DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Ask Jeeves announced some keen new search technologies at Etech. The main new innovation, which comes from the founder of Teoma (which Ask.com acquired several years ago) won’t be online for two weeks, but it’s compelling: basing relevance rankings on clusters of expert communities rather than on inbound link-count (aka PageRank). It’s a mouthful of buzzwords but it may mean their results are better. Certainly it’s likely to mean the results for ambiguous queries are more diverse, e.g. a search for ‘apple’ should turn up both Apples and apples — which is not the case at Google today.

Jeeves’ new technology can’t be seen for a couple weeks on their text search, but can be seen on their image search. Compare Ask Jeeves’ image search results for John with Google’s image search results for John. The Google results shows a bunch of people you’ve never heard of, with one exception; the Jeeves results page shows Travolta, Elton, Wayne, Kennedy, Cassavettes, etc.

But this may be a corner case. I tried numerous other searches, both ambiguous (bread, cardinals) and not (herman miller aeron chair). Results in all cases were similar. Neither engine showed a picture of a shrub in a search for ‘bush.’

The promise is there, even if the implementation doesn’t yet fulfill the promise. It’s worth watching.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has prepared a print ad in response to the Auto Alliance’s recent ridiculous claim that modern cars are “virtually emissions free”, which I deconstructed last Wednesday.

The UCS weighs in with additional objections to the automakers’ misleading ad on their new Automakers vs. the People campaign.

Unfortunately, the UCS doesn’t have the budget of the big auto makers. Pronounce “money” as “reach.” Throw a few dollars their way by following the link at the bottom of the campaign page.

The A9 team at Amazon.com launched a new extension to their search engine, just in time for ETECH. Jeff Bezos announced it during this morning’s “High-Order Bits” presentations.

By default, A9.com’s search results contain three columns: web results, image results, and a button column that gives one-click access to other types of results, such as Movies and Books. These buttons provide functionality similar to the text links at the top of both Google’s and Yahoo’s results pages, which offer access to images, USENET, news, Yahoo’s directory, Froogal, etc.

A9 allows users to customize their search-result columns. Users can personalize their results pages to show the types of documents they’re most likely to be searching for. This is a cool thing, and will soon be a feature of every major search engine.

But the really cool announcement of the day is that developers can create their own A9 search columns. This allows what Bezos called “domain experts” to syndicate “vertical search” results. For example, I could build an A9 search-results column for debris.com, if in fact I’d written enough about a particular topic that merited a syndicated search feed to a major search engine.

There are already dozens of custom syndicated vertical-search result “columns” available, including the NYTimes, Flickr, PubMed, NASA, etc. I predict the number will grow very quickly, as site owners realize the value of putting their content in front of the eyeballs of A9 users.

In a sense, A9’s OpenSearch technology is like Apple’s Sherlock, which is a search technology that accepts plug-ins to provide vertical search results via syndication. Two key differences are that OpenSearch is built on open standards like RSS, and A9 is a website (available to 100% of web users) whereas Sherlock is a proprietary software product (available to ~5% of computer users).

See also Cory Doctorow’s notes: Bezos on vertical search and A9

The Bush Administration’s assault on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge continues. You can do one small thing to help save it: sign the Citizens’ RollCall to voice your dissent.

ANWR “talking points” from John Kerry:

• The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s 19 million acres comprise one of the last places on earth where an intact expanse of arctic and sub arctic lands remains protected.
• Drilling in the Arctic Refuge can’t make even a small dent in meeting America’s energy needs. U.S. Geological Survey scientists estimate that there is very likely only enough oil to supply America’s needs for six months. And oil companies admit that, even that, won’t be available for at least 10 years.
• An irreplaceable natural treasure, the Arctic Refuge is home to caribou, polar bears, grizzly bears, wolves, golden eagles, snow geese and more. Millions of other birds use the Arctic Refuge to nest and as a critical staging area on their migratory journeys.
• Of course, the Arctic Refuge supports more than wildlife. For a thousand generations, the Gwich’in people of Northeast Alaska and Northwest Canada have depended on it and lived in harmony with it. To them, the Arctic Coastal Plain is sacred ground.

See also my previous entries about ANWR.

The special conference rate is $195/night plus 10% tax. This doesn’t include internet access in the room ($11/day). Movies cost extra ($13 apiece). The two bottles of water on the counter have price tags on them ($4 each). They gave me a key to the mini-bar when I checked in, with the message that thinking about opening it would be billed to the room at $3 per incident.

I was happy to see a placard in the bothroom requesting that visitors conserve water. But the sign didn’t indicate which of the two shower heads would do that for me.

To be fair, I should point out the positive aspects of the room: the alarm clock and plumbing and light fixtures work. I can’t hear the neighbors. The maids don’t knock on the door at 6:00 AM. The windows open (even on the 12th floor). But I still feel like I’m getting ripped off.

So, I rented out the room’s second bed to three poor backpackers from Europe. I’m only charging them $150/night.

No, not $150 apiece! What kind of guy do you think I am?