--- title: "Weekly Wrapup, 12-16 March 2007" date: 2007-03-16 author: "Richard MacManus" categories: - name: "ReadWriteWeb" url: "/category/readwriteweb.md" tags: - name: "2007" url: "/tag/2007.md" --- # Weekly Wrapup, 12-16 March 2007 Here is a summary of the week’s Web Tech action on Read/WriteWeb. ## Analysis Posts **Google Interview** This week Read/WriteWeb finally got an interview with Google, something I’ve been wanting for a long time. Matt Cutts, head of Google’s web spam operations, [ talked to me on the topic of next-generation search](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/interview_with_matt_cutts_next_generation_search.php). Unfortunately I published it just as news of the [$1B Viacom lawsuit](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.techmeme.com/070313/p38#a070313p38) against YouTube hit (the Techmeme ‘Scrum of the Week’), so my interview with Matt didn’t get the attention it deserved. However there is a lot of great info in this interview, so I encourage you to read it – maybe print it out and read it in bed on Sunday morning, along with the Sunday paper 🙂 Also check out the follow-up post: [Video PageRank: Google Searches for The Holy Grail](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/video_pagerank.php). The interview post got some good comments, for example [Steve said](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.imitrust.com/thepit): > “The personalization of search is great for local companies competing in global markets. It will be interesting to see the evolution of natural language in search. If i was google, i would be doing my best to purchase Wikipedia. They are sending them most of their traffic… so why not?” Why not indeed? Apart from the fact that Wikipedia is non-profit, so there would be a major outcry from people about a commercial company taking it over – especially a company like Google that already controls so much access to information on the Web. [Phill Midwinter](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.surrch.eu/) commented that he isn’t so impressed by Google’s search engine strengths: > “It’s a nice interview – but again I’m not seeing anything new here beyond what I’ve been hearing for the past two years. Google is looking increasingly stagnant from my point of view as a search engine developer. If they are truly keeping to release often, release early; then they haven’t actually done much of importance for quite some time to improve search.” My feeling is that Google is innovating a lot, but it hasn’t necessarily integrated those things into the main search. Finally, [web 2.0 innovations](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://web2innovations.com/) wrote: > “…the site that would potentially undermine Google’s dominance in finding information on web will be anything else but not Google-style search engine.” Indeed! Hence Read/WriteWeb’s [Alternative Search Engine list](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_100_alternative_search_engines.php). **Alt Search Engine Mashups** Speaking of which… this week a couple of mashups of our Top 100 Alt Search Engine list came up. Check out: - [ Linguistic Analysis of Top 100 Alt Search Engines](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/linguistic_analysis_top_alt_search_engines.php) - [Alt Search Engine Market Share Mashup](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/alt_search_engine_market_shares.php) Also we’ve created a kind of sub-list of [w](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/weird_search_engines_2.php)[eird search engines](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/weird_search_engines_2.php) – I think you’ll agree, an entertaining list to play with! **Yahoo Personal Finance review** I recommend reading [Sramana Mitra’s excellent analysis](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/yahoo_personal_finance_review.php) of Yahoo’s new Personal Finance site, from earlier this week. It’s a good illustration of where Yahoo’s strengths and weaknesses are in its web properties. **Other Analysis Posts** - [Open Data Workshop 2007](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/open_data_workshop_2007.php) - [Adobe Remix on Photobucket](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/adobe_remix_photobucket.php) - [Rating the Memetrackers: Redux](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/memetrackers_march07.php) - [Improving Online Communities: MyBlogLog, Explode, OthersOnline](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/improving_onlin.php) ## Events Early this week the annual SXSWi (South by Southwest Interactive) conference was held in Austin, Texas. This has a reputation for being one of the most fun conferences on the Web tech circuit, so I was sorry to miss it again. Maybe next year! Luckily though, Sean Ammirati was there to cover the event for Read/WriteWeb. I particularly enjoyed his [Web App Autopsy](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sxsw_web_app_autopsy.php) report and the follow-up [The Figures Behind The Top Web Apps](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sxsw_the_figures_behind_top_web_apps.php). Here is a list of all Sean’s posts from SXSW: - [SXSW: Why Marketers Need To Work With People Media](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sxsw_people_media.php) - [SXSW: Scaling Your Community](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sxsw_scaling_your_community.php) - [SXSW: The Figures Behind The Top Web Apps](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sxsw_the_figures_behind_top_web_apps.php) - [SXSW: Sunday Keynote – Open Source Hardware](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sxsw_open_source_hardware.php) - [SXSW: Using RSS for Marketing](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sxsw_using_rss_for_marketing.php) - [ SXSW: Web 2.0, Semantic Web & Scientific Publishing](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sxsw_web_20_semantic_web_scientific_publishing.php) - [SXSW: Under 18 Blogs, Wikis & Social Networks](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sxsw_under_18.php) - [SXSW: Web App Autopsy](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sxsw_web_app_autopsy.php) - [SXSW: World Domination via Collaboration](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sxsw_world_domination_collaboration.php) ## Startup Action Some interesting startups crossed our path this week. I was particularly enamoured with an online video site called We Dig TV. My review: [We Dig TV Brings Television Game Shows To The Web](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/we_dig_tv.php). Also I recommend Alex Iskold’s review of [Summize, a search engine with heatmaps](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/summize_search_heatmaps.php). Lot of innovation in that app. Other startup posts this week: - [PureVideo and The Rise of Online Video Portals](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/purevideo_online_video_portals.php) - [Imagini Spikes After Being Dugg – Will It Last?](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/imagini_spike_digg.php) - [Spanning Sync v1.0 Launches – Apple, Google Sync](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/spanning_sync_launches.php) - [blinkx Launches Video Search Engine Optimization Wiki & Guidelines](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/blinkx_video_seo.php) ## Poll We actually ran two polls this week. The first asked: [How many RSS Remix feeds do you subscribe to?](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/poll_rss_remix_feeds.php). The results: I’ve subscribed to hundreds of remix feeds 5% (11 votes) Somewhere between 51 to 100 5% (12 votes) 11 to 50 13% (31 votes) 1 to 10 24% (58 votes) I haven’t subscribed to any remix feeds 44% (106 votes) I don’t know what you’re talking about 10% (25 votes) There was a bit of confusion about what RSS remix feeds are. And it’s clear from the results that filtered feeds are still very early in the adoption phase. Only 23% of respondants have subscribed to more than 10 remixed feeds, while 10% of people don’t even know what a remix feed is. Lot of work to be done here (including by blogs such as R/WW, to explain them). Our other poll asked: [Why is there no advertising with YouTube videos?](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/poll_advertising_youtube.php) The reason for asking this was that Mark Cuban had commented in [a previous post](https://web.archive.org/web/20111025155701/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/video_pagerank.php) that the only reason for no advertising on YouTube is the copyright issues. So we decided to find out if others agreed. The results: The Mark Cuban choice — Google is concerned about legal exposure 37% (57 votes) The R/WW choice — Google hasn’t cracked digital relevancy 22% (33 votes) Both — Google is running scared of big media AND hasn’t found a VideoRank formula yet 41% (63 votes) It looks like a small majority think it’s *both* a technology and copyright issue, but a good percentage agree with Cuban that it’s all down to copyright. That’s a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone. *Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/weekly_wrapup_12-16mar07.php))*