WebProNews » Engine

Rocket Car’s Engine Reaches 30,000 Horsepower In First Test

Zach Walton — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 20:02:12 +0000

Would you ride in a car that could hit speeds up to 1,000 MPH? Most probably wouldn’t, but researchers in Britain are creating that can do just that anyway. It’s called the Bloodhound SSC, and it just passed its first test with flying colors.

The team of researchers working on the Bloodhound haven’t actually created the car just yet. They’re currently experimenting with the engine to make sure that the rocket-powered car is actually viable. The power required to hit 1,000 MPH on land would completely destroy most engines, but these guys seem to have done it.

In the below video, you can see the results of the first engine test. According to International Science Times, the engine reached 30,000 horsepower during its 10 second run. By the end of their experiments, they expect the engine to reach 80,000 horsepower and 27,500 pounds of thrust.

For comparison, the current record holder for world’s fastest street legal car – the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport – has a horsepower of only 1,200. In a 10-second test, the Bloodhound’s engine has already surpassed the Bugatii’s engine by almost 30 times over. The Bloodhound will be a sight to behold once it reaches the 80,000 HP threshold.

Of course, this first test was closely controlled and monitored by a team of professionals. Once the engine is strapped to a car, anything could happen. Regardless, it’s still amazing that a car’s engine has been able to obtain this kind of power. It will be interesting to see what happens when they perform the first field test.

LeapFish Giving Away Cash For Social Media Presence

Bill Hartzer — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 15:06:05 +0000

Yes, you read that headline right. It does sound kind of “backwards” to me, as well. But, anyhow, Leapfish, a search engine that I have written about before, is turning to social media to give away up to $100,000 cash. Leapfish is calling this the “$100,000 Cash Dash Viral Bonanza“.

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Leapfish is giving away $100,000 in gadgets, prizes and cash to Internet users who participate in leveraging their search engine in unique ways.

If you want your share of the $100,000 cash from Leapfish, you can use your online social media and social networking presence to earn points towards prizes and cash drawings. By doing this, you will help LeapFish’s goal of 1 million homepages set in 2010. You can earch cash and prizes by blogging, Tweeting, creating a LeapFish Homepage, searching, referring friends, or other ways ways that promote the Leapfish search engine.

I guess that just by blogging about Leapfish already I may be in the running, especially since my previous blog post about Leapfish ranks well in the Google search engine for “fastest search engine”. I’ve been a fan of Leapfish for a while now, even though I am still not seeing a whole lot of search traffic from the Leapfish search engine directly. However, using the social media and social networks to promote Leapfish, that may change this year.

LeapFish is an evolved search engine that captures the traditional, multi-media and real-time Web through a single, connected platform for both searching and sharing content. LeapFish is a privately held corporation headquartered out of CARR America Corporate Center in Pleasanton, California.

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Wolfram Alpha: Meshing The Worlds Of Science and Search

Andy Beal — Tue, 12 May 2009 19:45:53 +0000

Let me ask you something. Do you think we need Wolfram Alpha?

I know that’s the equivalent of asking someone circa 1999 “do you think we need Google?” but I’m just not sure what role the much anticipated search engine will fill.

Oh, excuse me. It’s not a search engine. It’s a “computational knowledge engine.”

The NYT tells us that Stephen Wolfram–Alpha’s creator–is “not keen” on the comparison with Google. But, even if it’s not a true search engine, will the average web user find value in Wolfram Alpha?

Consider some of the examples given to demonstrate the potential of Wolfram Alpha:

Type in “Pluto” and Alpha calculates the dwarf planet’s distance from Earth at that very instant…If you type “LDL 120,” it will return a graph showing the distribution of cholesterol levels among the United States population.

Wow! That’s impressive stuff–if I were a scientist!

It seems that Alpha will fill a need that the scientific community will appreciate, but what about us average users? OK, so perhaps there will be a time in my life when I will need to know the average cholesterol level of my next door neighbor, but when I want to “order flowers online” I won’t be turning to Alpha.

And, that’s the big challenge I see facing Alpha. It’s not a matter of how accurate or sophisticated the search engine/database/index is, it’s simply a question of its everyday usefulness.

I’ve not tested Alpha yet, but I suspect it will be more of a challenger to Wikipedia, than Google.

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Twitter Looking To Tweet Its Way Into The World Of Search

Frank Reed — Thu, 07 May 2009 16:55:54 +0000

Twitter is always making news. Now they are putting together a robust search service that may help them get that news out faster and more

efficiently than Google itself. Rafe Needleman over at cnet put together a report shortly after speaking directly to Twitter’s new VP of Operations, Santosh Jayaram, who was VP of Search Quality for Google until recently (remember the talk about Googlers leaving the mothership?). The ‘leak’ of Twitter’s new search plans leaves plenty of room for speculation so let’s go!

Needleman writes

Speaking (with LinkedIn co-founder Allen Blue) on a panel I was moderating, and later in a one-on-one discussion, Jayaram confirmed that Twitter Search, which currently searches only the text of Twitter posts, will soon begin to crawl the links included in tweets and begin to index the content of those pages.

Holy Potential Game Changer, Batman! The idea that a search engine could be more ‘real time’ and in essence more people powered will be very attractive to the social media set. As Twitter’s user numbers go through the roof then the idea of how this could influence people is pretty interesting to say the least.

Looking even more into the future of Twitter search Jayaram talked of having a reputation ranking system in place soon. Jayaram said

When you do a search on a “trending” topic (a topic that is so big it gets its own link in the Twitter.com sidebar), Twitter will take into account the reputation of the person who wrote each tweet and rank search results in part based on that.

This kind of offering could certainly up the ante for anyone looking to possibly acquire Twitter. Google obviously would like to own a direct threat to their model while a company like Microsoft could feel pretty excited about really getting in the game via a Twitter acquisition.

Of course, all of that remains to be seen. Many will not like the idea of Twitter being run by anyone other than Twitter. Freedom has its merits especially if there is real revenue potential through ads on Twitter search.

To wrap up, here is a story that may someday be part of the Twitter company lore as it exhibits the real time capability of the service.

Jayaram told of being in the Twitter offices in San Francisco on March 30, when the Twitter engineers noticed that the word “earthquake” had suddenly started trending up. They didn’t know where the earthquake was. Several seconds later, their building started to shake. The earthquake had been in Morgan Hill, 60 miles south of San Francisco, and the tweets about the shaker reached the office faster than the seismic waves themselves.

Embellished? Who knows? It sure does make one think though doesn’t it?

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Increasing The Length Of Your Google Adwords Title

Courtney Mills — Fri, 01 May 2009 16:01:44 +0000

There has been a bit of discussion of late about the length of AdWords ad titles with some advertisers reporting more than 25 characters being displayed in their title.

Search Engine Roundtable first discussed the issue back in March when Google confirmed there was a bug in their system which was allowing some advertisers to display more than the 25 character limit.

The latest news is that an AdWords representative has actually told an advertiser how they can make their ad title longer.

The news broke in a WebmasterWorld thread. Here is the main discussion:

Nancy99: This just in from a chat conversation with a Googler at AdWords! Was told by a specific Googler with the initials P.A. that “If you use keyword insertion in you ad text, the ad title may show more than 25 characters.”

So it seems the answer is dynamic keyword insertion. What is dynamic keyword insertion? It’s an advanced feature in AdWords which allows the advertisers to insert code into the ad text. Then when the searcher sees your ad, the keyword they used in that search replaces the code in you ad text.

This technique should be used with caution as Barry Schwartz from Search Engine Roundtable explains:

There are many issues with using dynamic keyword insertion. Specifically the ad simply might not work all the time, plus the title might not always match the ad description, amongst other issues.

So Google… is it a bug or not? If we hear anything more about this we will be sure to keep you informed.

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Duck Duck Go Bringing New Ideas To Search Table

Frank Reed — Fri, 01 May 2009 15:22:43 +0000

If ReadWriteWeb hadn’t looked at one of the newest players in the search engine game it may not have been

found based on its name, Duck Duck Go. Before there is any further discussion about the merits of the engine one has to wonder why this name? Using a play on the name of an ages old kids game to represent results that are picked (I am guessing here) is a stretch at best and a brand manager’s nightmare at worst.

So what’s in a name? In this case it remains to be seen. The engine itself seems pretty cool. One feature that I found particularly useful was the ability to click on an icon and search a term on 27 other sites including Twitter, About.com, NY Times, cnet and more. On that front alone the search engine may be worth an occasional visit. Gee, I wonder what the chances of Google doing something similar?

The core results are apparently sourced for the most part from Wikipedia and Yahoo’s BOSS. While the initial reaction to the Wikipedia source was a visible cringe and an audible sigh (the accuracy factor of Wikipedia data is always a potential gotcha) the way the information is presented helps to overcome that concern (after all it is just a concern since measuring the actual accuracy is difficult). The results pages are very clean, easy to read and the results were helpful for the few searches I con-duck-ted (get it?).

The RWW article points out one of the great strengths of the engine

Duck Duck Go also does a great job at providing users with options for disambiguation, which also look like they are based on Wikipedia’s disambiguation pages. If you search for “Berlin,” for example, Duck Duck Go will ask you if you are looking for the German capital, an album from Lou Reed, or a town in Connecticut.

Add in an iPhone app and the ability to add the engine to the Firefox toolbar and I am a convert of sorts. Of course, the question always comes back to how can another search engine survive with Google being the 800 pound gorilla in the space. Since there are a ridiculous amount of people using search to get around the Internet it may not take a big percentage of overall users to make the business go.

One nagging question that seems to be popping up a lot lately regarding Internet business is that annoying need to know how they plan to make money. While that is not readily apparent some quick information is that the company is based in Valley Forge, PA and its founder is Gabriel Weinberg. It may be worth keeping an eye on this entry into an already crowded field. Having options usually is a good thing especially when the other major search engine options outside of Google are more well known for their questionable business moves than actually doing search.

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Cuil Is A Pretty Cool Search Engine

Dan Morrill — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:21:27 +0000

Take a test drive of Cuil this morning; you will be surprised at what you find.

It has been a while since a new product has come out on the market in the search engine space that actually works well, and is actually fairly interesting in how they present data. Cuil was released to the public this morning, and it is truly something very cool.

Of course the first thing to do is the vanity search, and what was surprising about the results was not so much that there were hundreds of articles with my name attached, but some new folks showed up in the search response that I didn’t expect, gone were all the old junky things from 1999 and 1998, right at the top were all the new things for both me, my known Google ganger, and a host of new people on the web with the same name that either didn’t show up in Google, or were well past the 10 page limit that I seem to have when working with a search engine.

Is this a product that will give Google a run for its money? At this point, with all the search engines out there, it is probably the best contender that is in the smaller search engine space. While Yahoo Microsoft and Google vie for dominance, Cuil might just be the sneaky little search engine that could, and eventually take a good chunk of market share. Not only does it work, but the presentation layer is very easy to use, and very intuitive.

Rather than rely on superficial popularity metrics, Cuil searches for and ranks pages based on their content and relevance. When we find a page with your keywords, we stay on that page and analyze the rest of its content, its concepts, their inter-relationships and the page’s coherency. Then we offer you helpful choices and suggestions until you find the page you want and that you know is out there. We believe that analyzing the Web rather than our users is a more useful approach, so we don’t collect data about you and your habits, lest we are tempted to peek. With Cuil, your search history is always private. Source: Cuil

Some of the internal links to the site are broken when you click on the about us info links, you do get some good information about the company, so there is still work to be done. Otherwise, this is one search engine that is worth the time and test drive.

Tags: cuil, search, engine, search engine, better, best, cool, irish, knowledge, fun, entertaining, google ganger, toy

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Search Engine Vanity Percentages

Andy Beal — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 20:56:03 +0000

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a little obsessed with online reputation management.

So, you can imagine my interest in Pew Internet & American Life Project’s update to their 2002 study on how many people plug their own name into Google. Back in 2002, just 22% of Internet users Googled themselves. Today, that number is at 47%.

Still, that leaves a whopping 53% who have never taken the time to see what Google has to say about them. Worse, 60% of those polled don’t even care!

Well, they should! Studies have shown that potential employers, business partners, and romantic dates, are among those that will type your name into Google and see what’s returned.

BTW, Googling yourself is not new. I wrote about it back in 2003, and at the time coined the phrase “Search Engine Vanity.” I even registered the domain name: SearchEngineVanity.com.

(via)

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SES Round-up

Thomas McMahon — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 19:35:08 +0000

Jolina and Mike had a great time at the Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago. Not only is it the windy city, but a festive, cold and snowy one too by the sounds of it.

Here is a recap of the SES Chicago posts in case you missed any:

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Tag:

PubCon – Monetizing Social Media Traffic

Navneet Kaushal — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:11:22 +0000

Social media traffic is decidedly different from search traffic, newsletter traffic, or general link traffic. Knowing how to capitalize on this potentially huge traffic influx is critical for social media players. This session will look at ways that social media outlets can be monetized.

Moderator:

Rand Fishkin

Speakers:

Vanessa Fox, Features Editor, Search Engine Land, Entrepreneur in Residence, Ignition Partners.

Michael Gray, President, Atlas Web Service.

Alexander Barbara, CEO, ReidBrown Enterprises, Inc.

Laura Fitton, Principal, Pistachio Consulting.

Rand who is moderating this time, says it is important to monetize our social media endeavours sometimes.

First up is Vanessa Fox, Features Editor, Search Engine Land, Entrepreneur in Residence, Ignition Partners. Vanessa says page Views have no worth unless you maintain and operate a CPM ad model. Many a times, people focus so much on page views singularly that we lose sight of the other significant stuff. Vanessa pulls out the page views for her sites. Apparently on the 6th of September, her page views went over the room. This apparently was the day, the Vanessa Hudgens scandal broke out. Apparently viewers wanted to see nude images of Hudgens, not Fox. Heh heh.

Hook ‘em and keep ‘em, says Vanessa. She stresses on the significance of maintaining traffic by making viral material while also having other content to keep people interested. The content you have should be of prime interest to the people who visit your site. They should want to stay.

Vanessa on converting visitors into customers:

Foremost, your viral marketing must be relevant for your site.
Make it easy for your visitors to see what your site has on offer.
Provide multiple links to other pages on your site.
Think about your goals are and funnel your site’s users into a conversion path.

Lastly, Fox says that Search Traffic has more value in comparison to Social Media Traffic as Search Traffic is equivalent to determined views while Social Media traffic equals to web browsers who have no exclusive target interest.

Next up is Graywolf aka Michael Gray, President, Atlas Web Service. Michael opened by saying social media fshould be used for sales and conversions. This is an advanced tactic Apparently, sales should only be part of your vision and not the enitire project.

What types of products work?

Products (physical and virtual). These fare better than services.
Consumer goods. Almost always better than B2B)
Impulse purchases
Low or "door buster" prices. People are always sensitive to prices.
Technology related items generally do better.

Examples:

Thisnext.com: The site has products for which they have a specific gift guide.
Techiediva.com: Shows what people purchase during holidays. For eg: They targeted Cybowe Monday.
Style Dash.com: Shows how to dress like celebs for less. Also featured are pages of affiliated links.

Pitfalls:

The offer you have must be clear, especially restrictions or quantities.
Always anticipate demand and have the right amount of stock.
The worst thing you could do is failure to deliver products.
Monitor and keep a check on what people are saying about you. If needed, do some damgae control.
Incorporate video and podcasts. Experiment but know the space you are getting into before you jump the gun.

Apparently, SMM is the most effective way to generate sales for products & gadgets, and not really for services. If used well, Digg can also bring in sales.

Manage expectations for long terms of success:

Make up your mind on whether a hybrid or dedicated delivery channel is best. Finalise on what is right for your audience.
Give people the option of receiving content which ever way they want: email, RSS, SMS, whatever.
Use trends and current events in terms of offerings.

Alternative Content: Video

Will it blend? iPhone
eBook – some guy used a video of a sexy woman and sold many books
Diet.com – When people see others lose weight, they’d be more compelled to buy.

Alternative content: podcasts

Drop links in your podcasts.
Ricky’s Picks (Disney podcast)

Alternative content: Twitter

CarnivalCruise
JetBlue
SouthwestAir

Third speaker of the day is Alexander Barbara, CEO, ReidBrown Enterprises, Inc, with a case study.

Alexander put up a site on Digg about a health and wellness post which was aimed towards women. Alexander and the writer worked on list-type articles and gave their best. The article was submitted in Digg twice.

Wednesday afternoon (3PM): The post received 38 Diggs. Within 5 days, the post received over 28,000 visits.

Monday morning (11AM): The same post received 57 Diggs and reached the home page. Within 5 days, the post received over 19,000 visits.

Point being, whether your site can handle the incoming traffic or not. When you are on the Digg homepage, it is common to receive 60-100 hits per second. If yours is a shared host, webmasters will shut down your site thinking it’s an attack- DDOS attack. If you are uncertain on whether your server can handle the traffic, redirect it to some other sites. Use mod_rewrite or a temporary 302 redirect to a static page. Another option is Google cache or use the free Coral cache.

On the question of quality of traffic, Alexander pulls out a CTR of the number of ads. He recommends avoiding advertisements for the first two days or so and then put them back on the 3rd day. This shows a better conversion rate. Another common phenomenon that takes place is the increased number of RSS subscribers. Usually, the same people will unsubscribe some time later.

About monetizing traffic, there are two ways to do it.

Direct monetizing: CPM based model beats others like AdSense, targeted ads etc.

Indirect monetizing: This is a better way of receiving links, subscribers, links etc.

What we learned:

Know your audience. Understand both your site and Digg audience.

Choose your monetization approach well.

Be prepared for traffic.

Last speaker from the panel is Laura Fitton, Principal, Pistachio Consulting. Fitton will talk about how to create long-lasting values through social media. Apparently, Laura was a stay-at-home mom wth two kids who started blogging and connecting via social networks in March. Now, she consults people.

Apparently, ads are ailing. Many people make money through via helping others sell. However, there is more money to make in making others buy. Social media works because it helps you understand how you can help others buy stuff. Most important thing for people to do is listen. Markets are conversations. Conversations suck if you don’t listen. If yours is a big brand (she take s the example of Dell), people are talking about you. Set up Google alerts to keep track of what is being said about you and engage everyone.

Social media drives traffic. If you become part of a social network, you bring in people who are interested in buying. Laura personally uses Twitter for business (Fitton has 800 followers). She suggests twittering about sales, and specials. Social media makes money but on a long term, it builds value and helps in business. Your company should have lasting value. What value does your business have and how can social media improve it? If you use a gimmick to bring people in, it’wll work but only temporarily. It’s about teaching a man to fish and create lasting value.

Fitton says social media is nothing new and that it is all about knowledge. NO tricks, tips or shortcuts will do. Gaming won’t do because in social media, it’s your customers who write the rules. If they are unhappy with you, they’ll leave.

Fitton takes the example of Facebook Beacon. Once the poster child of social media who screwed up bad. This is a warning. Beacon informed your friends about your purchases. It pissed off Charlene Li, channel partners, bloggers, pundits, Move On, mainstream media, etc. Careful not to violate your own terms and conditions. Overstock is getting sued for this.

Focus only on that which matters and lasts. Help. Listen. Make yourself useful. Build love around your values and this will last.

IMAGE SOURCE: Andy Beal

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