Blogdimension Blog

It seems Internet search market is structuring bits by bits. As Internet users become more and more aware they notice the Big general-interest search engines do not bring more a totally satisfying search experience.

Thus, according to the feedback we get everyday the Big 5 are criticized for the:

• plethora (excess) of information slowing down the search process,
• mixing of all kind of sources within the same results page (static web pages, expired pages, commercial results),
• ranking based on popularity or authority which promotes only the best known and influential sources at the expense of the information topicality,
• massive inclusion of trusted feeds among the organic or natural results. Trusted feeds are commercial links provided by online merchants,
• the need to jump to to hidden or not clearly visible parts of the website in order to access search modules on targeted content,
• not to mention privacy issues related to the fact that some Big search engines tend to store their users’ personal data and maybe exploit them for commercial purpose.

Of course, Big search engines have a financial and marketing power which allow them to keep their leadership. They can be ubiquitous and over-exposed to media. However, it becomes now clear that the users express new needs and wants. Some Internet users do not hesitate now to use several seach engines to get a complete and less narrow-minded vision of their search operations.

This new generation of specialized search engines proposes a real alternative to the users or at least a synergy with leading brands.

There are loads of new services which you can easily find in Web 2.0 business information sites like TechCrunch or AltSearchEngines, for example.

Some search engines specialize themselves exclusively in blogs. Technorati, Icerocket, Sphere, etc. are among them. There are many others.

Hence, the question arising now is:

Is it sufficient to specialize exclusively on blog search?

Blogdimension.com asked itself such a question ever since the service was launched in “alpha” mode in October 2005. Initially the service was focused on the French speaking blogosphere. But, this positioning appeared to be too restrictive.

In a global economy one can not build a business model based solely on a language or a country. Most of search engines get their revenues from online advertising. In order the service to be profitable it needs to develop an extensive audience and a huge trafic volume (at least from one to three million pageviews per month for a small company).

The only option to create such a volume except for hyper popular topics (like real estate, listings, travel, IT, etc.) is to go international. To think global right from the beginning. Challenges are enormous. It is not only a matter of translation into other languages but also of adapting the service to the local culture and usage. Therefore, it requires a real or virtual marketing presence.

The other important aspect to bear in mind is that blogs are just part of a bigger web called Web 2.0. Yet, the notion of Web 2.0 is still unclear to most of the public at large. Web 2.0 comprises all dynamic and high updating rate content among which we can list the blogs, forums and online news feeds but also new types of user-generated content or commented upon by the users: microblogs (Twitter, Jaiku, Tumblr and now the trendy FriendFeed), tagged images, audio files and podcasts and of course hundreds of million of online videos published by the users directly via online video sharing services.

Blogdimension understood quite early it must go well beyond pure blog search. That’s why we designed a service allowing to search directly into the heart of this new web called Web 2.0 in general.

Actually, inspired by a concept that pervades more and more in North America we prefer to talk about “live web” instead of the arcane “Web 2.0″.

So, beyond blog search, Blogdimension proposes its users a set of tools allowing them to find a wide variety of new generation content originating from “live web” which is not yet or not so much delivered by the big incumbent search systems. Live web is characterized by the following aspects:

- high frequency update,
- subjective, reflecting viewpoints and opinion,
- multimedia (images, podcasts, videos),
- available for consultation on mobile devices.

All this kind of content is made available thanks to the magic of a technique called RSS and symbolized by the logo.

Your are invited to test Blogdimension and carry out a true 360° and panoramic search experience… To search the huge Web not only on the surface but also in depth.

Welcome to Blogdimension and get ready to discover the web in its fourth dimension.

Blogdimension is growing fast. We are still at the beginning. New cool functions and features will be released soon. “BD” has already versions in English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and the new 2.5 currently in progress will also be available in Portuguese, Russian and Arab.

Stay tuned!

Thanks for you support.

The Team

No doubt, Blogdimension.com, The Web 2.0 Search Engine, is definitely a global player!

According to available metrics and statistics (Blogdimension uses XiTi Analytics), Blogdimension tends to be much more successful in North and Latin America and Asia than in Europe.

Origin of Blogdimension visits (Q1 2008)

Having said this, Europe still leads the way in terms of Web 2.0 content searches on Blogdimension.com. France remains the top origin of the visits but its share tends to decrease in favor of extra-European countries and especially of the emergent countries. Thus, during March and for the very first time Spain is overtaking France as far as the origin of the visits is concerned.

Origin of Blogdimension visits (Q1 2008)

The top 30 countries visiting Blogdimension search engine (Quarter 1 of 2008) :

1. France
2. Spain
3. United States
4. Mexico
5. Undefined origin
6. Other European origins (undefined, probably from .eu ?)
7. Japan
8. China
9. Peru
10. Brazil
11. Argentine
12. Germany
13. Canada
14. Venezuela
15. United-Kingdom
16. Chile
17. Colombia
18. Portugal
19. Belgium
20. Italy
21. Switzerland
22. Morocco
23. The Netherlands
24. Sweden
25. Australia
26. Turkey
27. India
28. Tunisia
29. Poland
30. Indonesia

The top 10 languages of Blogdimension users:

1. French
2. Spanish
3. English
4. Portuguese
5. Chinese (Mandarin)
6. Japanese
7. German
8. Italian
9. Dutch
10. Korean

Lessons learnt from the evolution of Web 2.0 usage in Blogdimension ? (according to Blogdimension data)

• First lesson, the blogosphere tends to grow from now on at a faster pace out of Europe. It seems that Europe is reaching a kind of plateau.
• Second lesson, the would be French leadership in terms of blogosphere activity is fragile. It seems that Spain is an awesome challenger to French Web 2.0 punch in Europe.
• Third lesson, the position as the leading language among Blogdimension users (traditionally successively French and English) seems to be more and more challenged by Spanish, Portuguese and Asian languages. This tends to clearly show that room for the blogosphere growth, Web 2.0 content and other User Generated Content resides now rather in the emerging countries than in the “old world”.

Conclusion: if you plan to launch a Web 2.0 business you should be aware that focalizing strictly on only one language (in general your language) or region even if you opt for English at the early stage of your project is not sufficient to grant the validity of your business model (often based on online advertising). We would recommend to adopt a global approach for the Web 2.0 niche market. Web 2.0 like every other market is also submitted to the threats and opportunities of globalization. The growth engine is no more where we usually think it is. Let’s turn our eyes toward the ‘emerging’ countries!

Of course, Blogdimension data do not pretend to reflect THE truth. But they allow to show an interesting trend even though Blogdimension is still Europe centric (Blogdimension was initially launched in France in 2005). In order to get more accurate figures it would be necessary to agregate the figures from other great Web 2.0 services like Technorati, Google Blogsearch, Wikio, Twitter, Wasalive, etc. and fine-tune them in regard with Internet usage data available for various regions. In addition, the trafic volume of Blogdimension can only have a sample value since the service is still at an eraly stage.

Vos réactions sont les bienvenues.

Version française 

The generalization of mobile devices will change the way web authors design their blogs and websites.

(We the) bloggers and webdesigners are taking bad habits by designing websites more and more in a bling-bling attitude (Rich Media, Flash everywhere, three to for columns in blogs, five videos within the same page, etc.).

Well, we have to take into account that most of the newest smartphone devices have only QVGA (320 x 240 pixels) or HVGA (480 x 320 pixels) screen resolutions. Not to mention all basical mobile phones with an even lower resolution in circulation worldwide!

It means that web designers have to consider either designing a unique version of the website by sticking to the minimalist formats that fit both mobile devices and computer screens OR to design several versions for various screen resolutions with the help of a redirect function. The latter is not totally hassle-free for the maintenance and editing (double version).

The compact and tiny approach found on this blog Web2visions represents definitely what we think here at Blogdimension should be the future of blog and web design.

Of course, this change of paradigm induces also a shift in the way website authors should build their online ads by adopting microadvertising and therefore also adapt their business plans in a convergent Internet-mobile world.

A new generation search engine like Blogdimension has also to adapt in order to be usable whatever the device and Internet bandwidth (xDSL, EDGE, GPRS or even GSM!). We believe the introduction of the iPhone and the like is a real revolution in terms of webdesign and Internet usage, especially as far as search engines are concerned.

It’s time to design by having in mind that mobile Internet resources will be limited for several years.