Specialized Search Engines: Yahoo! Creative Commons Search

Yahoo has launched a Beta version of a search engine that helps users find stuff published by authors that want it to be shared or reused, under certain conditions.

The Creative Commons Search searches content across the Web that has a Creative Commons license.

This niche search engine market known as vertical search is a trend that is emerging among search engines. This article says:

Many analysts consider specialized, or vertical, search one of the most important emerging trends in the industry and one that could threaten the dominance of major search players such as Yahoo, Google and MSN.

There are many benefits that can be gained from specialized search engines. Targeted advertizing is definitely more eficient that regular advertising. For a user that wants to make a purchase in retail (see froogle) or travel (see farechase), this type of service is much more centered in the user’s needs. A giant search engine can crawl much of information available but cannot really understand the context in which your making your search.

March 28, 2005 | Tags: e-marketing | Leave a Comment

Expo 2005 Aichi Japan

The 2005 World Exposition is openning tomorow. It will last for 185 days and until September. The organization is expecting 15 million visitors during the Expo.

The Expo 2005 message is focused on the Nature’s Wisdom and how can science and technology foster a sound balance between human life and the environment. For some pictures check the BBC Gallery on the Expo.

The Expo site is very good with lots of useful information. If you are more technical oriented please read the IT Project - Core Service Systems article for detailed informantion on all the IT systems that suppport the expo.

I would really like to visit it. It’s been a while since the Expo ‘92 in Seville with its great architectural structures and the Expo 98 in Lisbon with so many wonderful attractions like the Oceans Pavilion. I have very good memories from both of them. It’s on the other side of thew world and a completely different culture and that’s probably why is such a desirable Expo.

March 24, 2005 | | 2 Comments

uShip it!

uShip is uShip is an online marketplace for shipping and moving. This new company enables people that want to ship something to save money by using excess cargo capacity on other people’s cars. vans, trucks, etc.

The uShip marketplace allows shippers to list large items, auction goods, household moves, vehicles & boats, specialty goods, commercial freight, people and pets, livestock and agriculture, office moves, and labor only requests and receive bids from thousands of feedback-rated drivers including moving companies, freight carriers, vehicle and pet transporters, van lines and independent drivers - many of whom are traveling along the route of the shipment with extra cargo space.

Their business model is based on charging a percentage fee to Drivers. They’re using the same business model as eBay but applied to services. A lot of companies, including elance, are trying the eBay model on services. The one-to-one shipping services is a business that more than anything else is complementary to the eBay service.

Again the user takes control of how, when and at what price.

March 18, 2005 | Tags: day to day | 2 Comments

garlic mushrooms

Last night as I went home and passed by the local grocery store I bought a couple of fresh ingredients. Fresh bread, fresh chestnut mushrooms (the white ones) and fresh Ruccula! I also bought a few strawberries to surprise her as she really likes them and was coming home late. At home, I searched for one of the many reciped books and found this lovely garlic mushrooms recipe.

Ingredients:

1 table spoon olive oil
50 g unsalted butter
3 garlic cloves, crushed
500g chestnut mushrooms, thickly sliced
100 ml white wine
4 tablespoons double cream
500 g strogonoff meat
sea salt and freshly ground balck pepper
a bunch of flat leaf Ruccula

Cooking:

Put the oil, butter and garlic ina a large saucepan and heat until de butter melts. Stir in the mushrooms and cook for 5 - 10 minutes until softened.

Add the wine and cream and bring to the boil. Reduce heat slightly and continue cooking until the liquid has reduced by half. Season to taste, leave a few Ruccula leaves on top and serve.

To cook the meat, put the oil and the garlic in the saucepan and stir until it starts to get yellow. Add salt and stir in the meat. Cook to your taste.

What a nice dinner! Ana tried it and repeated for 3 times! Fortunately there was some letfover so she can try it too today.

March 17, 2005 | Tags: day to day | 4 Comments

Web Application Usability Guidelines

The Introduction to Apple Human Interface Guidelines will surely come in hand in designing the new wave of Web Applications that use rich interfaces. The document is organized into helpful sections: User Input, Drag and Drop, Text, Icons, Cursors, Menus, Windows, Dialogs, Controls, and Layout Examples.

The combined use XMLHttpRequest and Javascript technologies is providing Web developers the ability to design Web applications that work much the same way as traditional applications do. Which if done correctly will enable a better experience for the user.

March 11, 2005 | Tags: usability | Leave a Comment

Zope: lend or borrow money in a eBay-like marketplace

Zopa is a new dotcom company with an innovative business model. eBay doesn’t handle any stock, logistics or goods but it gets its share of each deal. On Zopa people can borrow money from people that want to lend it. All of this in exchange for a 1% fee to Zopa up front.

Richard Duvall from Zopa believes his company will lead a social revolution on the way people dela with lendings:

…it brings the benefit of wholesale markets to ordinary people. Where companies once loaned from banks, they now go to the bond markets where lenders tender for their business. The Zopa model does a similar thing for anyone who wants a loan.

New dotcom businesses, new business models and more industries involved. Only the must-make-money-too principle is now different.

March 10, 2005 | Tags: e-business | 1 Comment

Dr. Digital: Computer Doctors and Entrepreneurs

Having problems with your computer? Then, take it to the the Computer Doctors at Dr. Digital!

You can now take you computer to the see the Doctor too. Dr. Digital’s Doctors are focused on solving computer problems.

Dr. Digital is the work of two Entrepreneurs that saw an opportunity in the saturated personal computer market. Having to deal with a growing demand for computer support, they thought of an idea that would not only create a better way for them to give support to their current clients but also facilitate the contact from new clients that would now have a place where they could have their computers examined.

Starting a Business is much more complicated and envolves much more hard work that all the messages regarding entrepreneurship and innovation will make you believe. Nevertheless, the rewards for creating your own business are cleary some of the best you will ever have. And that’s why many people try it anyway. That’s what’s called Entrepreneurship. And that’s what the guys from Dr. Digital are doing.

One of the biggest challenges in starting a new business is getting the initial investment. You can think of rents, office stuff and many other things. But this is one of the places where creativity and hard work have their place. When the moment came for the guys from Dr. Digital to chose a place to open business they did a quick research and found a beatifully located store that was rented but not being used by a family member from one of the partner’s. The place needed some building work and after one month (days and nights) hard work and a many trips to IKEA and Leroy&Merlin they managed to build what is now a very well designed place with some details specific to their Business. It’s called bootstrapping. And that’s what the guys from Dr. Digital are doing.

Dr. Digital’s opening happened on February, 26th. Since then they have been receiving patients and making examinations. The number of clients has been growing fast and they have already start thinking in hiring their first employee.

I wish them all the luck and hope more Entrepreneurs follow their steps. In the meanwhile if you’re having computer problems, go see the Computer Doctor at Rua de Luanda 914A, Parede. When you get there look for the big Dr. Digital sign.

March 9, 2005 | | Leave a Comment

The girls help Simba (the cat) find a new home

Batixa, Cláudia and Lénia were all trying very hard to find a home to Simba. He’s an adorable and kind yellow feline that was looking for a new home. Among other things Batixa decided to post an ad about Simba on LoQUo Lisboa. And it happened. A girl answered the ad and sent an email to batixa. She then contacted Lénia and despite the sadness Simba got a new home which incidentally has a white female cat waiting for him… Thanks to the all the girls Simba has a new home.

March 9, 2005 | Tags: day to day | Leave a Comment

Comment on the Usabilty Course in Madrid

There are many reasons why I really liked the Usability Course two weekends ago in Madrid. The course consisted on theory and exercises on a few of the main usability processes that are used. It was very fulfilling since we did a lot of practical exercises on the class including Heuristics Analysis, User Testing and Card Sorting.

Heuristics Analysis
We started by doing a general analysis on an example site. The iberia.es website was chosen for the evaluation. We found out that it has so many serious problems that you start to think if there’s really someone with responsibility for the website or if the main goal is really to sell tickets… We then proceeded to make a formal evaluation using the heuristics list and writing down on the process deliverable (aka. word document). For this step me and Ivo choose the chip7.pt website. We already knew from previous experiences in using the website that it has some serious problems. The conclusions of the evaluation confirmed that with some minor changes the chip7 website could be much much better. The chip7 case is even worst since it considered the biggest e-commerce website in Portugal and it’s mother company claims to be experts in Usability…

User Testing
On User Testing we prepared all the process with maximum detail. On the day before the tests we designed the scenarios and the tasks in order for the user to evaluate the website. With the help from Eduardo we choose optize.es has the testing site. Lara (spanish girl, 20 years-old, good Web knowledge) was our user and we all watched has she managed to complete the tasks successefully. The conclusions showed that she did complete the tasks successfully but that it took too much time than it would take in normal conditions. All this form a power user that used to buy air tickets from the Internet… The results were have tremendous value and it showed that Real User Testing is one of the most powerful tools in doing Usability Evaluation on a Website.

Prototyping and Card Sorting
Evaluation techniques are very useful when you have to test interfaces that already exist. But you can start having user-centered design even before that. Prototyping and Card Sorting are 2 techniques that let’s you start doing just that. Prototyping is the technique that allows you to do rapid prototyping design with low or high level mockups that can be used to evaluate a design or layout.

Card Sorting is the best known Information Architecture technique. It consists on the selective grouping of several name, ids, etc so that the information in order to organize website information just as it is on the users mind.
Prototyping is a technique used to allow the fast design and testing of websites. Using low or high-level mockups you can begin designing your storyboards which can be used to do Heuristic or User Testing. Idealistically, with a few design-test iteractions this process will provide a much better interface.

Usability in other devices: mobiles, ATMs and tactile screens.
On the last talk that was given by the kindly Miquel Nieto from evolucy we spoke about Usability on non-Web devices. Much of this talk was focused on the issues regarding doing user-centered design and development for non-standard interfaces. We covered such diverse devices as mobiles, tactile screens and ATMs. One of the key points I took from Miquel’s talk was the difficulty in designing for the mobile industry. In the Web world we have 2 major incompatibility problems: Internet Explorer and Firefox. But on mobiles that number can multiplied by hundreds. Dealing with different screens and keyboards is probably the biggest challenge in this industry.

Note 1: Eduardo and Miquel were tireless all the time. They were completely available every time anyone had any specific or general question.

Note 2: Everyone at the course was very nice. Despite some insignificant initial language misunderstandings teamwork was achieved with great success during all the weekend. Thanks you to you all!

One final note: I had talked to Eduardo tens of times before this course but only on the opportunity to meet him personally I was able to confirm this (personally) long time idea that Eduardo is a great communicator. When Eduardo is explaining something he’s always concerned that you really understand what he is talking about and he is unrestless about it. Thank you Eduardo for all the suppport.

update: a few photos from the course are now online.

March 9, 2005 | Tags: day to day, usability | 1 Comment

The Sound of Silence (of car alarms)

Now, the news that Car Alarms Could Be Cut To 90 Seconds seems like one of those things that people wanted for a long time but the economy just wouldn’t let them. Now the British are doing it.

This reminds me of another people/economy debate that has been taking place here in Portugal for years.

The facts:

Maximum legal alcohol level in the blood is 0.5 (aproximately a glass of wine or a beer).
Car accident numbers in Portugal are really impressive. We top major charts in those numbers in Europe.
Studies show that alchool was the number one car-accident reason.

This facts led the Portuguese goverment to lower that alcohol level to 0.2. And it stayed like that for… 3 months. I have never really understand why they replaced 0.2 with a no-aparent-reason 0.5. But there’s a reason! And a really good one. Wine makers complained that the new alcohol level was drasticaly reducing their sales and that that it would influence the amount of taxes paid by the industry. So we’re on the 0.5 and the goverment prefers to have a high number of deaths and seriously injured people that to have their related taxes reduced. Even if the reason could be has cold as econnomic, aren’t they spending even more than that on medical care?

March 9, 2005 | Tags: day to day | Leave a Comment

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My name is André Ribeirinho, I'm an entrepreneur who lives in Portugal
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Adegga is a social wine discovery service. The idea is to take the complexity out of wine and allow people to discover wines based other people's choices.

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