December 27, 2006 | In Technology | No Comments
Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales, has announced plans to launch his own user-edited search engine, under the name Wikisari.
In a recent interview with The Times of London, Wales said that the search service would use the same user-based technology as Wikipedia, and could ultimately rival established players like Google and Yahoo. The project is being funded by Amazon.com and a group of Silicon Valley financiers.
Since its launch in 2003, the free online reference encyclopedia, Wikipedia, has grown into one of the most popular websites on the internet. It utilizes a network of thousands of volunteer contributors around the world, who use a free open-source editing interface to expand and organize the now-massive database of information.
Wales hopes to utilize the same concept in creating his search engine, working under the theory that human editors will do a better job of determining relevancy than the mathematical algorithms employed by Google and Yahoo.
A major problem with this approach, of course, is that it will be difficult to stop spammers from “volunteering” their editing services and boosting their own sites to the top Wikisari’s SERPs.
If the service ever becomes anywhere near as popular as Google, it will end up playing host to a continuous editing battle, pitting self-righteous open source aficionados against a sleazy and relentless army of internet spammers.
Although the fluid and ever-changing nature of such a service would make it a formidable competitor in the online search market, I find it difficult to believe that Wikia Inc. will be able to recruit enough manpower to keep the whole thing going in a solely user-edited format.
A better approach, in my opinion, would be to base SERPs upon a traditional algorithm, but incorporate a system of voting (much as Digg.com does), allowing users to express opinions on any given site without giving any one person the power to “edit” search results. That way, spammy results would be buried by a democratic process, with corruption and pointless editing wars kept to a minimum.
December 26, 2006 | In Miscellaneous | No Comments
Just a quick note to say that after much delay, I’ve finally purchased a new laptop computer (my old Pentium II was getting pretty creaky to say the least).
This one’s an Acer 5050-5554, with a dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM (expandable to 4GB), which I got for C$799 at Future Shop. Stores like that become a real zoo on Boxing Day, but I’ve seen comparable notebooks selling for around $1000 when they’re not on sale, so I guess the lineups were worth it.
Having a new computer should make for a much less frustrating work experience, not to mention a nice tax write-off for my small business. 
December 12, 2006 | In Business, Law | No Comments
The future of Samsung’s BlackJack smartphone may be in jeopardy due to a new lawsuit from Research In Motion, claiming that the “BlackJack” brand name is too close to that of its own popular BlackBerry device.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the suit alleges that the new phone’s name “constitutes false designation of origin, unfair competition and trademark dilution.” RIM is using this to seek an injunction against the sale of BlackJack devices in the United States.
It is true that the RIM and Samsung devices are targeting nearly identical markets, with both the BlackJack and BlackBerry Pearl featuring wireless email capability and built-in QWERTY keyboards. Both are offered exclusively by Cingular Wireless in the United States.
Despite the striking similarities, however, it’s very difficult to see how any one company’s trademark can extend to cover the word “black.” Both of the devices are primarily black in color after all, and I can honestly say that I didn’t draw any connections to the BlackBerry brand name upon hearing about the BlackJack’s release.
All things considered, I can’t see how RIM really expects to win this lawsuit. It seems more like an attempt to establish their brand superiority complex, and assert a “we were here first” kind of message than to pose a serious legal threat to Samsung.
Don’t get me wrong; BlackBerry is perhaps one of the most iconic brands in the world, and represents a great family of products, but there comes a time to draw the line between brand protection and immature paranoia.
Originally published at TeleClick.ca.
December 9, 2006 | In Business, Technology | No Comments
Revenues from the internet advertising industry will likely reach $16 billion this year, according to projections by eMarketer, and is set for more growth in the years to come.
As a whole, web advertising currently accounts of about 6% of all media spending, and is expected to reach 8% sometime in 2008, overtaking radio promotion.
“It’s one thing for Internet ad spending to surpass relatively minor media such as outdoor or Yellow Pages, but it’s quite another thing to blow past radio, one of the big four traditional media,” commented eMarketer analyst David Hallerman on the current trend.
Web-based advertising has continued growing despite a number of tough challenges, including clickfraud, and seems destined to become the next great nexus of media spending.
