevant. Come on, really, is that all you?ve got?

How about advising Wall Street on where the markets are headed. A 1% improvement in accurately predicting financial markets would net billions, maybe trillions a year in revenue. It would make all Internet advertising revenue look like chump change. It?s only a theory, but it seems that capturing and analyzing this database of intentions might just make some of the fickleness and eccentricities of freewill a little predictable, at least to the extent that the weather is predictable.

The basic scenario that I am thinking of is that Google Labs: Wall Street sends daily data on market directions and consumer interests to the businesses involved in these markets. In this way, the business managers and investors will have a virtual weather report on what is coming in the next day or week, and they?ll know whether to bring an umbrella.

It?s a far out concept for now, but I think that in the near future it will start becoming much more real. There are some scary implications for the future, as the world’s knowledge is slowly consolidated into a few hands. For now it?s anyone?s game and the owner?s of the database of intention seem to be a bunch of fairly well intentioned geeks.

It will be interesting to see what happens when these well intentioned geeks have the power to make and break world markets, industries, etc.