Denmark tops e-business rankings
Denmark is the best place in the world for e-commerce with its Nordic neighbours not far behind, an Economist Intelligence Unit report has found.
The UK ranked second this year, up from third in 2003. The US slipped to sixth.
The research company also believes that the outlook for the technology industry is better than it has been for a while.
It points to increasing global demand for mobile phones and faster internet connections, as well as cheaper and easier-to-use products and software.
Helping hand
All these factors are combining in many countries to make it less of a hassle for companies to use the Internet, the EIU says.
A vital ingredient in future developments, however, will be the role of governments.
TOP 10 E-READY COUNTRIES
1. Denmark (2)
2. UK (=3)
3. Sweden (1)
4. Norway (7)
5. Finland (6)
6. US (=3)
7. Singapore (12)
8. Netherlands (=3)
9. Hong Kong (10)
10. Switzerland (8)
2003 rankings in brackets
To speed things up even further, firms need to co-operate with local governments, the information and communications industry and businesses, the EIU says.
This already has happened in Nordic countries, helping push four of the region's states into the top five places in the e-readiness rankings.
What sets it apart according to the EIU "is the extent to which the Internet has reshaped business transactions".
Another boost was "the eagerness with which citizens have incorporated Internet usage into their daily routines and the extent to which (the region's) governments have driven developments".
Tiger economies
This is also evident elsewhere in the world.
The EIU, for example, singled out Singapore as a world leader in offering broadband Internet connections, and highlighted the close links between the government and industry.
Singapore ranked seventh in the EIU's survey, posting the survey's biggest gain with a surge of five places.
The younger generations will be a key driver of Internet demand
Elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region, Hong Kong moved up one slot to ninth, while South Korea was placed at number 14.
The role of government also can prove particularly effective in so-called developing countries where infrastructure may be lacking.
The EIU identifies Mexico and Romania, respectively ranked 39th and 50th, as two countries where "proactive governments and smart businesses can use the Internet to improve services and create new opportunities".
Look at India, South Africa and Bulgaria, the EIU says, which have managed to develop what it calls "niche" industries based on software production and the outsourcing of services.
Growth engine
In fact, an initial lack of infrastructure can act as a catalyst for growth by prompting an immediate and rapid roll-out of new services.
In Estonia, set to join the European Union on 1 May and included in the survey for the first time this year, "the majority of Internet users are broadband subscribers and all public schools have broadband access".
Getting wired quickly can have a significant effect on growth
All the accession countries included in the survey - eight of the 10 set to join - had a "decent" infrastructure and e-business environment, the EIU said.
Slippery slope
Ironically, the introduction of faster Internet connections seems to be benefiting the developing countries more than their better established rivals.
According to the EIU, "for most countries - particularly the top-ranked ones - the change has had a dampening effect... because broadband adoption is still very low".
The US, for example, slipped to sixth in the survey from joint third a year earlier. The Netherlands dropped to eighth, while Switzerland fell to 10th, Canada 11th and Australia 12th.
"In a digital world, new technology will constantly move the goalposts," the EIU said.
The EIU has compiled this survey since 2000 in conjunction with IBM's Institute of Business Value.
fr.: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3632027.stm
Streaming More Mainstream
By Robyn Greenspan
Audio and video Internet streams [define] are becoming more commonplace, as AccuStream iMedia Research reports increased usage during 2003 and the first quarter of 2004.
"...streaming media is very much mainstream content now. Audiences over the years have become very educated, there is more residential broadband, there have been so many huge news events, from the JFK Jr. crash to the War in Iraq, that continue to drive up usage. Moreover, there is simply more programming available that appeals to mainstream audiences...," Paul Palumbo, founder and research director for AccuStream iMedia Research, says.
Video streams served during January and February 2004 by the top ten sites averaged 523 million, compared to 292 million in 2003. AccuStream iMedia Research noted a 104 percent video stream growth spurt in 2003, with expectations of another 28 percent in 2004. Music video captured the largest share of the streaming audience in 2003, followed closely by news.
Palumbo comments on the stream leaders: "Music and news have been very close for several years. News is always a big category, because there is so much breaking news that takes place at work, and people click in to find out what's happening. News is always going to be a top category, considering the office demographic and high speed access."
Streaming Video Content
Comparison, 2003
Category Share
Music 33%
News 28%
Sports 17%
Film 11%
Internet TV 6%
General Entertainment 5%
Source: AccuStream iMedia Research
The research firm also found aggregate tuning hours for Internet radio were up by 118 percent in 2004, with the top ten sites averaging 137.5 million during the first two months of the year, compared to 63 million in 2003.
Ken Dardis, president of Audio Graphics, Inc. expects online radio usage to increase with awareness, which can come as a result of industry-wide promotion.
"Online radio stations are far behind in promoting the industry. If we make the industry shine, everyone gets a chance to glow in its shadow." Dardis continues, "The industry will be a real force once media buyers understand the quality of audience."
According to an Audio Graphics, Inc. mid-2003 survey of more than 1,000 Internet radio users, just over 40 percent spent 1 to 3 hours listening, while roughly 47 percent spent more than 3 hours listening. More than half (52.7 percent) of the 2,049 respondents to an early 2004 survey placed Windows Media Player at the top of their lists, followed by Winamp Player (20.2 percent); Realnetworks Media Player (6.8 percent); and Quicktime/iTunes Player (4.6 percent).
fr.: http://www.internetnews.com/stats/article.php/3341031
網路搜尋史，與關鍵字廣告
關鍵字廣告比較像大型入口網站開拓中小企業市場的方法。
自從網際網路有了搜尋引擎以來，找東西的方法一直有兩大體系。一種稱為「分類搜尋」，一種稱為「關鍵字搜尋」。前者就好像電話簿一樣，翻開來從大分類往下找到小分類，最後找到你要的資料。後者則是依照你想要找的資料中含有哪些字來搜尋，比方說，把電話簿中含有「水電行」三個字的公司全部找出來。當然，你可能會找出一堆水電行的資料，也可能找出「水電行民歌西餐廳」之類的東西。
於是我們面臨了要從哪種方法下去找的問題。上面的例子看起來好像「關鍵字搜尋」很容易找到不相關的資料。但「分類搜尋」一樣有著問題，因為你腦海中的分類法很可能跟編輯電話簿的人分類方法不同。
例如你認為漫畫書應該被放在「出版事業」這個類別底下，與教科書和小說擺在一起。但是翻了半天找不到，才發現原來它被放到「生活休閒」這個類別底下，與電視電影擺在一起了。
自從有了網際網路搜尋技術之後，上述「分類搜尋」有些改進。電話簿是印在紙上面，不能改變。但現在電腦可以把資料互相關聯，例如你在「出版事業」與「生活休閒」的類別下都可以找到漫畫的資料。
儘管如此，「分類搜尋」還是會有不足的地方。因為這種找東西的方法比較適合你已經知道你要找什麼的時候。不管是水電行還是漫畫書，至少都是明確的標的，而你也知道他可能會被歸類在某些分類中。
如果你的老師或者老闆，突然要你去找一篇文章，裡面談到有關總統選舉的民意調查，最好是國內外的資料都一起找找。這時候你唯一能依賴的方法只有「關鍵字搜尋」了。
「關鍵字搜尋」最頭痛的地方在於，如果使用方式不對，找出來的資料可能從完全沒有，到滿坑滿谷。如果用上面的例子輸入「總統候選人（空格）民意調查」和「總統候選人民意調查」結果會完全不同。
但是搜尋技術不斷的在進步著，提供關鍵字搜尋服務的廠商開始加入人工智慧，或者是自然語法辨識之類的技術，想辦法從你輸入的關鍵字當中「猜」出你到底想找什麼，而不要找出太多無用的資料給你。
猜得準的，自然要大受歡迎了。我想這就是為什麼美國的Google搜尋引擎要這麼廣受喜愛的原因。在多次使用後，你會發現他的能力已經跨越了「關鍵字搜尋」與「分類搜尋」的分野，精確找出你所要。
靠著獨門的技術竄起之後，Google開始靠著販賣關鍵字來賺錢。舉例來說，如果你上去輸入「筆記型電腦」五個字，找出來的網頁當然會列出一堆跟這五個字相關的網站，而右手邊你就會看到一些廣告。
這些廣告可能是某些購物網站，或者是筆記型電腦製造商所購買的。只要有人打這幾個字搜尋，廣告就自動被帶出來。但是想購買這個廣告版面的人很多啊，於是出錢出得多的人會被擺在越顯眼的位置。
而廣告費付費的方式也很奇妙。一般而言，廣告都是播出就算錢。但是Google的關鍵字廣告，只有在廣告被使用搜尋引擎的人按下連結才會收費。Google每個月跟刊登廣告的人結算，看到底被按了幾下。
靠著這樣的方式，Google成為賺錢的公司。很顯然，對於搜尋技術的專注，成功的抓住所有人的需求。接下去這間公司還繼續發展找商品的技術，幫助你找到價格最低的商品。
軟體巨人微軟的執行長前一陣子公開承認，微軟過去沒有把搜尋技術當做重點項目來開發，實在是個錯誤。就連知名購物網站美國Amazon 都自行研發搜尋引擎技術。
因此這陣子搜尋引擎的發展一下子熱鬧起來了。終於，大家發現了「找」這個需求，才是一般人上網路最大的需求。更美妙的地方在於，關鍵字廣告幫助這個需求找到了正確的獲利管道。
但是如果仔細看購買關鍵字廣告的廠商，會發現幾乎都是小型的商家。這些商家不想或不能出大錢買廣告，於是精準的關鍵字廣告就變成了最划算的選擇。
所以，關鍵字廣告獲利的關鍵在於「聚沙成塔」，這又是一個需要經濟規模才能玩得起的遊戲。換言之，使用這個搜尋引擎的人必須夠多，才能夠吸引更多中小企業花一點錢來登廣告，累積起來就可觀了。
回歸到台灣的環境，筆者比較不認為有足夠的經濟規模，能夠讓一個搜尋引擎單靠關鍵字廣告就完全獲利。換言之，在台灣要誕生一個類似Google的搜尋引擎是困難的。
關鍵字廣告會比較像是大型入口網站開拓中小企業市場的一個方法，以往的網路廣告只能賣給大企業，現在則可以從中小企業身上也產生利潤了。
fr.: http://epaper.pchome.com.tw/archive/last.htm?s_date=last&s_code=0263
趕在2006年推出 Longhorn縮減改版幅度
CNET新聞專區：Ina Fried 2004/04/12
微軟上週五表示公司預期會在2006年上半年推出Longhorn版本的最新版Windows，而此舉也將使得原本許多要加入的改版功能不會完全實現。
微軟表示Longhorn將會包含三大主要更新：全新檔案系統WinFS；全新繪圖引擎Avalon；以及網路服務架構Indigo。
「這些子系統中有些功能將暫時不會加入，」產品召集人Greg Sullivan表示。Sullivan不願透露哪些功能會暫時遭保留，僅表示這種事歷來在各個Windows版本都曾發生過。
「縮減程度只是多寡有別而已，」Sullivan說，「在部分情況中，縮減幅度不會是全面性質的。」
微軟不願確定新版Windows的確切發表日期，不過軟體架構長Bill Gates最近已表示2006年最有可能。即使是現在，Longhorn的發表還是沒有公開的日期，Sullivan強調，只是公司內部自訂的時間是放在2006年中。
微軟平台副總裁Jim Allchin曾在上月份對記者表示，微軟會縮減部分Longhorn功能，推出一版Blackcomb版本。
微軟Longhorn進度延宕的主因是將重點放在即將推出的Windows XP SP2 的安全功能上。執行長Steve Ballmer最近在專訪中表示，公司將大部分資源都放在SP2，使得Longhorn遭到拖延，不過大部分主要功能還是都會如期加入Longhorn，只是少部分功能會略有調整。
微軟週五另外表示，下一版Office(預計跟Longhorn同時期推出)將可執行舊版Windows。先前該公司曾表示會有一版Office專門用來搭配Longhorn的新版功能。
「微軟瞭解客戶有不同的需求，」一位代表表示，「我們會確保他們可在不同的Windows版本上使用最新版的Office。」
微軟同時也決定不推出Longhorn之前的過渡版本。「任何聰明的公司都會有備案計畫，這就是我們目前所做的，Longhorn是我們計畫的下一版Windows。」Sullivan說。
不過，目前還在考慮的Windows XP更新版有可能會加入新版Media Player，Sullivan表示最後決定還有待裁決。
至於Longhorn縮減的功能會落在何處，部分受影響的應該會是在WinFS。Sullivan表示目前主力是要讓WinFS可從執行Longhorn的桌上型電腦存取WinFS。
「WinFS檔案系統的精髓還是會推出來的。」Sullivan說。
微軟已經在去年十月先行發出程式碼供開發人員試用。Sullivan表示公司將會在五月於西雅圖舉辦的WinHEC大會上推出Longhorn預覽版。微軟也會提供應硬體廠商更詳細的Longhorn安裝相容規格。
「我們將會提供更多指引給硬體製造商，好讓他們瞭解哪些系統最適合Longhorn。」Sullivan表示。(陳奭璁)
fr.: http://taiwan.cnet.com/enterprise/topic/0,2000062938,20088885,00.htm
Yahoo買下歐洲電子商務網站Kekloo
CNET新聞專區：Matt Hines 29/03/2004
Yahoo週五同意以5.79億美元收購歐洲電子商務供應商Kelkoo，以擴張該公司在全球的購物服務與海外網路廣告營收。
總部位於巴黎的Kelkoo是線上比價購物網站，Yahoo表示此一交易將讓Yahoo獲得最廣泛的電子商務網路。Kelkoo是源自歐洲的最大線上購物服務，每月造訪人次3000萬人，該公司提供比價產品資訊，上自電子裝置下至書籍都有，旗下結盟了2500個合作的零售商。
Kelkoo收購行動顯示Yahoo持續擴張自家入口網站行銷與廣告的最新企圖。Yahoo之前購買商業搜尋供應商Overture之後已經開始在付費搜尋領域出現效益，藉著商業搜尋，Yahoo可依照網友點選廣告次數與廣告效益來賺取營收。Kelkoo的合作廠商同樣必須給付這類介紹費給該公司。
此一收購也可強化Yahoo對抗Google的競爭能力，Google自家也已開始測試比價購物服務Froogle。
Yahoo與Kelkoo預計在2004年第二季完成交易，雙方將以現金做交易，Kelkoo未來將成為Yahoo旗下完全自有的子公司，收購後，Kelkoo的歐洲員工將續存。
Kelkoo創立於1999年，之後陸續與英國、西班牙、挪威與法國公司進行合併，目前已在九個國家設有辦事處，並自2002年第四季起便已開始獲利。
Yahoo主管表示該交易有助於擴大歐洲市場，並強化該公司的購物功能與付費搜尋結果技術。
「基本上，我們將因此而成為全球頭號線上購物領導商，這也是我們全球商業策略的關鍵之一。」Yahoo國際資深副總裁John Marcom表示。「Kelkoo讓我們得以擴張網友數，並讓廣告主得以接觸他們希望針對的客戶群。」
Kelkoo同時也將提供自家的搜尋技術供Yahoo使用。Kelkoo執行長Pierre Chappaz表示以Kelkoo的產品搜尋技術結合Yahoo的網路搜尋技術將可創造一個超強的組合。
「Yahoo目前所提供的服務，我們在同樣的領域也有許多成功經驗。」Chappaz表示。
Marcom表示Kelkoo收購可與Yahoo的Overture商業相互結合。「Kelkoo可協助行銷者尋找購物者；Overture則協助消費者尋找產品，這是個擴展營收的大好機會。」他說。
Jupiter研究公司分析師Olivier Beauvillain表示此次收購跟Yahoo過去的作風有很大不同。
「這符合Yahoo最近的一些舉動，比如購買Overture，且顯示Yahoo已經逐漸遠離傳統媒體產品線--比如橫幅廣告，」Beauvillain表示。「現在直接的挑戰對手是Google，連搜尋欄位模仿得跟Google很像，而前兩三年，搜尋與購物功能都是藏在入口網站中的。」(陳奭璁)
fr. http://taiwan.cnet.com/news/software/0,2000064574,20088565,00.htm
新浪雅虎聯手中國網拍市場
CNET新聞專區：ZDNET China 14/04/2004
4月13日，由新浪(Sina)和雅虎(Yahoo)合建的新拍賣網站所主辦的「典藏 精品 慈善義賣」大型捐贈酒會暨新拍賣網站名稱揭曉發佈會在北京嘉裏中心酒店隆重舉行，趙薇、丁薇、孫國慶等數位演藝界明星及活動合作夥伴嘉賓親自到場助陣。
雅虎創始人楊致遠、新浪總裁汪延和明星及嘉賓一起，將酒會現場拍賣的數件典藏精品的收入，連同活動前期網上拍賣全部收入共計三十餘萬元在現場捐贈給了中國青少年基金會。同時，新浪和雅虎也一起宣佈了雙方合作的新拍賣網站的名稱--「一拍」網及其標識，一個目標旨在成為大陸最大的網上「自由市場」、「買家賣家聚集地」的網上交易社區，網站的名稱已確定為http://www.1pai.com.cn/。
雙方均表示，新網站「一拍即合」的口號不僅是雙方合作的最佳闡釋，更表明了雙方對大陸電子商務市場巨大發展潛力的共識。新浪公司運營長林欣禾先生表示：新網站的命名表現了雅虎、新浪這兩大全球知名的強勢品牌合手打造全新拍賣網站的志業相投。新浪、雅虎雙方的資源及優勢的互補和綜合運用，將共同以社區概念帶動網上交易，並突出將來買家和賣家在新網站網上買賣、交易靈活、輕鬆的特點。
同時，「一拍即合」對新網站的用戶--買家和賣家們也非常便於理解。雅虎北亞區董事總經理關重遠先生表示，新拍賣網站在新浪、雅虎兩大品牌的支援下，將把目標放在成為「中國最大的網上買家賣家集合之地」。
fr.: http://taiwan.cnet.com/news/ce/0,2000062982,20088921,00.htm
Google to consider Gmail changes
Last modified: April 13, 2004, 6:45 PM PDT
By Evan Hansen
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Google said Tuesday it is "batting about" possible changes to its Gmail Web-based e-mail service, which launched last month to a chorus of privacy concerns.
The search engine giant unveiled Gmail in late March to about 1,000 people in what it called a limited test. Nevertheless, it immediately produced an uproar over plans to offer Web surfers up to 1GB of storage for free, subsidized by advertising based on keywords scanned from messages and delivered over the service.
Google spokesman David Krane said the company plans to listen closely to the responses of test users and other interested parties during a three- to six-month test period. He said Google may make changes based on the recommendations it receives, but it hasn't yet made any definitive decisions.
"We are in the very earliest phases of testing, and we are actively soliciting and analyzing feedback from users and third parties, including privacy groups," Krane said. "We're definitely batting about a number of options for changes to the service, but we have not yet made any specific commitments or announcements about changes to come to Gmail."
Google's plans have drawn a sharp reaction from privacy advocates, who worry about potential abuses of a system that might allow the company to permanently store millions of e-mail messages and scan their content.
On Monday, Sen. Liz Figueroa, a Democrat from Fremont, Calif., said she was drafting legislation that would prevent Google or any other company from examining the content of e-mail in order to serve up ads.
Last week, Privacy International urged Britain's information commissioner to take action against the service, although that official appears unlikely to take a hard line.
Krane said the company was surprised by the amount of interest in Gmail, given its limited release. He would not speculate about possible alterations to Gmail's controversial advertising component. He offered a "no comment" when asked whether it would be economical to offer millions of people up to 1GB of storage for free without advertising to help pay for it.
Krane also highlighted some privacy enhancements of Gmail over some other e-mail services. For example, he said, the application does not automatically display images in e-mail, potentially reducing the threat of tracking technology frequently included in e-mail known as Web beacons or clear GIFs.
"The reaction so far has been very favorable from people who have tested and used it," Krane said.
fr.: http://news.com.com/2100-1024-5191028.html
Attackers infiltrating supercomputer networks
Last modified: April 13, 2004, 5:55 PM PDT
By Robert Lemos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Unknown attackers have compromised a large number of Linux and Solaris machines in high-speed computing networks at Stanford University and other academic research facilities, according to an advisory.
The attacks, which apparently compromised servers as recently as April 3, are currently being investigated, according to an advisory posted April 6 by the Information Technology Systems and Services (ITSS) group at Stanford.
"Stanford, along with a large number of research institutions and high-performance computing centers, has become a target for some sophisticated Linux and Solaris attacks," ITSS said in its Web advisory. "The attacker appears to be deliberately targeting machines in academic and high-performance computing environments, rather than attacking systems indiscriminately."
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Members of Stanford's security team declined to comment, and the university's chief information security officer could not immediately be reached.
It is unclear when the attacks first occurred. The advisory listed one breach as occurring April 3. The unknown attackers use common password-cracking tools to gain access to any account on a server and then gain further access by using security flaws in the software.
"The perpetrators regularly gain access to an unprivileged local user account, presumably by sniffing passwords, cracking passwords from other compromised systems, or by triggering vulnerabilities in remotely accessible services," the advisory states.
Such local vulnerabilities, as they are called, have led to several compromises on the servers used to host Linux development and distribution in recent months.
fr.: http://news.com.com/2100-7349-5191024.html
Is Google the future of e-mail?
April 12, 2004, 4:00 AM PT
By Declan McCullagh
Google is hoping to convince us to use its forthcoming Gmail service for our lifetime e-mail needs.
Once signed up to the Gmail system, every user gets a gigabyte of free Web-based e-mail storage. That's about 100 times the number of bits Microsoft's Hotmail accounts can hold.
It's a generous offer. But should we take Google up on it?
Right now, people who use Web-based e-mail can't squeeze that much in the cramped 4 megabytes or so that Google's competitors offer their nonpaying subscribers. What that means is that the impact of a security breach or privacy incident is sharply limited; your entire online life wouldn't be on public display in the case of one. With Gmail, on the other hand, you might have 20 years' worth of correspondence protected only by the thin shield of a password.
My concern is not about Google's management, who have been upstanding corporate citizens. They've maintained a firewall between advertising and search results, and have resisted the temptation to follow Yahoo's "paid inclusion" lead. Google has stood up to censorship and, in general, has alerted its readers when it's legally required to yank sites from its index.
Still, there are good reasons to be leery of Gmail, which requires you to trust the security of a computer system over which you have no control. If you keep your correspondence on your home computer, you can encrypt your old e-mail or squirrel it away on CD-ROMs that won't be accessible to a malicious hacker. That won't work, if everything's online.
In August 1999, a bug in a script used by Microsoft's Hotmail let anyone log in to any of 50 million accounts without typing a password first.
This is no theoretical concern. In August 1999, a bug in a script used by Microsoft's Hotmail let anyone log in to any of 50 million accounts without typing a password first. Yahoo has experienced its own series of embarrassing e-mail security breaches, and there is no reason to believe that Google will be any different.
If you're using Mac OS X or third-party utilities like PGP for Windows, you can "securely delete" any file, meaning that it will be repeatedly overwritten until it's unrecoverable. But if you delete an e-mail message from your Gmail account, it may exist forever--remaining permanently accessible to police armed with a Patriot Act order or your spouse's divorce lawyer, wielding a subpoena. (Google refuses to discuss how many subpoenas it already has received for users' search terms.)
That's because Google and other Web-based e-mail companies back up their servers' hard drives, meaning that your e-mail may exist on an archival tape, even though you think it's gone. In its Gmail privacy policy, Google acknowledges that "residual copies of e-mail may remain on our systems, even after you have deleted them from your mailbox or after the termination of your account."
And there are the privacy issues. Gmail works by serving related ads on Web pages that display e-mail. Google's terms of service say its servers scan the content of e-mail messages with no human intervention and that "no e-mail content or other personally identifiable information will be provided to advertisers."
If you delete an e-mail message from your Gmail account, it may exist forever.
That's fine, and Google's current management seems trustworthy enough. But who will be running the company in a few years, and will they have the same views? Google has reserved the right to change its privacy policy any time it wants, something that likely would happen, if the company is bought or if it ever decides to sell Gmail.
For its part, Google says it is "committed to the highest standards of user protection."
"We consider ourselves a company that does no evil, and we take user privacy seriously," Wayne Rosing, Google's vice president of engineering, told me last week. "We have very strict internal rules, even among Google employees who are able to access confidential data. It would harm Google enormously, if we behaved badly with personal data. I don't believe we ever will."
While Gmail's initial version may not be for everyone, Internet users should still be able to make their own choices. Unfortunately, some regulatory enthusiasts are trying to ban Gmail, something that makes as much sense as outlawing compilers, just because someone might use them to create surveillanceware.
Last week, the U.K. group Privacy International filed a complaint against Google, saying Gmail violated European data collection laws. A few days later, it and other sincere but misguided activists wrote to Google, saying Gmail should be shut down or suspended. So much for preserving consumer choice.
The alternatives
If Google wanted to veer in a more privacy-protective direction, it could look to the intriguing model of Vancouver, Canada-based Hush Communications, which runs the Hushmail Web mail system. Unlike rivals, Hush encrypts mail sent between Hush users. It uses a Java-based technique that allows for only its intended recipient--and not Hush employees--to decrypt a scrambled e-mail message. If a subpoena arrives, or if a security breach ever happens, disclosure would be limited.
Hush offers 2-megabyte-limit free accounts and pay accounts, and it said 900,000 accounts have been created since its May 1999 launch. The company also lets users store files in an encrypted volume and this week plans to announce a feature that permits encrypted volumes to be shared among multiple users.
Hush's patent No. 6,154,543 covers some aspects of encrypted e-mail. The company said it'd happy to license it to Google. Originally, Hush Chief Technology Officer Brian Smith said, the patent was quite broad, but "we have narrowed the patent to apply only to e-mail and messaging systems. The modifications were accepted but don't yet appear" on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Web site.
True, if the archived e-mail is encrypted, Gmail won't be able to search message bodies very efficiently, but users might be willing to give up that feature and even pay a monthly charge in exchange for additional security.
"We'll think about it," said Google's Rosing. "We don't have any explicit plans right now...If someone really needs to encrypt a lot of e-mail, maybe they should be putting that on their laptop. We're trying to provide a service that offers some utility to our users. If you change the service to take away all the value of the service, you're back where you started."
Maybe. But until that happens, would-be users of Gmail or any similar service should recognize that their so-called free e-mail comes at a price.
biography
Declan McCullagh is CNET News.com's Washington, D.C., correspondent. He chronicles the busy intersection between technology and politics. Before that, he worked for several years as Washington bureau chief for Wired News. He has also worked as a reporter for The Netly News, Time magazine and HotWired.
fr.: http://news.com.com/2010-1032-5187543.html?tag=nefd.acpro
Amazon unveils search tool
Last modified: April 14, 2004, 3:23 PM PDT
By Stefanie Olsen
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Amazon.com has quietly launched a test version of its long-awaited search engine, aiming to challenge industry stalwarts Google and Yahoo with new tools to navigate the Web.
A9.com, an independent unit of the Internet retailer, unveiled its Web site on Wednesday after nearly seven months of development. The search site touts a novel design that lets people sift through Web search results, store and view their own search history, and find book information from Amazon related to query terms. It also promotes a search toolbar that blocks pop-up ads.
A9 did not immediately return requests for comment.
"We want to enhance the customer e-commerce search experience, so we're using this beta iteration to gain firsthand commentary from our users," A9 spokeswoman Alison Diboll said. She would not say how long the site would be in beta form.
When Amazon announced the formation of A9 last September, it outlined its development of shopping search technology for internal use and for other companies. But its ambitions now appear to be much wider. The test version of A9's search engine offers Web surfers new variations on other popular search tools.
The service is open to current Amazon customers and others who register with the site.
Amazon, based in Seattle, is forging into search at a time when competition is stiff and the stakes are high. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and a slew of upstarts are vying for Web surfers' search loyalty with seemingly constant quality improvements to the technology powering their results. At stake is the lucrative paid-search market, which is one of the fastest-growing and most closely watched segments of the online advertising business.
Paid search has helped put Yahoo back on its feet, after the dot-com bubble, contributing to $101 million in profits for the first quarter of 2004 and putting the company well ahead of analyst expectations. It also has fueled intense speculation that Google will go public sometime this year. According to Jupiter Research, paid search will grow from $1.6 billion in sales in 2003 to $2.1 billion this year, and it will continue to grow at a compound annual rate of 20 percent through 2008.
More specifically, shopping search has emerged as prime terrain for rivalry among the top players, because it's often the last word before Web surfers find a product or service of choice.
Yahoo recently updated its shopping search engine, and Google is promoting its e-commerce engine Froogle on its home page. Amazon has a vested interest in gaining control of search, because it ultimately drives business to its online store.
A9 is headed by Udi Manber, a well-respected computer scientist and the former chief technology architect at Yahoo. Manber joined Amazon two years ago and helped develop the company's "Search Inside the Book" feature, which lets people browse books by viewing digital renditions of the pages inside them. He moved over to A9 last summer and now runs a team of about 20 software engineers. According to the Web site, A9 is hiring multiple positions in software engineering.
A9's office is headquartered in a nondescript building on Hamilton Street in the heart of Palo Alto, Calif. The building itself is still under construction. On the third floor, the office is simply adorned with a colorful placard of its name on the door, with no receptionist.
A9 is not powered solely by its own search technology but rather by that of Google, Amazon and Alexa, another Amazon subsidiary. Unlike Google, A9 displays search results with expandable columns to the right, which open up book-related listings or a personal history of search queries. It also displays Google-sponsored ad listings. Data stored on its servers can even tell people which sites they've visited--and when. (Web surfers must register to see their personalized search history.)
A9's toolbar lets users search the Web, Amazon, the Internet Movie Database and Google; it also can look up definitions. What's novel about it is that it can keep a diary of notes about any visited Web pages and then store them for access on any computer.
People also can search directly from a browser address bar by typing a9.com/query, for instance, "www.a9.com/harry potter."
fr.:http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-5191661.html?tag=nefd.top
Interview with Craig Wax, Senior Director Marketing, Overture
"Content Match, Integration of Alltheweb & Altavista & International Expansion"
By Lennart Svanberg, Editor, Right on the Spot
L(ennart): Thank you Craig for taking time to do this interview. It’s the first issue of Right On The Spot – a News Letter for 3,500 International Marketers.
C(raig): Thank you Lennart for having us. A lot is happening at Overture so I think we’ve got a lot to talk about.
L: Overture launched Content Match in June of this year. Quote from press release “Content Match links will be placed in various locations on partner Web site pages and embedded within their content, appearing on the side or bottom of Web pages.
It has now been 2 months since the launch of Content Match. What are the initial reactions from advertisers and distribution partners?
C: The overall response is fantastic; our advertisers are getting more leads to their sites and the distribution partners have found a new source of revenue. It’s a win-win situation.
In order to get advertisers to try Content Match they have received 20% off the ordinary bidding price in the United States (a “dollar bid ” from a paid placement listing only costs 80 cents on Content Match) and this has worked really well. Our advertisers tell us that their return on investment from Content Match is good.
What is very exciting for us is to see how sites with great content have found Content Match as a way of receiving more revenue. For example our partnership with MyFamily.Com makes it possible for many small, but highly valuable sites to earn revenues. We consider our network of contextual partners to be the best with partners like MSN, Yahoo, MyFamily (as previously mentioned) and Advertising.Com.
The combination of high-volume sites with small, but high quality content sites, makes it very exciting to advertise with Content Match.
L: If I own a site that I’d like to have contextual advertising on, what are the criteria for being approved in Overture’s Contextual network?
C:. Today there are no fixed criteria, it is decided on a case by case basis. The most important criteria is the quality of the site’s content Then we look at the amount of page views. If you’re interested in becoming a Content Match partner, don’t hesitate send us your site for review.
So far we have only scratched the surface with Content Match. We think that Content Match is going to be an important part of Internet Marketing for both advertisers & publishers. It opens up a completely new opportunity for Web sites to earn advertising revenue.
L: This year Overture bought 2 crawler-based search engines. Quote from Overture Press release “Through this combination [Overture, Altavista, Alltheweb], Overture expects to be at the forefront of the industry in offering a full suite of paid placement, paid inclusion and algorithmic Web search products and services for syndication to portals, ISPs and other search destination sites.” Can you after six months see the synergy effect of this offering [paid placement, paid inclusion and algorithmic web search] or is it too early to tell?
C: Absolutely, the advertisers are ready for more products that drive targeted leads to their sites, and our distribution partners like Lycos (who changed from Google results to Overture), Sympatico & Knight-Ridder Digital see this combination of offerings as the future.
The ability to both bid for placement as well as making sure that thousands of URL’s are being indexed correctly is of vital importance both for the advertisers and the searchers.
L: Even being in the Industry it’s sometimes hard to understand the meaning of some terms. What is the difference between Trusted Feeds and Paid Inclusion?
C: The overall term is Paid Inclusion. This means that you’re paying to be included in the Search Engine’s index. Trusted Feed is a term for those who have more than 500 URL’s that they want indexed and use XMLfeeds instead of “manually” submitting their URL’s.
L: How are you positioning the three brands: Overture, Altavista & Alltheweb?
C: Well, as we integrate the AltaVista and Alltheweb products and services into Overture, we’re maintaining all three brands. It’s up to the users to see what service they think serves them best.
L: Ok, great answers. Now a topic that is very close to my heart. Overture is launching in Sweden later this year. Can you give us an update on your International Expansion plans?
C: Yes, in the year of 2003 Overture has focused on International Expansion. So far we have launched in United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Italy, South Korea, and Australia. Later this year we will also launch in Austria, The Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway & Finland.
L: What is your experience so far of this expansion?
C: It has been a different reception in each country. Some countries, like South Korea, are highly educated on search in general and in some countries it takes a longer time to educate the advertisers.
L: One issue raised is that there needs to be a certain amount of advertisers for each keyword in order to get a bidding process. In smaller markets, do you think there are enough competitors?
C: It’s still very early on and we’re learning about each market. What we do know is that time and time again our advertisers are reporting to us that they are getting incredible Return on their Investments from Overture.
L: Thank you Craig Wax, Senior Director of Marketing as well as Al Duncan, Director of Media Relations for making this interview possible. Do you have any final words to our readers?
C: Yes, I’d like to thank our advertisers for their continued business. We appreciate their support.
fr.: http://www.rightonthespot.com/0310.html#interview
Natural Search- The Great Equalizer
By Scott Buresh - April 13, 2004
You scroll down past the banner ads and enter your search term. You pass the "sponsored results" without a glance. You ignore the shaded results to the right, as well as the additional "sponsored results" at bottom. Hiding somewhere in the middle of it all, you finally find the results you came for.
Welcome to the world of natural search- a world where mom-and-pop shops compete with million dollar companies, where million dollar companies compete with billion dollar corporations. And, while many will argue to the contrary, the playing field is more or less level. Small companies can and do dominate their behemoth competitors in this world, for a variety of reasons.
What is natural search?
For those who aren’t quite clear what the term means, "natural" or "organic" search describes the "editorial" search results on any particular engine. These results are purported to be completely non-biased - meaning that the engine will not accept any amount of money to influence the rankings of any individual sites. This is quite different than the paid advertising that appears in "sponsored" or "featured" results, in which higher positions are rewarded for to the companies willing to pay the most per visitor.
Why is natural search important?
Savvy searchers who understand the difference between paid and natural results are more likely to hold the natural results in a higher regard, much like a person reading a magazine would probably be more positively influenced by an article about a particular company than by a paid advertisement from the company.
It is also likely that natural search will become more important in the coming months. Yahoo’s new SiteMatch program, which mixes some paid results with natural results, is certain to get some close scrutiny from the FTC (even though the fees paid are not supposed to influence rankings). This type of public attention will no doubt educate some oblivious users as to what "sponsored results" actually are. More importantly, other search engines are likely to use this as a means of differentiation from Yahoo. It is no coincidence that AskJeeves announced that it was getting rid of its similar program the day after Yahoo’s new program was unveiled, claiming that it was impossible to produce unbiased results using this methodology. Microsoft also recently claimed that they were taking steps to further differentiate paid results from natural results. No matter what the end result, one probable outcome of this new attention to paid search engine advertising is that more average searchers will learn the differences between paid and natural search results, and many will instinctively favor the latter.
What advantages do huge corporations have?
Certainly, large companies do have some specific advantages when it comes to natural search.
a. Links- the primary advantage that large corporations have is their ability to obtain large amounts of inbound links, which can have a huge impact on search engine rankings. Often these links are given freely without the company asking (or being aware that it is happening). Many of the huge corporation’s vendors, affiliates, partners, etc. are eager to show their association with the company and link to the corporate site readily and non-reciprocally. Large corporations can also facilitate huge increases in link popularity through a simple corporate policy requiring inbound links from any companies wishing to work with them. In addition, very large corporations may have several websites, which can sometimes be effectively linked together for additional link popularity.
b. Budget- although history shows that a large percentage of major corporations do not spend wisely in this arena, larger corporations typically have larger marketing budgets then their smaller competitors. However, this does not necessarily mean that they will readily allocate a portion of that budget for search engine optimization, as discussed below.
What advantages do smaller companies have?
While the advantages of huge corporations, particularly in the area of link popularity, can be difficult to overcome, it is often unnecessary to try. A large percentage of such companies consistently seem to shoot themselves in the foot when it comes to natural search engine optimization, a primary reason why small companies can often outperform them. Specific advantages include:
a. A willingness to pursue the channel- Smaller companies are typically more willing to devote resources to natural search than large corporations. Huge things have to happen for a major corporation to get involved in this "new" channel, a channel far removed from the traditional marketing methodologies used to build the giant. Few corporate underlings want to be the one to put their neck on the line and recommend something completely new and "unproven". Even when a large corporation looks into natural search engine optimization as a potential marketing tool, it can take many months, and sometimes years, for a final decision to be made.
b. A willingness to change the company website- Huge corporations face similar problems when it comes to changing to the corporate website. Within such entities, a person can often not get so much as a comma removed from the text of a secondary page without holding several upper-level management meetings and, ultimately, making a board presentation. Smaller, leaner companies are able to approve necessary website changes more quickly, and are almost always more willing to quickly adapt to the needs of both visitors and search engines.
c. The willingness to outsource- Larger companies have more internal resources at their disposal, and are less likely to outsource this specialized service to someone with proven experience. Often, search engine optimization is treated as an afterthought and dumped on an IT person, who typically has too much to do already and will approach the problem solely from a technical standpoint. Natural search engine optimization is by necessity a combination of marketing and technology. Newcomers to the field (especially those who treat the discipline as strictly a technical issue) often make fundamental mistakes that at best do not get results and at worst put sites at risk of penalization.
d. A lack of technical hurdles- Huge corporations are more likely to have technical issues on their website that can prevent search engines from indexing all of their pages. Often the pages of corporate websites are generated "on the fly" from large databases, and such pages (without modification to the URLs) are sometimes never indexed. In addition, (although usability studies are making this happen less often), some huge corporations have their sites built entirely in flash or use other technologies that are virtually invisible to search engines.
The Bottom Line
To most huge corporations, search engine optimization is often a very small piece of an enormous puzzle - and it is a piece they have been doing without for years. The necessary steps required to fully embrace the channel are often enough to stop any well-intentioned initiative in its tracks. As most search engine optimization experts will tell you, some of the most egregious search engine mistakes are consistently made by household name companies - leaving their smaller, leaner competitors the opportunity to take full advantage.
fr.: http://www.searchengineguide.com/buresh/2004/0413_sb1.html
Lawmaker moves to block Google's Gmail
Tuesday, April 13, 2004 Posted: 10:42 AM EDT (1442 GMT)
SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) -- A California state senator on Monday said she was drafting legislation to block Google Inc.'s free e-mail service "Gmail" because it would place advertising in personal messages after searching them for key words.
"We think it's an absolute invasion of privacy. It's like having a massive billboard in the middle of your home," Sen. Liz Figueroa, a Democrat from Fremont, California, said in a telephone interview.
"We are asking them to rethink the whole product," she said.
In late March, the world's No. 1 Web search company announced plans to launch Gmail -- a service that would offer users 1 gigabyte of free storage, more than 100 times the storage offered by other free services from Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.
But in return for the extra storage, users would agree to let Google's technology scan their incoming e-mail, then deliver targeted ads based on key words in the messages. For instance, a user receiving a message about a friend's flu symptoms might also receive ads for cold and flu remedies.
Gmail is now being tested with a limited number of users. Privacy advocates are assailing Gmail even before its formal launch. Google faces heavy opposition in Europe, where privacy laws are stricter than they are in the United States.
European groups recently lodged a complaint with UK authorities, charging that Gmail may violate Europe's privacy laws because it stores messages where users cannot permanently delete them. Europe's privacy protection laws give consumers the right to retain control over their communications.
Google said in a statement that it intends to work with "data protection authorities across Europe to ensure their concerns are heard and resolved."
Industry analysts see the service as a key product for Google because it would boost revenues from advertisers and expand its business as the Mountain View, California-based company nears an expected initial public offering of stock.
Figueroa, who was the author of California's "Do-Not-Call" law that allows citizens to block telemarketing calls, said she was pursuing the legislation because she had not yet received a response to an April 8 letter to Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, in which she laid out her concerns.
"We received the letter from Senator Figueroa. We appreciate her feedback and will take it into consideration as we build the best possible Webmail service for our users," Google said in an e-mailed statement.
Free storage enticement
The Gmail service would bring Google into into the market for free e-mail services now dominated by Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN. Those rivals have been challenging Google's core Web search business.
More than two dozen privacy groups in the United States and Europe have demanded that Google suspend Gmail's launch until privacy issues are adequately addressed.
The groups charged, among other things, that scanning e-mail for ad placement poses unnecessary risks of misuse and that the system sets "potentially dangerous precedents and establishes reduced expectations of privacy" in e-mails.
"We are confident that Gmail is fully compliant with data protection laws worldwide," Google said in a statement.
"Google has the highest regard for the privacy of our users' information. We have taken great care to architect Gmail to protect user privacy and to deliver an innovative and useful service," said Google, which added that it is actively soliciting user feedback on its privacy policies.
fr.: http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/04/13/block.gmail.reut/index.html
Gmail可能侵犯隱私 加州立法阻止
CNET新聞專區：綜合外電 13/04/2004
加州參議員Liz Figueroa週一宣稱正在起草法案試圖阻止Gmail服務，因為Google在email中插入廣告的作法有可能侵犯了用戶隱私權。
「我們認為該服務已經局部侵犯了公民隱私，因此要求Google重新考慮和設計這一產品。」Liz Figueroa表示
Google在三月底宣佈將推出名為"Gmail"的免費電子郵件服務，為用戶提供了1GB容量的超大email信箱。
然而，使用此一超大容量必須付出代價。用戶必須允許Google掃描自己的電子郵件，並依照內文的關鍵字插入特定廣告。
Gmail目前已開始開放局部性測試。隱私團體猛烈抨擊這種作法，Gmail在隱私保護更為嚴格的歐洲受到了很大的阻力。
分析師認為Gmail 對Google具有重要意義，除了將為公司帶來豐厚的廣告收入外，還將在IPO前夕促進業務擴展。Google將憑藉Gmail涉足目前被雅虎和MSN佔領的免費email市場。雅虎和MSN同時也是Google在網頁搜尋領域的主要競爭者。
來自美洲和歐洲的二十多個隱私團體要求Google延遲推出Gmail，直至隱私問題得到充分考慮和解決。
Google對此回應：「我們相信Gmail完全符合各國的資訊保護法。Google高度重視用戶的隱私權。公司在設計Gmail架構時非常注意保護用戶隱私，Gmail服務是具有革新性並且實用的。」 Google還懇請用戶對其隱私政策提供意見。 （秦月）
fr.: http://taiwan.cnet.com/news/ce/0,2000062982,20088902,00.htm
下一個IT安全缺口：瀏覽器
CNET新聞專區：Marguerite Reardon 13/04/2004
電腦科技工業協會（CompTIA）說，鎖定瀏覽器的安全威脅與日俱增，可能是資訊科技（IT）運作面臨的下一個重大危險來源。
CompTIA 12日發布第二份年度報告，探討IT安全與人力議題。這份報告根據對將近900家企業組織所做的意見調查，將前15大安全顧慮列表。結果發現，36.8%的受訪者過去六個月來多多少少對瀏覽器潛在的安全威脅感到困擾，比率高於去年調查時的25%。
「瀏覽器為主的攻擊是合理的演進，」CompTIA的IT部主任Randall Palm說：「我們阻擋攻擊的防護愈強，駭客撰寫新程式就變得更有創意。十年前，大多數病毒藉磁碟片散播，接著透過電子郵件和即時傳訊軟體。現在，病毒瞄準瀏覽器。」
瀏覽器為主的攻擊通常是在使用者到訪網頁時一觸即發，那些網頁狀似無害，實則暗藏惡意程式，用意在破壞電腦或侵犯他人的隱私。有些攻擊只會造成瀏覽器當掉，有些則為竊取個人資料或企業專屬的機密資料鋪路。
最常見的這類攻擊方式之一，是在電子郵件裡納入惡意網站伺服器的連結。因為要等到使用者點選連結，攻擊才會發作，所以許多防火牆無法加以防堵。傳統防火牆檢查傳入網路的資料，但要防禦瀏覽器攻擊，也需要檢查從網路傳出的資料。
一些企業使用SurfControl、Websense等公司的產品，藉以監控企業的網頁使用情況，協助防範瀏覽器型的攻擊。防火牆銷售商，例如Check Point軟體科技公司和NetScreen科技公司，也已加裝保護功能。但Palm說，要杜絕此問題，這些公司還有漫長的路要走。
「對內傳弱點的完全狀態檢查（stateful inspection），不是Check Point或NetScreen最強調的焦點，」他說：「提到防範這種威脅，防火牆製造商都只是在駭客後頭追趕。」
瀏覽器製造商也採取行動降低安全風險。微軟公司今年1月表示，將發布Internet Explorer瀏覽器和Windows Explorer的軟體更新，用意即為避免使用者上網時被誘拐到內含惡意程式的網站。去年12月，一家丹麥安全公司發現IE程式有個瑕疵，可能讓駭客展現捏造的網站位址。
儘管瀏覽器為主的安全威脅顧慮日增，企業至今仍把電腦病毒和蠕蟲視為最大威脅。但CompTIA在報告中指出，由於使用防毒軟體的公司比率很高（高達95.5%），這些威脅已比一年前減輕。
調查結果發現，去年80%的企業組織把蠕蟲和病毒視為最常見的IT安全威脅，今年比率降到68.6%。被視為第二大安全威脅的是網路入侵，但得票數從去年的65.1%降到39.9%。
防火牆和代理伺服器（proxy servers）是第二常用的防毒技術，僅次於防毒軟體，在受訪者中的使用率達90.8%。另外，採取安全稽核和入侵偵測行動的受訪者比率也已提昇，從去年的53%增加到61%。（唐慧文）
fr.: http://taiwan.cnet.com/news/software/0,2000064574,20088908,00.htm
網路全球化 搜尋在地化
網路成為越來越多的人獲取更豐富新聞資訊的重要方式，而更多年輕人在網上流灠、聊天、交友、玩遊戲的時間已大於花在傳統電視、報刊媒體上的時間，並且正成為年輕一族追逐的時尚趨勢。今年，網路業由於得到了空前的發展機遇，正迅速成為主流媒體。而網路廣告的復甦又使網站看到了它的巨大發展空間，有人預測，網路廣告未來將和電視廣告並駕齊驅，成為最受企業青睞的傳播載體。
網路泡沫時期，內容為王成為網站追逐的主流，在判斷網路靠什麼贏利時也把他同其他媒體等同起來，把網路廣告作為其主要的收入和盈利來源。隨著這兩年來網路與其他行業的不斷融合，特別是短資訊給網站帶來了巨大收益，網站主要靠什麼盈利更成為謎一樣的問題。
網路與傳統媒體有很多截然不同的區別，因此單靠某一兩項主營收益來支撐一家媒體發展的方式，並不適應網路經濟初期各網站的實際情況。現在我們倒是可以看出這樣的趨勢，網路廣告、簡訊、網路遊戲、B2B、B2C等多種收益方式都會成為網站重要的收益來源，只是各家網站根據自身定位與優勢不同其發展側重點有所差異。因此，台灣雅虎（Yahoo！）也開始向登記他們網站的公司進行收費的動作，以擴展他們的財源。
錢潮在哪 服務到哪
根據美國《商業週刊》指出，前兩年網路廣告接連下滑後，美國各大網站紛紛採取措施以迎合傳統廣告客戶的各種需求。很多網站不僅增強網路廣告的科技服務，設立專門的客戶服務機構，甚至還開發軟體工具來幫廣告客戶分析受眾情況及檢測廣告投放的效果。
而對於像是Google和Yahoo!等網路公司來說，他們也將矛頭指向區域性的小企業，針對當地的鉛管業、乾洗店和其他小企業賣出線上廣告，這些商店大部分都沒有自己的網站。日前，有個調查報告顯示，諸如這樣的小企業不可能忽視線上廣告的影響力很久，因為潛在的顧客會在網際網路上尋找有關他們的訊息。
根據一家類似購物服務網站Rate.com，針對超過5,500個線上購物者的調查，發現在這些用戶中有25%的人會搜尋離他們家或工作地點附近商家的資料訊息。這樣的結果是值得我們去住意的。因為一般居於龍頭地位的搜尋引擎公司往往在提供區域性企業的內容或方式著墨很少。舉例來說，在Google的搜尋框中鍵入「plumbers and 10036」，搜尋結果並不會顯示出在曼哈頓中間地區相關鉛管業的單一列表或者文字廣告。
但是這樣的情形在最近有了變化。根據科技調查公司eMarketer的報告顯示，今年在美國線上搜尋廣告業的收益將達2.5億美元，而明年將到達3億美元，而本土搜尋廣告至少佔了了市場15％的比例。而當錢潮滾進哪裡時，網路公司也會很快地改善他們的服務，往那個地方走去。
目前Google和Overture等網站已經在對於區域性廠商的搜尋功能上作了改善，但仍然還是面臨一些挑戰。首先，搜尋網站需要每個月造訪用戶的指標性數字。第二、他們需要科技專門技術。第三、他們需要有效地方法去收集關於美國本土約150萬個小企業的訊息。而最後、他們需要銷售代理商去聯繫這些小企業的擁有者。當Google和Overture網站有了網路流量，他們可能缺乏能力去吸引小企業的擁有者，因為他們需要大量的廣告客戶去創造他們擁有的搜尋廣告和監視廣告的效益。
向垂直產業下探
在學術上，已經有學校將網際網路視為新媒體，而獨立出來成為一門學科。或許還是有人質疑網路是否大到足以稱為一個媒體平台，然而就廣告的表現來看，事實的本身就是大型傳統的廣告商已經將他們的焦點移轉到網路上。
而現在的廣告客戶已經不再單純追求點擊率，更加重視品牌形象展示和廣告效果的轉化率。根據國際資料公司（IDC）報告，美國的Google、雅虎、中國3721等網際網路業者的廣告收益都持續上揚。亞洲區最關鍵的廣告市場在澳大利亞、中國和韓國。亞洲城市幾乎四成的網際網路消費者表示，網上廣告會影響他們上網購買物品。網路廣告已經漸漸受到國內外主要廣告主的認可，在廣告主的媒體計畫中佔據越來越大的比例。我們可以從不久前，台積電線上徵才廣告受到注意中，發現這樣的情形。
從網路廣告主所屬的行業來看，現今的網路廣告主是以IT、通訊、交通、網路服務行業為主，其中又以IT類廣告主最多，而這正是網路廣告與傳統媒體廣告的主要區別。也許正是由於網路媒體與IT的息息相關，使得IT類廣告主更親睞於網路廣告。而同時根據尼爾森調查公司（Nielsen/NetRatings）報告顯示，在2003年，汽車產業在線上廣告的花費增加了75%，而電信產業在線上廣告的花費則提高到31%。
搜索廣告和網上分類廣告將大幅度增長。網上廣告的收益中，來自網頁圖示和贊助商的廣告2007年將達到7.9億美元，搜索廣告、分類廣告和電子郵件市場將增長到8.32億美元。而從網路廣告主今後的發展來看，網路廣告仍舊將以IT類廣告主為主，但近來房產類和網路遊戲類廣告主有較大增長的趨勢，可以預見，網路廣告除了真的已經成為行銷的管道之一，而不僅大企業矚目，同時因為時代所趨，當許多的資料搜尋行為都發生在網路上時，網路廣告主的來源也將深入每一家小企業中。
網路廣告成新寵 2005年將達80億
比傳統廣告，價格低廉、服務多樣、效果顯著的網路廣告再度成為「眼球經濟」的寵兒。美國網路廣告收入在2002年下降18%之後，2003年全美網路廣告收入預計增長12%，達到66億美元。
根據尼爾森調查公司報告顯示，一些傳統的廣告大戶如麥當勞、通用汽車等都增加了對網路廣告的投放，全美前25大網路廣告客戶中，美國頂級大公司所占比重由2000年的20%上升到44%。例如麥當勞今年就宣佈將把巨額廣告投入從電視轉向網路的決定。在經歷了2002年的探底之後，網路廣告在2003年開始回升，預計到2005年網路廣告收入將達到80多億美元。特別是為廣告客戶提供付費搜索的Google、MSN及Yahoo，都從中獲得了巨大收益，預計該業務收入在今年將占網站全部廣告收入的1/3。
fr.: http://alive.infopro.com/2004Apr/04_alive_3.htm
Yahoo!奇摩將搜尋列為年度重點服務
Yahoo!奇摩宣布繼「線上拍賣」之後，今年度的核心為搜尋服務，更在日前停用Google搜尋技術。奇摩站創辦人、現任Yahoo!北亞區搜尋及網路市集副總裁暨副董事總經理的盧大為在接受專訪時表示，就搜尋引擎的技術來說，目前Goole的品牌印象的確較佳，Yahoo!則會持續整合全球的搜尋技術與網站資源，加強本地化及個人化的搜尋結果。此外，由於去年收購的搜尋引擎公司Overture所帶來的收入，就佔了公司年度營收的20％，今年將把Overture的獲利機制納入Yahoo!奇摩的搜尋引擎，讓臺灣的廣告主可
以採取自我服務，付費提高自己網站在搜尋結果裡的位置，屆時會有完善的付費機制。
對使用者而言，搜尋引擎的商業模式愈成熟，會不會應驗「95％的資訊是金錢篩選過的」這樣的說法？Yahoo!奇摩搜尋分類服務事業部總監康芳菁表示，廣告主的網站必須符合與搜尋關鍵字有高度相關性的門檻，相關度是他們唯一會確認的條件。（楊佳鳳）
fr.: http://epaper.pchome.com.tw/archive/last.htm?s_date=last&s_code=0171
Startup tracks your interests to customize a news search
Who: Greg Linden, chief executive and president of Findory.com.
Story hunter: The company's first product, Findory News, offers free, instant personalization of news searches at www.findory.com. It learns from the news you select to read and finds articles that match your interests. And it won't make you sign in or use a password.
What's the point? There's a glut of news out there, and Findory News is one way to find some focus within that information, Linden said. The Web site keeps a record of the articles you've read in the past and uses that information to automatically pick the articles you would likely be interested in.
How does it work? Each visitor is assigned an anonymous identifier, a random number that's part of a cookie — a piece of data that tracks a visitor's preferences. It associates news searches with the individual identifiers. The service is anonymous in that it doesn't know anything about users other than the articles they've read.
Amazon roots: Linden, 31, spent five years at Amazon.com and co-founded the personalization group there. That's the team that customizes Amazon.com's Web site for customers. He led the software side of the personalization group and said he left in 2002 to find new challenges, including obtaining an advanced business degree from Stanford University.
Why news? Lots of companies are developing their own personalization services, and Linden could make a nice living as an executive geek. He said he picked the news business because it has a redeeming social value. "If you make it easier for people to read the news, to spend less time and be more informed, that actually has a lot of value," he said. "People make better decisions."
The money angle: Findory News isn't only about the betterment of mankind. There's some money made here, too. Linden said he plans to sell text advertising on the site, similar to the sponsored links that search engine Google offers on the side of its results pages. Down the road, he said, news organizations might license the technology for their own use.
Pure startup: Findory.com is only about 3 months old, and Linden still runs it on seed funding out of his home. "That's very necessary these days, because venture-capital funding isn't like it was during the heyday," he said.
Gorilla in the midst: Microsoft is planning to jump into this business soon. The company's MSN division said it will soon launch a newsbot for personalized searches of news articles online. Linden isn't worried, though. "It's going to validate the idea of personalized news," he said. "When Microsoft comes out with an actual product in this area, then it's going to attract a lot of attention to Findory."
— Kim Peterson
Greg Linden is CEO and president of Findory.com, a personalized news and search Web site. No sign-in is required; the site tracks which articles you've viewed, but no other personal information.
fr.: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2001901141_btinterface12.html
Is Google the future of e-mail?
April 12, 2004, 4:00 AM PT
By Declan McCullagh
Google is hoping to convince us to use its forthcoming Gmail service for our lifetime e-mail needs.
Once signed up to the Gmail system, every user gets a gigabyte of free Web-based e-mail storage. That's about 100 times the number of bits Microsoft's Hotmail accounts can hold.
It's a generous offer. But should we take Google up on it?
Right now, people who use Web-based e-mail can't squeeze that much in the cramped 4 megabytes or so that Google's competitors offer their nonpaying subscribers. What that means is that the impact of a security breach or privacy incident is sharply limited; your entire online life wouldn't be on public display in the case of one. With Gmail, on the other hand, you might have 20 years' worth of correspondence protected only by the thin shield of a password.
My concern is not about Google's management, who have been upstanding corporate citizens. They've maintained a firewall between advertising and search results, and have resisted the temptation to follow Yahoo's "paid inclusion" lead. Google has stood up to censorship and, in general, has alerted its readers when it's legally required to yank sites from its index.
Still, there are good reasons to be leery of Gmail, which requires you to trust the security of a computer system over which you have no control. If you keep your correspondence on your home computer, you can encrypt your old e-mail or squirrel it away on CD-ROMs that won't be accessible to a malicious hacker. That won't work, if everything's online.
In August 1999, a bug in a script used by Microsoft's Hotmail let anyone log in to any of 50 million accounts without typing a password first.
This is no theoretical concern. In August 1999, a bug in a script used by Microsoft's Hotmail let anyone log in to any of 50 million accounts without typing a password first. Yahoo has experienced its own series of embarrassing e-mail security breaches, and there is no reason to believe that Google will be any different.
If you're using Mac OS X or third-party utilities like PGP for Windows, you can "securely delete" any file, meaning that it will be repeatedly overwritten until it's unrecoverable. But if you delete an e-mail message from your Gmail account, it may exist forever--remaining permanently accessible to police armed with a Patriot Act order or your spouse's divorce lawyer, wielding a subpoena. (Google refuses to discuss how many subpoenas it already has received for users' search terms.)
That's because Google and other Web-based e-mail companies back up their servers' hard drives, meaning that your e-mail may exist on an archival tape, even though you think it's gone. In its Gmail privacy policy, Google acknowledges that "residual copies of e-mail may remain on our systems, even after you have deleted them from your mailbox or after the termination of your account."
And there are the privacy issues. Gmail works by serving related ads on Web pages that display e-mail. Google's terms of service say its servers scan the content of e-mail messages with no human intervention and that "no e-mail content or other personally identifiable information will be provided to advertisers."
If you delete an e-mail message from your Gmail account, it may exist forever.
That's fine, and Google's current management seems trustworthy enough. But who will be running the company in a few years, and will they have the same views? Google has reserved the right to change its privacy policy any time it wants, something that likely would happen, if the company is bought or if it ever decides to sell Gmail.
For its part, Google says it is "committed to the highest standards of user protection."
"We consider ourselves a company that does no evil, and we take user privacy seriously," Wayne Rosing, Google's vice president of engineering, told me last week. "We have very strict internal rules, even among Google employees who are able to access confidential data. It would harm Google enormously, if we behaved badly with personal data. I don't believe we ever will."
While Gmail's initial version may not be for everyone, Internet users should still be able to make their own choices. Unfortunately, some regulatory enthusiasts are trying to ban Gmail, something that makes as much sense as outlawing compilers, just because someone might use them to create surveillanceware.
Last week, the U.K. group Privacy International filed a complaint against Google, saying Gmail violated European data collection laws. A few days later, it and other sincere but misguided activists wrote to Google, saying Gmail should be shut down or suspended. So much for preserving consumer choice.
The alternatives
If Google wanted to veer in a more privacy-protective direction, it could look to the intriguing model of Vancouver, Canada-based Hush Communications, which runs the Hushmail Web mail system. Unlike rivals, Hush encrypts mail sent between Hush users. It uses a Java-based technique that allows for only its intended recipient--and not Hush employees--to decrypt a scrambled e-mail message. If a subpoena arrives, or if a security breach ever happens, disclosure would be limited.
Hush offers 2-megabyte-limit free accounts and pay accounts, and it said 900,000 accounts have been created since its May 1999 launch. The company also lets users store files in an encrypted volume and this week plans to announce a feature that permits encrypted volumes to be shared among multiple users.
Hush's patent No. 6,154,543 covers some aspects of encrypted e-mail. The company said it'd happy to license it to Google. Originally, Hush Chief Technology Officer Brian Smith said, the patent was quite broad, but "we have narrowed the patent to apply only to e-mail and messaging systems. The modifications were accepted but don't yet appear" on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Web site.
True, if the archived e-mail is encrypted, Gmail won't be able to search message bodies very efficiently, but users might be willing to give up that feature and even pay a monthly charge in exchange for additional security.
"We'll think about it," said Google's Rosing. "We don't have any explicit plans right now...If someone really needs to encrypt a lot of e-mail, maybe they should be putting that on their laptop. We're trying to provide a service that offers some utility to our users. If you change the service to take away all the value of the service, you're back where you started."
Maybe. But until that happens, would-be users of Gmail or any similar service should recognize that their so-called free e-mail comes at a price.
biography
Declan McCullagh is CNET News.com's Washington, D.C., correspondent. He chronicles the busy intersection between technology and politics. Before that, he worked for several years as Washington bureau chief for Wired News. He has also worked as a reporter for The Netly News, Time magazine and HotWired.
fr.: http://news.com.com/2010-1032_3-5187543.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=news
Ask Jeeves Introduces Famous People Search
By Chris Sherman, Associate Editor
April 12, 2004
Ask Jeeves has expanded its Smart Search feature, adding "direct answers" with biographical information about famous people.
Direct answers for famous people appear in a box at the top of a search result page, with a picture, short biography and additional links for more information. These links vary depending on what the person is famous for. For example, results for David Bowie include links for pictures, news, products, filmography and discography.
Pictures, news and product links are provided by Ask Jeeves in partners Picsearch, Moreover and Pricegrabber. Discographies come from AllMusic.com, and filmographies are provided by the Internet Movie Database. For some famous people, a link to an official web site will be offered.
While famous people search is useful for people of unquestionable fame, the service is inconsistent, providing information for some celebrities but not for others of seemingly similar stature. For example, you'll get results for Colin Powell but not Condoleza Rice. Similarly, you will see a direct answer for Bugs Bunny but not for Daffy Duck.
Some other examples:
William Shakespeare
Golda Meir
David Beckham
Amelia Earhart
George Boole
fr.: http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3338781
Google提供免費1GB電子郵件測試服務
記者 / iThome採購情報 2004-04-12
Google成功超越對手Yahoo!及MSN成為搜尋引擎市場「一哥」，除了引發一連串搜尋公司併購及更激烈的技術研發競爭，Google還在日前推出免費1GB電子郵件空間的測試版本。加上之前陸續推出的區域搜尋、新聞整合、討論區等新服務，向Yahoo!及MSN挑戰的意味濃厚，也引發Google有意朝入口網站發展的傳言...
fr.: http://shoppingguide.ithome.com.tw/news/news2004-04-12-005.html
探宇科技的UniMarketing
UniMarketing 3.5
記者 / iThome採購情報 2004-04-12
探宇科技的UniMarketing，以資料採礦（Data Mining）技術為基礎，藉著分析資料庫、資料倉儲等各種資料來源，產生產品差異化行銷分析，而且提供預測客戶購買行為的套裝功能。
以資料採礦技術分析銷售客戶的相關資訊，進而根據購物習性預測出合適的商品組合
探宇科技的UniMarketing，以資料採礦（Data Mining）技術為基礎，藉著分析資料庫、資料倉儲等各種資料來源，產生產品差異化行銷分析，而且提供預測客戶購買行為的套裝功能。
UniMarketing的參考客戶以金融保險和百貨零售業為主，金融商品銷售需要掌握客戶的風險評估、信用評等、資產與貢獻度，以及利率額度分析；百貨零售業者應用的理由是販賣品項繁多，需要策畫特賣活動，寄送DM通知顧客，吸引人潮到賣場購物，需要準確的會員管理。
UniMarketing的分析流程
UniMarketing以Java開發，使用主從式架構，使用者透過網路連線，至伺服器端操作UniMarketing分析系統，也可以根據企業需求調整成應用伺服器的延伸架構，在資料分析前，須先匯入相關資料，轉換成具有資料綱要（Data Schema）的DSC檔，如果要進行有關購物習性的協銷分析和序銷分析，資料源需要再次轉換成二進位格式的BTF檔，以及用來對照產品代號、名稱的MAP檔。UniMarketing在用戶端程式的使用者介面，提供客戶價值和購物習性兩種分析資料準備的功能，作為系統資料分析的基礎。
資料匯入系統後，根據預設參數，會重新定義資料，區分出過濾欄位、新增欄位、資料取樣等系統欄位，產生成DSC格式的純文字資料物件，執行分析處理後，系統會建構對應的資料模型，將結果以圖表呈現。資料模型出爐後，接著可以進一步預測未來後續的新進資料將會歸屬的分類。
由於每一次分析處理的資料準備，需要的檔案通常包括資料源、DSC檔、BTF檔、MAP檔，因此分析處理以專案檔的方式囊括這些資料檔，方便管理，這些資料檔根據屬性不同，又分成系統資料共用區和使用者個人區，系統共用區是全體使用者共享的，擁有管理權限的人才能修改或新匯入資料到這個區域；使用者個人區的資料只能供登入使用者存取與管理，其他使用者無法檢視。與其他商業智慧系統相比，資料呈現與共享的權限控管方面相當有限，只有一般、進階和管理員3種，無法依照部門或群組控管資料權限，使用者少時，或許不需要控管得太仔細，如果應用在使用者眾多的大型企業，就會很需要與階層職務相關的資料或應用程式權限功能。
資料處理作業
外部資料匯入分成純文字檔和資料庫兩種處理方式，純文字檔的資料需要一定順序的排列，才能夠轉換成有意義的資料；資料庫的存取透過ODBC取得資料源連結，匯入功能可以支援資料表相互參照（Join）的處理，轉換成SQL指令執行，習慣SQL指令的使用者，可以在SQL視窗直接鍵入指令，執行資料庫處理。
匯入資料後，要進行資料準備，轉換成系統需要的各式檔案，UniMarketing特別提供「漏失值處理」的功能，在轉換過程中根據預先設定的資料值，自動補登錄，以便提高資料採礦的有效性。
分析作業的速度取決於資料量與處理能力，初期幾次使用之後，就可以確定例行的處理作業，UniMarketing的作業管理員提供分析工作排程與管理功能，即使想臨時中斷分析作業，可以從作業管理員中停止或暫停該項工作。
分析作業
分析作業設定時，除了初步呈現匯入後的資料，可以增加衍生欄位，增加資料呈現的彈性，並且支援記錄篩選的設定，只呈現使用者需要的區間資料或取樣資料。衍生欄位是指將某些欄位配合運算式或常數做特殊需求的處理，例如我們可以設定薪資除以小孩數目等於消費能力的公式，以便自動產生消費能力這個原先資料表沒有的欄位；記錄篩選可以設定區間資料，透過設定大於、小於等判斷式篩選特定欄位的資料。
客戶行為分析管理包括分群、行為與貢獻度分析，UniMarketing採用群集化（clustering）和分類（classification）的方法分析。分群可以將每一群的特徵整理後，根據這些屬性（例如性別、職業、居住地區）的密集程度，進行分群，歸納出現後，使得現有顧客與潛在顧客所屬的族群，能夠以聚焦的方式浮現，便於企業研擬相關行銷策略。行為分析會採用目標式客戶區隔分析法，記錄特定的消費習性（例如有些顧客特別熱中折價券、來店禮、高價精品），之後將客戶區隔（segmentation），以決策樹方式展開這些區隔，建立模型，操作者可以很清楚地看到每一群對象隨著階層的累積而持續遞增的各項特徵。貢獻度用量化屬性（例如消費金額與次數）作為分析目標，也採用目標區隔方式，用決策樹歸結出哪一群客戶的貢獻價值最高，提供操作者檢視推論分析出的資料因素。
購物習性分析可分成協銷（association）和序銷（sequential）的規則分析。商業智慧廠商經常會引用威名百貨（Wal-Mart）的例子，購物籃分析（market basket analysis）能夠找到顧客在週末同時購買啤酒與尿布的關聯性，這個例子正好也充分說明協銷和序銷的重要性。協銷是從相同時間的購物明細資料中，找出關聯程度最高的商品組合，適用在交叉銷售（Cross Selling）；序銷則可以長期分析顧客在不同時間購買產品的先後關係，會應用在向上銷售（Up Selling），目的也是找出關聯程度高的商品組合。
客戶價值分析UniMarketing提供期間、頻率、金額、客戶忠誠度（Customer Loyalty Value）的分析，以圖表方式呈現客戶流失的原因、來店頻率、累計消費金額，推算出顧客的忠誠度。期間分析透過計算客戶最後一次來店時間距離現在時間的長短，分出等級，企業可視顧客來店的周期區分顧客價值。頻率分析，是來店次數另一種計算方式，頻率越高，可能代表顧客的認同與滿意越高，假如發現顧客來店頻率明顯降低，能夠立即研擬對策，開始著手發現問題的根源。忠誠度會使用RFM數值法進行運算，RFM是指前次購物時間（Recency）、購物頻率（Frequency）、購買金額（Monetary）。
預測分析上述所有的分析作業背後皆會產生預測模型，根據預測的信賴度，可以只檢視信賴度高的分析結果。資料隨著每天的營運不斷增長，UniMarketing讓新進的資料也能用來驗證預測模型的準確度，在客戶行為分析預測的功能，提供Gain Chart、Lift Chart和Effect Gain三種圖表的檢視，作為參考。
目前的商業智慧絕大多數屬於歷史資料的分析，關於資料採礦領域的延伸，以資料分析技術為主的產品，也不一定熟悉各行業專屬領域的需求，UniMarketing的長處，在於功能很固定，而且具有與金融保險、百貨零售業者合作的經驗，操作上雖然不夠直覺，經過適當的教育訓練之後，可以很快上手，對中小型的金融與零售業相當適合。文⊙李宗翰
fr.: http://shoppingguide.ithome.com.tw/review/review2004-04-12-001.html
