Most text excerpts that appear on search results pages aren't very useful. Imagine if instead your search engine showed a list of clear sentences summarizing the contents of each link on that search result page. That's what a new service called Factery Labsaims to provide for any service that utilizes the API it's launching today.You give Factery a list of links and a keyword and it will build an index of all the facts asserted in those links about your topic of interest, delivered in XML or JSON format. The service can run on top of a search engine but could also be used in any number of other ways. I've been feeling unsatisfied with other search engines all day since seeing a Factery demo Monday morning.SponsorAfter building that "fact index," Factery ranks the links submitted by the quality and density of facts related to query on the page. Compare the search results page on Google News for "Paul Allen" to the information that Factery extracts from links being shared on Twitter about Paul Allen. The Google News page tells you nothing, except that Paul Allen has cancer - over and over again. Compare that with the Factery results page - I don't even need to click through if I don't want to, I feel like I got a great overview of the story just from my search page. Perhaps that's a problem - for a publishing industry that already says it's scared of search engines - but as a reader it sure isn't my problem, it's great. Why would I want Google News to tell me where I can go to find information if someone else will just give me the information?The company's test demo searches Twitter and Yahoo Boss - neither search is as exciting as I'd hoped 100% of the time, but it's often remarkably good. Factery is also testing an interesting integration with Silverlight stream reader Sobees, in which linked pages from Twitter or Facebook are annotated with automatically extracted highlights via Factery. I expect a whole lot of companies are going to at least try this API out and I'm excited to see the results.How This is Unlike Other Real-Time Search ServicesFactery is talking a lot about its ability to analyze links shared over Twitter, but that's probably just because Twitter is easy for people to understand. The fact is, the service can perform on-demand analysis of text behind any set of links. That's what differentiates it from other real-time search engines like OneRiot, which also analyzes the text of pages linked to on networks like Twitter and offers an API to display real-time search results on other sites. Competitor Collectaanalyzes Twitter streams in real time and offers an XMPP API to push new search results live to any page.Factery is a different kind of animal, though. It's more like a smart search inside any other search. It doesn't even have to be search, though. The company talks a lot about how they make mobile reading more efficient by pulling the salient information up to the surface of a page, instead of requiring mobile readers to load multiple pages.I thought of five or six different ways I'd like to use it just while talking to the company on the phone. (I'm not going to share those here, either. I think some could offer an important competitive advantage.)I'd Love to See This Work EverywhereYesterday I was testing a new Android app from the Sunlight Foundationthat lets you track members of congress. One tab in the app is a search for your congressperson in the news. Unfortunately, the page excerpts give no indication why the politician you searched for appeared in that news story - just that their name did, somewhere. That search is powered by a Yahoo API, probably BOSS, but it's not any fun to use at all. How unsatisfying, I thought, when I could have a list of key facts concerning my search query in the list of links that the search brought back. But that was yesterday, and Factery is just launching today.The possibilities are truly endless. That's probably why Ron Conway, one of the leading investors in the real-time economy, joined others in investing in the company. With $1.2 million in the bank, Factery is a modest developer play with a whole lot of potential.Give Factery's API a try and let us know what you think. It's free to use; the company says it may start inserting "sponsored facts" (isn't that an interesting phrase) into results later but things like business model and to a lesser degree de-duplication are still works in progress. I sure do love this idea.Discuss

  Rackspaceis launching a new service called "Cloud Drive," that allows businesses to store, share and back up files in the Rackspace cloud.Rackspace is one of the world's largest hosting companies but with more services being offered in the cloud, it is starting to look like it is also establishing a presence as a collaboration services provider.SponsorPat Mathews, president of email and apps for Rackspace said this is exactly what is happening."We are definitely moving down the collaboration path with Cloud Drive," Mathews sad.In reality, Rackspace is following a natural progression. With the ability to move IT to the cloud, Rackspace will have to deepen its collaboration service.For instance, search is not a part of the current offering. But it is par of the roadmap and will become a critical service for customers as they move their files to the cloud. It's a focal reason why collaboration providers like Box.netput a heavy premium on search. Customers need the capability. Without it, the information can end up in folders without ever being touched again.Some of the features that are part of Cloud Drive include:Synchronize folders across one or more computers.Syncronized version control to make sure colleagues are working with the most recent files.Automatic data backups in the event of a hardware failure.Complementing Cloud Drive is Rackspace Server Backup,which backs up applications and protects file server data. Its primary function is to back up Windows or Linux data.Bot Cloud Drive and Rackspace Server Backup are powered by Jungle Disk, which Rackspace acquired last year.Rackspace Cloud Drive costs $4 per user, per month. Rackspace Server Backup costs $5 per server, per month.that allows individuals and teams to store, share, and backup files.C;lDiscuss

  Google Sitesis getting an upgrade. Starting today, Google will provide templates that it claims makes it possible for users with no technical background to create web sites with a degree of functionality that includes page layouts, adding links for navigation and embedded gadgets.Templates are available for intranets, project sites, team sites, employee profile pages and other sites that people would use within the enterprise. Employees using Google Sites may submit their own templates to a gallery, similar to the services that Sharepoint offers. SponsorGoogle Sites is making a clear strike against Microsoft which requires a certain level of technical skill to create a Sharepoint site.The differences between Google and Microsoft are often quite striking. Microsoft is a document-centric organization. Sharepoint uses a file system architecture for customers to deposit their documents. With Sharepoint, companies may use a web inetrface to share their documents.Google's approach is entirely web centric. Documents are web pages. Each document is a link, not a file. When documents are uploaded to Google, they are converted, so to speak, each document receiving its own unique URL.It is this approach that you see with Google Sites. By being entirely web-centric, Google believes it is making it easier for employees to share information, act faster and cross-pollinate ideas.It's difficult to say which approach is better though web converts will tell you that sharing web links is far easier than files. We agree with that point but the Sharepoint environment is tremendously popular. It has its core set of users who are happy that they can share documents in such a manner. Most organizations work in a document centric environment and are therefore comfortable with Sharepoint. It's an environment that many people trust.Discuss

  Trying to understand the basics of cloud computing is one matter but getting a grasp on the technologies across the different platforms is another issue entirely.To try and simplify things just a bit, Appiriois offering a map that shows thecloud ecosystem. The map breaks out 70 different layers of technology across applications, platforms and infrastructure. The map is pretty sophisticated with the ability to drill down to undertand the underlying technologies.Sponsor

  From a group calling themselves Electronic Civil Disobediencecomes the Transborder Immigrant Tool, a simple mobile application intended to aid and abet border-crossers from Mexico to the United States by mapping the safest routes to take.This GPS app is built to work on the cheapest cell phones available. It brings to mind every petty-but-illegal transgression the casual user could commit and stretches the boundaries of the permissibility of tech's uses for plausibly illegal means. The next time you use P2P or bit torrent clients to download media or use an iPhone app to detect police radars, think about this mobile application and how it reflects on American law and the Internet. SponsorThe app seems to originate from a hacktivist group out of UCSD - hardly a historical hotbed of technological innovation,but close enough to the US-Mexican border to have a significant impact on the politics of technology in that area. The group also advocates DDoS-like digital sit-ins to bog down the resources of websites it deems offensive.Hundreds of would-be immigrants are killed each yearwhile trying to enter the United States.Check out this Border Patrol YouTube video on the newly installed double-layered fencing between the U.S. and Mexico, a fence that stretches between 700 and 800 miles along the Rio Grande.So, what do our readers think? Is a mobile app enabling illegal Mexican immigration to the U.S. a live-saving tool for those who seek better opportunities, or is it simply another law-breaking tool developed by tech hackers for life hackers, a workaround to cheat the system?Discuss

  The New Oxford American Dictionary announced its Word of the Yeartoday and like everyone else, the organization is keeping an eye on the internet. Its selection? unfriend- verb - To remove someone as a 'friend' on a social networking site such as Facebook.Has Oxford Dictionary made the right selection? ReadWriteWeb's Founder Richard MacManus thinks not. I disagree with him; I think this is a very valid Word of the Year. We make our cases below and invite you to cast your vote in a poll.SponsorRichard MacManus, ReadWriteWeb founder:"I think that's an odd choice for word of the year, as all the trends indicate there has been moresocial networking activity this past year - not less, as 'unfriend' implies. Facebook and Twitter have both rocketed in popularity in 2009. I'd suggest that more people have left MySpace and migrated to Facebook, than unfriended people on Facebook."I also think that 'unfriend' is an ugly word, so for that reason it shouldn't be Word of the Year. What's more, I don't think my Mum or Dad would be familiar with the term 'unfriend.' Perhaps my father will pop into the comments and tell us for certain. But I look forward to the results of the poll!"Do You Think "Unfriend" is a Good Word of the Year?(online surveys)Marshall Kirkpatrick, ReadWriteWeb lead writer:I think "unfriend" is a very appropriate word for the year as it fits with the way people are becoming more sophisticated in their social networking. People are deciding to do some editing of the friends lists they rushed naively into.7 out of the top 10 searches performed on the Facebook Help Center pageare about getting rid of your own social network profiles or your friends. Admittedly "unfriend" isn't one of those words, but you get the idea.It's easy in this new web to sign up for things, getting overwhelmed and ignoring streams of information is par for the course. But choosing to cancel receipt of a person's updates? That's a meaningful move. People fall for those "see who's searching for you" ads on social networks all the time. You'd better believe they appreciate the control that unfriending gives them. I'll bet that just about anyone online, no matter their level of technical knowledge, could tell you these days what it means to "unfriend someone."What do you think?Discuss

  If you've ever had the urge to write your name in wet cement, then you understand what it's like to want to leave your mark on the places that define you. Rather than vandalizing construction sites or tagging your old high school, one positive way to commemorate your life's path is to map it. Instead of locking away your memoirs in a journal or using a family tree to display shared connections, a map is one way you can preserve your history while leaving the door open for others to contribute. Below are seven tools to help you get started:Sponsor1. Lifenaut: This service allows users to map their lives; however, rather than editing individual layers, users upload files and have the option to give the exact coordinates for specific locations. When another person uncovers that spot on the map all of the deposited files are revealed similar to real life geocaching. 2. Platial: Although slightly busier, the great thing about Platial is that users can follow an RSS feed of a particular point of interest. For example, if you're hoping to reconnect with a childhood friend who isn't searchable on Facebook, you can subscribe to a feed of their home in the hopes that they'll leave a comment. 3. Zoom Atlas: Zoom Atlas lets you edit and upload text and images on top of a map layer. One of the unique features of this site is the LifePath tool where users edit the places they've lived and share their personal timelines, via Facebook. Rather than editing on a Google Map layer, this tool offers users a chance to edit ground layer and set up buildings and landscaping exactly as they remember them. 4. 43places: This service is less about the remote past and more about our adult histories. Users create wish lists of where they'd like to go and tag the places they've already been. 5. Map My Life: Map My Life is a Google mashup where users can add stories to a map. Users upload an xml file with their life's history enclosed and the tool loads and plays that history in both a map and timeline version. 6. Wikimapia: Wikimapia specializes in regional histories; however, many users add their personal histories in the comments below. One of the great things about this site is that rather than trying to edit disparate Google map layers, community residents can come together and take pride in the rich histories that unite them. 7. Wayfaring: Wayfaring is a site where you can add routes and points of interest to your personal map and embed it to your blog. The service takes advantage of Google Maps and lets you invite others to collaborate. This is a great site for hash house harriersand other social running clubs. One user has already created a map of tech companies in the Bay Area below: Discuss

  Skype's litigation woes with eBay had businesses a bit worried. Funding Skype in the enterprise looked risky with the potential that a judge could at some point pull the code base out from under Skype and leave businesses stranded.But that's not an issue anymore. According toNetwork World, Skype now has rights to the code that is essential for the service to run. That means Skype for business is a green light for the companies seeking to use the VOIP service.SponsorLast month, eBay agreed to sell Skype to a consortium that included the founders, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis. As part of the deal, Skype retains the technology that would be required to service business users.Using the Skype network can save companies and organizations millions of dollars per year in telecommunications costs. Call centers, international calls and a host of other services can be transferred to the Skype VOIP network.Skype is making a big play in the corporate market. Earlier this year, the company announced Skype for SIP, which gives businesses the capability to hook a company's SIP infrastructure into the Skype network.The beta program is underway with several PBX providers, including Cisco and Shoretel.Still, the biggest issue is better integration. As one analyst said to Network World:"It's a game changer," said Irwin Lazar, an analyst with Nemertes Research. "The level of frustration trying to get SIP to work can be enormous." Discuss

  If you're an adventure seeker with a penchant for storytelling you'll be happy to hear that Google is giving you the visuals you need to illustrate your tales of bravery. In a blog post written by Google Earth Product Manager Peter Birch, the company has updated its iPhone application. While we've always been big fans of the Google Earth desktop version, the company released its iPhone app in 2008 with new attention to the mobile accelerometer and touch features of the iPhone. Users pinched, tapped and tilted their way to stunning satellite views of mountain ranges and far away terrain. The application update builds on these features but adds a touch of the personal. SponsorGoogle Earth for iPhone now offers users a chance to view their customized maps in the iPhone app. Rather than just offering standard maps, users save their pre-existing maps or favorites in the "My Maps" folder and the files are automatically synced to the device. One great feature of this release is the fact that users can track their travels via a GPS device and save the results as a KML file to be viewed in the application at a later time. The example given is a look at the route taken to climb a mountain; however, the same tool can be used to track marathons, sailing regatas, road trips and basic travel. For information on how to convert GPS data into Google Earth, users can visit Google's KML Support Section. If you haven't already downloaded the application, you can do so here.Discuss

  Open-source search has some major advantages compared to its competitors. First of all, it's free. Second, it stands up in comparison to the largest, proprietary search vendors. Third, there is a growing ecosystem around open-source search that makes it far easier to implement than ever before.SponsorThe combination makes open-source search a potent alternative to Google and Microsoft, arguably two of the biggest players in the enterprise search market.Lucid ImaginationLucid Imaginationconsiders itself a bit like Red Hat. The company provides services for Luceneand Apache Solr, open-source search technologies. This week, Lucid Imagination is releasing a certified version of Lucene 2.9. What this means is that Lucid has tested and debugged Lucene to make it palatable for organizations to implement.As a Lucid executive said today, it's Lucene with a "shampoo and a blow dry." It can be integrated quickly into an enterprise search environment. For example, a major online retailer downloaded the certifiedversion and had it running within a few days across its Canadian, German and United Kingdom sites.Lucene is downloaded several thousand times a day. It is used by more than 4,000 organizations. Many organizations have switched to Lucene to replace proprietary search software products. Beyond the issue of cost, organizations are using Lucene's flexible and scalable architecture for developing highly sophisticated full-text search applications.Compared to Lucene, Google Search Applianceprices according to the number of searches performed. This can get pretty costly for larger scale search efforts. The API can be customized to some extent but Google protects its core technology, which requires the customer to do some work arounds. Google is targeting enterprise customers to do search within Sharepoint and in a number of other ways in the Enterprise. Earlier this month, Google announced Commerce Search, a service designed for e-tailers to customize searches for their products.Microsoft is banking on Sharepoint to position its search functionality within the enterprise. In particular, with Sharepoint 2010, Microsoft will launchFAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. Based on the FAST search technology, it combines the FAST's high-end search capabilities with SharePoint.But the issue here is again how much customization the customer can actually do with the search technology. Due to its proprietary nature, the customer has little control over how it can be customized. Customers are forced to wait to see what features Microsoft develops.No doubt, Lucene is a super-hot player in the enterprise search market. And who's to gain? Enterprise customers who want world-class search at cost you just can't beat. Even better is the fact that one company, Lucid Imagination, is dedicated to supporting Lucene. The company has the chance to score big in the market, especially with certified offerings such as what they are providing for Lucene 2.9. Open-source search is here to stay. The proprietary players in the market will continue to keep significant market share but open-source search has to be considered in the mix as more companies seek to take control of its search environments.Discuss

  Over the last few months, TinyChathas established itself as a highly popularvideo chat service. Today, the company launched a new product, TinyChat.tv, which competes directly with established companies like Ustreamand Stickam. Signing up and getting started with TinyChat.tv only takes a minute. Users can customize their video chat rooms with different themes, background images and colors. The old TinyChat.com, which doesn't require signups, will continue to work, though users will get access to more features on TinyChat.tv.SponsorFeaturesTinyChat.tv's interface will feel very familiar if you used the regular TinyChat before. Room owners can customize the look and feel of their rooms and decide if they want to force users to sign in with their Twitter or Facebook accounts. One feature we really liked on TinyChat was that users could type a random URL (tinychat.com/12345) and the service would automatically create a room with this URL. This feature hasn't been enabled on TinyChat.tv yet, but TinyChat's co-founder Dan Blake tells us that it will come back soon. For $9.95 per month, users can also buy a pro membership that allows them to set passwords for rooms and stream higher quality video. For Developers: Free Streaming with TinyChat APIFor developers, TinyChat now offers a comprehensive free application programming interface (API)that makes it easy for developers to create their own Ustream clones. Indeed, TinyChat.tv itself was built on top of this API. Earlier today, Dan Blake told us that TinyChat will not charge developers for bandwidth. Stickam currently charges $0.45 per gigabyte for its streamAPIwhite label service.Overall, this is a nice upgrade to the regular TinyChat experience. The old TinyChat, where users don't need to sign up will continue to operate. The big development is the API, however, and we are looking forward to seeing what developers will do with it.Discuss

  Twitter's own homepage is still the most popular tool for users to update their status on Twitter. Around 46% of all updates are made directly on the site. Social media analytics and monitoring service Sysomostweetmeme_url = 'http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twitter_users_and_the_third_party_clients_they_use.php';tweetmeme_source = 'rww';analyzed 500 million tweets it collected over the past 5 months and found that TweetDeck is the most popular third-party client. TweetDeckhas a comfortable lead with a 8.48% share of the market, followed by Tweetie, Twitterificand Seesmic.SponsorCompared to Sysomos' last study of Twitter clients in June, Twitter.com's share fell from 55% to 46%. As Twitter's growth is slowing down, these numbers make a lot of sense. New users tend to use Twitter's web interface at first and then migrate to a third-party client. If Twitter.com's market share among Twitter clients is dropping, then this can be seen as a strong indication that the number of new signups is going down as well. TweetDeck: The Client of Choice for Active Twitter UsersTweetDeck doesn't just have the largest number of users, it is also the tool of choice for the most active Twitter users. Sysomos analyzed the number of tweets posted by active users based on their primary Twitter application. On average, TweetDeck users send out 1.24 tweets per day, followed by Seesmic users (1.18 tweets/day) and HootSuite (1.11 tweets/day). Users of all the other popular clients like Tweetie, Twhirl and Twitterific update their status less than once a day. Those who prefer Twitter's own web interface only send out 0.67 tweets per day. How Many Clients Do You Use?Sysomos also analyzed how many third-party clients Twitter users normally use. Looking at active Twitter users only - those with at least 50 tweets in the last 5 months - the study found that 82% only used a single application. 14% used two applications, 2.35% used three and then the numbers drop off quickly. Only 0.01% of all active users used 6 or more clients. Chances are that a lot of active users use different mobile and desktop clients (Tweetie on the iPhone and Seesmic on the desktop, for example). This would explain why quite a large number of users use two clients.Discuss

  Reader engagement with blogs has changed dramatically over the last three years, primarily because of the rise of online social networks, according to new numbers released by analytics firm Postrank today. Postrank published an analysis based on metrics for signals like comments, trackbacks, shared links and online bookmarks for the top 1000 most-engaging feeds online and for 100,000 randomly selected blog posts in each year since 2007. The numbers paint a stark picture: blogging has changed, but the blogging scene is in some ways in better shape than it was three years ago.SponsorThe big picture is that total engagement with online content is growing while on-site engagement is declining in significance as off-site engagement like link sharing on social networks grows. Surprisingly, this off-site link sharing has also extended the lifespan of content.Highlights from the report include the following:Total reader engagement has grown 30% year over year or 69% total for the top 1,000 feeds, which includes blogs and mainstream news sites.For 100,000 randomly selected blog posts in each of 2007, 2008 and 2009...Engagement on-site has grown in absolute terms but the share of total engagment that happens on-site vs. off-site has dropped 50%.Trackbacks have fallen from 19% of engagement to 3% of engagement.Engagement on social networks like but not limited to Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook has grown from 1% to over 29% of total engagement. The Postrank staff admitted that this was a surprisingly low number but said that in aggregate there is still a whole lot of activity going on outside social networks.Segmenting from the last amount of effort required up to the most, reader engagement now looks like this: 29% is link-sharing on social networks, 29% is bookmarking or voting on sites like Delicious, Digg and Reddit, 38.5% is comments on or off-site and trackbacks are now 3% of engagement. "Trackbacks are taking a nose dive," Postrank CTO Ilya Grigorik told us by phone, "bookmarking sites have consistently gone down over the last 3 years, but voting on sites like Digg or Reddit has grown."Perhaps most significantly, blog posts now have a longer life span.In 2007 tracked posts saw 94% of engagement within the first day and 98% of that first day's engagement happened within the first hour. In 2008 that number fell to 83% within the first day and in 2009 it was a mere 64%. Thus Postrank concludes that 36% of reader engagement in the top blogs happens after 1 day. "While the real-time web is all about lowering the latency," Grigorik says, "the pervasive nature and number of people engaged in their communities and conversations (the Social Web) is helping with information discovery. People are worried that the real-time web will destroy their readership as everyone just gets distracted by the newest shiny thing on Twitter, but the numbers show something very different. It's so easy to spread information now that it lasts longer and finds more niches - this trend is helping content travel further."Discuss

  According to a new Forrester survey, almost 80% of Internet users in the US and Canada would not pay for access to newspaper and magazine websites. Those users who would consider paying for content are mostly interested in subscriptions. Only a very small number of consumers is interested in making micropayments (3%). The study also asked which distribution channel consumers would prefer if their favorite print publications ceased to exist. 37% preferred the web, 14% mobile phones and 11% would prefer to read the content on their laptops or netbooks. 10% would prefer PDFs delivered by email and 3% would read the content on their e-readers. Sponsor44% of all respondents said that they wouldn't be interested in getting their print content through any of these delivery mechanisms.Who Is Willing to Pay?Forrester's Sarah Rotman Epps took a closer look at the demographic profile of those users who said that they would be willing to pay. Gender and marital status had no influence on a consumer's willingness to pay. Those who are willing to pay for magazine content are slightly younger that those who won't (43 years vs. 47). For newspaper content, however, there was no difference. Income, too, only makes a small difference. Those with a higher income are slightly more likely to pay for newspaper content than for magazines.The report concludes that there is no consensus among consumers about how they want content delivered to them. The fact that 10% still prefer PDFs clearly shows that we are still in a transitional period. What is clear, though, is that consumers aren't very willing to pay for content online. According to Forrester, publishers have two options: continue to offer a free, ad-supported product or offer consumers "a choice of multichannel subscriptions, single-channel subscriptions, and micropayments for premium product access." As Rotman Epps also notes, there is a third solution: have a third party subsidize the cost of the content. This could be a device manufacturer who wants to offer exclusive content, for example. A Slightly More Optimistic ViewAccording to a report in the New York Times, about 48% of all Internet users in the US said that they would pay to read news online. This study by the Boston Consulting Group also looked at online news in general and found that a larger number of users was willing to pay. On average, though, these users were only willing to pay about $3.Discuss