Links

Every now and then, I read an article and think -- that needs to be on another one of my blogs. The one below is such an article. Perhaps it's because I risked a lot and went beyond the normal efforts to come up with the data necessary to post it. Maybe I'm just so pleased with the results that I wanted to share.

Either way, there it is.

It describes the differences between Google and Yahoo!, their algorithms, and the techniques that work best for each individual search engine. Any search engine optimization professional will know this information to some extent. I only wanted to take it a step further and actually run tests to make sure that what most believed is actually the way it is.

It is.

Please feel free to read the entire story at Links and Links and Content. It isn't a long read, but it should either teach or reaffirm knowledge about getting ranked well for Google, Yahoo!, and MSN

-- A classic example of how horizontal reporting could benefit a professional journalist. "'Citizen journalism' provides professional reporters the chance to collect many more data points than they can on their own. And 'mainstream media' provide readers an established, popular distribution channel for the information we have and can collect."

-- According to a new census: in 2007 the average adult will spend 65 days in front of the TV; 41 days listening to the radio; a little over a week on the Internet; a week reading a daily newspaper; and another week listening to recorded music.

-- Nielson tries to measure the buzz in social networks.

-- But recent studies (PDF) suggest we don't understand the nuances of how social network hubs work. "Until now, scientists have largely thought of networks as fairly stable, changing only slightly over time–say, when someone makes a new contact…The reality of networks isn’t as simple as that."

-- Web 2.0 is the most cited Wikipedia entry of 2006. "beating out such pop-culture topics as Steve Irwin, Mark Foley, and Snakes on a Plane, as well as other tech topics like blog, Ajax, and RSS." (Add one more reference via this post).

-- A new age Yo-Yo company finds fortune using open source software to run their business. And here are 10 other open source companies to watch.

-- "The abrupt sale of the Minneapolis Star Tribune to Avista Capital Partners the day after Christmas left many of the paper's employees wondering how soon they'd be shown the door.
But a little-known clause in the paper's contract with union journalists suggests that its employees might have good reason to look for the door--possibly in droves." They can be bought out of their contract.

-- Daylife launches in beta. Expect more to be blogged about it from NewAssignment.Net in the future.

-- Newspapers gear up to create social networks. “Imagine this as a combination of a file-sharing network and a social network for newspapers (…) all for the benefit of the reader, the advertiser and the publisher – everybody wins.”

-- When a local blogger for Nashville Talking called in sick there was an open call to help fill her void. "What happened next could only happen in the blogosphere."

-- NewScientist.com asks 50 leading thinkers what the world will be like in 50 years. Peter Norvig from Google: "Instead of typing a few words into a search engine, people will discuss their needs with a digital intermediary, which will offer suggestions and refinements. The result will not be a list of links, but an annotated report (or a simple conversation)..."

-- Some interesting diatribes on the recent wave of news companies striking deals with online giants to create new business models. It seems the herd is on the move.

-- Fake news fools thousands of Diggers. "Someone - ideally a third party we trust - should start a star rating system similar to what works so well on eBay."

-- Google Hits $500 a share. Go figure.

-- Forty foundations for the future of open source. Number 36: "Openly studying open source. Formal studies of the 'informal world of open-source software development.'"

-- NewAssignment.Net Afterthought: Robin Sloan, interviewed by NewAssignment.Net earlier this week is also one of the people responsible for EPIC, a video on the future of media discussed by Steve Fox here.