Ask, “ET” Partner

Are queries for “Paris Hilton” more popular than those for “Britney Spears”?  As the television show lists the top three celebrity searches at Ask, viewers may find out.  Admittedly, life and death do not hang in the balance, and I can happily – even proudly – say that I’ve never sat through an episode of “Entertainment Tonight.”  Still, the move will get Ask some more exposure.

Also, the exposure will be relevant, and for Jim Lanzone, Ask’s CEO, that’s key.  Andrew Hampp describes an instance in which “Larry David was seen carrying an Ask.com shopping bag in an episode of HBO’s ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ last season, despite the fact that Ask doesn’t have any stores.”  Lanzone’s response, according to Hampp, was “WTF.”

Lanzone could be saying that acronym again once he sees the nation’s obsession with Hilton and Spears, but at least his search engine may be getting more traffic while this occurs.  Ask needs it – despite positive reviews from the likes of Walter Mossberg, the site is still far behind Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft.

To clarify, Mossberg reviews Ask’s technology, not its ads.  He even compares Ask’s search to Google’s – favorably – throughout much of the piece.  Ask needs to cancel its current ad campaigns, and then use the savings to buy and distribute copies of Mossberg’s article.

The WSJ writer states, “Google’s approach, which it calls ‘universal search,’ is a modest thing, a first step in what it says will be a long effort to break down barriers between different types of information a user may be seeking, such as Web links, images and news.”  Fair enough.

Mossberg then continues, “But Ask’s new system, called ‘Ask3D,’ is a much bolder and better advance in unifying different kinds of results and presenting them in a more effective manner.  It shows, once again, that Ask places a higher priority than its competitors do on making search results easy to navigate and use.”

It’s important to note that this widely respected writer isn’t just comparing the engines’ appearances; Mossberg refers to specific searches (for “Red Sox” and “James Taylor”) as evidence that Ask does a better job than Google.

He later concludes his article by writing, “Ask’s new design is much more compelling and well worth a try.”  Yeah, I think that quote would be a much more effective advertising tool than parading around “chicks with swords” or Kato Kaelin.

Hat tip to Barry Schwartz.

No Java. So, can’t run Kyte.tv’s application. Can’t run the Google Maps application I’m using on my Nokia. Can’t run something cool coming soon from eBay that I’m testing out. Can’t run Radar.net. Etc. Etc.

No .NET apps. Er, no Silverlight apps. So, your favorite app from the Windows Mobile Smartphone you were hoping to give away won’t work.

Will it allow Flash to load? Walt Mossberg just got an iPhone. I wonder what happens when he goes to Google’s Finance site? Does the chart show up? I doubt it.

By the way the folks who sent me the Nokia N95, Pure Mobile, say they’ll have unlocked iPhones for sale via the Internet (that’s counter to what we were told before). They doubt they’ll be able to meet the demand. They say they’ve seen demand for this phone that’s off the scale for any other mobile product launch they’ve been involved in.

UPDATE: here’s a video of Steve Jobs on stage today talking about iPhone and what developers can do for it. He keeps pointing out that it has the full Safari engine. That gives us hope that Flash will run fine on it, but probably not “native, non-browser” technologies like Java and Silverlight. It’d be nice to have someone who actually has an iPhone to verify this, though.

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There’s the positives:

We found the process to be quick and simple, and the results to be attractive.

• We liked the privacy features.
• Vox does a nice job of jazzing up the world of blogging.
• No formatting or HTML code is necessary, a requirement that used to plague many blogging services.

And the negatives:

• Vox also doesn’t do a great job of implementing many features that are standard in blog services.
• Not everyone will want to register with Vox just to see your protected content.
• Vox’s weaknesses, the most important of which is clarifying its group labels.

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Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world’s most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts. Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian.

You can read his internet marketing blog at Marketing Pilgrim and reach him at andy.beal@gmail.com.

Here’s the first test I use to decide whether a search engine (that is relevancy based like Google, Yahoo, MSN, or Ask) deserves praise over Google: put in my last name and see if it ranks that properly. Why does that matter? Cause I have thousands of inbound links.

Ask does not measure up in this test (it still has my old blog at top of the page) and I can’t find my new blog anywhere on the first page of Ask.com. Google almost gets it right (my old blog is #1, but my new blog is #2).

MSN gets it right!!!

Yahoo is similar to Google.

“You’re an egotistical bahstahard,” I can hear some of you saying.

Believe it or not, but this test seems to match other relevancy tests I’ve done. Try it yourself and see how you come out.

But, even worse, if a search engine can’t get my name correct (there aren’t many Scobles publishing on the Web) how can you expect it to get your searches correct?

By the way, I’ve been doing this ego search for more than seven years and this is the first time that Google has lost this battle and that MSN has won it.

Is MSN’s relevancy getting better? Yes. Is Google vulnerable? Well, I won’t go that far, but my ego search is one of the reasons I’ve been a Google advocate for so long (it was dramatically better than AltaVista and Yahoo in this search in the late 1990s).

But, Walt, this doesn’t portend good things for Ask.com. To be included in the top three you’ve gotta be as good as Google. Ask isn’t even in the same neighborhood yet.

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Robert Scoble is the founder of the Scobleizer blog. He works as PodTech.net’s Vice President of Media Development.

Go to Scobleizer …

So when the tech guru suggests that the new Ask.com “holds its own with Google, and even beats the champ on some searches”, you pay attention.

I’ve been a big fan of Ask for years so readers will know that I am somewhat biased anyway. That being said, I honestly believe that the new Ask.com – with the increased audience reach of IAC – will be the search engine to make the most gains over the next twelve months.

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Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world’s most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts. Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian.

You can read his internet marketing blog at Marketing Pilgrim and reach him at andy.beal@gmail.com.

Walt Mossberg is using the service, the Seattle Times wrote about them today and their Venture blog called Vizrea in October their “stealth startup of the week“.

Who’s running Vizrea?

Mike Toutonghi, Vizrea’s CEO and founder, is a former co-founder, General Manager, and Distinguished Engineer on Microsoft’s .NET platform, as well as the former founder and Corporate Vice President in charge of the Microsoft Windows e-Home Division that developed Windows XP Media Center Edition. The Vizrea teamis composed ofindustry veterans with key members in the US and Europe.

So, what’s different about Vizrea? According to Michael Gartenberg, this is all about enabling “contextual flow applications”, and the members of the team with Media Center pedigrees should give you some sort of clue.

Contextual flow is marked by the seamless transition from one digital context to another, regardless of location or type of device used or the nature of the content or information being accessed.

Michael says that while photos are a good place to start, this type of platform can handle other types of data. If they are planning on having the one-stop shop for all your media sharing, a site that handles photos, podcasts/audio, video and other things, they could be taking on several Web 2.0 companies (Flickr/Odeo/YouTube) at once.

Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.

Visit the InsideGoogle blog.

… with what he wrote in 2001 on Smart Tags. The big news, however, is that Google sounds like it might be listening, yet they are leaving their options open. The article will find its way onto Walt’s free site tomorrow. Here are excerpts…

The Google feature is more benign than Microsoft’s for several reasons. Still, the way it is being implemented is a bad idea. If it takes hold, it would start the Web down a slippery slope where no owner of a Web site could ever be sure that readers had a chance to view its pages in the way they were composed.

I take a back seat to nobody in favoring user convenience, but, as with most things in life, every principle must be balanced against others. In this case, that balancing principle is the right of Web publishers to control the content and appearance of their own sites. Users wouldn’t benefit if the Web became a sea of uncertainty, where anybody could alter every Web page.

This is all consistent with what I have been saying since the feature debuted.

Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.

He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.

I know I have, usually at times when some inexplicable problem happens with some app on my primary Windows PC, a customized Toshiba Satellite laptop. While that machine’s getting a bit long in the tooth now, it will still do until something completely irresistible turns up. Something a bit like a Voodoo Envy m:790, perhaps…

But I’ve always resisted the urge and I’m happy to stay with my Tosh (and IBM Thinkpad T30 laptop), no matter how tempting the grass on the other side of the hill looks.

I did succumb to Apple’s charms last month, though, and bought an iPod Mini, my first Apple purchase. Delightful machine, superb design and functionality. Great for listening to podcasts. Not bad for music, either But I digress!

In the Wall Street Journal, Walt Mossberg writes with some keen advice that is worth reading if you’re thinking about switching:

[...] As I have noted in the past, switching to the Mac has downsides, and it isn’t the best course for some groups of Windows users.

For instance:

Even if you aren’t happy with Windows, don’t consider switching to the Mac if you are resistant to learning new ways of doing things. The Mac and Windows are close cousins, but there is a learning curve that comes with switching.

And:

Don’t consider switching if your budget covers only the cost of the Mac itself. There will usually be extra costs. To maintain compatibility with the Windows world, you will probably want a copy of the Mac version of Microsoft Office, which isn’t included by Apple. And you may want a standard two-button, Windows-style mouse, which works fine on the Mac but isn’t included.

Instead of buying Office, you could try Open Office, the open source-developed (and free) application suite that is broadly compatible with Office. There is a Mac version. I’ve been trying out the Windows version for the past few months and have yet to encounter any issues in opening Office docs with it or saving files in it that open fine in Office applications.

Walt continues:

People who depend on their company’s IT department to manage and support their home computers may find themselves locked into Windows. Most corporate computer staffs support only Windows and know little or nothing about Macs.

Similarly, if the principal use of your home computer is to remotely link up to your company’s Windows network, stay with Windows. The Mac has gotten much better at doing these remote linkups, but they are still easier on Windows.

The conclusion:

The bottom line is that the Mac is a great alternative for mainstream consumers doing mainstream tasks who are sick and tired of the Windows security crisis. But it isn’t for everybody.

Wall Street Journal | Personal Technology | While Switching to Mac Will Improve Security, It Isn’t for Everybody

If you just want your Windows desktop to look like a Mac’s, then get hold of WindowBlinds 4.5 from Stardock. Then, go to Wincustomize and download Mac OS X Tiger, an excellent new skin by Steve Grenier.

This may be the closest you’ll get to a Mac!

Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.

Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.

Not only does it do what products like Ad-Aware do – searching, finding and killing nasty stuff on your PC – it also sits there in your system tray monitoring what’s going on on your PC. It pops up alerts and other messages in response to activity, either when there is something to be concerned about or just to let you know that an activity has happened that the program thinks is ok.

It’s definitely a product worth trying. But, there are some downsides to it.

A review in PC World magazine highlights some major negatives which, while aren’t to do with the actual antispyware functionality, might nevertheless concern some people:

[...] Microsoft skeptics will likely find plenty to criticize. For example, a browser-settings lockdown feature can only restore Internet Explorer browser settings to point back to MSN as your home page, IE as your default browser, and MSN Search as your default search engine. Another feature that erases your history files works primarily with Microsoft programs – skipping Firefox, Opera, and AOL software.

Walt Mossberg in the Wall Street Journal has similar criticism:

[...] Even worse is the way the program handles another spyware problem, the hijacking of Web-browser home pages and search pages. This is a spyware technique in which the home and search pages in a Web browser are replaced by pages selected by a spyware company, and it’s nearly impossible for a user to restore his or her own selections.

The usual way of handling this, with programs like Spy Sweeper, is to detect the page changes and to restore the user’s original choices. But the Microsoft program tries to replace the spyware pages with home and search pages from MSN, Microsoft’s own online service. This smacks of the same kind of coercion the spyware authors are using.

On browser hijacking, I don’t think this is a major issue at all – as long as you don’t use Internet Explorer. Use Firefox and that’s all history, in my experience.

But Mossberg also raises concerns about some of the product’s capability:

[...] the scans missed some spyware found by Spy Sweeper. In particular, Microsoft missed “tracking cookies,” small files deposited by Web companies, often without your knowledge or permission, that track your online activities. The Microsoft program deliberately doesn’t look for these. Microsoft officials say they are concerned that some legitimate cookies, such as those that store Web-site login information, could be unfairly labeled as spyware. They promise to add tracking-cookie detection in the future.

Concerns such as these reviewers express mean I wouldn’t yet ditch programs like Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy – seasoned products that do a thorough and reliable job.

There are still plenty of choices.

Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.

Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.