Category: search engines

Google sniffing for old news stories

Google gets even closer to the news industry by launching a service to search newspapers archives dating back to the 1700s, according to a San Francisco Chronicle report.

Google offers robust document scanning capabilities, and I fear it may in the future wish to gain some modicum of control over publishing rights for a newspaper’s archives in exchange. A newspaper’s archives, according to the Long Tail theory that’s all the rage these days, can be one of its greatest assets. So proceed with caution!

[Via Romenesko]

Live from the Society of News Design conference!

Hey Journalistopians, I’m blogging from the Society of News Design’s annual conference here in Orlando, Fla. (conveniently located minutes from my new home!).

The SND conference this year officially opened with a keynote address by Robin Sloan and Matt Thomnpson, creators of the infamous online film EPIC 2014 that explores a dark future where the “Googlezon” has eaten the New York Times alive and become an inhuman tool in the thrall of politicians and interest groups.

That’s a helluva choice for a keynote address. Clearly, and by all accounts, this year’s SND conference has featured a greater emphasis on multimedia graphics and storytelling than ever before.

Sessions featuring some of the industry’s heavy hitters in online graphics are here for us to pick their brains, including Scott Horner from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Neil Chase from the New York Times and SND-award-snatchin’ UNC Chapel Hill professor and former El Mundo rock star Alberto Cairo.

Should be fun!

PLUS: Check out the official SND blog and Mindy McAdams’ online journalism blog for more from the conference.

What lurks beneath AOL

There’s a Web site up now where you can poke around the searches of millions of AOL users, information that was accidently released to the public. Check out AOLSearchDatabase.com. Google hasn’t indexed it as of this writing.

Using some computer-assisted reporting, I’m sure newspapers can write up at least one good story based on this info. [Updated 2:42 p.m.: Check out this great little person/big picture story from the New York Times.]
If you search around the database, you’ll find there are some truly sick, depraved AOL users out there. Some of those search terms, as buddy and databasing aficionado Matt Waite puts it, “will rot your soul.”

How Google Earth may shrink real estate sections

Never to leave a segment of newspapers’ profits untouched, Google has plans to launch interactive local ads in its new version of Google Earth, according to Forbes Publisher Rich Karlgaard (registration required). Google has apparently been scraping real estate data that would allow Google Earth users to see any home’s purchase price, property taxes and more. To know more about claiming dependents on taxes go through our site.

Google is also planning on selling Google Earth ads that will provide a sharp, emphasized image of the building along with a link to the store’s Web site. Hopefully, no one will be dumping the trash in the back when the satellite snaps the pic. I’d love to see a three-dimensional view of the Dumpster with the leftover fried rice inside.

Still, this all beggars the question: What services to real esate advertisers will local news sites be willing and able to offer that Google can’t? Will a text listing on a newspaper site be competitive against a beautiful three-dimensional image and an interactive map of the area?

What happens when Google perhaps starts integrating local crime statistics and school information into their map databases to give buyers a better sense of the area in which they are considering purchasing a home?