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The Next Generation of Image Search

Written By Drupad Sil | April 28, 2008 | Share This |

Bad Result

A new innovation in image search may soon prevent this picture from showing up for a query of “mcdonalds”. This is a story that’s gotten quite a bit of coverage today, starting with the New York Times. From the Times:

“On Thursday at the International World Wide Web Conference in Beijing, two Google scientists presented a paper describing what the researchers call VisualRank, an algorithm for blending image-recognition software methods with techniques for weighting and ranking images that look most similar.”

How is this different from what is currently done? Danny Sullivan at SearchEngineLand:

“Image search at the major search engines today relies largely on looking at words that are used around images – on the pages that host them, in image file names and in ALT text associated with them. No real image recognition is done by any of the majors. Search for “apples”, and they haven’t actually somehow scanned the images themselves to “see” if they contain pictures of apples.”

In their paper, Yushi Jing and Shumeet Baluja introduce algorithms that can actually “look” at the image itself rather than the associated text, find similarities, and rank the pages in order of similarity to an original image deemed to be the correct result for the query. In the words of VentureBeat’s Anythony Ha:

“The new system proposed in the Google paper ranks images based not on text, but on the common ‘visual themes’ found in each search result. In the McDonald’s example, the VisualRank system would see that the company’s famous golden arches are a common visual theme, and prioritize pictures that feature the arches prominently. Testes of this new system returned 83 percent fewer irrelevant search results than Google Image Search, according to the VisualRank paper.”

This is definitely a cutting-edge development, if it can be implemented successfully. It will help cut back on duplicate images, but more importantly, will reduce image spam, where photos are tagged inappropriately and show up for unrelated searches.

Skype Announces Unlimited Long-Distance Calls to 34 Countries

Written By Drupad Sil | April 21, 2008 | Share This |

Skype

A big announcement today by VoIP services provider Skype. The eBay-owned company unveiled unlimited calling to 34 countries including Australia, China, Germany, Japan, and the UK, essentially covering a third of the world’s population. Skype’s version of “unlimited” is 5 hours a day every month, which for most people is effectively unlimited.

Skype is one of eBay’s biggest divisions and caused the online auction company to take a $1.4 billion writedown last year when it purchased Skype for $4.3 billion. The issue was an inability to monetize largely free Internet calling. However, with 309 million users, there’s plenty to be optimistic about. Mark Evans has more to say:

“Consider Skype’s first-quarter results: another 33 million users came on board…year-over-year revenue climbed 61% to $126 million and Skype-to-Skype minutes rose 30% to 14.2 billion. So, what you’ve got is a high-growth business that will likely have sales of $500-million in 2008.”

With those growth prospects and owner eBay looking to recoup some of last year’s losses, there’s growing speculation that a Skype spin-off or telecom acquisition could be in the works. From iLocus:

“In the meantime, which direction should Skype pursue and what should be the eBay criteria in deciding the future of this business unit? I think the criterion should be future growth of Skype itself…So I think the first choice should be to spin off Skype as an independent company rather than selling the asset at a substantial loss to some other company. If, however, selling Skype to another company is the only choice, I think a telco acquisition could make sense for Skype…Through Skype acquisition, not only does a telco get the most popular telephony interface on the Internet, it also inherits a large pool of developer partners that a telco could only dream of.”

We’ll keep a close eye on Skype and its tremendous growth. This could be the year that it all pays off.

Google Expands Web Coverage

Written By Drupad Sil | April 18, 2008 | Share This |

GoogleBot

Earlier this week, Google announced its practice of crawling forms on high-quality sites in order to expand its web coverage. From Google’s webmaster blog itself:

“Specifically, when we encounter a <FORM> element on a high-quality site, we might choose to do a small number of queries using the form. For text boxes, our computers automatically choose words from the site that has the form; for select menus, check boxes, and radio buttons on the form, we choose from among the values of the HTML. Having chosen the values for each input, we generate and then try to crawl URLs that correspond to a possible query a user may have made. If we ascertain that the web page resulting from our query is valid, interesting, and includes content not in our index, we may include it in our index much as we would include any other web page.”

Google was also quick to assure webmasters that their crawl agent, Googlebot, could be prevented from crawling specific areas of sites, and would not crawl forms that require password inputs or use terms associated with personal information. The response from the online search community has been generally positive, as the change will allow Google to map slightly more of the deep web, the section of the Internet that is currently unsearchable. From Josh Catone at ReadWriteWeb:

“Last year [Google] ate through 100 exabytes of data, but there’s still a lot that it can’t get access to. Known as the deep web (or hidden web, or invisible web, etc.), it is estimated that the majority of online data is hidden safely from Google’s prying eyes — private intranets, unlinked pages, some non-textual content, and until today dynamic content returned via form input was all inaccessible to the search engine… it is estimated that the deep web is several orders of magnitude larger than the regular, public world wide web. While there is some content that Google will never — and should never — get its hands on, by crawling form results Google is now peering just a little bit deeper into the Internet.”

There are certainly SEO implications of this change. To get a better picture, we turned to our very own Mark Pilatowski, SEO Manager. Mark outlines some main points to be aware of:

“One of the benefits is that Google will be able to crawl and index additional pages that they may not have been able to find before. Since these pages require user input they will be more targeted for a variety of long tail keywords. This has the potential to provide a more personalized user experience for the user who lands on these pages.

It reinforces the need to write relevant and keyword rich content so Google can find important pages using keywords on the site. One of the most intriguing aspects is that Google is grabbing keywords they find on the site and placing them in text boxes to find more content. If they find unique and relevant content using those keywords they will be able to index those pages and theoretically rank those pages higher for those keywords in their own index.”

Of course, the ironic part of this whole change is that while Google is using bots to fill out forms on websites, they frown heavily on anyone who hits their servers with a bot.

From Google’s own Webmaster Help Center:

“Google’s Terms of Service do not allow the sending of automated queries of any sort to our system without express permission in advance from Google. Sending automated queries absorbs resources and includes using any software (such as WebPosition Gold™) to send automated queries to Google to determine how a website or webpage ranks in Google search results for various queries.”

They even hate it when people exhibit bot-like behavior on their site.

While it seems like a case of “do as I say, not as I do”, let’s wait and see how much more of the web this allows Google to process and how it affects the page rankings of high-traffic sites. It’s certainly one small step for mankind into the unknowns of the Internet; the question is, in what direction?

Social Networking: The End of Web Search?

Written By Drupad Sil | April 17, 2008 | Share This |

Faceboogle

An article by Glenn Derene at Popular Mechanics made waves today with its first sentence: Search is dead. The thesis, formulated during a discussion with an anonymous venture capitalist, is that search engines of the future will not be used for pure information gathering and consumption, but rather will index users’ online footprint data to tailor customized results. These results will go beyond just utilizing browsing history to deliver results, as Google and Yahoo already attempt to do, but will also incorporate information from Web 2.0 applications, like a Facebook friend’s movie recommendation, for example. In Glenn’s words:

“But what may turn out to be the strongest signal of all is the footprint you make with your online identity. Consider how much information you voluntarily provide on your Facebook profile. Now imagine if you could combine that with your Netflix renting and Amazon buying habits. Then throw in the suggestions of your friends and the pages you visit the most often. All those various sources of information about you are currently stored in different locations—on your computer’s browser history, on your Facebook page, on the servers for Netflix and Amazon—but just imagine how accurate a search could be if every time you had a query, the mass of data about you that exists on the Internet could inform the results.”

While the idea is not entirely original, it predictably has spawned a great deal of debate. One counterargument was posed by Greg Sterling at SearchEngineLand:

“And while it’s very true that word-of-mouth has moved online and people care very much about what their friends and other contacts think about things, those “recommendations” are not a substitute for search. Indeed, I recently spoke the other day to one of the founders of Socialight, an internet and mobile-social network. One of the interesting things the company has discovered through experience is that people don’t just care about their networks’ recommendations. It turns out — and this is common sense — that expert and top-down editorial content matter equally and in some cases more than what their friends may think.”

Alexander van Elsa points out a couple more issues on his blog:

“Why would such an attempt fail half of the times (or something in that order)? Because it doesn’t take human behavior into account. There are at least two barriers that can hardly be overcome by any computer algorithm or data hog system. First of all, on-line I’m not who I really am off-line. On-line people can have multiple identities, lie about themselves, provide us with profiles that look better than real life… Secondly, a computer algorithm can hardly interpret my mood of the day. Depending on how I feel, what I have experienced earlier, what I’m about to do in the future, the coffee I had for breakfast, etc, etc, I might be looking for different things when I type “I am looking for a car” in the search bar. Chances are that by taking into account my profile information, social graph, interactions on Facebook or any other social network, the “social search” algorithm will be way off.”

While most people will agree that search giants Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo are here to stay for a while longer, there’s no denying that a search engine that could seamlessly combine information and expert recommendations from the web with the preferences of your circle of friends would be an attractive proposition. Perhaps Udi Manber, Google’s vice president of search, phrases it best:

“Search has always been about people. It’s about getting people what they need. The art of ranking is one of taking lots of signals and putting them together. Signals from your friends are better, stronger signals.”

 

Google Launches App Engine

Written By Sepideh Saremi | April 8, 2008 | Share This |

google app enginef

Google yesterday announced the launch of Google App Engine, a hosting platform for web application developers. From the brand-new Google App Engine blog:

The goal is to make it easy to get started with a new web app, and then make it easy to scale when that app reaches the point where it’s receiving significant traffic and has millions of users… Google App Engine gives you access to the same building blocks that Google uses for its own applications, making it easier to build an application that runs reliably, even under heavy load and with large amounts of data… We expect most applications will be able to serve around 5 million pageviews per month. In the future, these limited quotas will remain free, and developers will be able to purchase additional resources as needed.

The service is similar to and will compete with Amazon’s S3 platform. But because Google has such extensive services that many startups take advantage of (email, docs, etc.), Read/Write Web wonders what additional reliance on Google means for startups that will use the App Engine, too:

But looking at the bigger picture, startups which use Google App Engine are essentially tying themselves into Google’s technology. They’ll need to host with Google, do their processing with Google, store their data with Google, etc. And as some people have already speculated, having a web app built and deployed with Google App Engine makes it much easier for Google to eventually acquire that web app. It does make you wonder: would you want Google to control your entire end-to-end development environment?

These are certainly important implications for startups to think about, but ultimately the promise of a free sandbox to develop and storage to do it with will likely outweigh any reservations developers might have.

More:

Ask.com: The Algorithm is Not Available Right Now, Please Click an Ad Instead

Written By Sepideh Saremi | March 14, 2008 | Share This |

ask logo

As IAC boss Barry Diller had his day in court yesterday, fighting to split up the various companies under IAC’s umbrella, including Ask.com, we thought it might be relevant to highlight a recent experience one of our managing partners, Peter Hershberg, had with actual Ask.com search results.

A search by Peter for “anatomy of the eye” on Google yesterday yielded an ad touting “the improved Ask.com.” Click the screenshot for a larger image:

image001.jpg

Clicking the ad led him to an Ask.com results page that featured sponsored ads - two of which were about ears and pretty irrelevant. But even weirder was that the page yielded absolutely no organic results:

image002.jpg

Instead, Ask.com said the search for “anatomy of the eye” did not match any Web results.

A search for the same phrase on Google today showed the same ad (see it here), and the Ask.com results page featured some organic listings this time. However, the organic listings were all below the fold, buried under ten sponsored results:

picture-6.png

The search engine has recently stated its intentions to re-strategize (note: it’s not actually going to target moms; the AP was wrong) but it’s a safe bet that serving pages of only results is not part of that strategy…

Google Will Invest in Trans-Pacific Cable

Written By Sepideh Saremi | February 27, 2008 | Share This |

google unity cable

Google said this week that it will join five other companies in a consortium building a $300 million, trans-Pacific undersea cable to connect the U.S. and Japan. Rumors of the cable named Unity first surfaced in September of last year. Google is the only non-telecom and U.S. company in the venture, but the search giant says it doesn’t have telecom ambitions:

If you’re wondering whether we’re going into the undersea cable business, the answer is no. We’re not competing with telecom providers, but the volume of data we need to move around the world has grown to the point where in some cases we’ve exceeded the ability traditional players can offer. Our partnership with these companies is just another step in ensuring that we’re delivering the best possible experience to people around the world.

Though Google doesn’t have telecom ambitions, this is still perhaps a challenge to monopolistic U.S. broadband companies. The Unity cable will likely help Google address or even circumvent attempts by telecoms who try to control the flow of internet traffic. This is important especially to the future of bandwidth-heavy online activity, particularly online video, in which Google clearly has a big stake (namely, YouTube).

Taking Ask to Task: Privacy Groups vs. AskEraser

Written By Sepideh Saremi | January 24, 2008 | Share This |

eraser.jpg

Last month, we reported that Ask.com’s AskEraser expanded privacy options, allowing users to opt out of having their search data tracked. Now privacy groups, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center, are taking issue with AskEraser, calling it “unfair and deceptive” and lodging a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission.

The groups allege that AskEraser isn’t as pro-privacy as it claims, for three reasons (paraphrased): it requires cookie-blockers turned off in a browser for the installation of the AskEraser cookie, which then remember not to track that user; said cookie is a way to identify a user because of time stamps; and Ask can disable AskEraser without notice. Ask.com says they unsuccessfully tried to speak to EPIC before the group filed with the FTC, and that EPIC’s document is inaccurate and outdated. From Wired, which quotes Ask.com spokesman Nicholas Graham:

EPIC’s filing is flawed in the sense that the document they filed is factually inaccurate, and simply shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the functionality of our product. In addition, many of the issues they raise are outdated, while others are completely misguided from the outset, and others deal with changes that Ask.com already made to AskEraser weeks ago, and were subsequently posted publicly on our website.

Changes “made to AskEraser weeks ago” were editing the cookie settings so there’s no longer a time stamp, so at least part of EPIC’s claim is based on an outdated claim.

But what’s more interesting with this issue is Search Engine Land’s point wondering why these groups didn’t lead with the fact that that Ask.com actually does collect some data for its partners, most famous of whom is probably Google. From Search Engine Land:

That’s a far bigger issue, and I’m surprised EPIC didn’t lead with that, rather than the three other points that are easy to take apart. Someone engaging AskEraser probably does not understand or expect that their query and IP address, along with perhaps a unique cookie ID, is flowing over to Google so that Ask can retrieve ads. And they are not reasonably expecting they have to go to Google or another partner to try and delete information there (if they can — they probably can’t).

That’s the big flaw with AskEraser. The complain also notes that those using the Ask toolbar won’t get AskEraser protection, even if enabled. On that point, I think the FAQ is clear enough.

Ask.com is fairly thorough and forthcoming in its AskEraser FAQ, and AskEraser is definitely way ahead of the privacy policies of other engines. What do you think: Are the privacy groups’ claims that AskEraser is “unfair and deceptive” justified?

Further reading: See The Iconoclast for an in-depth explanation of the time-stamp issue, and Techdirt for an interesting take on the privacy groups.

Time Warner Cable and HBO: Same Company, Conflicting Biz Models

Written By Sepideh Saremi | January 22, 2008 | Share This |

sopranosuncle.jpg

As the lines between TV and online video continue to blur, today HBO will make its 600 shows and movies available online for free download to its TV subscribers, via a new site called HBO Broadband. There are some catches: Initially the service is only available to Windows-using HBO subscribers in Wisconsin that are also signed up for Time Warner Road Runner high speed Internet. Gizmodo also reports there are DRM restrictions - no burning or transferring content to your iPod, and your downloads are yours for no longer than three months.

Still, the NY Times praises its “innovative features,” like separate profiles for each member of a household, parental controls, and the live TV version of the channel, so there’s no need to wait for the episode to go online after it’s aired on the tube first, a common network-TV practice. And DSLreports.com shows this is a big step for previously broadband-resistant HBO.

But The Hollywood Reporter notes that because HBO is actually owned by Time Warner - the broadband provider that wants to switch its model from a monthly flat fee to one that chargers people for how much bandwidth they use - this sets up an interesting conundrum in which free HBO content could get quite expensive, discouraging users from using a service like HBO Broadband. From The Hollywood Reporter:

Last week, Time Warner Cable disclosed its intent to experiment with a billing plan for high-speed data that charges customers based on how much bandwidth they consume. If such a model catches on in the U.S., it could have big implications for content companies trying to find traction online — like HBO.

There is no conflict in the short term; only HBO subscribers in Green Bay and Milwaukee, Wis., will be able to access HBO on Broadband when it is deployed there Tuesday on TWC systems. Meanwhile, the cable operator has selected Beaumont, Texas, as the test market for metered billing.

But in success, the dueling Internet initiatives could conceivably cross paths — and purposes — in other markets. Time Warner would find its cable-operator arm discouraging the very behavior HBO is allowing.

An easy solution for Time Warner would be not charging users for overages due to downloading Time Warner content. But Techdirt notes that this strategy will get the company in trouble with net neutrality advocates:

The Hollywood Reporter story mentions the possibility that Time Warner would create a special “exception” to the bandwidth rule if that bandwidth was for watching Time Warner-only videos. That, of course, is exactly the sort of thing that will be sure to get network neutrality advocates up in arms, though it’s a subtle shift from traditional network neutrality claims. This time it won’t be about “better quality,” but about which content counts towards a bandwidth cap.

Of course, the answer that makes the most sense is the one Time Warner doesn’t want to acknowledge: a metered pricing model for Internet access should not exist. The caps are just too low, they will stifle innovation, and because of a lack of competition in the broadband market, the whole thing reeks of price-gouging.

(via DVD Dossier Blog, from Techmeme)

ISP Censoring in America: Coming Soon?

Written By Sepideh Saremi | January 15, 2008 | Share This |

threewisemonkeys.jpg

At the very end of last year, Australia passed legislation to implement nationwide, opt-out censorship of online porn and violence, requiring so-called “clean feeds” of its Internet service providers to protect the country’s children.

Until recently, the role of ISPs in the United States has been to provide unfiltered Internet access to users. But as of last week, there’s buzz that American ISPs may also start to engage in censorship (and some argue they already have) - though not by government order and definitely not under the guise of protecting anyone’s children.

Rather, AT&T said at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last week that it may begin monitoring content on its networks to block downloads that violate copyright. According to ISP-Planet, as of Q3 2007, AT&T was the biggest ISP in the U.S., with just over 18% market share. So what AT&T does would have a significant impact on many Internet users in this country and would likely cause AT&T’s competitors to take note and possibly buckle to pressure from groups that are fighting tooth-and-nail to enforce copyright law. The music industry, which gave up on DRM just last week, is now toying with the idea of “digital watermarks,” which will track the movement of a file across P2P sites and ostensibly be used to make ISPs filter such content. From the New York Times’ Bits blog:

Mr. Cicconi [SVP, external & legal affairs for AT&T] said that AT&T has been talking to technology companies, and members of the M.P.A.A. and R.I.A.A., for the last six months about carrying out digital fingerprinting techniques on the network level.

“We are very interested in a technology based solution and we think a network-based solution is the optimal way to approach this,” he said. “We recognize we are not there yet but there are a lot of promising technologies. But we are having an open discussion with a number of content companies, including NBC Universal, to try to explore various technologies that are out there.”

It’s a bit strange that AT&T would be in such close cahoots with the RIAA and MPAA; unlike its competitor, Time Warner, which has a hand in the ISP world but also owns plenty of media companies that would surely be thrilled if it decided to block illegal downloads, AT&T’s core business is communications - i.e., they don’t make any media (read: music or movies) the average consumer wants to steal. Granted, it’s a legal issue, but why enforce this instead of going after something more egregiously wrong? Isn’t, say, visiting a child pornography site, which the Australian government railed against, just a titch more reprehensible than illegally downloading music?

Also strange is that just prior to Ciccone’s comments, the FCC had announced that it will investigate America’s second-biggest ISP, Comcast, in follow-up to November 2007 claims from users that say it limited their access to P2P sharing sites. Comcast may face fines up to $1.77 trillion if found guilty, but denies any wrongdoing.

Note that while ISPs are poising themselves to become Internet cops, in which direct benefit to them is unclear, their monitoring isn’t just wrapped up in altruism for the RIAA. They are also looking for ways into the online ad revenue game: Less than two weeks ago, ClickZ reported that ISPs have begun to collect user data for behavioral ad targeting purposes, which seems now like it will be rife with privacy issues.

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