Les moteurs de recherches alternatifs

Déménagement du blog

2009-05-31T13:07:00.001-07:00

Salut à tous,

Ne pouvant continuer mon blog en français je vous donne l'adresse de mon nouveau blog:

http://internationalemarketing.blogspot.com/

Google Wave

2009-05-30T04:46:00.000-07:00

Le monde des moteurs de recherches est en ce moment en ébullition. La sortie de Wolfram Alpha ainsi que de Bing le petit nouveau de chez Microsoft y sont sûrement pour quelque chose.

Une fois de plus les célèbres pronostics sont lancés: Google va t il être détrôné?

Et je crois bien qu'une fois de plus la réponse va être un non catégorique.

La raison s'appelle Google Wave qui est la future application de Google qui redéfinit clairement l'usage que nous faison de la messagerie électronique.

En quelques mots de quoi cela s'agit il?

Et bien l'utilisation de Google Wave est basé sur l'expérience des Wikis et de la messagerie instantanée.

En résumé un simple échange d'email se transforme en véritable conversation instantanée ou chacun peut revenir sur ces propos, échanger des images et travailler ensemble en temps réel. Le tout peut aussi se faire en étant hors ligne. Il est possible d'ajouter d'autres participants à l'échange et de le séparer en plusieurs partie.

Il est aussi possible de lier l'échange à un blog ou tout les messages écrits sont ensuite posté sur le blog en question en temps réel.

En résumé avec un tel produit on est pas prêt de se séparer de Google.

L'application en question n'est pas encore sur le marché mais le sera prochainement vous pouvez en être informé à http://wave.google.com/

Voici la vidéo de démonstration, un peu longue c'est vrai mais croyez moi elle en vaut la peine :

Google et les consommateurs

2009-05-30T03:50:00.000-07:00

Je viens de réaliser pour l'un de mes cours intitulés "Consumer Behavior" une courte étude sur le comportements des internautes vis à vis de Google.

En espérant que cela intéresse certains d'entre vous:

Consumer Behaviour Google

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Les discours des hommes les plus influents dans le secteur des moteurs de recherches

2009-05-26T03:41:00.000-07:00

J'ai retrouvé des vidéos des discours prononcés prononcés par les créateurs de Google, Microsoft et Yahoo lors de remises de cérémonies. Elles sont assez sympas car pleine d'humour et montre des personnalités dont l'on entend beaucoup parler mais que l'on ne voit presque jamais.

Voici le discours de Larry Page, co fondateur de Google:

Voici le discours de Jerry Yang, co fondateur de Yahoo:

Voici le discours de Robin Li, co fondateur de Baidu, si je ne me trompe pas il s'agit bien d'une cérémonie de remise des diplomes, naturellement c'est en chinois mais ça vaut aussi le coup d'oeil ne serait ce que d'un point de vue culturel:

Je n'ai malheureusement pas trouvé la suite du discours.

Et celui de Bill Gates, co fondateur de Microsoft:

J'ai trouvé beaucoup de similitudes entre les discours de Yang, Gates et Page. Tous utilisent l'humour et tous ont quitté leurs doctorat pour se consacrer à leur entreprise.

NHN: Next Human Network n'est autre que Naver le moteur de recherches coréen

2009-05-21T00:26:00.000-07:00

En retravaillant sur ma thèse ce matin la curiosité m'a pris de vérifier le classement des moteurs de recherches au niveau mondial.

Je vous remet le classement de 2007 (il faut savoir que quand les données sont collectées au niveau mondial il n'est pas facile facile de trouver les résultats les plus récents):

Il me semble avoir déjà parlé du fait que Baidu, propriété chinoise avait son importance du fait que ses utilisateurs sont fidèles.

Comme on peut le voir sur cette image NHN Corporation occupe la cinquième place et est au coude à coude avec Microsoft.

Comme mentionné dans le titre NHN signifie "Next Human Network" et est la propriété d'une multinationale coréenne dont l'origine est la fusion entre une entreprise de jeux vidéos en ligne et de Naver le célèbre moteur de recherches coréen.

cf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHN

Il est possible que la présence de cette entreprise en cinquième place ne vous fait ni chaud ni froid mais il faut se dire que Naver est un pur produit coréen c'est à dire quasiment aucune utilisation ne doit en être faite de la part des étrangers(l'interface en anglais y est même inexistante).

La Corée du Sud pour information c'est un peu moins de 50 millions d'habitants et un taux de connexion des plus élevés au monde avec un peu plus de 3 habitants sur 4 ayant accès à Internet.

Donc il est assez impressionnant de voir qu'un pays modeste en terme de population et avec un service à grande partie national peut décrocher une cinquième place.

Wolfram Alpha: Du nouveau dans le monde de la recherche sur Internet?

2009-05-19T23:54:00.000-07:00

Quelques petits mots sur le moteur de recherches du moment qui n'est autre que Wolfram Alpha.

Son récent lancement et le fait que les médias en parlent beaucoup en ce moment m'ont poussé à en faire un test.

Et en effet il y a de quoi ne pas être déçu.

Ola pas d'affolement ce n'est pas encore la solution miracle. Cependant on peut en obtenir des résultats intéressants qui vous poussent à lui poser quelques questions supplémentaires.

Tout d'abord commençons par son interface graphique:

La page d'accueil de Wolfram Alpha

Personnelement elle me plait, les couleurs rosées lui donnent un petit aspect Linux Ubuntu.

A part cela je dirai qu'en tant qu'utilisateur lambda on a vite fait de ne pas lire les instructions et de commencer à entrer quelques mots clés dans la barre de recherches et commencer à surfer.

A partir de là vont commencer les premières exclamations disant que le moteur n'est pas au point car ne renvoit aucun résultat.

Et oui la vie des moteurs de recherches est très dur au départ d'où le risque quand on lance une application toute jeune sur un marché de masse.

La solution la plus efficace pour obtenir des résultats consiste à y rentrer des mots simples et si possible uniques, utiliser aussi les guillemets "". Suite à quoi vous obtiendrez en effet vos premiers résultats.

Voici un exemple tout bête:

Là en l'occurence j'ai écrit Wikipedia.org en tant que mot clé et on me renvoit des informations concernant le page rank de la page, quand le site à été enregistré etc etc...

Donc ce qui est sympa avec Wolfram c'est l'aspect personnalisé de l'information. Par exemple si vous écrivez le nom d'une ville ou d'une uinversité et bien vous obtenez des informations sur celles ci. Donc je dirai pour le moment Wolfram a des allures d'encyclopédies simplifiées.

Dernier post

2009-04-25T10:42:00.000-07:00

Je viens de poster une étude de cas sur les navigateurs Internet qui n'a rien à voir avec les moteurs de recherches alternatifs. Cependant je pense que son contenu peut intéresser plus d'un et qu'il serait donc dommage que je n'en fasse pas profiter tout le monde.

Browser Wars: Internet Explorer versus Netscape

2009-04-25T10:01:00.000-07:00

Here is the PDF version: Browser_wars Internet Explorer versus Netscape

Browser Wars

Battles of Standards, Microsoft versus Netscape

Topic :

One standard that appears to have been effectively monopolized by a single company is the Microsoft PC system software. The class could discuss why this is the case and wether it is likely to continue in the future. It could also ask wether such a monopoly is a good thing (for society as a whole, not just Microsoft) for what it considers, as unfair competition against Netscape. An excellent analysis of the various sides of the debate can be found in The Economist ('At war with Microsoft' and 'Play nicely, or not at all', May 23, 1998; 'Bill Gates replies: compete, don't delete', June 13, 1998; Microsoft - letters, p.10, June 27, 1998).

Context:

The following case study has been submitted for the course of Innovation and Knowledge Management at the university of Léon within the European Master in Business Studies.

Introduction :

Internet explorer versus Netscape Navigator is a classic of case study and this is not the information which are lacking on the subject.

As an example the two books I chose to study within the course of Innovation and Knowledge Management untitled "Winners Losers & Microsoft" and "Information rules: a strategic guide to network economy" are both refering to the battle between Internet Explorer and Netscape web browsers.

This story and analysis has then already been written more than once and it can then be very easy for me to make a good copy of those works based on the analysis of analysis.

I am personnaly more interested in writing something new and original. I suggest then to take into account new elements such as the current web browser market (2009), the fact that we are analyzing the situation 10 years after the battle and trying to predict the future of the web browser market.

Those changes will brought an original work to the teacher and an exclusive paper to its readers.

I hope you will appreciate it.

Ronan CHARDONNEAU

Personal experience about the study case :

I have been introduced to Netscape Navigator in 1999, my elder brother studying computer sciences he came back one day with a pc including Internet Explorer and Netscape. I personnaly grew up and be trained with Internet Explorer ( as it was by default installed on all computers of my junior High School).

I never used Netscape Navigator to go on Internet and I am an experienced user of Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. I also use sometimes the textual web browser Lynx.

Why the web browser standard has been monopolized by Microsoft PC system software ?

First of all let’s define what is a standard :

« A technology is recognized as a standard when it gets more than 50% of the market shares»

Let’s now define a web browser :

« A browser is a software application that is used to locate and display Web pages. »

www.asu.edu/copp/resources/glossary.html

Here is a definition of Microsoft :

« Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation, which rose to dominate the home computer operating system »

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft

And to finish a definition of an operating system :

« The most important program run on a computer because it manages all the other programs. »

www.iscfr21.it/21cfr_glossary.html

So Microsoft owns the Operating System market which is managing web browsers and Microsoft is producing its own web browser : Internet Explorer. Here we can then understand the problematic.

On Microsoft side we can understand the following question « Why should I include a competitor web browser within my own Operating System ? » and obviously understand why they are still not doing it.

In 1999 in order to install Netscape on your PC you needed to take it from the outside (Download on Internet, take it from a CD etc…) and here is the heart of the winning battle.

In order to win and be recognized as a better product people have to know that you exist. We can then understand why at that time computer users did not have Netscape on their computer (today the world Internet penetration rate is at 23,8% in 2000 only 7% of the world population had Internet connection, http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm). Netscape was then for elites or computer educated people, for example my brother had it and I never heard about it.

So to sum up this first part :

- The web browser market has been monopolized by Microsoft because MS owns the software which manage web browsers ;

- Microsoft has no interest of letting entering competitors into his own market ;

- Users cannot know that other web browsers exist if they are not informed about their existence and of course cannot install them if they do not know how to ;

Is it likely to continue in the future ?

Actually a good question one should ask is « Is the situation of web browsers has changed during the last ten years ? »

As a standard user I can say no but the next decade is going to be very interesting for the web browsers market and this for many reasons.

Raising up of a new competitor: Google

The first good reason for changes is the raising up of Google on the market of operating systems. Google already started on cell phones with a software called « Android ». Google is the most famous brand in the world and has a better reputation than Microsoft which is a good reason for customers to switch or at least give a try to a new operating system. Moreover Google already owns its proper web browser : Google Chrome.

It is not that popular but has however the fourth position in the market of web browser, taking in account that the third one is more or less targeting another kind of computers (Mac) one can say that Google Chrome has an interesting outsider position (cf.page 11).

I would amphisize as well that Google may have the solution for the operating system of tomorrow which could bring a tremendous revolution in the world of operating system.

It is going to be the first time that Microsoft will face a competitor which is as famous and successful as him.

A computer population who is more and more educated

The case of Mozilla Firefox web browser is also a very interesting part of this case study . Mozilla Firefox is a free, open-source, web browser for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. Firefox is knowing exactly the same story as Netscape (in fact the those two products are more or less the same http://browser.netscape.com/history). « At the time of the acquisition, the Netscape team had begun working on converting their flagship product - the Netscape Communicator web suite - into open source software, under a new name: Mozilla. »

Netscape as Mozilla Firefox both have the reputation to best http://www.consumersearch.com/web-browser-reviews . It is so called better than Internet Explorer but is not yet recognized as the standard. The success of Mozilla is due to the fact that it is a product which is according to me more convenient than Internet Explorer. It is not first in the market because in order to have it on your computer you need to download it and of course to know its existence.

The best example I can find about the recognition of its strengths is its presence at the university.

It is nowadays very hard to find in European universities a computer which does not have Mozilla Firefox on the desktop.

I guess that the presence of Mozilla is due to the fact that higher education recognize its quality.

Let's know think about the future when the current students which are studying right now at the university will be on the market place.

Well good chances that it will install a wave of Mozilla Firefox within businesses and that it will be a trend which will not be reversed until universities recognize the value of another web browser.

So I would attribute the success of Mozilla Firefox and in a certain way Netscape to the fact that people get more and more computer educated.

However this education is not sufficient enough in order to jeopardize Microsoft Internet Explorer on the short term.

A new sanction for Microsoft ?

Microsoft has been at the center of many polemics since the story of Netscape versus Microsoft, however justice never sanctionned firmely Microsoft for obvious reasons (if Microsoft is seriously condamned what will happen to Microsoft users ?).

Microsoft trial is still a day to day topic in the news : http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/informatique/0,39040745,39393157,00.htm. Microsoft is under a condamnation by the european commission http://rcpmag.com/news/article.aspx?editorialsid=10780 to let an option on its operating system allowing to remove Internet Explorer and include competitors web browsers.The answer of the verdict is fixed at April the 28th 2009 : http://www.generation-nt.com/internet-explorer-vente-liee-windows-europe-actualite-264581.html

Is such a monopoly a good thing ?

As in all monopoly you have pros and cons :

Good point :

I worked for almost one year in computer companies or at least worked in the field of computers and here are some benefits I have seen.

If everybody use the same web browsers then it is less work for website computer programmers because you are sure that all the information you will display will be displayed properly. Exactly like a language if everybody speaks the same language then everybody understand and understand each other

Bad point :

On the other hand when people are using different web browsers some information are sometimes missing, computer programmers have to test the applications on different web browsers and then tasks come to be more and more complicated.

Here are some mere explanations. Some web browsers recognized some parts of codes whereas other don't. One of the most famous one is the HTML tag called which means that a word included between those two tags will blink automatically. Some web browsers are not reading those codes and of course will not display this information properly whereas other will. So here was for the main basic idea.

Another idea we can developped is the different use of web browser for different tasks.

For example Mozilla Firefox is very popular because of all the functions you can add to this browser : applications which will allow you to download videos from the website you are looking at or even thousands of others functionalities to customize your web browser.

Google Chrome is is very convenient because it is quickly launched.

Lynx is very popular to protect your data and your confidentiality.

So to each web browser correspond a certain list of characteristics but of course you have to know that they exist and what are there characteristics.

According to the book "Winners, losers and Microsoft" the products which win the battle are always the best. I strongly disagree with this statement. The product which win is the best advertised and at this game Microsoft is leading the game. A quick look at the recent figures of the web browsers market shares show us that Internet Explorer is still the leader and the standard in terms of web browser.

Conclusion :

From this analysis we can then understand why Netscape did not win (if your success is in the end of your competitor…well it is hard to win) but also why it is still living under the name of Firefox (when you have strenght that competitors do not have you are still on the race).

We can also see that people are not entirely benefiting from this monopoly because Internet Explorer is not the best product.

For consumers they can take the best part of web browsers only by using each of them for specific purposes but should at least know that they exist.

Microsoft could lose its monopolistic position on the short term but only if a strong event happened such as the presence of Google on the desktop operating system market or a severe condamnation from the European Commission.

What is really strange to see is that the Web Browser market clearly show how computer education is moving and market imperfection, how is it still possible that Microsoft is taking the monopole of web browser since such a long time ?

Diapositives de conférences

2009-04-22T10:27:00.000-07:00

J'ai été il y a quelques semaines invité pour donner une conférence à l'école de commerce Advancia à Paris. La conférence ayant été malheureusement annulée au dernier moment je ne vois pas de raison de ne pas vous faire profiter du travail que j'avais préparé, en espérant que cela vous plaise:

Search Engine Dependency Conference

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L'imprimante jet d'encre Lego de Larry Page

2009-03-28T03:59:00.001-07:00

Je ne sais pas si cet article interessera quelqu'un mais on lit souvent dans les articles sur Larry Page l'un des fondateurs de Google qu'il a mis au point lors de ses études une imprimante à jet d'encre à partir de briques de Lego.

On en entend donc beaucoup parler mais très rarement on en voit des photos.

Je me suis donc mis en quête de quelques photos car personnelement moi ça m'intéresse de savoir à quoi ressemble une telle imprimante.

La seule que j'ai pu trouver jusqu'à présent est celle ci:

et même si je pense que cette imprimante est de Larry Page je n'en suis pas sûr à 100% car la source de l'image n'était pas très bien indiqué.

Je n'ai en revanche pas encore trouvé de guide d'utilisation ni de mode d'emploi pour la construction.

Les parts de marché de Google dans le monde

2009-03-24T14:26:00.000-07:00

Zorgloob vient de publier un article très intéressant sur les parts de marché de Google dans le monde.

Je tiens à saluer leur travail que je trouve très complet et intéressant.

C'est marrant car je m'étais lancé exactement dans la même tache il y a quelques mois de cela et n'avait pas publié mes résultats car je me disais qu'il valait mieux vous présenter les marchés les plus intéressants et individuellement plutôt qu'un topo général de la situation.

C'est dommage en tout cas car il semblerait que j'avais exactement la même idée et que pour une fois j'étais très en avance (à la seule différence qu'ils en ont trouvé 3 de plus).

En tout cas voici le tableau que vous obtiendrez à l'adresse suivante:

http://www.zorgloob.com/2009/03/les-parts-de-marche-de-google-dans-le.asp

Pays	PdM	Date	Institut
Allemagne	93,0%	mars 2008
Argentine	89,0%	janv. 2008	comScore
Australie	87,8%	juin 2008	Hitwise
Autriche	88,0%	janv. 2008	comScore
Belgique	95,0%	mars 2009	comScore
Brésil	89,0%	janv. 2008	comScore
Bulgarie	80,0%	déc. 2007	Multilingual search
Canada	78,0%	janv. 2008	comScore
Chili	93,0%	janv. 2008	comScore
Chine	26,6%	oct. 2008	iResearch
Colombie	91,0%	janv. 2008	comScore
Corée du Sud	3,0%	janv. 2009
Danemark	92,0%	janv. 2008	comScore
Espagne	93,0%	janv. 2008	comScore
Estonie	53,4%	juil. 2008	Gemius SA
États-Unis	63,3%	sept. 2009	comScore
États-Unis	72,1%	sept. 2009	Hitwise
Finlande	92,0%	janv. 2008	comScore
France	91,2%	févr. 2009	AT Internet Institute
Hong Kong	26,0%	janv. 2008	comScore
Hongrie	96,0%	août 2008
Inde	81,4%	août 2008	comScore
Irlande	76,0%	janv. 2008	comScore
Islande	51,0%	déc. 2007
Israël	80,0%	janv. 2007
Italie	90,0%	févr. 2009
Japon	38,2%	janv. 2009	Nielsen/NetRatings
Lettonie	98,0%	juil. 2008	Gemius SA
Lituanie	98,2%	sept. 2008	Gemius SA
Malaisie	51,0%	janv. 2008	comScore
Mexique	88,0%	janv. 2008	comScore
Norvège	81,0%	janv. 2008	comScore
Nouvelle-Zélande	72,0%	janv. 2008	comScore
Pays-Bas	95,0%	déc. 2008
Pologne	89,3%	sept. 2007	Gemius SA
Porto Rico	57,0%	janv. 2008	comScore
Portugal	94,0%	janv. 2008	comScore
République Tchèque	34,5%	mars 2009
Roumanie	95,2%	mars 2009	statcounter.com
Royaume-Uni	90,4%	déc. 2008	Hitwise
Russie	32,0%	janv. 2008	Spylog
Singapour	57,0%	janv. 2008	comScore
Slovaquie	75,6%	déc. 2007
Suède	80,0%	janv. 2008	comScore
Suisse	93,0%	janv. 2008	comScore
Taiwan	18,0%	janv. 2008	comScore
Ukraine	72,4%	févr. 2009	Bigmir-Internet
Vénézuela	93,0%	janv. 2008	comScore

J'aimerais attirer votre attention sur les sources ainsi que les dates des mises à jour qui sont pour moi très très intéressantes.

Je n'ai pas vraiment de surprise en ce qui concerne les résultats qui y sont affichés qui montrent clairement ce que je met en avant depuis le début des mes recherches.

Nous avons dans le monde un bloc Americo-Européen et le reste du monde.

Quand je dis le reste du monde c'est l'Asie qui elle même est divisée en plein de petits mondes.

Alors attention car on prend souvent l'Asie pour un continent, au niveau géographique peut être mais en ce qui concerne ce que j'appelerai le E-world on se retrouve avec des micros continents de part et d'autres. C'est à croire que des pays comme la Corée du Sud vivent en véritable autarcie au niveau des moteurs de recherches.

Revenons au tableau en lui même, comme vous pouvez le voir les pays en rouge ou très proche du rouge (<50%)>

Taiwan, Singapour, la Malaisie, le Japon, Honk Kong, l'Islande, la Corée du Sud, la Chine et la Russie.

Pour ceux qui suivent l'histoire de mon blog ce n'est pas la surprise du siècle de retrouver ces pays n'ayant pas encore adopter la norme Google.

Pour information voici ce que j'ai appris lors de mon dernier cours de Knowledge Management: "un produit ou service devient un standard quand il acquiert plus de 50% de parts de marché."

En résumé à chaque fois que Google franchit la barre des 50% c'est un pays de gagné et la tendence ne peut s'inverser.

Je disais donc que ce n'est pas un hasard de retrouver les groupes suivants:

- Taiwan, Singapour, la Malaisie, le Japon, Honk Kong que j'appelerai pour simplifier les dragons et les tigres, il s'agit pour moi d'un groupe ayant des influences anglo-saxonnes (Yahoo leader du marché des moteurs de recherches dans cette zone) sur leur façon de surfer mais qui ont une culture qui leur est propre que je qualifierai d'asiatique c'est à dire qu'un site Internet doit être esthétique avant tout;

- L'Islande qui est un pays que je trouve impressionnant. Une faible population et une langue que même Google ne traduit pas encore mais 7 personnes sur 10 ont Internet. Ici je dirai que Google a un mal terrible à entrer dans ce marché à cause de la langue;

- La Coréee du Sud qui est le pays le plus fermé aux moteurs de recherches étrangers;

- La Chine dont j'ai déjà parlé précedemment;

- La Russie dont j'ai aussi parlé précedemment;

La Malaisie et Taiwan sont deux marchés que j'aurais grand plaisir à étudier quand j'aurais un peu plus de temps.

Rapport intermédiaire de thèse

2009-02-01T04:19:00.000-08:00

Salut à tous,

Comme promis je vous publie mon rapport intermédiaire de thèse.
Pour le télécharger cliquez sur le lien suivant (mais il vous faudra un compte gratuit sur slideshares):
Lien pour la thèse
Le rapport final est prévu pour juin.
Bonne lecture.

Risks of search engine dependency and its influence on data quality

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Risks of search engine dependency and its influence on data quality

2009-02-01T04:17:00.000-08:00

Thesis intermediate report submitted for the European Master in Business Studies
(EMBS)
by Ronan CHARDONNEAU
Institut de Management de l'Université de Savoie d'Annecy (FR)
Università degli studi di Trento (IT)
Universität Kassel (GER)
Universidad de León (SP)
Date of submission: 26th January, 2009
Master Thesis

2009-02-01T04:16:00.000-08:00

Foreword.......................................................................................................................6
Chapter 1: Introduction of the topic background..........................................................8
1.1 Relevance of the subject...................................................................................10
1.2 Major terms......................................................................................................11
1.3 Focus, goals and structure of the report...........................................................11
Chapter 2: Concept of data quality.............................................................................13
2.1 Data quality definition......................................................................................14
2.2 The importance of data quality.........................................................................15
Chapter 3: Search engines dependency.......................................................................16
3.1 Search engine market configuration.................................................................17
3.1.1 Search engine categories..........................................................................17
3.1.2 Search engine market...............................................................................19
3.1.3 The search engines in the world...............................................................19
3.1.4 The search engine market shares per country...........................................22
3.1.5 The search engines competition...............................................................23
3.1.6 The semantic web.....................................................................................24
3.2 Search engines dependency aspect...................................................................25
3.2.1 Search engines dependency proves..........................................................25
3.2.2 Search engines dependency aspect...........................................................27
3.3 Search engines dependency problems..............................................................28
3.3.1 Privacy issues...........................................................................................29
3.3.2 Looking for other search engines.............................................................30
3.3.3 Search engine awareness..........................................................................30
3.3.4 Other search engines existence awareness...............................................32
3.3.5 Less confident regarding other search engines.........................................33
3.3.5 Less confident regarding other search engines.........................................33
3.3.6 Even the best cannot provide you everything...........................................34
Chapter 4: Risks of search engines dependency and its influence on data quality.....35
4.1 The information has been found but is poor....................................................36
4.2 What the search engines do not tell you...........................................................36
4.3 The best way to get data quality.......................................................................37
4.3.1 The sub-search engines.............................................................................37
4.3.2 The size of the Internet.............................................................................38
4.3.3 Single search engine Internet coverage....................................................39
4.3.4 Multiple search engine Internet coverage.................................................42
4.3.5 Others search engine Internet coverage....................................................44
4.3.6 A concrete representation of the World Wide Web...................................46
4.4 The gap between search engine dependency and data quality.........................47
Chapter 5: The Google example.................................................................................50
5.1 Google..............................................................................................................51
5.2 Google's success...............................................................................................51
5.3 Google dependency state..................................................................................52
5.4 Google functions..............................................................................................52
5.5 Google added functionalities............................................................................53
5.6 Google success is his weakness.......................................................................53
5.7 Google's disappearance hypothesis..................................................................54
Conclusion..................................................................................................................55
Declaration..................................................................................................................56
List of literature...........................................................................................................57
Afterword....................................................................................................................61

Foreword

2009-02-01T04:15:00.000-08:00

As most of the students who has a computer one of my first move when I
wake up is to switch on the computer and to spend my first twenty minutes of the day
on the Internet.
From there I have a look at the last news, I check my e-mails and eventually
exchange some few words with a couple of friends by using online chat applications.
I also check my other email account as well as my blogs and analyze the traffic I got
during the last few days, to finish this process I consult my advertisement account to
see if I got some revenues. I often use as well search engine to look for information
which just came up into my mind during the night.
In the paragraph you just read was the description of my morning routine on
Internet. There is nothing special except that most of the moves I described above are
in fact done on two to three major search engines: Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.
I hardly ever use Yahoo or Microsoft for search purpose but Google is for
sure the website I visit the most to crawl the web but... is Google the Internet?
I got the idea to write about: « Risks of search engine dependency and its
influence on data quality » not because I was using all those Google applications
everyday and was scared about what will happen if I get in troubles with Google
such as privacy issues or if Google just closed. I just write about it because one day I
found Google results not accurate enough.
And from this observation a lot of questions came to my mind:
· Is it me who is not good enough at performing research on the Internet?
· Is it because no one wrote about the information I am looking for?
· Is it because the information is not on the first pages in Google that I have to
browse all the pages in order to find it?
· Is it because Google is not good enough?
· Is it because the information is hidden in some other documents such as PDF,
pictures, videos?
· Is it because I have to use another way to crawl the web and if yes how?
You see here how a simple observation can raise a lot of questions.
I hesitated a lot about writing on this topic, the main problem I got was that I
was not convinced that there is a potential risk of being search engine dependent. The
reason is that companies such as Google are working hard in order to fit Internet
users expectations and the vision we get is that they are doing a wonderful work. The
problem is that there could be a difference between perception and real facts and this
is exactly what I am eager to discover here.
Can we measure how huge is the gap between the information we were
looking for and the one of search engines as Google are providing us?
Search engines are set up to find information on the Internet, information
being the basis of any good decisions making we can then understand how important
and interesting it is to write on this topic.
I hope you will appreciate this reading as much as I did when making my
research.

Chapter 1: Introduction of the topic background

2009-02-01T04:13:00.001-08:00

I will not surprise you if I say that Internet has been created to share
information and to communicate with each others.
It is hard to evaluate how big is the Internet, estimations among companies
are very different, it varies from 15 to some 30 billion Web pages1. The number of
websites is increasing everyday and estimated at 185,167,8972 with a constant
augmentation since the creation of the world wide web.

Illustration 1: Total Sites Across All Domains August 1995 - January 2009

Habits have changed since the creation of the Internet and websites are used now in
diverse manners if it comes to be a standard for companies (recognized as a mark of
trust, seriousness and quality) it is also a space for many individuals (blog
phenomenon). As an example regarding France, in June 2008 14% of French people
above 12 year-old which means 22% of French Internet users are authors of a blog or
a website3.
The banalization of the Internet and the fact that anyone can create his own
website for free increase the feeling we have regarding the Internet: a true jungle of
information and even sometimes real “dump” regarding information accuracy.
Websites can be accessible through three channels:
· Direct access (for example you know the website address by heart, you put it
in your favorites or you find a website on a business card and you are typing
it in the address bar);
· External links (you access to a website which has the link of another
website, this is the case in most of websites, catalogs, advertisement);
· Through Search Engines (you use a dedicated application by typing in some
keywords in order to get suggestions of what you are looking for);
As you can see from this list if you use only the first two ways to crawl the
web it comes to be too rigid and not wide enough. It has been said as well that the
first way is disappearing more and more in profit of search engines4.
So one could say that there is currently two main ways to crawl the web, from
link to link and by using search engine.
This last one being indispensable in order to crawl the web properly.
More and more information are put on the Internet which makes it
come a true jungle. The only way to crawl those information properly
is to use search engines.

1.1 Relevance of the subject

2009-02-01T04:12:00.001-08:00

Internet is becoming more and more our information provider. "In 2002 a
study from the U.S. Department of Commerce estimated that 36% of the American
public over the age of 3 used the Internet to search for product and service
information in 2001. This usage represented a substantial increase in information
search behavior from 2000, when 26% of the American public reported using the
Internet to search for product and service information."5
Between 2000 and 2008 the USA got an increase of Internet users of 130,9
%6 we can then imagine how important is searching information through Internet
nowadays.
The number of Internet users is estimated to 1,463,632,361 (world population
6,676,120,288) with a growth rate from 2000-2008 fixed at 305.5 %7.

1.2 Major terms

2009-02-01T04:11:00.000-08:00

In this thesis you will hear a lot about the following terms: search engines,
search engine dependency and data quality.
Search engine is the most flexible technology which has been created in
order to crawl the web. A search engine is no more than a web application which is
processing data. A search engine does not create data it just process some
information it has in his index.
I describe search engine dependency as the fact that one does not make the
choice between one search engine and another. Search engine dependency is very
relevant in most of the countries. Most of the people are using only one single search
engine when performing requests on the web. I will speak as well about bad habits
when dealing with search engines. For example you can be dependent of using a
search engine but using it badly.
Data quality is the quality of data. Data are of high quality "if they are fit for
their intended uses in operations, decision making and planning ". Alternatively, the
data are deemed of high quality if they correctly represent the real-world construct to
which they refer. These two views can often be in disagreement, even about the same
set of data used for the same purpose8.

1.3 Focus, goals and structure of the report

2009-02-01T04:10:00.000-08:00

The focus of this work is to show if there are some risks of being search
engine dependent and if there are some, is the gap of information significant
between a search engine to another?
Goals are numerous:
· to put in evidence how bad it is to be dependent of an unique search engine;
· to show how important it is to have reliable information;
· to show how big is the gap between a general search engine and a specialized
one;
· to look for alternatives if tomorrow the main search engines disappear;
· to show the weaknesses of general search engines;
· to show and discover other search engines and put in evidence their
usefulness;
· to show that general search engines are not well used;
· to discover the future expectations people have regarding search engines and
what are the coming technologies in this field;
The structure of the report should be done as follow:
The first idea is to introduce the concept of data quality. We all go on
search engines in order to find information whatever it is or at least to find the
answer to one of our question (how much does a Paris-Berlin train ticket costs? What
is the weather in New York? What is the last result of our favorite soccer team?).
The second point is about Data quality which is very interesting in order to
understand why search engines exist.
The next point is dealing with the world of search engines and the
dependency which is outcome from them.
Analyzing the world of search engines is fundamental to understand how
Internet is not as rational as we could think (search engines may be not the Internet,
search engines may be different from a country to another).
Then we will have a look on figures which show quite clearly that people are
not using several search engines when making research on the Internet but an unique
one that I will define as the dependency concept.
Once this definition given I will focus on the heart of this work which are the
risks that this dependency provide and its influence on data quality.
Google being in Europe the most used search engine I will use it as a major
example in my last part.

Chapter 2: Concept of data quality

2009-02-01T04:09:00.002-08:00

When I firstly decided to write about the concept of data quality for search
engine I did not mean at the beginning that data has to be perfect. I just meant that
when I write a request on any search engine I expect to have as results some
answers which fit to my expectations. The last example I have in mind is when on
the 31th of December a friend of mine looked for the « average height of Korean
people » (request were made on Google) and all the results on the page were dealing
about the « average size of the sexual organs of Korean people ». I have high doubts
that no information regarding the average height of Korean people does not exist on
the web it however has been what Google seemed to tell me.
Here as you can see in this example it raises a lot of issues regarding data
quality. My first expectation regarding data quality was then to get some results
which fit to my request. But looking it deeper what is the value of a supposed correct
answer that I could have found written by someone like you and I (not specialized in
this topic).
In fact here everything depends on how professional the data as been written,
this is what I am explaining in this chapter.

2.1 Data quality definition

2009-02-01T04:09:00.001-08:00

“This part needs additional information and improvements and is then not
finished yet.”
Data quality is defined by four criteria:
· Accuracy: it means that the information has to be true so based on real facts.
Here we see the importance of having the source of the document.
· Timely: the data given has to be dated. The most striking example could be
the one with stock exchange, what is the value of a data regarding a currency
change without the date?
· Meaningful: here it comes back to what I was explaining in the introduction.
Does the result fits with my request? What is the color of a frog? The answer
is green, is it useful? Yes but is it complete?;
· Complete: an information can be for sure useful but will be far more useful if
it is complete.
Here is then the minimum vital of data quality.

2.2 The importance of data quality

2009-02-01T04:08:00.002-08:00

“This part needs additional information and improvements and is then not finished
yet.”
As I mentioned it there are two levels of data quality:
· Poor quality one: for example you and I are looking for information
whatever it is in order to get a quick answer or even a mere comment. Here
two theories are facing each other:
▪ An information should be given even if it is possibly wrong. It of
course can be useless if the information is a hoax but will it be in the
case of a warning of a terrorist attack?
▪ An information should be given only if it is 100% accurate. Here it is
interesting in order to not create polemical situations for nothing.
There are no rational choice to make here, sometimes you need to use the first
theory and sometimes the other one.
I would describe poor quality data as mass consumption information which
mean good enough for “lambda” people but not that useful for businesses and even
less for researchers. With the increasing of Internet users more and more mass
consumption data are created and of course their number is bypassing the one of
quality ones.
· High quality one: here we find the data which fits the four criteria I
described above. High quality data are useful in order to take complex and
rational decisions.

Chapter 3: Search engines dependency

2009-02-01T04:08:00.001-08:00

In order to understand well this part we should have firstly a look at the
search engine market configuration. Even if for a lot of people search engine is a
synonym of Google it may be not true for some other people. I made a strong effort
during this work to make it as global as possible. Europe is good as well as the
United States but we will never got the all answers of our issues if we always
consider these two parts of the world.

3.1.1 Search engine categories

2009-02-01T03:59:00.000-08:00

3.1 Search engine market configuration
3.1.1 Search engine categories
The world of search engines is not as uniformed as we could have think. I
until now identified three kind of search engines:
· Standard: the most well known search engines such as www.google.com,
www.livesearch.com (Microsoft) , Ask (http://www.ask.com/?o=312) they are
looking for any kind of information through the Internet and are characterized
by a very light interface:

Illustration 2: A light interface: the homepage of the search engine www.ask.fr

· Portals: may be the most complex search engines to analyze on a figures
point of view. Portals are characterized by a lot of information on their home
page including the search engine function. It is then difficult to make the
difference here between the success of the portal and the success of the search
engine on this web page. The best example I found is the one of mail.ru
which is the most visited website in Russia far before Google. It seems when
looking at the search engine statistics that the research made on Mail.ru are
not accounted or that no one is using the search function of Mail.ru. So it is
sometimes hard to measure the success of some search engines. The most
well known portal is Yahoo.

Illustration 3: Home page of the Mail.ru portal

Specialized search engines: they to my point of view belong to a
subcategory of the first group. The major problem of standard search engines
is that they are too big. Specialized search engines are then no more than a
special function which is working as a filter. It is then far more easier to find
the information you are looking for on a specific website rather than using
standard ones. A good example of it can be the one of Ebay, it is of course far
more convenient to go on the Ebay website and use the search engine directly
from there rather than going on Google and writing a request such as 'Ebay
buying socks'. I mentioned it again but in most of the cases specialized search
engines are not a revolution they are just one part of standard search engine
and are not a new technology by themselves.

3.1.2 Search engine market

2009-02-01T03:57:00.000-08:00

The search engine market is segmented by an enormous leader: Google, a
follower who is far from him: Yahoo and a large amounts of small search engines.
The dominant position of Google may stay for years and years and only a technical
revolution could really jeopardized him.

Illustration 4: Top 10: Search websites in the world August 2007

As you can see here I identified what we could call « The big four » which
represents the four major search engines. Then comes three specialized search
engines (7,49% all together) but their success are limited to the size of the website
they are browsing. Then came in last positions what I would called the dead
champions which once have been great and well known search engines but which
are nowadays in decline and will one day probably disappear.

3.1.3 The search engines in the world

2009-02-01T03:54:00.000-08:00

The more I study the E-world and the more I realize that the web is exactly
the reflect of our society but in a non-physical aspect. Internet did not break cultural
differences and search engines really show it.
As we just saw Google represents 6 research out of 10 in the world but does it
mean that each country in the world has a population of 60% Google users?
To answer this question let's have a look at the following map:

Illustration 5: The most visited website by country

As we can see here the world is not covered entirely by Google. We clearly
have some Google countries, Yahoo countries, Mail.ru countries and so on and so
fourth.
We can however notice some striking information such as almost all the
American continent is using Google as well as Europe, Northern Africa and
Southern Africa, Australia, India. In one word almost all countries which have strong
links with the Anglo-Saxon culture.
Then comes what I would qualified as a cultural wall which is starting in
Eastern Europe and which is finishing in Russia. Here are the ex-soviet countries. I
unfortunately have no concrete proves of what I am saying but I suppose that there is
a kind of a « boycott of American technologies » and support of Russian
technologies. The recent partnership between Yandex (main search engine in Russia)
and the browser Firefox raised those suspicions10.
Russia is not the only country in this situation, China also. The recent
advertisement broadcast by Baidu (the leader search engine in China) shows clearly
the will that Chinese public institutions are ready to protect their territory.11
As you can see Asia is the region where Google is the least present. It is also
the continent where are gathering a lot of different search engines.
I may not emphasize the diversity of the Caribbean area as well as Center
Africa which are areas where Internet is not that well implemented which mean then
that the battle to take the lead is not finished yet. For example is it really relevant to
say that Yahoo is the leader in Cameroon which is a country with less than 500,000
Internet users?
I however will highlight that the Pacific area which is containing all the
« Tigers » (Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore...) are all in red: Yahoo.
The search engine world is then divided in two parts:
· The Google world: which is composed of all the Anglo-Saxon countries as
well as countries which have strong links with the United States or Great
Britain. It is clearly showed regarding India and Australia. We can at the date
of today still identify two countries which are not under Google control:
Czech Republic and Iceland but actually by looking at the figures and the
forecasts it is just a matter of time12.
· The Asian – Pacific world: Asia is composed of a lot of countries and of
course a lot of cultures. Among them we can identify four players:
◦ Mail.ru which is dominating all the ex-soviet countries;
◦ Baidu which has a total control over China;
◦ Naver, a 100% South Korean product which is the best example that
search engines work by culture;
◦ Yahoo which is leader in all the “Tigers” Asian countries.
Yahoo being an American technology such as Google, how is it possible
that Yahoo is so successful in the Pacific area and not elsewhere? The
reason I found is that Yahoo is a shiny portal and that Asian culture on
Internet recognize a quality website to the number of animations on it13. I will then
add that Japan is a strong pole of Internet with one of the highest rate of Internet
integration in the world per capita14. This is why I think Yahoo is so popular in this
region.

3.1.4 The search engine market shares per country

2009-02-01T03:51:00.001-08:00

One of the most complete work I found on this topic after mine is the
« Global Search Report 2007 »15. What stroke me the most in all the countries
studied in this report as well as in all the report and research I made until now are the
search engines market configuration which looks like very often to this:

Illustration 6: Search engine market shares in
Czech Republic

It is very rare to find a country where there is a close competition among
search engines. Even if in the High Technology world things change from a day to
another you have often the following configuration where the first search engine
is leading the game by more than 30 points on its followers.
This is typical from the search engines market or you are adopted by a
population or you are not. This trend seems quite relevant in the
software industry, people seem to look for a standard used by all. This is the case for
the Operating System industry, the browser industry, the e-learning industry. The
explanation I found for the success of search engine within a population is the word
to mouth, this is how Google has been so successful isn 't it? How never heard
sentences such as « you just have to Google it » Google is even nowadays in
dictionaries as a verb16.
As a conclusion I would say that in the world of search engines you are first
or you are nothing.
I have to mention as well that the market has a lot of small local search
engines which are if original enough bought by the big ones or if not will disappear
quickly (some example are coming in the news every month). The only key of the
success on the short term seem to be advertisement but on the long run you need the
technology behind in order to compete.

3.1.5 The search engines competition

2009-02-01T03:49:00.001-08:00

Google has been created in 1998 and at that time search engines were already
in place, it did not scared Google and one after the other Google bypassed all of
them. In fact among the big four Yahoo is the oldest (1994) and Microsoft the
youngest (2003). Even if the battle seems to be finished it will take a lot of time to
Google to be the number one in all countries (everything being linked to culture
rather than rationality) which in fact is giving hope to its followers.
At the time I am writing this thesis discussions are still on the way between
Yahoo and Microsoft in order for Microsoft to buy Yahoo search technologies. We
can understand how strategic a such acquisition could be. Yahoo having the research
knowledge and Microsoft the funds as well as the software ownership.
Regarding Baidu we cannot clearly see how they could compete against
Google outside of China.
As I said previously specialized search engines are limited to the website they
are linked to.
We could then think about new comers who starting from nothing could beat
famous search engines in a small period of time, it could have been the success of
some products such as Cuil launched in summer 2008 which received a lot of
advertisement through the news17. But search engines is a very ungrateful world
where visitors are giving no more than one chance: the product works or it does not.

Illustration 7: Results page of Cuil

This is a point that I discovered very quickly and that you can test by
yourself. People want the information as soon as they can. They are
ready to test the product but in a certain amount of tries. When you
move from Google to another search engine you are often intransigent. At the first
result which does not fit your expectations you will go back to Google. But is the
search engine wrong or is it because it is responding differently that on what you
were used to?
In order to conclude this part I would say that with the search engine history
we have and the search engine market configuration, I cannot see how Google
could lose its position. Until now only one company succeeds to make a such gap in
the world of search engine and it is Google itself and it was in a period where
everything had to be created on Internet.
So I would say that on this field I don't see how Google can be beaten and
even worried.
A new technology regarding research is however more and more recurrent in
this field and is called semantic research.

3.1.6 The semantic web

2009-02-01T03:48:00.002-08:00

“This part needs additional information and improvements and is then not finished
yet.”

The semantic web is another way of crawling the net. We all know how to
make a search on the Internet isn't it? We just type in some keywords and press the
return key in order to get the answer. In this configuration you have to feed the
search engine with the request.
With semantic Web the concept is a bit different and based on suggesting you
the request instead of typing it entirely. Each time that you are starting to type your
request a list of suggestions are coming to you. We are recently seeing more and
more this technology on the biggest search engines.
The purpose is in fact to guide you as best as they can in order to put you on
the right track and trying to avoid you to reach the labyrinth of the web.
This technology fits one of the main drawback of search engines and that I
call « search engine technology awareness » which consists in how to write good
requests for search engines.
The main drawback of the semantic web is that this is a very new technology
which then have a lot to do before reaching his maturity point. Here we are speaking
about a maximum length of a decade. We can also complain about the rigidity of the
system but it is true that with length and experience this issue could be fixed.
It said that Ask is one of the search engine which based a lot of R&D on this
new technology but according to me and without being a technician I think that
Google can have better results because of its huge database of requests. Future will
tell us what is going to happen.

3.2 Search engines dependency aspect

2009-02-01T03:48:00.001-08:00

As I mentioned it in the introduction I define search engine dependency as the
fact that people are swearing only by one search engine when looking for
information on the Internet.

3.2.1 Search engines dependency proves

2009-02-01T03:46:00.000-08:00

“This part needs additional information and improvements and is then not finished
yet.”

This is not the studies which are lacking on this topic. When looking for
information regarding information literacy on the Internet you arrive on different
sources of studies and this regarding all the countries of the world. Information
literacy is a relevant topic and an issue. I focused on some very recent and
francophone research that I found on the Internet regarding Canadian students18,
French19 and Belgium students20. I also found information regarding Germany on this
topic. Many sources are as well saying that such research have been made in mostly
all Europe, China (Hong Kong)21 and the United States22.
All the studies I found until now (all done on students panels so literate
people) are all saying the same thing: search engine are the first source of
information when looking on the Internet and all students seem to have receive not
enough training on how to look for information on the Internet.
The best study I found on this topic is one made on all the registered PhD
students (2,218 with an answer rate of 23,4%) last year (2008) on a whole region of
France (not a high technological developed country but far to be the least on a
worldwide scale)23.
As we can imagine PhD students have a high requirements regarding quality
of information.
The study shows that 67,5% of the respondents have never received a training
regarding how to look for information during their whole stay at the university which
could explain the fact that people are running toward search engines directly.
Search engines are used in 96% of the cases when performing research
(which emphasize the necessity of how to well use those technologies).
94% of them do not use blogs which I take as a good thing (even if the survey
is saying the opposite, blogs being written by professionals as well).
The most used search engines are Google (85%) and Google Scholar 37%
(which is a sub search engine of Google).
60% of them do not know what is a meta search engine and only 5% of them
use them.
46 % do not know the search engine of their field and only 20% do use them.
Those figures are very interesting because they show clearly how people are
not adapted to the technology they are using. PhD students should be some of the
most search engines awarded people and it seems that for France they are not. They
are strictly dependent of a single search engine which is here Google. They know
very few of his sub search engine and as written above they do not know how to use
the technology. They are also not aware massively about other search engines.

3.2.2 Search engines dependency aspect

2009-02-01T03:44:00.000-08:00

Search engines dependency can however comes from different ways:
· Search engine satisfaction: you are using a specific search engine which
give you entire satisfaction, so why should you change?;
· Search engine patriotism: you are using this search engine in order to
support your local technologies;
· Search engine convenience: the search engine is providing you all kind of
services which made it very convenient to use or even made the other ones
not convenient to use;
Of course the trend for all search engine is to go for convenience because it
gives to customer everything they need. The main drawback is that for the search
engine companies you have then to dedicate less people to your core activity and
then there is a risk that your search activity will pay the price.
So being search engine dependent means using massively a search engine for
one of those reasons and ignoring all the other ones. Search engines dependency
reach very high rate in Europe:

Illustration 8: Search engines figures for

France, Source: XitiMonitor

Most of the European countries have like France a strong addiction to Google with
more than 90%. What does it concretely mean? Almost all European when making
search on the Internet are fed by using the same way to process information.

3.3 Search engines dependency problems

2009-02-01T03:43:00.002-08:00

At the first sight when using a search engine we are not thinking about all the
issues which are coming out from them. We make our research and we get results
from this and then we try the results one after the other until finding the one which
fits the best our expectations.
The first main problem is that when addicted to a specific search engine
which normally gave you satisfaction the day when the result will not be the one you
want you may think about different possibilities:
· The information is not displayed so the information you are looking for does
not exist yet;
· The request was not good enough so let's try with other keywords;
The main issue to highlight is that people are so confident with some search
engines that they will not normally look for alternatives or even consider that their
favorite search engine can be wrong.
People are so confident with their search engine that they are not
thinking that the search engine can be wrong.

3.3.1 Privacy issues

2009-02-01T03:43:00.001-08:00

I am a bit divided on this topic because I consider it as the mass public
« scarecrow » which is only good to animate polemical debates for nothing.
It finds its explanations in the way that search engines are collecting
information.
When analyzing search engines we have to consider that it is a free
product for all of us (in fact search engines get paid by displaying
advertisement on each web page). Each time you are making a
research on the Internet the search engine you are using registers the IP
number of your computer and of course the research you just made. All these data are
of course supposed to be confidential but some are used in order to make some
statistics such as how many Internet users from a specific country have visited this
website. It can be used for other purposes such as the rank of the most used research
and others data such as those. Of course the more information you give and the most
they collect so if you open an email account on a search engine for example they will
collect your name, address. Until now few are the cases where we got the proof that
information collected by search engines have been given to third parties. The most
famous one is the one of Yahoo in China which filtered some emails and gives the
names of some Chinese journalists who were denouncing things about the Chinese
government24.
To make it clear until now no mass exploitation of data have been observed
and the recent news given by major search engines (Microsoft and Google) are
saying that the trend is to eliminate those data as much as possible in the fear of
losing confidentiality25. We however have to consider an additional element the more
search engine know about what we are looking for and the most they can fit our
expectations, so I personally do not think that reducing the collection of data is in
people interest and I will qualify the privacy issue as a global scarecrow in order to
bug the major search engines and putting on the first row some alternative ones
which on the long run may will not fix those issues.

3.3.2 Looking for other search engines

2009-02-01T03:42:00.000-08:00

A recurrent question often asked is « Why people are not looking for other
search engines? ». Why do people knowledge regarding search engines is so low? If
you ask to someone how many search engines he may know he will for sure answer
you « Google » maybe « Yahoo » he may add « Microsoft » without telling you its
real name which is « Live Search » and it will for sure stops right here.
Many others search engines are however present on the market. We should
then conclude that people are satisfied by the current search engines.
However studies are showing that regarding Google people when getting their
results are only considering the first three results and not the others giving far more
importance to the first one.26 By just this observation we could then say that there are
things to improve in Google's interface. I guess again that people are looking for
something new even if it is not their priority. This is why I would like to raise another
issue which is search engine awareness.

3.3.3 Search engine awareness

2009-02-01T03:41:00.000-08:00

Search engine awareness is for me the key issue of this all work and reveal
two parts:
· Poor search engine awareness regarding how to use a specific search engine;
· Poor search engine awareness regarding the existence of other search
engines;
Both parts are fundamental. The first one deals with what we call search
tools. It consists of a combination of keys in order to fit a specific request.
If you are on Google typing the following request:
search engine dependency
is different from:
« search engine dependency »
In the first case you will look for pages which are containing the words:
search engine dependency as well as all the others combinations such as pages
with search dependency, engine dependency, search, engine, dependency. Whereas
in the other cases you are restricting the pages which include only those three
words and in the same order.
It exists dozens of those tools per search engine, the most famous ones are
called « boolean operators ». Some websites provide the list of those tools27. We have
also to consider that all the search engines are not using the same conventions so
some tools under search engine A will not work on search engine B.
If you are on Yahoo the following request:
· title:search engine
will give you all the web pages which have for titles the following
keywords. This tool is unfortunately not working on Google.
This example shows well how search engines are in fact complementary in order to
make precise research.
Is Google really better than Yahoo?
To get a piece of the answer you can make this empirical experience I
made a couple of months ago. I did the same request on three different
search engines (Google, Yahoo and MS Live Search) and compared the first five
results and gave my opinion on each of those results. If the result fit my
expectations I gave one point if it did not zero. Google got a four out of five, Yahoo
a two out of five and MS Live Search a zero out of five. However all results from a
search engine to another was different. So Google won for sure at the time I
performed the award of pertinence, however the information I was looking may
have been on the two results Yahoo gave me.
So is Google better than Yahoo for this example the answer is yes. Does it mean
that I should not consider Yahoo? Absolutely not.

3.3.4 Other search engines existence awareness

2009-02-01T03:40:00.000-08:00

“This part needs additional information and improvements and is then not finished
yet.”

Here is another issue which is actually not hitting only the competitors of
major search engines but also themselves. In order to be recognized in the world of
search engines you need very strong guarantees. This year two of them succeeds their
advertisement campaign: « Cuil » by claiming that they had a database which is 6
times more than the one of Google. It said also that their success is coming from the
fact that the company has been built by a former Google employee but actually Cuil
disappears very soon as the change of their CEO. The main reproach which has been
done is that the results given were not numerous enough which of course is seen
from a very bad eye when you are claiming that it is your main strength.

In the world of search engines you cannot be a clown. People give you
one time the floor and will not give it to you back if you do not
perform as they wish.

The other example I can give is the one of Exalead, a French search engine
which is supported by the European Union, the purpose behind is to set up an
European technology in order to face the American ones. So as you can imagine
there is a big support and a huge project behind which make me coming to the bullet
point above if you are a search engine which wants just to be correctly advertised
you definitely need very strong supports.

I today January the 7th 2009 got twice in a day the same observation
about researching information on the Internet. I was looking for two
different songs but I did not know the title as well as the singer, all I
had was some couple of words. I made then a research on Google with
the words I knew from the song and added the word « lyrics » as well in order to
specify that what I was looking for was a song. I as well added the quotes « » in
order to say to Google that I wanted the words in this strict order in order for it to
identify better the song I was looking for among the jungle of the web.
I wrote then: lyrics « freaky people » the answers I got where dealing with a singer
called « Michael Franti and Spearhead » and this on three pages in a row. I tried to
set a different request and the result was the same. Then I gave a try to GrabAll
which is a double search engine displaying Google and Yahoo on the same screen but
on two different columns. I made then the same request and got very surprise to see
the name of the Fat Boy Slim band on the first page of Yahoo. This result was on the
fourth page of Google instead. Here I have two points to make. Firstly the utility of
using a second search engine in order to control the result and secondly the fact
that Google was taking in account that I was 100% of what I was looking for.
Google was in fact giving me those results because the two words « freaky people »
are a part of a title of a song of « Michael Franti and Spearhead » but did I asked for
that? No I just asked for lyrics which have the words « freaky people ».
The second example I am going to give you is as well quite relevant of how search
engine dependency can be dangerous. I was looking this time for lyrics with « lyrics
wanna be your doll » what I did not know is that I had it wrong and it was not
« lyrics wanna be your doll » but « wanna be your dog ». The fact is that both songs
containing those lyrics exist and that Google was displaying me the songs containing
the words I just fill in whereas actually Yahoo was presenting me diverse results
including the one I wanted.
I am not writing here that Yahoo is better than Google, I am just saying that
there is a high interest to have a look around in the world of search engines, I could
have a look around all night on Google looking for my song that I will have never
found because I had it wrong since the beginning. So looking for diversity should
be the first reflex when you cannot find what you are looking for in short
attempts.

3.3.5 Less confident regarding other search engines

2009-02-01T03:39:00.001-08:00

“This part needs additional information and improvements and is then not finished
yet.”
This part is in fact in close link with the example I just gave above. Each
search engine has his own methodology when displaying the result. When you get
used to get the results in a specific way then when it comes to be different you may
think that the results are totally absurd. The problem is that the more you get addicted
the more you will have the feeling that other search engines are bad and then will not
give them a try.
This is why I describe search engine dependency as the fact to be less and less
confident regarding other search engines.

3.3.6 Even the best cannot provide you everything

2009-02-01T03:38:00.002-08:00

“This part needs additional information and improvements and is then not finished
yet.”
Some functionalities are not included in the biggest search engines which
make not you think that they could even exist such as search engines for jobs or
people. How to get a visual representation of what I am looking for? And the main
problem of the big search engines is that they are too big so even if they have what
you are looking for it is not sure that you can even see it.

Chapter 4: Risks of search engines dependency and its influence on data quality

2009-02-01T03:38:00.001-08:00

This part is dealing with the measurement and the proves of what I am
writing about. Here I expect to show how search engine dependency is affecting our
everyday life and how we could overcome this situation.

4.1 The information has been found but is poor

2009-02-01T03:37:00.002-08:00

“This part needs additional information and improvements and is then not finished
yet.”
Let's imagine that you and I just performed a request under a specific search
engine and that the answers given do not satisfy you entirely. You found the
information but it is not developed enough, not signed, too old...

4.2 What the search engines do not tell you

2009-02-01T03:37:00.001-08:00

One of my former English teacher taught me one day that there is different
ways of not giving information, one is to lie and one is to not say the information. I
don't think search engines are lying and cheating even if in the case of Baidu the
Chinese search engine there are high suspicions on it28. Some are saying that in order
to be well ranked you need to pay Baidu for it and it has been said as well that the
Chinese government as a big role to play when displaying the results.
The recent Milk scandal in China (Baidu accepted to high ranked unlicensed
companies which were providing fake milk in exchange of money) showed how
dangerous can be a poor data quality search29.
I however have the proof that search engines are not telling you everything
when displaying results and that this rule is general for all the major search engines.
In Google case, search engines are censored according to the country in
which you are making your research from30 and it touches all the country around the
world even countries such as France and Germany.
Most of the time those censorship acts are for your welfare or to protect
national security interest.

4.3 The best way to get data quality

2009-02-01T03:36:00.000-08:00

Here is maybe the most interesting part of my work which consists in giving
the solution to the main issue I highlighted since the beginning.
Until now I just raised questions regarding the risks of dependency and not
showed what you should do in order to explore the web properly.

4.3.1 The sub-search engines

2009-02-01T03:34:00.000-08:00

As I said previously Google is too big, the bigger it is the more precise your
request have to be. Few people knowing the existence of Boolean operators it then
comes more and more difficult to get the right information. This is why in fact
Google put at your disposal some sub-search engines in order to make your research
easier, for example: Google books, Google videos, Google images. We all agree that
looking for pictures could be done on the research bar of Google, but it is far more
convenient to make it directly from « Google images » because it is displayed better.
The main problem is what I described previously: « search engine awareness
within a search engine ». Am I aware that Google has the following services?
I could sum up it all in a scheme:

Illustration 9: Some sub-search engines of Google

For a Google search engine dependent everything starts from Google home
page. He is then aware here of those specialized search engines in order to make
more precise research on the following information: images, maps, news and
products. It is however under his own initiative to discover what is going on under
those search engines and to discover them. I do not have a proof of what I am saying
but I may presume that in order to buy a product more people are going on Google,
type eBay or Amazon and go and buy on those websites rather than going on Google
products. Google products is however including all those websites in his database so
it should more convenient to have a look on Google products first in order to get the
best price rather than going individually on eBay and Amazon.
We can then symbolize the Internet users awareness of Google search engines
according to this scheme.
The more we get into deep of those levels and the least the Internet user is
aware of it.
Level 2 is still available on the first page but with two clicks.
Level 3 is no more available on the home page but can be accessible in three
clicks.
Level 4 is even not accessible from Google main website and that you have
too be aware of it in order to access it.
Level 5 is hypothetical and constitute the unknown Google projects, often
developed under another name.
All those Google sub levels have been created in order to make easier
research on a specific request. When looking for an image it is far
more convenient to pass through Google images rather than the general Google.

4.3.2 The size of the Internet

2009-02-01T03:33:00.000-08:00

How big is the Internet? Is Google indexing all websites?
It is really hard to answer to those questions but however possible to set
up some estimations according to some information31. Those sources are
saying that in 2005 the size of the Internet is estimated to 5 million terabytes and
Google's index to 170 terabytes which would mean that Google is processing only
0,000034%. However the Internet is also containing what we call the invisible web
composed of websites that owners do not want its content indexed as well as
websites which are protected by a password. In 2004 this invisible web was
estimated to be 500 times bigger than the visible web. It has been said as well that
Google is indexing invisible web only recently32.
A clever calculation will then give us:
Internet size = Visible Web + Invisible Web;
Internet size = 501 * Visible Web;
Visible Web = Internet size / 501;
Visible Web = 5 000 000 / 501;
Visible Web = 9980 terabytes;
Google Index = 170 / Visible Web;
Google Index = 1,7%
This estimation is of course only an estimation and could be full of errors. I
however find it more useful than no information at all. I would also emphasize the
fact that Google has no interest in indexing bad quality websites and that
technologies have evolved in the last few years and that this rate should be of course
far higher than those 1,7%. Whatever is the final result my point is the following:
Google is not the Internet and is not processing all the web... but does
all the web need to be indexed?

4.3.3 Single search engine Internet coverage

2009-02-01T03:26:00.001-08:00

“This part needs additional information and improvements and is then not finished
yet.”
Here is a more optimistic representation of Google Internet coverage I made
in order to show that Google is not the Internet and that even within Google's sphere
Internet users cannot access to all the information:

Illustration 10: Google's Index coverage

Google dependent people are not only using Google when making research but as
well Google partners all symbolized by the sign:
Powered by Google means according to an IT company called Alacra33:
Alacra uses Google Search Appliances to create the Alacra Compliance Web. The
use of Google Search Appliances combines the power of Google search technology,
including the ability to find the highest quality and most relevant documents, with
Alacra's domain expertise in selecting those web sites and pages which are relevant
for AML compliance.
Which means that here you have a partnership working more or less in the same way
that using a Google specialized search engine.
There are thousands and thousands search engines all specialized in a specific
field on the Internet which are using Google technology to search sites such as
Tourism, tutorials...
By using all those specialized search engines you are crawling better the
Google's coverage space.

Illustration 11: “Powered by Google” search engines coverage

As you can see here on this configuration by using specialized search engines
powered by Google you will always browse Google's cyberspace and when we know
that Google is not the Internet we can then ask ourselves how we can get the best out
of Internet.
On January the 11th I went on both websites http://www.aol.fr/ and
http://www.google.fr/ and type the following request 'les moteurs de
recherches' both results on the first page were identical. The only
difference is that Google gave me 3,210,000 results and AOL 290,000
(9% of Google results) so as I developed above AOL is looking at the same place as
Google but is applying more filters. Is it really useful considering that AOL is a
general search engine? The answer maybe be given in their home page at
http://search.aol.com/aol/webhome « The AOL Search engine delivers great search
results, enhanced by Google, plus relevant multimedia results delivered on a single
page-so you can search less and discover more . »34
If you go on http://www.google.com/coop/cse/ you will have a good example
of the search engine powered by Google. You can even create your own one. All is
done by using Google technology and you are just applying your own filter by listing
the websites where you want Google to look inside.

4.3.4 Multiple search engine Internet coverage

2009-02-01T03:23:00.000-08:00

“This part needs additional information and improvements and is then not finished
yet.”
Let's go now deeper in our analysis by taking in account search engine which
are not using Google technologies. All developed their own technology and are
sometimes better than Google in some fields worst in the other. We will then have
something like that:

Illustration 12: Search engines coverage

So here is my point the most the search engines are different and the most it
gives you the possibility to discover the web. Here I just put the main actors but we
have also to consider that it exists a lot of small search engines which developed their
own index and have then their own way to process data.
Of course one could say that there is no interest for an European person to
process information on a Chinese or even Russian search engine because Chinese
search engine should of course be better in looking for Chinese information rather
than an European one. It is definitely true if we are speaking about contents such as
texts, but when it is dealing with pictures or video the reality should be totally
different.
On the other hand the day where this European person is looking for Chinese
information he should then be aware that he should use the Chinese search engine
rather than the Chinese version of the European one. And as we can imagine all the
other players: Yahoo, Baidu, Mail.ru have their own Boolean operators and their own
sub search engines. So it comes back to the idea of search engine awareness. The
more you know about them and the most you are increasing your knowledge about
how to get the best out of Internet.

4.3.5 Others search engine Internet coverage

2009-02-01T03:19:00.000-08:00

“This part needs additional information and improvements and is then not finished
yet.”
You have a last category of search engine which are the one coming from the
semantic web concept which are not based on keywords requests. I found one of
those which is called « Who is like it » and gives as results websites similar to the
one you just gave him.

Illustration 13: “Who is like it” search engine

Of course solutions have been found in order to create the perfect search
engine including all those technologies. But as you can imagine it is not an easy
thing if firstly search engines did not take the same standards as Boolean operators.
Secondly the more search engine you combine the more results you will get and it
then very complicated to decide which one is more pertinent than the other.
A good example of it is the meta search engine called Dogpile which is quite
popular in the United States it combines the results of 4 big search engines which are
Google, Yahoo, MSN live search and Ask. The main problem is already showed on
the advanced search web page of Dogpile, few are the Boolean operators limited to
4.

Illustration 14: Dogpile meta search engine

The second issue which is relevant is how to decide which results from those
search engines are the most relevant. I showed you previously that when making a
comparison between Google and Yahoo I found what I wanted on Yahoo on the 8th
position. So it is hard to decide which result is the most relevant and to this game you
are the only judge of the situation.
So the hypothetical search engine should have the following characteristics:
including all the technologies ever created regarding search engines (Google's
knowledge+Yahoo knowledge+MSN knowledge+...) in order to define the most
powerful algorithm ever. All those companies have of course different objectives
than being the most rational search engine all are looking to be the number one. This
day will may come but it will not be for sure for tomorrow so waiting for it we
should understand how to use one by one all those technologies.
The solution being then to test the search engines one by one but
before testing all of them you have to know that they exist and how to use them but you should at least to know that they exist.

4.3.6 A concrete representation of the World Wide Web

2009-02-01T03:17:00.001-08:00

In order to make this work easier a Japanese company set up regularly a web

map of the most famous websites in the world by referencing them by categories this

map could of course be improved but should be a good start:Illustration 15: A representation of the most visited websites

This map is available at the following address: http://informationarchitects.jp/
start/ with all the links included towards the websites it is composed of. It is very
interesting in order to break the search engine dependency phenomenon. On this map
are located all the most famous websites for 2008 you can then see all the most
influential websites and where to seek for information. For example if I want to look
for a video I may follow the gray line and test all the websites which are on it to find
the video I am looking for.
In order to conclude this part which actually should not be the core of the all
thesis the Web is big and in order to discover it you need to know how to.
We could compare it to the real world when living in country A you receive as
feedback from country B by different ways (people who are moving from country B
to A, the news, the books and documentations you have about country B) but you
will never be physically in country B and for this there are some information that you
could never get. Of course you can get nearer to those information by crawling more
and more the web with your country A search engine (it will be like documenting
yourself more and more about country B) but it will never be like being and living in
country B.

4.4 The gap between search engine dependency and data quality

2009-02-01T03:14:00.001-08:00

“This part needs additional information and improvements and is then not finished
yet.”
In this part I will explain how to put in evidence the gap of information
between being search engine dependent of only one search engine and using the most
rational tool to search for information on the Internet.
It may not be easy to prove it concretely so I may need to prove it by making
empirical studies.
I succeed to put in evidence so far that:
• Internet users are search engines addicted;
• Internet users have few knowledge about search engines awareness;
• I have now to prove that this is bad;
My first point will be to show that search engines are using different
technologies provide different results.
Here is a comparison I made for three search engines through
http://www.thumbshots.org/Products/Thumbshots/Ranking.aspx which shows how
many similarities search engines have among them. Here I said if I type in
“Universität Kassel” what are the results that those search engines have in common
(in blue). And I moreover added the option to highlight me the website of the
university of Kassel (in red) which for me is a sign of relevancy of my request.

Illustration 16: Comparison among Google, Yahoo and MSN

Here as we can see:
• Google has 7 similarities with Yahoo out of 60;
• Google has 10 similarities with MSN out of 60;
• Google found two times the website I was looking for;
• Yahoo has 4 similarities with MSN out of 60;
• Yahoo found one time the website I was looking for;
• MSN found 4 times the website I was looking for;
This analysis is then confirming what I was supposing before search engines do not
look for information at the same place.
Then one could ask about the pertinence of the results, is it worthwhile to display
more than one time on one page the website of the university of Kassel? Or is it a
sign of relevancy? So here we have an interpretation according to the Internet user.

One thing is sure search engines using different technology provide
different results.

Chapter 5: The Google example

2009-02-01T03:12:00.002-08:00

“This part needs additional information and improvements and is then not finished
yet.”

Google is for sure in some parts of the world the best example we can find of
the search engine dependency phenomenon I described.

5.1 Google

2009-02-01T03:12:00.001-08:00

In January 1996 a 24 year-old PhD student called Larry Page studying at the
University of Stanford was looking for a theme for his thesis. Encouraged by his
supervisor he studied the following topic “exploring the mathematical properties of
the World Wide Web“ working in collaboration with another student called Sergey
Brin. To make it simple, it is from this work and collaboration which will came up
“Google Inc” (officially created in September the 7th 1998).
Two months later Google is already included in the Top 100 of world
websites of PC magazine (a reference in the United States for computers).
Even if Google is formerly a web based application in English it is a worldwide
service available on the Internet for all. As his creator (Larry Page) said "Google's
search engine has always had strong global appeal"35.
Google is nowadays the most famous search engine. In ten years as the
Millward Brown report said36 Google will become the most powerful brand in the
world.

5.2 Google's success

2009-02-01T03:11:00.000-08:00

The broadest explanation I found is the following « Google provides for free
a useful service that people actively seek out »37. And when you think about it it is
definitely true. People are going on Google because they are all looking for that kind
of services. But how can it be more successful than its fellows? Here I could say that
in general Google is giving better results which may be one reason, but moreover it
is providing added services such emails, blogs, news, Advertisement programs.
Moreover Google's health as a company has been well preserved by making
good choices when making acquisitions and mergers, they internationally developed
themselves very well.

5.3 Google dependency state

2009-02-01T03:09:00.001-08:00

If we take Europe we can see that it is definitely a Google dependent
continent:

Illustration 17: Google's domination in Europe

As we can see here Google (in blue) is not only the most used search engine
in those countries it is in fact like the only search engine present at the continental
level.

5.4 Google functions

2009-02-01T03:07:00.000-08:00

Google Boolean operators are numerous but who really use them when
performing a research on Internet? A simplified interface of them is available at
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=eng but here also who really makes
research under it?

Illustration 18: Google's Advanced search engine

5.5 Google added functionalities

2009-02-01T03:06:00.000-08:00

Here is another part I did not developed so far. It deals with other
functionalities and services that the search engine do have but do not put sufficiently
in advance to the Internet user. So let's say that the advanced research which is
located on the home page is already not that much used you can then imagine how
much is used a service which is hidden.

5.6 Google success is his weakness

2009-02-01T03:03:00.000-08:00

The fate of Google is linked also to the one of Search Engine Optimization
which is the ability to well index a website on search engines. The main issue is that
Google being the most well known search engine a lot of computer scientists tried to
understand how Google was working in order to index web pages. The more
experiments are made and the more the secret algorithm of Google is known. As we
can imagine few are the web masters who are interested to have a website in the
latest pages of Google. This is why Google results are not the most rational and are
not the reflect of our physical society.
This observation is far more important if we consider that some studies38
showed that Internet users are considering only the first 3 results of Google when
making research on it.

Illustration 19: Eye Tracking on Google

5.7 Google's disappearance hypothesis

2009-02-01T03:02:00.000-08:00

It is hard to believe that a company such as Google can close his gates one
day but everything can happen and moreover in the world of ICT, so let's imagine
what will be the consequences of his disappearance. I truly believe that all Internet
users will go for its followers Yahoo and Microsoft with exactly the same behaviors.
It however said that the patent of Google algorithm belong to the Stanford
University and expires in 2011 what will then happen to Google at that time?

Conclusion

2009-02-01T03:01:00.001-08:00

The purpose of this intermediate report was for me to show my knowledge
about the topic, to prove that the problematic is pertinent, interesting and that there is
enough to write about it.
I wanted to show as well that I have the ideas clear enough for the next
coming months. What I keep in mind from this work is that I like the research I am
doing, that I am very curious about the final result (how to make the difference when
looking for information on the Internet and that the gap between rational search of
information and mass search information is abyssal).
I am quite conscious that a lot of work has to be done and that a lot of
questions have still no answers.
However I would like as well to emphasize what I personally did so far and
what I learned:
• I know now how to structure a master thesis. I had until now no knowledge
about it and I learned from scratch how to set up an academical report;
• I studied since June 2008 the world of search engines and comes to know a
lot about the topic. Once graduated I would like to continue on the field of emarketing
either on a PhD level or in an international e-marketing company.
This thesis is then making me more valuable to pretend to one of those two
goals;
• Studying this field brought me additional ideas regarding the e-marketing
field. I wrote done an additional 20-pages report (not included in this
intermediate report) about a hypothetical computer application which could
give information about how to launch e-marketing campaigns on a global
scale;
February will be for sure the month which will decide how this master thesis
will be achieved. I have concretely more than 3 weeks to dedicate days and nights to
this project.
The biggest issues I will have to think about are:
• Chapter 3.1.6: regarding semantic web I did not study yet in detail the topic and I will have to come back on this point later;
• Chapter 4: how to measure the gap of information between mass behavior
when looking for information on the Internet and the most rational behavior?;
• Chapter 5: The Google example;
• Re writing the thesis from an informal point of view this time (using the third
person of the singular instead of the first which does not sound very
academic);

Declaration

2009-02-01T03:00:00.001-08:00

I certify that this work has been done by myself and only myself. All the
sources used for its realization have been well indicated.

Ronan CHARDONNEAU
European Master in Business Studies
Institut de Management de l'Université de Savoie d'Annecy (FR)
Università degli studi di Trento (IT)
Universität Kassel (GER)
Universidad de León (SP)
22th January, 2009

List of literature

2009-02-01T02:53:00.000-08:00

Alacra. (2008?): What does "Powered By Google" mean? URL: http://www.alacra.com/compliancesearch/
faq.asp Last access: 23/01/2009

Alexa the Web information company. (2008): Top sites by country URL:
http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_500 Last access: 23/01/2009

Anonymous. (2007): Baidu au Japon? URL: http://asia.2803.com/chine/baidu-au-japon/ Last access: 23/01/2009

Arrington, M. (2008): Cuil On BusinessWeek's Most Successful of 2008 List. Huh? URL:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/29/AR2008122901227.html Last
access: 23/01/2009

Battelle, John. (2005): The birth of Google URL:
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Boswell, W. (2004?): AOL Search: How to Search with AOL Search URL:
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Chardonneau, R. (2008): International Marketing: Google URL:
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Chitu, A. (2008): Google Starts to Index the Invisible Web URL:
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Crepuq. (2003): Etude sur les connaissances en recherche documentaire des étudiants entrant au 1er
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EduDoc. (2008): Enquête sur les compétences documentaires et informationnelles des étudiants qui accèdent à l'enseignement supérieur en Communauté française de Belgique URL:
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Einhorn, B. (2007): Baidu Thinks It Can Play in Japan URL:
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Eternal Dreamer. (2008): Why Google is so Successful? URL:
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Houste, F. (2009): Russie: Yandex sera le moteur de recherche par défaut de Firefox URL:
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Internet World Stats (2008): Internet Usage and Population in North America URL:
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Kahn, J. (2005): Yahoo helped Chinese to prosecute journalist URL:
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Kaplan, I. (2008): Bad Data Can Cost You Big Time URL:
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Koch, P. / Koch, S. (2009): How big is the Internet? URL: http://www.pandia.com/sew/383-
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Koch, P. / Koch, S. (1999-2006): A short and easy search engine tutorial URL:
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60/62
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Afterword

2009-02-01T02:52:00.000-08:00

The first idea of Larry Page (one of the creator of Google) when making his
PhD thesis was to « explore the mathematical properties of the World Wide Web,
understanding its link structure as a huge graph ».
Without knowing it I went a bit in the same direction evaluating how to get
the best out of the web.
I hope I will keep moving forward on this topic and maybe one day set up a
correct theory on the subject.

Melzoo: Moteur de recherches visuel

2009-01-24T00:45:00.000-08:00

Ça me fait plaisir de pouvoir vous écrire un article qui vaut la peine d'être lu après tous ces jours d'absence. Depuis le temps que j'étudie le monde des moteurs de recherches je vois enfin avec Melzoo une hypothétique porte de sortie pour Google.

Je dis hypothétique car la route est encore bien longue mais Melzoo je pense va vous convaincre aussi que l'ère des moteurs de recherches va bientôt être chamboulé.

Alors je parle je parle mais de quoi s'agit il? Et bien Melzoo est un méta moteur de recherches qui vous affiche dans la partie gauche les résultats de la requête que vous avez tapé et dans la colonne de droite vous offre un aperçu du site dont vous avez passé le curseur de la souris sur.

Tout cela se fait à travers la technologie "thumbnail". Hônnetement quand je vois cela je me dis que bon ce n'était pas impossible à faire mais bon après il y a penser et faire. Penser c'est bien mais c'est encore mieux si c'est fait.

La page d'accueil de Melzoo

J'ai été assez surpris de la rapidité d'affichage des aperçus des sites, peut être qu'à ce moment là ma connexion était rapide mais l'affichage est quasi instantané ce qui est assez épatant.

Après pour ceux qui ont un petit débit sur leur connexion il faut voir si le moteur est encore exploitable.

Les inconvénients de Melzoo (et oui car il n'y a pas que du positif) sont que c'est un méta moteur. Un méta moteur c'est bien ça peut être utile mais certainement pas sur une page qui vous affiche que dix résultats. Deuxième point il ne nous explique pas quels sont les moteurs qu'il utilise dans son méta moteur (ou du moins je ne l'ai pas vu écrit). Je devine qu'il y a du Yahoo car les résultats y sont très très similaires.

Un autre inconvénient est la sempiternelle rubrique "about us" qui décrit Melzoo comme le moteur qui va tout arracher sur son passage:

"MelZoo does possess the intrinsic qualities and has the potential to become number 1 in the "Search" market, thanks to a much better user experience and higher quality traffic for advertisers. Both the visitor and the advertiser benefit!"

et on aime beaucoup la phrase "grâce à une bien meilleure expérience et un traffic de haute qualité".

Je ne pense pas que Melzoo sera demain le meilleur moteur du marché. La première raison c'est que les résultats des requêtes ne sont pas encore au point et que si ils veulent faire du méta moteur il va falloir revoir l'affichage des résultats ou les rendre public en expliquant d'où ils viennent.

La deuxième raison c'est que l'avenir n'est pas aux moteurs de recherches globaux mais aux moteurs de recherches spécialisés. (Par ailleurs c'est une chance pour nous les opérateurs booléens fonctionnent sur Melzoo). Du coup je ne vois qu'en Melzoo un concept qui devrait être ajouté au plus grand.

En tout cas je vous le conseille à l'essai car il est assez impressionnant, donc un bon concept mais ce n'est qu'une petite pièce du puzzle des moteurs de recherches.

Scirus: Le moteur de recherches par excellence

2009-01-19T06:27:00.000-08:00

Salut à tous,

Et oui je sais on ne me voit plus beaucoup en ce moment mais il faut dire que je travaille d'arrache pied sur ma thèse et que du coup je n'ai plus le temps de griffonner quelques lignes pour vous faire part de mes recherches.

La dernière en date que j'ai est celle de Scirus que peut être certains d'entre vous connaissent si ce n'est pas le cas lisez bien attentivement cet article.

J'ai découvert ce moteur en étudiant le questionnaire relatif à la formation des doctorants en Bretagne en recherche d'information. Si le rapport de cette étude vous intéresse il est disponible au lien suivant: http://www.uhb.fr/urfist/enquete_besoins_formation_doctorants-maitrise_information.

La conclusion est simple: la situation est grave mais bon revenons en à nos moutons et parlons de Scirus.

Scirus est présent dans la question concernant la connaissance sur les moteurs de recherches spécialisés. Scirus se décrit comme:

"is the most comprehensive scientific research tool on the web. With over 450 million scientific items indexed at last count, it allows researchers to search for not only journal content but also scientists' homepages, courseware, pre-print server material, patents and institutional repository and website information. "

"le moteur le plus apte pour la recherche scientifique sur le Web. Avec plus de 450 millions de sources scientifiques indexées, il permet aux chercheurs de trouver non seulement des articles mais aussi des sites Internet de scientifiques, des plans de cours, des documents sur des serveurs prêt à être imprimer, des brevets et dépôts ainsi que des informations sur les sites Internet."

La page d'accueil de Scirus

Bref un filtre parfait pour vous évitez tous les blogs et autres contenus de basse qualité. C'est surtout un bonne outil pour trouver des thèses. Le moteur étant en anglais je pense qu'il est plus facile de savoir bien parler la langue de Shakespeare pour trouver son bonheur. Dans mon cas je l'ai trouvé sans trop de soucis alors que Google ne me permettait pas de mettre la main dessus.

A conseiller et à mettre dans vos favoris de toute urgence pour vos travaux de recherches.

CV Gadget: Un moteur à combiner avec 123 people

2009-01-17T02:06:00.000-08:00

CV gadget est un moteur de recherches dédié à la recherche de personnes sur Internet. Son fonctionnement est très simple en indiquant le prénom et le nom d'une personne l'application va chercher toutes les données sur la personne en question à travers Google, Facebook, Myspace, Zoominfo, Xing, LinkedIn, Bebo et imeem.

CV Gadget comme son nom peut le faire deviner est un moteur de recherches ayant pour but d'aider à découvrir si oui ou non le CV que le responsable des ressources humaines a dans la main est bidon ou non.

Je suis un peu mauvaise langue en annonçant que c'est le moteur de recherches préféré des recruteurs mais pourtant c'est bien l'ambition de cette application informatique:

"CVGadget.com - Person Search Engine, quick cv and resume check for HR research."

qui comme indiqué dans sa description a pour but pour le personnel des ressources humaines de vérifier les curriculum des personnes.

L'outil en question est assez puissant si l'on y réfléchit bien d'autant plus qu'il trouve des informations que ne trouve pas 123people que je vous avais présenté il y a quelque temps(et vice versa).

En résumé en associant CV gadget et 123people on obtient un joli petit cocktail de données.

L'application en question est très simple à utiliser il suffit d'indiquer le prénom et le nom et la recherche est lancée.

La page d'accueil de CV Gadget

J'ai été personnellement agréablement surpris des informations qu'il pouvait trouver car un peu plus nombreuse que sur 123 people.

Par ailleurs pour ceux qui suivent l'actualité sur le risque de mettre des informations personnelles sur Internet, je vous conseille le lien suivant qui atterrit sur un site dont les personnes qui le gère ont décidé d'étaler la vie d'un Internaute pris au hasard sur le net. L'article fait assez peur.

Yabêêê: Mon moteur de recherches personnalisé

2009-01-15T06:41:00.000-08:00

L'application Customize Search Engine de Google est la preuve que le moteur de recherches du même nom est la victime de son succès.
Allez c'est partit je vous explique à la va vite le principe de Google Customize Search Engine.
Cela consiste à créer votre propre moteur de recherches dans mon cas c'est Yabêêê.
Comme vous pouvez le voir dans la colonne de droite j'ai même pu me faire ma propre masquotte.
Le principe de GCSE est assez simple même si c'est un peu la croix et la bannière pour mettre de la publicité. Il vous suffit de vous rendre sur le site suivant: www.google.com/cse et à partir de là vous choisissez les critères de votre moteur de recherches.
En gros vous lui dites quels sont les sites que vous aimeriez qu'ils visitent et Google s'occupe du reste.
Dans mon cas je lui ai dit de ne chercher des informations que dans mes blogs personnels.
Le résultat des recherches est assez impressionnant puisqu'à requête identique votre moteur obtiendra plus de résultats que Google lui même sur les mêmes sites.
Dans mon cas j'ai utilisé la requête suivante: "prénom+nom" Yabeee me renvoyant 34 résultats sur les sites que je lui avait indiqué alors que Google.com m'en renvoyait seulement 6.
L'explication se trouve dans le fait que Google.com ignorera les résultats qu'il juge dans un premier temps non pertinents(vous aurez cependant la possibilité au final de les réinclure si bon vous semble).

Au final Yabeee nous sert de filtre à Google:

Le moteur de recherches Yabeee

AOL: A quoi sert son moteur de recherches?

2009-01-12T03:16:00.000-08:00

Très bonne question n'est ce pas? Je me suis toujours demandé comment cela se faisait il que AOL search en France est si populaire avec 1,4% de part de marché en novembre 2008 selon Xiti Monitor.

Car j'en avais déjà parlé dans un post précédant le moteur d'AOL est un moteur portant la mention "Powered by Google" ce qui signifie que c'est le moteur de Google qui y travaille derrière.

J'ai donc mené ma petite enquête et ai découvert que cette mention "Powered by Google" signifie que c'est la technologie de Google qui est utilisé et qu'ensuite AOL y applique un filtre du genre je veux que mon moteur ne recherche que dans les sites A et B et pas dans C ni D etc.

Vous pouvez vous faire un exemple concret de la chose en créant votre propre moteur via Google customize search. Personnelement je me suis prêté au jeu en créant un moteur pour ce blog, il est disponible dans la colonne de droite ou à l'adresse suivante.

Pour en revenir à AOL si vous effectuez une recherche vous y verrez apparaitre en tant que résultat exactement les mêmes que pour Google sur la première page. Cependant au niveau du nombre de résultats donnés il y en a beaucoup moins(disons que si Google vous renvoit 100,000 résultats AOL vous en renvoit 10,000), le rapport y est de 10%.

Je ne dirai pas qu'AOL est moins pertinent que Google car en réalité personne ne s'aventure au delà de la page 3 des résultats de Google. Je dirai donc qu'AOL est un moteur de Google simplifié. Cependant je remet beaucoup en cause son utilité, je comprends qu'il faille privilégier la qualité au détriment de la qualité mais si les résultats restent les mêmes sur les premières pages sachant que la rapidité des résultats sur les deux moteurs semblent la même je ne vois pas vraiment l'intérêt du filtre.

Les moteurs de recherches de Google

2009-01-11T01:31:00.000-08:00

Comme chacun le sait Google est un immense moteur de recherches et c'est tous les jours que du nouveau contenu sur le web est indexé.
Google se retrouve donc théoriquement jour après jour avec plus de contenu à indexé(bon je ne suis pas sûr que la tâche soit si difficile que cela car je pense que de la même façon que Google indexe des sites il peut en désindexé aussi).
Prenant en compte que la plupart d'entre nous ne connaissent ou n'utilisent pas les opérateurs booléens quand ils font des recherches(+ - near "" ~ etc...) et bien il est un peu normal que le résultat de nos requêtes ne soient pas à la hauteur de ce que l'on en attend.

Pour palier à cela Google a mis au point des moteurs de recherches spécialisés(ce n'est pas nouveau rassurez vous), les plus connu étant Google Images et Google Vidéos.
Je pense sérieusement que ces moteurs spécialisés ne sont rien de plus qu'une requête spéciale de Google du type(mais en plus travaillé):

?intitle:index.of? -filetype:html -filetype:asp -wiki -ringtone -filetype:htm -posts -lyrics -filetype:shtml -filetype:php -filetype:doc -filetype:pdf -filetype:txt jpg gif png

pour chercher des images par exemple.
C'est d'ailleurs pour cela que quand on lance une recherche sous Google images on nous renvoit pas des sites Internet ni même des vidéos mais seulement des images.

Donc dans un soucis de rendre vos recherches plus pertinentes Google a mis en place toute une série de moteurs de recherches spécialisés de manière à ce que vous puissiez y voir plus clair. Il est donc dans votre intérêt de les connaitre pour une recherche ciblée.

Alors naturellement tous ces moteurs ne vous seront pas utiles mais certains pourraient valoir le détour. J'ai vous ai ici fait un schéma simplifié(tous les moteurs de Google n'y sont pas) des moteurs spécialisés de Google:
En fait tous ces moteurs sont répartis je dirai par degré d'utilité et de spécialisation.
Le niveau 1 correspondrait aux moteurs dont n'importe quel utilisateur aurait besoin c'est à dire les images, le shopping, les actualités et la géographie. Ils sont tous disponibles sur la page d'accueil de Google. Le niveau 2 est à peu prêt pareil toujours accessible en page d'accueil mais déjà certains moteurs vous sont peut être inconnu tel que book search et finance.
Le niveau 3 est bien sûr encore un peu plus dur à trouver.
Le niveau 4&5 il faut carrément allé les chercher dans la jungle du web.

La grande question est y a t il des moteurs spécialisés de Google qui valent le coup d'être vu et découvert pour le moment?

A cette question je répondrai non même si en était curieux on peut s'aventurer sur Google Patent(qui recense les brevets déposés du type le brevet de la manette xbox) ou encore Google code pour les programmeurs ou même Google Catalogue qui référence des vieux catalogues d'entreprises.

Google-411 vaut le détour, quel dommage que ce service ne semble disponible qu'aux Etats-Unis:

Who is like it: un moteur de recherches pour trouver des sites similaires

2009-01-09T00:30:00.000-08:00

Voici l'un de mes sites favoris et honnêtement je m'étonne de ne pas vous en avoir parlé depuis tout ce temps.
Who is like it est un peu une clef à molette du Web.
Ce moteur vous permet de trouver tous les sites qui ont une activité similaire à celui que vous lui avez indiqué.
Alors évidemment avec un tel site on peut ensuite faire un peu toutes les recettes que l'on désire et c'est ça qui est génial.
Bref le jour où vous êtes à court d'idées comme moi pour un sujet sur les moteurs de recherches vous entrez le nom d'un site et vous parlez de son confrère.
Mais bon son utilisation peut être encore plus puissante si par exemple votre site favori vient de fermer ses portes et que vous êtes au désespoir de trouver un site lui ressemblant.

La page d'accueil de Who is like it

Les résultats dépendent malheureusement de la popularité du site que vous entrez. Si vous y entrez l'adresse de votre blog qui fait 5 visiteurs par jour il est sûr que Who is like it ne vous donnera aucun résultat.

Les temps de chargement sont parfois un peu long mais en général les résultats sont pertinents ce qui honnêtement est le premier de nos soucis.

A utiliser sans modération.

Catholic Google: le moteur de recherches catholique

2009-01-08T01:52:00.000-08:00

Après les moteurs de recherches écologiques, les moteurs de recherches par région(Google Bretagne, Google Corse) voici Catholic Google un site pour les catholiques.
Alors quoi de neuf dans ce nouveau moteur?
Et bien pas grand chose si ce n'est une interface qui change c'est à dire que l'on ne retrouve pas en première page les habituels liens en directions des images ni des vidéos ou encore des actualités mais un peu de pub en plus qui dans mon cas ne sont pas liées à la religion.

La page d'accueil de Catholic Google

Donc à première vue pas de grandes différences et pourtant tout va se jouer une fois votre première requête lancée.

En effet les résultats sont affichés différemment et surtout sont filtrés, donnant plus de poids aux sites à caractère religieux et bien sur bannissant tous les sites coquins.

Le seul hic que je trouve est que malheureusement les publicités elles ne sont pas filtrées donc si vous entrez un mot clef obscène et bien vous vous retrouverez avec des pubs vous proposant des rencontres avec des jeunes filles... autrement dit que Catholic Google ne sert concrètement qu'à obtenir les sites religieux en premier mais n'est en aucun cas un outil de contrôle parental pour vos enfant.

Les superbes pubs de Google

Par ailleurs il semblerait que Catholic Google ne semble en rien affilié à la Google Inc pour en savoir plus je vous conseille de consulter l'article de l'Express à ce sujet.

Reprise de l'activité

2009-01-08T01:51:00.000-08:00

Salut à tous,

Juste quelques petits mots pour dire que je suis de retour et bien reposé prêt à vous faire de nouveaux articles.

Treve hivernale

2008-12-09T09:36:00.000-08:00

Une bonne nouvelle en annonçait forcément une mauvaise. Et oui ça va être la trêve hivernale pour moi car je vais rentrer en France durant les vacances(qui commencent après demain) et que du coup je ne pourrai accéder à Internet. Soit une coupure du blog de près de 3 semaines avant de retourner ici en Allemagne.
En principe il n'y aura pas de problème majeur concernant le contenu du blog car j'écrirai ma thèse en était hors ligne. Ce qui signifie beaucoup de contenu l'année prochaine.

These sur les moteurs de recherches

2008-12-09T09:29:00.000-08:00

J'ai une grande nouvelle à vous annoncer. On vient de me valider le plan de ma thèse...disons pas le plan final mais la structure de ma thèse en elle même.
Cela signifie que j'ai officiellement l'aval de mes responsables de formation pour démarrer ma thèse.
Alors en voici en exclusivité les points qui y seront abordés:

Risks of search engine dependency and its influence on data quality

1 Introduction of the topic background

1.1 Relevance of the subject

- Internet is more and more used to find information

- In order to browse properly the Internet you need a search engine

- One specific search engine is massively used which means only one way to manage data
1.2 Major terms

- Search engines

- Search engines dependency

- Data quality

- Risks

- Influence
1.3 Focus, goals and structure of the report

-Focus: What are the risks of using a single way of managing data?

-Goals:

- to put in evidence that using a single search engine is wrong;
- to show how important it is to have reliable information;
- to show how big is the gap between a single search engine and specific unknown search engines;
- to look for solutions if tomorrow the biggest search engines players disappear(for e.g: Google);
- to show that there is not a perfect search engine;
- to show that other search engines exist;
- to show even if you are dependent of a single search engine it is not sure that you are using it properly;

2 Concept of data quality
2.1 How to define data quality?

- Accurate, timely, meaningful, and complete

2.2 Why data quality is so important?

- Data quality as source of decision making

- Data is the center of everything

3 Search engines dependency

3.1 Configuration of the search engine market

- It is rare to find a country which is not depending of a particular search engine. We clearly have Google countries, Yahoo countries...
3.2 Search engines dependency aspect

- What does search engine dependency mean?

3.3 Search engines dependency problems

- Privacy issues

- Why people are not looking for other search engines?

- You get less and less confident regarding other search engines

- How to manage Search engine owner strategy(for e.g if Google change its rules of indexation)

- Even the most famous search engines do not provide all functionalities(to compare results from different search engines, I want to have a visual representation of my results, I want to find people)

4 The risks of search engines dependency and its influence on data quality

4.1 The information has been found but is poor

- Poor data quality

- The more a search engine is known the more it is easier to know its secrets and then to manipulate it

- Single way of thinking

4.2 The information has been not found so users may think it does not exist

- Poor knowledge on how to use the search engine

- Data can be controlled, easy to manipulate people

- Poor knowledge on the existence of other search engines

5 The Google example

Google figures
Search engine dependency on Google
Can Google disappear?

6 Conclusion

Grab All

2008-12-09T02:41:00.000-08:00

Ah c'est quand je trouve des moteurs de recherches comme Grab All que je me sens revivre et me dis que des solutions alternatives à Google il y en a et il y en aura dans les années futures.

Enfin un moteur de recherches qui mettra tout le monde d'accord. Grab all est un méta moteur de recherches qui compare les résultats entre les plus célèbres moteurs: Google, Yahoo, Ask, MSN, Alta Vista... Son principal avantage est qu'il vous affiche clairement les résultats de deux moteurs de recherches et vous permet donc une comparaison limpide.

La page d'accueil de Grab All

Grab All comme son nom l'indique est un méta moteur de recherches qui "prend tout", c'est à dire tous les résultats des plus grands moteurs de recherches: Google, Yahoo, Altavista, Ask Jeeves, MSN...
A la différence des autres méta moteurs il vous affiche les résultats de seulement deux moteurs en séparant votre écran à moitié. Du coup il est très facile de comparer les résultats et de voir quelles en sont les différences.

La page de résultats de Grab All

Grab All devient du coup une application incontournable pour les personnes à la recherche de résultats pertinents ou d'alternatives à Google.
Grab All ne s'arrête pas à la recherche de sites web et va aussi plus loin avec la recherche de logiciels, d'images et de vidéos.
On regrette cependant que pour ces dernières fonctions tous les moteurs de recherches principaux ne soient pas disponibles et l'affichage des résultats pas tip top.

La vie à Google

2008-12-08T02:31:00.000-08:00

Dans le registre j'ai un peu la flemme d'écrire des articles en ce moment alors je me met à regarder des vidéos je vous présente la dernière que j'ai pu trouver sur le Net.
Une fois de plus ici on se retrouve avec une vidéo intéressante qui vous explique la vie à Google mais en Europe cette fois ci.
J'aime beaucoup le fait que ce soit une vidéo française. Google y est présentée comme une magnifique fourmilière sans défauts et je trouve que ce reportage est vraiment axée sur les ressources humaines.
Il y en a pour vingt minutes pour la première vidéo et surtout une belle démonstration de comment prendre soin de ses employés.

Google web moteur de recherche
envoyé par CyberPeople

Pour la deuxième partie du film vous en aurez aussi pour une vingtaine de minutes et s'adresse plutôt sur le comment entrer à Google.

Google web moteur de recherche
envoyé par CyberPeople

La dernière partie du film est encore plus intéressante car devient plus technique, montre Google d'un point de vue moins optimiste et nous présente les locaux en France.

Google web moteur de recherche
envoyé par CyberPeople

Toorgle: Le moteur de recherches de Torrent

2008-12-06T10:28:00.000-08:00

Dans la même lignée de Tyoogle voici Toorgle. Comme son nom l'indique Toorgle va chercher des Torrent sur le web qui sont des groupes de données. Bon en principe quand on parle de Torrent on fait référence à des logiciels, des films ou des fichiers de musique.

J'ai cherché à répondre à la question si Toorgle était lié à Google mais il semblerait que non.

Toorgle utilise au final la technologie de Google pour vous renvoyez les résultats.

La page d'accueil du moteur de recherches de Torrent Toorgle

Je tiens à vous mettre en garde lors de son utilisation. La plupart des sites de Torrent sont des sites illégaux incluant dans certains cas des images, films ou animations pouvant choquer la sensibilité des plus jeunes. Je ne recommande donc pas son utilisation. Cet article n'est là qu'à titre d'information.

Deuxième mise en garde si pour n'importe quel raison vous venez à l'utiliser, veuillez mettre vos anti virus et autres systèmes de protection car ces sites grouillent souvent souvent de logiciels malveillants.

Tyoogle: un moteur de recherches interdit?

2008-12-06T09:54:00.000-08:00

C'est marrant depuis toujours je me suis dit qu'il devait exister un Web numéro 2. Un Web interdit, un web obscur dont seul certaines personnes connaissaient l'accès.
Naturellement à force de fouiner le Web comme je le fais j'en ai trouvé deux dans un dossier développé une fois de plus par le Journal du Net.

De quoi s'agit il donc?

Tyoogle n'est rien de plus qu'une requête spéciale du type:

?intitle:index.of? -filetype:html -filetype:asp -wiki -ringtone -filetype:htm -posts -lyrics -filetype:php -filetype:doc -filetype:pdf mp3

qui est ensuite utilisée sur le moteur de Google.

ici ça veut dire que Google va me chercher dans tous les index qu'il peut me trouver, les MP3 qui correspondent à la requête que je lui ai envoyé.

En regardant de plus prêt vous avez la possibilité de customiser à gogo votre requête:

Le site de Tyoogle

Tyoogle le clame haut et fort en bas de page:

"Tyoogle is in no way affiliated with Google or Yahoo. Tyoogle simply acts as an interface for Google and Yahoo news feeds and does not add, hack, or cause any abnormal results to be displayed that would otherwise be unobtainable via Google or Yahoo's own interfaces.
Tyoogle combines mutiple feeds to produce a more focused source for those seeking your mom.
Tyoogle is proudly powered by WordPress"

Tyoogle n'est en aucun cas affilié à Google ou Yahoo. Il agit simplement en tant qu'interface pour Google et Yahoo et n'ajoute pas ni ne pirate les résultats affichés qui en principe ne peuvent être obtenu via les interfaces de Google ou Yahoo.

En fait ce n'est pas exactement vrai. Vous pouvez obtenir les même résultats via Google ou Yahoo(c'est juste une histoire de requête). C'est juste que la fonction:

?intitle:index.of? -filetype:html -filetype:asp -wiki -ringtone -filetype:htm -posts -lyrics -filetype:php -filetype:doc -filetype:pdf mp3

ne vous est pas proposée automatiquement. Cela dit rien ne vous emêche de techniquement l'entrer à la main.

MS Dewey: Un nouveau moteur signé Microsoft

2008-12-05T14:21:00.000-08:00

On en entend très peu parler mais les grands moteurs de recherches développent eux aussi des petits moteurs de recherches alternatifs.
Je vous dis cela depuis un lien intéressant qui comme toujours nous vient tout droit du Journal du Net.

Une fois de plus je me suis penché sur le moteur le plus flashy de ce dossier qui n'est autre que celui de Microsoft.
Le moteur en question répond au doux nom de Ms. Dewey que l'on devrait comprendre comme mademoiselle Dewey même si personnellement j'y lis Microsoft Deweley.

Autant être franc avec vous je doute de la qualité des résultats que vous obtenez sous ce moteur. Cependant j'aimerais attirer votre attention sur l'interface graphique qui tout comme Navigaya m'a toujours attiré.

Il est vrai que l'interface graphique n'apporte rien à la fonction principale des moteurs mais bon ça donne toujours des idées pour d'autres produits et surtout ça épate la galerie ce qui n'est pas si mal.

La page de résultats de Ms. Dewey

Donc voilà MS Dewey est un moteur qui anime une ravissante jeune femme chargée de vous distraire quand vous allez faire vos recherches.

Je l'ai trouvé bien sympathique et elle m'a fait rire à plusieurs reprises. Il est sûr ce ne sera pas mon moteur favori mais de là à l'utiliser de temps en temps...pourquoi pas?

Pixolu: L'affinateur de recherches d'images

2008-12-05T13:26:00.002-08:00

Salut à tous,

Je tiens à vous présentez aujourd'hui un moteur de recherches qui pourrait vous servir à améliorer la recherche de vos images.
Je tiens cependant à vous prévenir, ce moteur est un projet universitaire. Son gros soucis est qu'il connait un succès fou du coup son serveur est souvent débordé.
Alors ne vous ennervez pas si parfois les temps de chargement sont longs et que vous n'obtenez aucun résultat.
Pensez avant tout à ce que ce moteur peut vous apportez sur le long terme.
Pixolu sert avant tout à affiner vos recherches d'images. En sélectionnant certaines images Pixolu va chercher à comprendre quelles sont exactement vos besoins et vous fournir les résultats que vous souhaitez. Vous n'aurez donc plus besoin de modifier votre requête via d'autres mots clés.

Le site Web de Pixolu

Pixolu vous donne d'emblée des résultats plus pertinents que Google Images et surtout va vous donner la possibilité d'affiner votre recherche en vous permettant de sélectionner vos images préférées.
Suite à quoi Pixolu va refaire des recherches permettant de vous proposez des résultats plus en accord avec ceux que vous lui aviez initialement dicté.
Un outil idéal pour des présentations PowerPoint étudiantes en quête d'images pertinentes.

Google: FCS Facteurs Clés du Succès

2008-12-05T03:47:00.000-08:00

J'ai trouvé ces diapositives sur un article récent concernant pourquoi Google survivra à la crise économique.
Ce diaporama est très complet et conviendra à des étudiants soucieux de faire une présentation marketing sur le futur de Google.
On y présente surtout les FCS Facteurs Clés du Succès:

Tout ce que vous vouliez savoir sur Google

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: google fabernovel)

Les recherches sur Internet en Chine

2008-12-04T13:43:00.000-08:00

Cet article est en rapport avec une vidéo que je viens de visionner sur Youtube à l'adresse suivante:

http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=IWsXhNJFj78

C'est une vidéo d'une vingtaine de minutes traitant de l'accès à Internet pour les chinois depuis la Chine. Je regrette que la vidéo soit un peu engagée au niveau politique car je préfère les vidéos qui restent neutres permettant à chacun de faire son propre jugement par la suite.

En tout cas la partie qui nous, nous intéresse se situe entre la minute 9 et la douzième minute car on y parle des difficultés que Yahoo et Google ont en Chine.

Autant je connaissais l'histoire de Google mais celle de Yahoo j'en suis resté baba. J'avais entendu parlé un peu de cette histoire(Yahoo(entreprise américaine) aurait carrément vendu certains de ses utilisateurs aux autorités chinoises) mais honnetement ça fait encore plus froid dans le dos quant on voit le PDG de Yahoo Jerry YANG qui ne s'implique pas dans cette polémique. Au final le business aura eu la raison sur l'humanité(c'est à voir je vous le jure).

En conclusion je dirai que Yahoo en Chine c'est mort déjà que Google ça pas être facile facile pour affronter Baidu mais Yahoo est pour moi hors circuit.

On voit aussi furtivement Baidu dans cette vidéo mais on en parle pas pour autant. En tout cas un documentaire qui vaut le coup, je vous le recommande.

Pub Mac

2008-12-04T09:17:00.000-08:00

Salut à tous,

Je suis en train de fignoler la structure pour ma thèse qui s'annonce pour le moment sur les dangers de la dépendance des moteurs de recherches et en particulier Google.
Et oui je sais bien le sujet aura changé beaucoup de fois depuis la création de ce blog mais bon c'est ça aussi le charme de la thèse, on commence en pensant que l'on connait son sujet, le plus on avance le plus on découvre que l'on connait rien, après on est totalement perdu et au final on retombe plus au moins sur son sujet initial.
J'ai à ce sujet un rendez vous mardi prochain pour faire valider le plan de ma thèse mais le garde jusqu'à maintenant secret.
Je tenais à vous faire part des publicités Mac vs PC que j'avais découverte il y a deux ans quand j'étais aux USA.
Je les ai trouvé en version française sur Youtube j'espère qu'elles vous plairont si vous ne les connaissez pas encore.
Elles devraient toutes y être. Sachez qu'en principe elles sont diffusées sur la Télé américaine mais seulement par petit bout c'est pourquoi chacune ne durent plus de trente secondes:

Video sur Google

2008-12-02T08:09:00.000-08:00

J'ai aujourd'hui pu visionner une seconde vidéo sur Google qui est cette fois plus axée sur les méthodes de référencement sur celui ci.

Une fois de plus je n'ai pas énormément appris même si il y a tout de même des points intéressants que j'ai pu relever.

Il s'agit d'une vidéo apparemment faite d'une soutenance d'un étudiant dans le secteur informatique. Du moins je trouve encore le vocabulaire un peu technique pour être issu du secteur marketing.

Search Engine Optimization - L’art du référencement web
envoyé par intellicore

Je crois que le point que j'ai le plus apprécié est celui concernant le navigateur Lynx qui est un moteur de recherches en mode texte et qui donc voit les informations comme le voit les moteurs de recherches et non pas comme des êtres humains.

J'ai du coup installé Lynx sur mon PC qui est en fait très très léger encore plus que Chrome et surtout très riche en sécurité, on s'aperçoit que le web est alors bourré de cookies(des petits mouchards qui prélèvent des informations, du style: votre pays, votre navigateur etc...).

La page d'accueil de Google.de sous Lynx

Je trouve aussi qu'il met bien en avant le fait que Microsoft, Yahoo et Google ont plus ou moins la même présentation. Après je regrette qu'une fois de plus on insiste pas assez sur les points forts et faiblesses de chacun. Par exemple je trouve personnellement que Yahoo a des fonctions bien sympathique du type "title:"(qui affiche toutes les pages qui ont les mots clés désignés dans le titre" et "link:"(qui vous permet de découvrir le nombre de liens pointant vers votre page).

Un autre point que j'ai adoré c'est la définition qu'il donne du taux de rebond, que je n'avais jamais compris jusqu'à présent:

Taux de rebond: "c'est le pourcentage de gens qui viennent sur votre site et qui partent juste après sans regarder vos pages. En fait ce sont des utilisateurs qui sont venus par hasard sur votre site mais qui ne sont pas intéressés. C'est un traffic qui ne sert à rien, cela consomme de la bande passante et ce sont des gens qui ne consulteront jamais votre site."

Que dire d'autres? J'aime aussi le fait qu'une fois de plus on parle de Google et la Privacy. J'ai vraîment l'impression que les gens se focalisent là dessus alors qu'il y a pas grand chose d'inquiétant. Je le vois plus comme un argument des compétiteurs pour dire que Google c'est pas bien car ils peuvent utiliser vos données personnelles. Mouais personnelement je pense que Microsoft a bien plus de pouvoir que Google. La réponse qui est donnée par rapport à cela dans la vidéo c'est que qui nous dit que Google ne pourrait pas se fournir ces informations par un autre biais.

En tout cas je trouve cette vidéo idéale pour des personnes qui voudraient une bonne petite introduction au référencement web.

Après pour ceux qui comme moi connaissent déjà un peu le sujet je leur conseillerai de tester Lynx histoire de voir à quoi ça ressemble.

Une vidéo sur Google

2008-12-01T08:24:00.000-08:00

Ce matin je me suis une nouvelle fois de plus réveillé avec un mal de crâne et cette sensation que je n'avancerai pas beaucoup dans ma thèse. La raison est que dans un projet il y a des hauts et des bas et surtout des moments où on ne sait plus ou donner de la tête.
Dans mon cas c'était qu'il me manquait de motivation et que je ne voyais pas dans quel coin creuser(j'ai à ce sujet écrit 3 ou 4 articles sur des sujets comme "pourquoi on parle du rachat de Yahoo?" "pourquoi il existe des moteurs de recherches spécilasés?").

Je me suis alors dit "tiens mais pourquoi je ne chercherai pas les informations sur Google à travers les vidéos?" comme ça je m'instruis tout en me divertissant.

Il faut croire que j'ai été bien inspiré sur ce coup là car en effet si vous aussi vous cherchez une vidéo sur Google vous tomberez à coup sûr sur celle que je vais vous présentez:

Personnellement j'aime beaucoup cette vidéo car je la trouve très neutre. Elle montre la philosophie de Google et comment les employés vivent à l'intérieur. Les interviews ne sont pas mal du tout et la musique entrainante. Les employés de Google bafouillent parfois sur certaines questions ce qui nous laissent penser que la vidéo n'est pas pro Google. On y explique aussi brievement pourquoi Google est numéro 1 en Inde. Je n'ai pas appris tant de chose car je commence à être rôdé sur le sujet mais je pense que si j'avais commencé par cette vidéo j'aurais pour sûr appris plus rapidement. Par ailleurs la vidéo soulève la question du monopole Google sans vraîment y répondre ce qui me laisse penser que je suis sur la bonne voie pour ma thèse.

En tout cas une petite leçon à tirer de cette recherche de vidéos est que quand vous cherchez des informations sur le net vous devriez aussi regarder du côté des images et des vidéos car rappellons le contenu des images et des vidéos ne s'indexent pas comme les pages web.

Apple: PowerPoint presentation

2008-11-27T10:28:00.000-08:00

Distribution Policy Apple

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: apple mac)

Apple: Bibliography

2008-11-27T10:07:00.001-08:00

Start by the first article: http://moteurs-de-recherches-alternatifs.blogspot.com/2008/11/apple-distribution-policies-at-apple.html

7 Bibliography

http://ejschmidt.com/blog/
http://www.nytimes.com/
http://www.ifoapplestore.com/index.php
http://www.businessweek.com
http://www.economist.com/
Apple, Inc., Annual Report, 2007
Yoffie, D., Sind, M. « Apple Inc., 2008 » Harvard Business Review, 2008
Chernev, A. « Apple Retail Stores » Kellogg School of Business Review, 2002
Apple Retail Manifesto, Apple 2001

Apple: Conclusions and recommendations

2008-11-27T10:02:00.000-08:00

6 Conclusions and recommendations

What advice can be given to a company that multiplied by 3 its revenues in just 3
years (not being a start-up, but an $8 billion multinational) and that from an
“ancillary” activity, like retail, is able to squeeze $5 billion and half a billion of
profit? In order to give an answer I think that we should step back for a moment.
Apple today earns money through electronic devices, but competition in this field is
increasing and hardly they’ll be able to maintain high margins. Apple has already
stepped in the service market: the iTunes, although barely profitable, is a leader and
the App Store (a store for software for handheld devices) is growing quickly. The
development of mobile telecommunications should enable in the near future cheap
mobile data tariffs. Leveraging its devices Apple could evolve in a Content Service
Provider. Already today, through the App Store they can sell music, movies, TV
shows and software to iPod Touch and iPhone users. The war for future distribution
standards is just at the beginning. Apple should be very careful in adopting closed
proprietary standards, because even the most wonderful device, if doesn’t have enough
developers creating innovative applications for it, won’t gain the benefits of network effect
and thus could be relegated as niche product.

Developing a wide network for content distribution could provide a source of profit for an
undetermined time. It is also possible to envision a future where Apple sells its devices at an
highly discounted price, in order to enlarge the user base and make money through the
services sold over its digital content delivery channel, a strategy already successfully adopted
by video game console producers, most notably Sony, with it PlayStation console.

My personal opinion is that Apple should use wisely the market share it’s gaining. The
hardware is not a sustainable business in the long term, and a transition towards services will
be inevitable. The “digital hub” should be the Trojan Horse for new, innovative formats of
content distribution. Apple already lost the desktop war, I hope they learned from their
mistakes.

Apple: Some strategic considerations

2008-11-27T09:52:00.000-08:00

5.1 Some strategic considerations

The erosion of its market share from competitors (especially in the key educational
channel) and the fact they’re niche products required a strong respons. Is the retail
the good one? With its top-notch brand and world renowned marketing abilities,
Apple should have good chances of improving on the terrible experience of Gateway
Country Store model. If they succeed they’ll gain fresh outlets to sell its own
products and would also likely to gain additional revenues as a reseller of other
electronic goodies and have more control over marketing and servicing of its
products. Moreover, Apple could boost margins by cutting out middlemen and
convince buyers to choose higher-priced models pushing on the “emotional
shopping” stimulated by these types of stores.

However this is a dangerous field. To have shops in high traffic locations means
huge fixed expenditures for rents and it is hard to say if Apple will be able to keep
alive the big hype they’ve created. Moreover other retailer were not happy with this
decision (some also sued the company, but the court ruled in favor of Apple).

There’s no way to know if the costs deriving from a more bitter relationship with
resellers will be enough to set off the additional expenses. Any increase in sales
could be due to cannibalization, which is probably the biggest threat.

Apple claim that their stores are less than 3% than the total number of resellers in the
USA, thus not constituting a credible competitor in terms of volumes. They thought
that if they’d be able to double their market share to 10% thanks to the store, the
resellers would be the ones to enjoy the biggest share of the additional sales.

5-1 SWOT analysis

Apple thought that since it had a huge brand equity, an excellent supply chain
management and already billion in annual sales (plus $4 billion in cash to invest) to
jump in retail would have been a bet worth to be taken. If we look at the financial
results we can see that were proved right.
The retail activities were profitable in just 3 years. Since the lunch they experienced
a steady growth in turnover close to 50%. Profitability is a record level: with a net
margin well above 10% the Apple Stores are among the most profitable retail
activities in the US. It is interesting to note that the margin of the retail division,
which should be a low margin activity, is not very far from the margin from
computer and devices, which are high margin operations. This means that there a
great level of service embedded in their operations.

Apple: c)Establish gold standard for Apple buying experience

2008-11-27T09:51:00.001-08:00

c)Establish gold standard for Apple buying experience

Jobs synthesized “We want to set an example for all our resellers. Maybe they’ll
have better ideas, but if they don’t we want them to take our ideas and adopt them as
their own”. Apple Stores are designed for delivering an high quality buying
experience. Personnel is highly trained and motivated and there’s in every store an
Hot Line with technicians at the headquarters in Cupertino for difficult situations.
Along with the company’s products there’s a wide offer of third-party accessories
and about 300 software packages. It is possible to buy everything is exposed because
the stores have an inventory of about 300 SKU for every item. The stores collaborate
with the resellers for raising the experience levels, and provides data,
recommendations and consults to other dealers.

Apple: Convey the value

2008-11-27T09:50:00.000-08:00

b)Convey the value

In the shops every product is exposed and fully operational and often the same
product is shown operating in different situations (for example imaging, music, etc.).
People walk in and browse through the store, trying the products and experience a
warm environment. The stores match very well with the “hit product” strategy
because they drive a lot of traffic. After Apple has presented in a spectacular show
some new trendy product people want to see it, feel it, and touch it. The stores helps
to convey the value. This has had also a positive impact on the brand because gave
an appropriate frame for the purchasing process of their devices.

Apple: Growth

2008-11-27T09:49:00.000-08:00

a)Growth

At the time Apple’s market share was just about 5% and this meant that there was
another 95% that could be converted. This means that there’s room for growth. The
stores were designed specifically to drew in people who normally don’t buy Apple
products. The shop locations were choose according to demographic researches and
placed where there was an high density of Mac user but also many Windows users,
with a profile quite close to these of usual Apple customer. The shop were located in
places with an high level of traffic, where people go for shopping and being
entertained and design for catching attention immediately; with this strategy a causal
Windows customer had the occasion of going in a shop while having a walk and see
by himself what does Apple offer. If only 5 out 100 of those who don’t even
considered buying a Mac could be converted, the company’s market share would
nearly double. The “destination-location” option was dropped because a potential
computer buyer who don’t even consider buying a Mac is unlikely to drive 20
minutes just for visiting an Apple Store.

Apple: The Apple retail strategy

2008-11-27T09:48:00.000-08:00

5 The Apple retail strategy

In 2001 Steve Jobs announced that were going to open the first store directly owned
and operated by Apple and dedicated exclusively to Mac computer and related
product. This decision raised many perplexities, because at the time most
manufacturer were shutting down their retail operations and focusing on products
(especially Gateway had a very bad and expensive experience in the retail sector).
Apple thought it was the right thing to do essentially for 3 reasons:

a)Growth;
b)Convey the value;
c)Establish gold standard for Apple buying experience;

Apple: Some considerations about the distribution policies

2008-11-27T09:41:00.000-08:00

4 Some considerations about the distribution policies

Apple adopted a multi-channel distribution approach for mainly three reasons:
1. Reduce pressure from buyers that could negatively affect margin.
2. Have more control in order to ensure a buying experience in line with
products standards of quality.
3. Reach high visibility.

4-1 Competitive pressure.

As many computer and consumer electronics manufacture Apple is exposed to heavy
pressure from large retailers and wholesalers. Although the company has a very
strong brand and well differentiated products the retailer has still a lot of power on
exposition, promotion customer service. A selective and differentiated distribution
helps to reduce the bargaining power of buyers.

The On-line shops are useful as a showcase for the company’s product, but it is
mainly used by people who already owns a Mac and that do not need to try the
computer because they already know how it works. They are more attracted by the
possible customization and by the wide selection of peripherals and accessories that
the website offers. For example it is possible to choose some components of a PC
and have a personalized write engraved on the back of an iPod and ask for a gift box;
moreover only through the On-line store it is possible to redeem gift voucher. At
their heart, the On-line shops are more a service to its customer, than a competitor to
large e-commerce website, like Amazon and eBay, which have a pricing strategy far
more aggressive.

Although having being pretty selective in the past, today Apple is far more open to
large mass retailer than it was in the ‘80s, when only authorized dealers were allowed
to sell their product. It was decided to jump in for taking advantage of the large
amount of traffic generated by large retailers. Since 95% of those who are going to
buy a computer didn’t even consider a Mac a presence in the place where most
people buy electronic was essential. However this strategy presented more than a
challenge.

Big retailers are used to deal with big OEMs don’t have the will and the capacity of
providing a comfortable buying environment. Mac were stored on the shelves with
other computers and the small range of products (3 desktops and 2 notebooks) almost
disappeared within the vast assortment of big shops. They were not getting the
exposure they needed and the low knowledge level was a barrier for those curious
the try the machines. In 2000 Apple realized that retailers were damaging the
relationship with its customers, at a time when the company was being heavily
pressured by Dell’s direct distribution model. Not only: this dramatically reduced the
possibilities for a significant user base expansion, since it was not possible to explain
the possibilities of a Mac to customers used to see Apple as a something exotic,
aimed mostly for computer geeks. Dell had a much better control of its relationship
with customers and Apple had to take countermeasures.

Apple: An overview on the company’s distribution strategies

2008-11-27T09:37:00.000-08:00

3 An overview on the company’s distribution strategies

Apple sells its products worldwide through its on-line stores, its retail stores, its
direct sales force and third-party wholesalers, and value added resellers. Historically
the company was used to rely on a network of authorized dealers that served both
consumer and business customers and that provided customer care as well. They
tried to make sure that resellers were highly committed, well trained and focused on
sale. They wanted to provide an high quality service and were always very selective
and avoided mass market retailer, like Wal-Mart and Target.

During the ‘90s Apple begun to sell also through large retail chains and reached
agreements with Sears and CompUSA, two large outlet chains. There was the need to
get an higher visibility and the success of products like iPod, suggested a more mass
oriented approach. However the exposure they got was low and the service level
terrible. Moreover, staff in the outlet had an incentive to steer customers towards
Toshiba and HP products because these companies adopted a very aggressive
incentive strategy and paid a large bonus for every PC sold.

Apple decided to try with store-within-store concept. They built dedicated stands
within shops, with large posters, marketing materials and displayed computers that
were served by retailer’s staff. It didn’t work. Once again the salesmen were not
trained, nor motivated and Apple’s small product range didn’t received enough
exposure. When the company decided to use its own staff things improved
dramatically.

3-1 Distribution strategy

In 1997 Apple ventured in a completely new field: on-line sales. It was the first time
Apple sold directly to its customers. The On-line store offered the full product range,
with a vast choice of third party accessories and built-to-order capabilities, following
the path first pioneered by Dell. The good implementation and customization
capabilities determined its success.

The great response from well tailored sale services pushed Apple to take one the
biggest bet of its history: the decision to enter the retail business.
In 2000 were unveiled plans to build a chain of Directly Operated Stores, under the
supervision of Ron Johnson, a former vice-president of retail at Target and a veteran
in the retail industry. The first shop was opened May 19, 2001 in Virginia and
nowadays 230 shops are operative and in 2007 about 20% of global sales were
generated through DOSs.

In 2004 the whole distribution was restructured: the authorized dealers, known as
Apple Center or Apple Dealer become Apple Premium Reseller, a customized shop
highly committed to sell Apple products owned and operated under license by third
party operators; sales agreement with CompUSA were scrapped and a new
agreement with Best Buy was done that will lead to the creation of dedicated spaces
with 200 shops; agreements with Sears were renegotiated and Mac sales were
allowed only in selected spaces in shop with high affluence volume. At the same
time iPods, peripherals and accessories were distributed to wide variety of shops,
from small corner store, to music shops, to big brick-and-mortar supermarkets. For
the latest product entered in the catalogue, the iPhone, Apple signed exclusive
agreements with leading carriers in every country served and the device is sold
exclusively through the retail network of the phone operator.

Points of sale not directly operated by Apple are sourced through third party
wholesalers but it is possible, for any computer dealer who buys more than $2
million worth of Apple product a year, to buy equipment directly from Apple, rather
than through a distributor. This strategy was devised in order to reduce the markup
added by distributors: Apple applies a 3% discount for dealers who choose to buy
products directly from the manufacturer.

Apple: Company strategy

2008-11-27T09:36:00.000-08:00

2 Company strategy

Apple relies on the unique integration of hardware and software, both developed inhouse,
to deliver the best possible consumer experience. Their devices sports a
unique design and some of them are recognized as icons of contemporary industrial
design. The target is extremely broad and the company has reputation of delivering
exactly what they promised, without fuss.
The product range is narrow and typically Apple chose to bet on few,
groundbreaking, hit products rather than on incremental steps. This strategy has the
advantage of creating a strong differentiation among other computer makers and
generates a lot of buzz around the company’s products, that leads to real brand
substance.

The product roll out process has more in common with the fashion industry, than
with other IT company; new products are unveiled two times every year, during
keynotes held in February and September; the keynotes are more similar to a show,
or to a catwalk, rather than a press conference, since they’re hosted by Steve Jobs
himself in a spectacular frame within the San Francisco’s auditorium.
Historically, Apple had little if none interest in market share; they preferred to sell
high quality product with a pretty good margin to a small group of extremely loyal
customers, rather than exploiting the mass-market with compressed margins.
However the scenario is changing. The pressure on prices is growing as competitors
are closing the gap and the computer hardware is increasingly becoming a
commodity, and thus hard to differentiate; moreover the expenditures for developing
new software products increases dramatically as long as programs becomes more
sophisticated. MacOS X has cost about $1 billion do develop in 2001 and Windows
Vista, released in 2007, required almost $3 billion. To amortize these large
investments over a small user base (Apple sold 9,715 millions of Mac computer,
compared with 140 millions of Windows Vista licenses sold by Microsoft) could
require to charge a premium too large even for Apple’s ultra-loyal customer base.
In order to overcome this limit Apple moved in two directions: tried to expand its PC
market share, with products that could appeal to Windows users and entered the
consumer electronic mass market, thus becoming more an horizontal hardware and
software provider. The two strategy are self supporting: while its customers will be
glad to expand the capabilities of their Mac with portable mp3 players or cell phones,
the company will also be able to exploit the “Halo Effect” generate by iPods and
iPhones.

The achievements of this ambitious results, as we’ll see in this paper, relies heavily
on proper distribution management.

Apple: Company background and products

2008-11-27T09:35:00.000-08:00

1 Company background and products

Apple Computer, Inc. was founded in 1976 in Cupertino, a small town near San
Francisco, CA by two college students, Steve Jobs and Steven Wozniak. The
company was a pioneer in the computer industry and their Macintosh II computer is
credited as the first modern personal computer. Apple experienced a strong growth
during the ‘80s, however, due to some wrong decisions (mainly a closed architecture
approach to computing) it lost the so-called “War of Desktops”, thus leading to a
long decline that lasted until the late ‘90s, when Jobs stepped back at head of the
company he founded.

During the second Jobs era the company tried to reinvent itself; it renewed
completely its product line and entered new markets following its philosophy of
offering high integration between hardware and software and superior industrial
design.

Nowadays Apple designs and manufactures personal computers, portable digital
music players and mobile communication devices and produces and sells a variety of
related software, services and peripherals. On January 9th, 2007 Steve Jobs
announced during a keynote that Apple would be known from that point on as Apple,
Inc. in order to reflect its commitment to a whole “Digital Lifestyle” range of
products, rather than merely to the PC business.

Apple: Summary

2008-11-27T09:32:00.000-08:00

Summary

1 Company background and products
2 Company strategy
3 An overview on the company’s distribution strategies
4 Some considerations about the distribution policies
5 The Apple retail strategy
a)Growth
b)Convey the value
c)Establish gold standard for Apple buying experience
5.1 Some strategic considerations
6 Conclusions and recommendations
7 Bibliography

Apple: Distribution Policies at Apple Inc.

2008-11-27T09:26:00.000-08:00

By Alberto ZANCO

Microsoft: Power Point presentation

2008-11-27T02:17:00.000-08:00

Salut à tous,

Je viens de passer ma présentation orale sur Microsoft pour mon cours de "distribution policies" à l'université de Kassel en Allemagne.
Je vous poste ici mes slides au cas ou ça servirait à quelqu'un:

Microsoft Distribution Channels Presentation

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: microsoft windows)

Par ailleurs il est vrai que je ne publie plus beaucoup en ce moment la raison est que j'avais pas mal d'examen jusqu'à présent(encore un cet après midi) et que je suis encore tombé malade. La bonne nouvelle c'est que je suis officieusement en vacances dans la soirée et vais être enfin libre pour m'épanouir dans ma thèse. Pour info il faut que j'écrive 80 pages de thèse pour le 28 janvier c'est pour vous dire qu'il va y avoir du contenu sur le site, ne vous inquiétez pas.

A bientôt,

OSS for companies: Glossary

2008-11-23T03:31:00.000-08:00

Starting the report from the beginning

IV-2 Glossary

Copyleft:It is a legal instrument that requires those who pass on a program to include the rights to use, modify, and redistribute the code; the code and the freedoms become legally inseparable.

Open source: means the source code is available to the users.

Operating system (OS) : is the software that manages the sharing of the resources of a computer and provides programmers with an interface used to access those resources.

Proprietary software: is computer software with restrictions on copying and modifying placed on it by the creator or distributor.

Source code: the intelligible and understandable version by a human being of a computer programme.

Ubuntu/Linux:Ubuntu is in fact a whole operating system Linux for PC. The basic system and all the software which are with it are available freely .A help is available trough the community, or by professional support providers. « Ubuntu » is an old African word which means "humanity by caring about the next generation". Ubuntu also means « I am what I am beacuse of everthing we we are ».

Unix: is a computer operating systyem

Les moteurs de recherches alternatifs

Déménagement du blog

Google Wave

Google et les consommateurs

Les discours des hommes les plus influents dans le secteur des moteurs de recherches

NHN: Next Human Network n'est autre que Naver le moteur de recherches coréen

Wolfram Alpha: Du nouveau dans le monde de la recherche sur Internet?

Dernier post

Browser Wars: Internet Explorer versus Netscape

Context:

Introduction :

Diapositives de conférences

L'imprimante jet d'encre Lego de Larry Page

Les parts de marché de Google dans le monde

Rapport intermédiaire de thèse

Risks of search engine dependency and its influence on data quality

Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1: Introduction of the topic background

1.1 Relevance of the subject

1.2 Major terms

1.3 Focus, goals and structure of the report

Chapter 2: Concept of data quality

2.1 Data quality definition

2.2 The importance of data quality

Chapter 3: Search engines dependency

3.1.1 Search engine categories

3.1.2 Search engine market

3.1.3 The search engines in the world

3.1.4 The search engine market shares per country

3.1.5 The search engines competition

3.1.6 The semantic web

3.2 Search engines dependency aspect

3.2.1 Search engines dependency proves

3.2.2 Search engines dependency aspect

3.3 Search engines dependency problems

3.3.1 Privacy issues

3.3.2 Looking for other search engines

3.3.3 Search engine awareness

3.3.4 Other search engines existence awareness

3.3.5 Less confident regarding other search engines

3.3.6 Even the best cannot provide you everything

Chapter 4: Risks of search engines dependency and its influence on data quality

4.1 The information has been found but is poor

4.2 What the search engines do not tell you

4.3 The best way to get data quality

4.3.1 The sub-search engines

4.3.2 The size of the Internet

4.3.3 Single search engine Internet coverage

4.3.4 Multiple search engine Internet coverage

4.3.5 Others search engine Internet coverage

4.3.6 A concrete representation of the World Wide Web

4.4 The gap between search engine dependency and data quality

Chapter 5: The Google example

5.1 Google

5.2 Google's success

5.3 Google dependency state

5.4 Google functions

5.5 Google added functionalities

5.6 Google success is his weakness

5.7 Google's disappearance hypothesis

Conclusion

Declaration

List of literature

Afterword

Melzoo: Moteur de recherches visuel

Scirus: Le moteur de recherches par excellence

CV Gadget: Un moteur à combiner avec 123 people

Yabêêê: Mon moteur de recherches personnalisé

AOL: A quoi sert son moteur de recherches?

Les moteurs de recherches de Google

Who is like it: un moteur de recherches pour trouver des sites similaires

Catholic Google: le moteur de recherches catholique

Reprise de l'activité

Treve hivernale

These sur les moteurs de recherches

Grab All

La vie à Google

Toorgle: Le moteur de recherches de Torrent

Tyoogle: un moteur de recherches interdit?