Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Are You A Fonero?


I have been following the universal, wireless broadband vision furiously at this blog over the months. First Wimax, then xMax, but someone has come up with an idea that goes over the curve for its simplicity and practicability. And I read about that in the news earlier today, and only an hour earlier I ended up doing a technorati search on my Nepal blog, and it appeared that some Rebecca Mackinnon has been linking to my blog posts quite a lot, and from a respectable, experimental Harvard blog too. So I googled her, found her email address and emailed her to say thanks: all that helps the movement back there, I said. Then I proceeded to read a little of her, and bam, there she was, she sits on the board of this hot company.

My friend Martin Varsavsky has just made an exciting announcement: his new Wifi startup, FON, has received investment and backing from Google , Skype, Sequoia Capital, and Index Ventures. ........ (Disclosure: I am a member of FON's U.S. board of advisors) ......... Three months after Martin launched FON on his blog, the $21.7 million dollars worth of funding shows tremendous support for FON's vision: a global community of people who share WiFi connections, known as "Foneros" in a tribute to the company's Spanish origins.

Wow. This is quite circuitous, don't you think?

RConversation
RConversation: Microsoft takes down Chinese blogger
Techjournalism News :
Rebecca MacKinnon
North Korea zone
Rebecca MacKinnon - Berkman Center for Internet & Society
North Korea zone
IT Conversations: Newbies - Bloggercon III
Blogging, Journalism and Credibility
CJR Daily: Rebecca MacKinnon, Pretend Tourist No More

FON In The News

Speakeasy: No deal with FON, despite what FON says Seattle Post Intelligencer
Google, Skype Make Wi-Fi FON Red Herring
FON Raises $22 Million for Open Wi-Fi Access Sharing Converge Network Digest
FON Raises $21.7M Light Reading
Fon takes Freenet cue for WiFi hot spot plan
Globe and Mail, Canada

02/07/06 1:45 AM Update. I just saw someone on the FON Board who I have met personally when the guy was running for New York City Public Advocate. We had a brief conversation at the MeetUp.com headquarters hosted by Scott, the CEO. (Social Networking: Where The Internet Comes Down From The Clouds, MeetUp, LinkUp)

Andew RasiejAndew Rasiej is the Founder and current Chairman of MOUSE. He has also served on the New York City Board of Education’s task force on technology and has spearheaded several innovative projects that support efforts to bridge the "Digital Divide" in public education. He truly believes in the need for WiFi as a way to empower citizens to do more then connect to the internet and read email.

Rebecca MacKinnonRebecca MacKinnon was one of CNN’s youngest Bureau Chiefs (China, fluent in Chinese), named as a Global Leaders of Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum. She left CNN and became a fellow at Harvard’s Berkmen Center and founded Global Voices with Ethan Zuckerman.

Join the FON movement!

2:33 AM Update: Browsing around I bumped into this: WiFi Phone. In the works. It's all coming together: the chips are falling in place. The Skype people have funded FON, and Netgear is to carry Skype. The dots are connecting. (Internet Phones, Video Blogging, Nano)





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Monday, February 06, 2006

Kosmix: Desi Pride


Kosmix plans to take on Google in the search domain. There are two Indians at the helm. They are only starting out, but they got a track record. They are in the same league as the Google founders, only a few years behind, which is not a setback at all. All four went to Stanford together.

Google never really had a competitor, imitators in Yahoo and Microsoft yes, but this is the first true competition for them. We are all better of for it. Google only looks at how many other websites link to a website. Kosmix goes further. It makes sense of the content of a site, and categorizes them.

But Kosmix is just starting out. And it has a lot of work ahead. I wish it all the best.

If you think about it, when you do a search on Google, how often do you go beyond the first page of results, or the second or third? Most people do not go beyond the first. So showing 500 relevant and categorized results might be "stickier" than 500,000 so so results. But Kosmix got to prove itself.

"Kosmix", a novel approach to search by Cosmodex Andhra Cafe It narrows down the users search and produce accurate results for their query directly..... Kosmix analyzes the content of a website, and not only its URL referrer popularity. Results are categorized .. and the categories are answers to questions rather than general tags..... a novel approach to search, by rewarding registered users of the site with "loyalty points." The points can be redeemed for free Web traffic directed at a site of the users' choosing..... Since traffic is directed based on search terms, all traffic provided by the company is targeted.
Google got Indian competition - Kosmix Newindpress
New Kosmix Search Engine to Challenge Google DailyTech
Kosmix raises cash for a new search engine -- to compete with ...
SiliconBeat
Who is behind Kosmix?
Seattle Post Intelligencer
Gunning for Google VNUNet.com, Netherlands
Beating the Google search: a brief history Times Online, UK
Indians come up with Kosmix to challenge Google Sify, India
Start-up hopes to challenge Google San Jose Mercury News, USA
New Kosmix Search Engine to Challenge Google DailyTech, IL
Now for a healthier search Daily News & Analysis, India They missed buying Google twice. Now, Junglee co-founders Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan have founded a startup with dreams of matching the search giant..... The site claims to throw up better results on health topics. It searches the Internet to provide not only a link to sites for the related word but also divides it into various categories...... Larry Page and Sergey Brin, went to Stanford University with Rajaraman and Harinarayan...... “They are making an audaciously risky bet that they can crack the code on a vexing problem in search: finding the meaning, or at least the topic, of a web page” .... “What you can get with five minutes at this site is a hundred times what you can get at Google” Indians come up with reply to Google Indian Express, India

Visitors

5 January22:01Ameritech, United States
6 January14:39Telus Advanced Communications, Canada
6 January16:09AppliedTheory Corporation, United States

16 January12:23ONPT, Morocco
22 January05:24Univ. of Science Technology, Trondheim, Norway
23 January10:31Long Island University, Greenvale, United States
24 January10:16PCCW IMS Netvigator, Hong Kong S.A.R.
24 January22:08Sonera Corporation, Finland
30 January18:35California State University, Carson, United States
1 February16:09University of Illinois, Urbana, United States

3 February18:30V21, United Kingdom





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Monday, November 21, 2005

Email, Search, News



That is what most surfers spend time on, in that order. And Google leads Yahoo by a wide margin in search, 46 to 23 per cent. Yahoo still leads on email, but then Gmail is still in beta, and you can't get an account just like that, you have to be invited in by someone who already has one. Both compete on news, although I think Yahoo leads, but I personally prefer Google, although I also use Yahoo heavily. I could not imagine doing my political work without the help of Google News.

As for search, I have always preferred Google. Search is central to the whole idea of the internet itself, and Google is one company organized around search. That is what makes them the premier internet company.

If I were Google, I would closely integrate the top three services. So I sign into my Gmail account and stay signed in while I do other things on or near my computer, and it should feel like I have access to the main Google search page and the Google News page at the same time. And when I am on the Googe News page, it should feel like I am in my Gmail account, it should be that easy to forward stories to others: only the link gets sent, just the web address.

Such integration would spike up the use of all three. Many people would literally never log out. They would stay glued.



I think blogging is going to catch on also. So Google ought to integrate not three, but four of its properties. And within blogging itself, it needs to integrate text, audio and video. Right now they act like three separate properties. And whatever happened to MathML?

Email, search, news, and text-audio-video-MathML blogging. Integrate the four.

Wait, there is a fifth. The idea of offering all books, fiction, non-fiction, and textbooks, free, ad-based. Integrate all five. And Google would zoom off. I think the books idea is very doable. Say you approach people who write college textbooks. And you offer them the option. Boom, they are all going to end up making big bucks. College students would stop buying textbooks. And the rest of the industry would follow.

Email, search, news, blog, books. In one seamless offering.

Search engines dominating use of the Internet PC Pro, UK
Search becomes No. 2 Web activity CNET News.com, United States
Search is now number two web activity Silicon.com, UK
Search engine use is spiking, study reveals San Jose Mercury News, USA
Search Engine Use Edges up on Email Techtree.com, India
Search Overtaking Email as Most Popular Online Activity Search Engine Watch
Search Usage Spikes As A Daily Online Habit ClickZ News, NY
Search engine use, soon to be as popular as e-mail Playfuls.com, Romania
Search rivals e-mail as top application ElectricNews.net, Ireland
Search Closing On Email As Top Activity WebProNews, KY
Search engine use in US increases 23% year on year Telecom Paper (subscription), Netherlands
Search engines rev up Dallas Morning News (subscription), TX
Search Engine Use Shoots Up in Past Year, Edges Towards E-Mail as ... AScribe
Search Engine Use Edges Towards the Primary Internet Application LinuxElectrons, TX

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