iPod Killers? - BusinessWeek Online - MSNBC.com

iPod Killers? - BusinessWeek Online - MSNBC.com

Bài viết hay về thị trường nhạc số với Apple iPods đang dẫn đầu, các đối thủ cạnh tranh, lợi thế và bất lợi, các chiến lược.

Sẽ cố gắng dịch sau

Yahoo! 360° - A New Model for Online Sharing

Yahoo! Search blog: Yahoo! 360° - A New Model for Online Sharing

In the "About Me" part of my Yahoo! 360° page I describe myself as "a husband, a father, game player, and a pioneer of virtual worlds. For more than 30 years, I've been connecting people with each other using computers as the mediating technology..." Along the way, I've been sharing my experiences with family, friends, and colleagues. Now, I get to tell you about Yahoo! 360° -- a new model for online sharing that's easy and convenient for everybody.

During my years of online community building, I've seen many types of social software emerge: email, chat, instant messaging, forums, groups, multiplayer games, blogs, and twikis (to name a few).

Until now, most social software worked on a shared view, what I'd call a we-centric model, where every participant sees the same information as all the other participants. We all see the same posts on a message board, the same conversation in a chat room. In effect, communications are either public or private.

These days, as we publicly post more of our opinions, photos, and sensitive information on the net, there's growing concern about spam and other threats to our privacy. And there's a need for tools to help us manage real-world relationships that are becoming more and more digital. The time is right for me-centric community - a way for you to get the information and connections you want, without giving up control of your information. Yahoo! 360° lets you control not just what you see but what others can see about you.

For example, I have different types of relationships -- friends, family, coworkers, IM buddies, mailing-list co-members, blog subscribers, etc. I want to share some of my info with some of these people, and some of it with others. Some stuff may not be appropriate or of interest to everybody.

On Yahoo! 360°, you can keep it simple and use the same settings for all your contacts, or you can decide how others experience you by grouping the people you know into me-centric communities (called categories). You set how different groups of people can contact you (via IM, email, blog comment, etc.), and you decide who can see your reviews, photos, and other personal stuff.

I've created categories for work (360° Team, Management) and personal use (Family, Gamers, Alumni) -- it's easy for me to move people around, or add them to multiple categories. The categories are invisible to everyone but me. For example, my family can see my personal contact info and photos, and my manager can check in and comment on my blog. :-)

We're extending the me-centric approach by integrating your Yahoo! 360° identity controls with other Yahoo! services. For example, you can choose to display your Yahoo! 360° nickname and photo in your Groups. When you search on Yahoo! Local, the businesses with reviews written by your friends show up prominently.

The Yahoo! 360° team is excited about the official invitation-only beta starting today. Please sign up to be on our beta waiting list. We'll let you know when we open the beta to a larger audience.

Randy Farmer
Yahoo! Community Products Team

Jimmy Wales on Wikipedia and Yahoo!

Yahoo! Search blog: Jimmy Wales on Wikipedia and Yahoo!

Jimmy Wales - Wikimedia Foundation

As our relationship with Yahoo has grown over the past year, we began to talk about other ways that Yahoo could help us. One theme that made sense for both of us was to think about Yahoo's global reach and Wikipedia's global goals. As we have grown it has become apparent that we can better serve our visitors by adding data centers around the world.

Adam at April 7, 2005 02:52 PM

Wikipedia is currently the best system for synthesizing and oragnizing the immense range of human thought. If you want the opinion of an expert--go to an expert; if you want to know who the experts are and where to find them--go to Wikipedia.

Jesse Hogan at April 7, 2005 02:29 PM

Wikipedia has 520,549 articles. I am willing to bet that more than a few of those articles are not about "geek" subjects. All of the articles I have read in Wikipedia have been very high in quality except for some very minor ones.

EliasAlucard at April 8, 2005 02:50 AM

Wikipedia is ALWAYS growing and improving, so just because an article sucks as of right now, that doesn't have to be the case in a year from now. In ten years, Wikipedia is without a doubt the best and most reliable source when it comes to knowledge... if not much earlier than that, and possibly, as we speak.

Slim at April 8, 2005 03:58 AM

The only area where Wikipedia is growing is in it's geek and pop-culture articles. If you want to know what an Orc is, or the history of Linux, then use Wikipedia. Anything else, and you're better off going to the library.

Encarta encyclopedia tests edit system

Encarta encyclopedia tests edit system - Tech News & Reviews - MSNBC.com
Suggestions to be vetted by editors before inclusion

REDMOND, Wash. - It happens all the time: You read an entry in an encyclopedia or other reputable source and think, "That's not right" or "They forgot this!" Microsoft Corp.'s Encarta encyclopedia is testing a system that lets everyone be an editor — in theory at least.

Readers can suggest edits or additions to entries, although the changes are vetted by editors before they reach the page.

Encarta is not requiring such novice editors to identify themselves, said Gary Alt, Encarta's editorial director. But it is asking them to reveal the source of their information if possible, and the editorial staff will check for both factual errors and evidence of bias.

This is in contrast to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which lets anyone instantaneously make changes, even delete entries, regardless of whether that person has any expertise in the subject.

Encarta has added research editors and fact checkers to handle the volume of edits it expects to receive when the system goes live Thursday.

But Alt said the added cost is balanced by the advantage of having a seemingly endless pool of people who may know more about a subject than hired editors ever would — and will offer their expert advice for free.

"The truth of the matter is, we have 42,000 articles in Encarta and somewhere around 60 million words, so even if I had a staff of 1,000 editors we wouldn't be able to look at all of the content all the time," Alt said.

Encarta entries are available for free though Microsoft's MSN search engine, or through a paid service.

Travel Search Prepares for Takeoff

Travel Search Prepares for Takeoff

Nhận xét

Khi các nội dung theo affinity trên Internet phát triển đủ rộng rãi thì search engine có vai trò lớn và là một mô hình kinh doanh hữu hiệu

The Trend
In a trend that could transform the way consumers find and book travel online, travel search engines are gaining increased backing from some of the Web's most heavily visited sites.

Yahoo Inc. has begun promoting travel search following its acquisition last year of FareChase Inc. On Friday, Yahoo started displaying a link to FareChase from the Yahoo Travel home page. It already was promoting links to FareChase in its shopping and Web search sites. Meanwhile, America Online Inc. last week offered its answer to travel search. Released in beta, AOL's Pinpoint Travel ties into Kayak's travel search engine in order to search across the inventory of 500 airlines and 85,000 hotels.

What search engines do
Travel search engines scour the Web for flights, hotels and car rentals, aggregating itineraries and results from the Web pages of airlines and hotels as well as from some online travel agencies. Consumers then book travel directly from travel providers' sites.

The approach is different from well-know travel sites such as Expedia Inc., Travelocity.com LP and Orbitz Inc., which as online travel agencies largely rely on the major travel-distribution systems and their own deals with travel providers for inventory.

"Yahoo and AOL together are going to contribute to total upheaval in the travel world," said Henry Harteveldt, a vice president at market researcher Forrester Research Inc.

Travel search engine, competitive strategy and business model

By bringing travel search to their sites, Yahoo and AOL will become more formidable players in online travel, Harteveldt said. Both companies already partner with Travelocity.com for their travel-booking features.

Harteveldt said he expects consolidation in the online travel industry, specifically predicting that one of the two companies will either buy its own online booking engine or drop its deals with Travelocity.

"Yahoo is at the precipice of being able to do a lot more on its own without relying on a travel agency distribution partner," Harteveldt said.

In an interview with eWEEK.com, Yahoo executives said the FareChase travel search technology will play an increasing role in Yahoo's travel strategy. Yahoo already provides travel guides about popular destinations and offers travel reservations through Travelocity. FareChase fits in as "an unbiased way to search across [travel] sites," said Yen Lee, Yahoo's general manager for travel.

Lee compared travel search to the earlier shift in travel booking where the offline travel agency model was moved online, allowing travelers to directly access the major reservations systems through the Web.

"We know that that's not the promise of the Internet, and consumers are asking us for unbiased and trusted sources where they show results not based on who's paying us or who's paying us more," Lee said.

Since buying FareChase, Lee said Yahoo has instituted a policy of not receiving any payments from travel providers as part of search. Travel search engines typically receive a revenue share from any booking that results from a search.

Yahoo also is courting travel suppliers, especially airlines, to forge direct relationships with the site. FareChase previously had a rocky relationship with travel providers, some of whom objected to its tactics for retrieving itineraries from their Web sites. Lee said Yahoo is giving travel providers the option of being removed from FareChase searches. For example, Southwest Airlines, known for selling its reservations directly, is not included in FareChase results. "We're open to any travel provider, and it's free for all travel providers to show up in the engine," Lee said.

Yahoo's business model for FareChase follows its overall search model. Yahoo plans to generate revenue from the pay-per-click advertisements that appear alongside search results, Lee said. Yahoo sells those sponsored listings through its recently renamed Overture Services division.