Google opens up the secrets of search
June 29, 2006
Posted by Sue in : General , add a comment
The Times
times online
June 28, 2006
By Rhys Blakely
Is Google open enough about how its search engine works? Have your say here
Google is pledging to demystify the hidden workings of its search engine as it returns to its founding business plan – to make all the world’s information searchable online.
The move to refocus on its core business comes amid criticism that Google has risked losing its way after a breakneck drive to diversify into other areas.
Some services, such as Google Finance, the company’s venture into business information, have widely been dismissed as a flop, attracting only a fraction of the users who visit rival sites from competitors such as Yahoo!.
The long-time darling of the internet sector has also admitted that it has come to be perceived as overly secretive in the way it collects and orders information. To counter that, high-level executives are taking part in a roadshow to shed light on how Google searches the web and ranks content.
“Let’s be clear here, there are no guys in a backroom smoking cigars,” Douglas C Merrill, a Google vice-president who works on search, told Times Online.
The remarks come as businesses discover that ranking highly on Google’s search tool – which accounts for as much as 80 per cent of the market in some countries – is essential to trade on the web. At least one e-commerce site has sued Google this year for refusing to reveal why it was allegedly blacklisted in Google’s search results.
For its part, the search engine today insisted it is concentrating on making searches “automatic and objective” through the use of algorithms – complex mathematical formulas – to order information.
“Search is hard,”Mr Merrill said. “It’s not enough to have an answer, it has to be the right one. You have to respond to what the user meant – not what he said.
“And you can’t do this by hand because the web moves too fast … Up to 20 per cent of the content on it changes every month.”
The most famous tool Google uses to order content is its PageRank system (named after its inventor and Google co-founder, Larry Page). It looks to see how many people have linked to a page from their own sites, to determine its popularity and usefulness.
“This is an incredibly simple and powerful tool … and because you can work this out by doing the math, it is automatic and objective,” Mr Merrill said.
However, despite Google saying that by briefing people on PageRank it is being more transparent, critics will point out that details of the system are already widely known. Indeed, it is just about the only mechanism Google uses in its search engine that has been widely disclosed – as many as 300 others remain under wraps.
Continued… Read the complete article at The Times / times online
Will Google’s Gbuy Go Toe to Toe With Neteller?
June 13, 2006
Posted by Sue in : General , add a comment
INVESTING
The Motley Fool
How Evil Will Google Become?
By Tim Beyers (TMF Mile High)
June 13, 2006
Maybe I’ve still got evil on the brain. A week after the rerelease of The Omen on the so-called day of the devil — you know, 6/6/2006 — I’m wondering when Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) will finally give in to its darker side.
June 28 may offer another temptation. That’s the date an RBC Capital Markets analyst says the search king will launch Gbuy, an online payments service similar to eBay’s (Nasdaq: EBAY) PayPal. The fear is that, with Gbuy, Google could get unprecedented knowledge of what we buy and where we buy from, which would then allow it to charge huge premiums for its most effective advertising tools.
That’s a legit concern, to be sure, but it’s not why I’m writing today. Instead, I wonder whether the Big Goo, as Foolish friend Seth Jayson calls it, will embrace another kind of evil: Internet gambling.
The answer matters more than you might think. PayPal, you see, doesn’t accept payments from gambling sites. And that leaves millions of potential customers to other providers, including Neteller, a Pink Sheets-traded company.
Neteller is like PayPal in most respects, except that the London-based company specializes in processing online gaming payments. Poker sites such as PokerStars and PartyGaming’s Party Poker offer good examples. And it’s a big business — Neteller processed more than $7.3 billion U.S. in transactions during 2005. That’s a lot of, um, evil.
Can Google afford to ignore it? Calls to Google PR requesting comment were not returned by press time. Nevertheless, the company may not have much of a choice, at least here in the U.S. Congressman Bob Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia, has introduced a bill in the House that would, if passed, ban money transfers for most forms of online gambling, including poker.
Still, any meaningful legislation could be months or years away. Meanwhile, PayPal remains the heavy in U.S. online payments processing, handling $9 billion worth of transactions in the first quarter. Reducing that edge won’t be easy. History says that Big Goo’s strategy will be to zig as PayPal zags, hoping to drag consumers along for the ride. And that makes sense. Too bad there aren’t many ways to do online payments differently. Unless, of course, Google decides evil isn’t evil after all.
Read Motley Fool Related Links
Resource for Online Poker Affiliates Debuts
June 11, 2006
Posted by Sue in : General , add a comment
09-06-06
Las Vegas, NV – 06/07/06 – A new, premiere online resource specifically for online poker affiliates debuted today at PokerAffiliatePrograms.com.
PokerAffiliatePrograms.com “PAP” gives affiliate marketers who promote online poker access to expert articles, tools, community forums, specialized content for players and program alerts.
The current online poker craze has been fueled by popular, televised tournaments which have escalated poker players to star status. A beneficiary of the increase in mainstream acceptance is online poker, which allows players to gamble from their home computer. Poker affiliates work with poker operators online to build traffic to poker rooms, in exchange for revenue sharing or flat commissions.
According to DigitalJournal.com, online poker revenues have grown from $82.7 million in 2001 to $2.4 billion (all numbers US) in 2005; last year, more than $60 billion was gambled on poker sites; and every day, 1.8 million players toss their ante into the virtual pots of the Internet. This represents an incredible revenue opportunity for poker affiliates. PokerAffiliatePrograms.com provides all the needed tools and resources for poker affiliates to succeed in this growing market.
“There is no doubt that poker is hot right now and will continue to grow, in fact online poker operators are expected to rake in over $20 billion dollars annually by 2010,” said Lou Fabiano, founder of PokerAffiliatePrograms.com. “With the right resources and guidance poker affiliates can command an enormous part of that revenue stream.”
Poker Affiliate Programs is backed by the oldest and largest online gambling affiliate community, CasinoAffiliatePrograms.com “CAP”. CAP’s Certified Partner program includes a rigorous review process for casino operators and is highly regarded in the online casino affiliate industry. Similar in nature, PAP will certify poker affiliate programs so that poker affiliates have one trusted source online.
About CasinoAffiliatePrograms.com
CasinoAffiliatePrograms.com “CAP” is the oldest and largest Internet gaming affiliate resource online. Casino Affiliate Programs features an active community forum, chat rooms, affiliate marketing tools, industry news/articles, scam alerts and a rigorous and distinguished certification process for casino affiliate programs. CAP Certified Partners are held in the highest regard and expected to protect the integrity of their affiliates and the industry as a whole.
(Manager’s Note: Dominique, founder of GamesandCasino.com and this blog, lends her skill and experience in the online gambling industry as a moderator to the new Poker Affiliates Program (PAP) as well as Casino Affiliate Programs (CAP) and Affiliate Programs Community (APC). She also serves on the advisory panels for the Association of Professional Casino Webmasters (APCW) and Casino Affiliate Convention (CAC).
Games and Casino Pairs Affiliate Programs With Their Terms and Conditions for Easy Reference
June 6, 2006
Posted by Sue in : General , add a comment
It’s important to know exactly what you are agreeing to when you join or partner an affiliate program. Games and Casino has just added Terms and Conditions for all of the affiliate programs Games and Casino has partnered with. Not only is this information important going into a relationship with a program, it’s important to have a record of existing terms and conditions for future reference.
Terms and Conditions for Casino Affiliate Programs
Terms and Conditions for Poker Affiliate Programs
Terms and Conditions for Bingo Affiliate Programs
Bookmark these pages for easy reference.
