Image search isn't just for the Yahoo index anymore; images posted to the Flickr photo sharing service will now show up in searches on Yahoo.

In the palatial lead-lined offices of WebProNews headquarters, your friendly neighborhood scribes discussed black and white photography for a few minutes today. I had attached a trio of black and white postcards to my monitor. The pictures featured a huge collection of jazz players posing on a Harlem street, a Leibovitz shot of a very young Grateful Dead, and a misty night image of the Pont Neuf, taken in the 1930s.

We were talking about why black and white photographs have appeal. Jason Lee Miller suggested that the oeuvre strips away the distractions that a full color image can bring, and I'm inclined to think that is correct.

Looking for black and white photographs from among all levels of photographers became a little more rewarding with Yahoo's announcement today. Lingxian Ding posted at the Yahoo! Search Blog how the service now has Flickr integration:

Try searching for funny photos and you'll find hilarious and wacky Flickr photos of animals, kids, and signs. Searching for things that people think are funny is a good example of a query where combining what the community knows (and tags) with what algorithms can compute can lead to better search results.
If you are looking for striking photos, try searching for interesting photos. Sifting through these images makes me wish I could take a few months off to travel the world and just take pictures.
Searches that turn up results from Flickr will display them underneath the sponsored search results. This exposes more of the Yahoo userbase to the Flickr community. Images in Flickr tend to reflect the more dedicated focus of their photographers, and many are professional quality photos.

That exposure may not be highly desired by the Flickr community, though. Commentary from Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield appearing on Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection explained why it took time for Flickr to be integrated with Yahoo Search:

"We had been holding off on adding Flickr photos to Yahoo! image search's index until we had the opt-out system built since not including photos from people (who) don't want them in there seems a lot more important than including images from people who do want them in there.
In general, though it'd be good for Flickr (the business) if Flickr photos placed highly and were well-represented in the image search indexes, it often isn't what the people who use Flickr want. So, better to err on the side of caution."
Flickr image contributors have not been universally pleased at being acquired by Yahoo. We have to wonder what will happen if those contributors decide to opt-out of Yahoo's search en masse.

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The US Patent and Trademark Office awarded Google a curious patent on Tuesday, filed for in 2000. The patent covers a "system and method for supporting editorial opinion in the ranking of search results." Observers are still uncertain if the patent is merely an "artifact" or a signal for a new direction in Google News.

The patent application has some familiar names on it: Krishna Bharat, who invented Google News; and Marissa Mayer, Google's resident genius hottie executive.

Covered in the patent is the introduction of human editors to the process who decide if a source is "favored" or "non-favored."

From Bill Slawski's exploration of the patent:

1. Favored Sources - Identified sources of useful or authoritative content on the desired subject.
2. Non-Favored Sources - Identified as sources of misinformation or over-promotion on that subject.
Example
For the query theme "sites that provide free downloads," web sites providing free software downloads would be considered "favored sources" and web sites that mislead search engines with words such as "free" and "download" (popularly known as "spam techniques"), but do not in fact provide access to free downloads, would be considered "non-favored sources."
There's much discussion on the subject already, with a few speculating that it could signal a move into social search or a new direction for Google News. The timing is the most interesting part. Late last Spring Marissa Mayer spoke of changes coming to Google News. Also a recent deal between Google and the Associated Press was cited by Google as a harbinger of a new product on the horizon.

Does the awarding of this patent fall into play there?

Google patent

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A neo-Nazi activist's call for violence of a Canadian lawyer on his Blogspot blog and his Website prompted that lawyer and others to request Canadian regulators to authorize ISPs to block Internet content.

Bill White, a White supremacist based in Virginia, posted the address of Jewish attorney Richard Warman on his blog and called for Canadians to "take violent action" against him. White accused Warman of organizing a government conspiratorial attack on an anti-Semitic political activist.

White admits that during a radio interview he was confronted with the possibility that someone might kill Warman. White responded, "I hope they do. He deserves to be killed."

Google was notified of the White's posting on his blog, Dossier Noir, and promptly removed it, citing violation of their terms of service. White claims first that he set up a second Blogspot blog, Dosier Noir, and that "hackers" subsequently restored the original after infiltrating Google's system the next day.

On his Website, White calls for the violent overthrow of the Canadian government and media, and the extermination and expatriation of "Jewry," calling those of the Jewish race "soulless" and "demons."

Warman, with the help of telecommunications consultant Mark Goldberg, appealed to Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to authorize Canadian carriers to block the websites containing illegal material.

"I have never seen a more compelling case to put before the CRTC," writes Goldberg. "Frankly, if the CRTC denies our request, they are washing their hands of the powers granted to them by Parliament."

The situation brings in some difficult questions for observers. Goldberg said this was the first time the CRTC has been asked to consider a petition of this sort. The first issue commentators bring up is freedom of speech, which even in the U.S. where protections are strong, a basic Civics course warns that incendiary speech is not always covered. White's call for the execution of a specific person and all associated with their race most like counts as particularly incendiary.

Others are concerned for the impact government regulation, specifically the powers granted to ISPs to control content, would have on the Net Neutrality movement. Not all believe that this particular case extends that far, but others fear the slippery slope of set precedents.

But Goldberg follows up with his rebuttal:

"There is no slippery slope to consider in assessing this request. There is no need to debate what constitutes free speech in this case. A call to murder an individual is what we are talking about."

Internet regulation, Free speech, Net Neutrality

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Search and advertising services from Google are part of the China.com experience for visitors to the portal site.

China.com, owned by Nasdaq-traded CDC Corporation, inked a deal with Google to provide the portal with its technology. Google powers the search on China.com, and a statement from CDC also noted, "China.com and Google will cooperate across several areas including branding, content and advertising operations."

Under the agreement, Google will provide search engine technology for China.com to support searches of its English and traditional Chinese content by its users. China.com was one of the first Internet portals in the nation, which is seeing a rapidly-increasing class of Internet users entice US companies to move into that market.

China.com has launched a group of websites focused on various countries and regions to help global businesses access the increasing affluent consumers in China, one of the fastest growing consumer markets in the world. The portal also offers online gaming and mobile applications.

"By harnessing Google's innovative technology to China.com's deep understanding of the China market, we can rapidly expand the user base and generate new revenue opportunities for both companies," said Dr. Xiaowei Chen, Executive Director and CFO of China.com.

The revenue does seem to be rising for online advertising. A study performed by China Computer World Research in China cited Chinese firms spending $215 million on search advertising for the first half of 2006.

That figure should continue to move upward as more Chinese businesses see the benefit of paid search and other online ad options. They represent a way to reach an Internet userbase estimated to be upwards of 100 million people in China, a number that has also been ticking upward.

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Tags: Google, China.com

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When pressuring a major corporation to comply with a major government mandate, it's a good idea to commence communications with said company's legal department. The sales team is generally clueless about these matters. The Brazilian government couldn't care less who they talk to at Google, but Google thinks they should try.

Brazil filed suit against Google for failure to comply with court orders seeking the Mountain View, Calif.-based company to unhand information about Orkut criminals.

Orkut, Google's social networking site, is very popular in Brazil, and recently became the center of a large investigation into child pornography, racism, soccer hooligans, presidential assassinations plots, and drug trafficking. Google agreed to shut down certain areas of the site associated with the illegal activity, and promised to aid in the criminal investigation.

Brazilian officials say that Google has been ignoring court orders to cooperate, and have asked Brazilian courts to fine the company nearly $70 million plus about $94,000 per day until they comply. If Google still refuses, officials are seeking to shut down Google Brazil altogether.

But Google says authorities have been making their demands to Google's Brazilian office, which is stacked waist-high with salespeople, not lawyers. All the lawyers are in the US, along with the servers that host the Orkut service.

Google has already participated in some investigations, but cannot field requests unless they go through the US legal system first.

Google, Orkut,

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Ex-PayPal chief technology officer Chuck Geiger has taken on the executive vice-president of technology and engineering role for Ask.com.

The former eBay and PayPal man will oversee worldwide site engineering for Ask.com, the company announced. Geiger also received the reins to Bloglines, the online feed reader service Ask acquired in 2005.

Jim Lanzone, CEO of Ask, praised his new hire. "Chuck has a great balance of technology, business, and mentorship abilities that will help Ask.com's technology groups scale domestically and internationally. With Chuck's help and expertise, we hope to take our technology organization to the next level."

His work at eBay looks like heady stuff. Ask said, "Geiger was responsible for creating the next generation architecture, systems, and platform at eBay." He had been vice-president of architecture and product strategy at the online marketplace.

Geiger said he is looking forward to applying his experience at Ask, and driving further advancements for search.

Ask has seen some gains in the past year. The company has been rolling out and updating services, like the Smart Answers feature, for its search users.

Those probably helped Ask in gaining both by comScore's measurements and NetRatings's assessment. NetRatings credited Ask with handling 150 million US search queries in July 2006, while comScore cited 338 million US queries through the Ask network for July.

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Tag: Ask.com

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As video-sharing sites flood the Internet in the wake of YouTube's blinding success, it becomes an exercise of patience to find one that sets itself apart with a new approach. Clones are only interesting in biology. But DivX's recently launched Stage6 could very well be the successor instead of the clone.

You'll notice right away when pulling up Stage6 the high resolution of the videos, which is a testament to the DivX compression technology and a diversion from the low-quality Flash-based offerings of YouTube and other wannabes.

Therein lies the barrier with the advantage, writes GigaOM's Katie Fehrenbacher. "We could only watch videos by downloading the DivX media player," she writes, "and video makers can only upload content with DivX-encoded files - both of which can be a barrier to wide adoption."

Much of the approach is per usual: featured "hottest" videos, tagging, search, sharing. But Stage6 also presents numerous channels that offer music videos, movie trailers, content from G4TV, the Cooking Channel, TreeHuggerTV, a French and a German channel, anime, College Humor…well, you name it, as long as its not adult.

The killer app here though, is that DivX technology can be burned to disc and played on DVD players and other devices. Fehrenbacher reports that company is working on a download-to-own service, that could rocket the business model to iPod levels.

This makes the upcoming DivX IPO an attractive speculation (and gamble). Investors expect the IPO could raise up to $135 million.

In the Stage6 publisher agreement, the company seeks to make it clear to users that they still own their content, which not an allowance made by many other user-generated content sites. From the agreement:

Let's make one thing clear up front: you own your content. We do not own your content. Nothing in this agreement changes that in any way. Let's make another thing clear: we are not trying to screw you. (If you're a bit of a cynic about these types of agreements, we understand. But hear us out before judging us. We're trying to do the right thing.)
With the technology, the right business model, good management, proper licensing, and a good foundation of user trust, Stage6 could reach great heights.

DivX Stage6

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AOL is strengthening its own entry in the battle against the likes of YouTube and Google Video. Early this morning, the company announced that AOL Video has formed partnerships with 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group.

"We're very excited to add digital movie downloads and additional TV content to the already wide-variety of content that we offer through the AOL Video portal," stated Kevin Conroy, Executive Vice President of AOL, in a press release. "As we continue to build AOL Video into the best source to find millions of free as well as pay-to-download videos, we'll continue to add more and more high quality branded content to the mix . . . ."

Overly enthusiastic rhetoric is a common feature of company statements, but it looks like the deal will bring some genuinely interesting content to AOL Video. FX, Speed, and FunnyBone are among the new on-demand channels. And between Fox and Fox Classic Television, viewers will be able to watch fan favorites "24" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

Peter Levinsohn, the president of Fox Digital Media, was quoted in the press release. "We are eager to continue to develop the market for digital downloads by applying our premium content to one of the Web's strongest brands," he said. "AOL's wide usage will increase our ability to get Fox's electronically-delivered movie and TV product in front of a huge number of consumers."

The press release described AOL Video as "a one-stop, high-quality entertainment destination to find, watch and share millions of free streaming and pay-to-download video content from across the Web, broadcast and cable television, and movies." An overly enthusiastic statement? Maybe. But it's a pretty accurate one.

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Google added its name to two lists of corporate heavy-hitters who've teamed up with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and its international sister agency ICMEC to combat child pornography on the Internet.

The Technology Coalition and the Financial Coalition Against Child Pornography include a Blue Chip roster of tech and finance companies that will develop and deploy technology aimed at disrupting the ability of predators to use the Internet to exploit children or traffic in child porn.

That roster, for the Technology Coalition are AOL, Yahoo!, Microsoft, EarthLink, Google, and United Online, who will work to enhance knowledge sharing in the industry, improve law enforcement tools, and research perpetrators' technologies in order to enhance industry efforts.

Google will also be joining the Financial Coalition Against Child Pornography, a group of leading banks, credit card companies, third party payment companies, and Internet services companies working to stop the flow of funds to child pornography web sites. The Financial Coalition was formed in 2005 under the guidance of Senator Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala), Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

Members of the Financial Coalition Against Child Pornography are: America Online, American Express Company, Authorize.Net, Bank of America, Chase, Citigroup, Discover Financial Services LLC, e-gold, First Data Corporation, First National Bank of Omaha, Google, MasterCard, Microsoft, North American Bancard, Nova Information Systems, PayPal, First PREMIER Bank/PREMIER Bankcard, Standard Chartered Bank, Visa, Wells Fargo, and Yahoo! Inc.

"Both Coalitions exemplify the best spirit of private industry, as these companies set aside their competitive zeal to work together to protect the world's most vulnerable citizens," said Ernie Allen, President and Chief Executive Officer of NCMEC and ICMEC. "Google is to be commended for bringing its considerable expertise to the fight."

"Google has joined these efforts as part of its zero-tolerance policy on child pornography and those who would promote it," said Nicole Wong, Associate General Counsel, Products and Intellectual Property, of Google Inc.

"Participation in these coalitions will be critical to our efforts to protect children on the Internet, which include actively supporting law enforcement efforts to track down predators, finding new technological solutions, and participating in industry-wide initiatives."

In 2001, the CyberTipline operated by NCMEC had received more than 24,400 reports of child pornography. By the beginning of 2006, that number had climbed to more than 340,000.

If members of the public have knowledge of a child pornography web site, they are encouraged to report it immediately to the CyberTipline managed by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (www.cybertipline.com or 1-800-843-5678).

Citizens outside the United States can call the CyberTipline or can contact any number of hotlines around the world. To learn more about these hotlines, visit the web site of the International Association of Internet Hotlines (INHOPE) at www.inhope.org.

Google, NCMEC

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The German-language version of Wikipedia may see some changes in the very near future. A new editing system, designed to reduce the amount of vandalism (and plain inaccuracy), is going to be implemented. These issues are commonly identified as the online encyclopedia's biggest problems.

Nate Anderson of Ars Technica explained the overhaul. "In the German system, any user will still be allowed to make edits to any article. Those edits won't show up in the live version of the site, though, until a registered user with a certain level of time and experience approves the changes." The exact details don't seem to have been worked out just yet.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales told CNET, however, that the feature "will likely be instituted . . . by the end of August." "This is going to be a time when (the Germans) are going to be first to an innovation," he said. Explaining the motivation behind the change, Wales explained, "We want to let anybody edit, but we don't want to show vandalized versions."

The editor of the Online Journalism Review seemed to lend his support. "They've earned the right to experiment with it in any way they see fit," Robert Niles said, "so I'm rooting for them to get it right and make it even better than it is."

If the changes to the German version of Wikipedia are effective, expect to see them implemented on a wider scale. "It would be fun for me to announce to the press that the front page of Wikipedia is open for public editing for the first time in five years," Wales told CNET. Of course, if the site is "fixed," we may lose a reliable source of humor.

Tag: Wikipedia

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