Blogdimension is also a contributor and a sponsor of this event of a new kind!

Gold Sponsor - SeeqPod
Silver Sponsor - UpTake & Matchpoint
Bronze Sponsor - HealthPricer, GoPubMed & Blogdimension

More information on ReadWriteWeb

No doubt we will share the feedback!

Beyond the fact that we - a search engine whose primary mission and value proposition like any other retrieval system is to index Internet content and make it searchable by Internet users and available to them - were treated publicly like the worst criminals on earth by this blogger this case raises a real ontological question:

Are we going toward the emergence of a private Internet?

We feel there is a real absurd situation where a new breed of bloggers in the name of the right for privacy want AT THE SAME TIME

- to publish their content on the World “Wild” Web which is not really the right place for those who look for privacy,

- to have a great readership, gain a maximum audience and have many comments on their posts,

- and eventually not to be found via RSS search engines, aggregators or Digg-likes and their content being duplicated!

We are also bloggers so we now what we are talking about. Normally, when a blogger decides to publish some content on Internet he/she expects (even prays for it!) his/her content will be visible by other Internet users. So, a community forms around his/her blog with interactive exchanges, new real or virtual friendships and even some fame for the most talented ones, etc.

Myself, as a blogger, I am pretty happy to see my blog content duplicated somewhere because it gives me a greater chance to get additional readers that I otherwise would never get. Very often when I find an interesting content on a Digg-like, I tend to visit the original blog to navigate in the beautiful environment set by the blogger. Usually, on search engines and Digg-likes, there is a link just below the cached content (”duplicated” content if you prefer) which allows the readers to jump directly to the original blog. A search engine does just offer the possibility to FIND a content, reading it is an other activity of the user experience. It is far more pleasant to read a blog post on the blog itself (because of all the design features and multimedia elements proposed by the blogger) rather than the raw text of the cached content displayed on a search engine! So, we urge on the users to search for content and find it in search engines then to switch naturally to the original blog to read it in its original environment!
Search engines need to cache Internet content in order to make themselves visible on Internet and other search engines but also to make the blogs indexed and their authors visible as well and help them to get readers and the necessary audience. Without the role of the search engines, the vast majority of blogs would be perfectly unknown and would never get a single comment! They would stay in the gloomy waters of Internet! We will soon explain in details the role of “caching”.

But the problem is not to try to explain or convince the bloggers about the benefits of search engines. Most of them know the value and purpose of retrieval tools.

No, the point is that a bunch of bloggers, as written above, would like to make their content private while they are publishing it on the Internet medium. It resembles an oxymoron! But this is a real trend and more and more bloggers are starting to complain, sometimes very aggressively.

The purpose of this post is to try to find a honorable solution for everybody: 1) the Internet search systems, 2) the bloggers, 3) both parties

1) Recommendations and guidelines for the attention of retrieval tools (to us and our peers, in fact):
NB: this is the lesson we learnt from our recent issue with the blogger. In a way, the experience was useful. It is a pity this blogger was so aggressive and not open minded to discussion or patient.

• Try to cache only excerpts of an original content and not the whole content. A number of characters should be set as a standard, like -mere example - 600 characters,
• Accept all META instructions like nocache, noarchive, nofollow, etc. (we are currently fixing this for the next release of our service),
• Offer a blogger the possibility to get his URLs removed as quickly as possible through a dedicated “contact form”.

2) Recommendations and gudelines for the attention of the bloggers who want their content not to be searchable or found via retrieval tools
NB: the ones who want their online content stay private or confidential.

• Use the META instructions cited just above in 1),
• Either protect their blogs or some of their posts by a password (Wordpress offers this possibility, as an example),
• Customize their feeds so they deliver only excerpts (See Wordpress guidelines related to the “excerpts” and RSS management),
• Avoid to use the “open” Internet if you do not want your content be visible or duplicated! Web 2.0 and RSS are not books! Internet content is easily disseminated. By anybody, not only Internet tools.

3) Recommendations for both 1) and 2)

• Favor diplomatic ways of communication between the bloggers and the retrieval tools prior adopting unfriendly attitudes like sueing legally, bashing publicly or other threats. These are all very sad things we exeperienced recently,
• Imagine a multilevel formalized process. For example,

1) Blogger sends a message to the service and asks the content be removed ASAP and at least within a period of 2/3 working days (the removal process can be technically long because the service needs to refresh the database after the removal. This process can take up to 48 hours.) ,

2) If no action is taken after the first step or no response provided by the service, the blogger sends a second message with a firmer demand and a deadline (copy of the message to a lawyer can be an option),

3) With no response at all a blogger can then try to take action. But here again, it will work in some cases but probably not in others (big companies have good lawyers and are slow to react to a user demand and smaller companies can be also slow to react because their team is limited). Not to mention some services are located overseas!

This post is meant to share some reflections about this issue which will probably tend to be on the agenda with time. We do not propose here a real solution but only an insight. Our goal is to make bloggers and services talk together and set the rules together.

And you what is your opinion. What are your ideas?

Here are the facts. Make yourself an opinion. This blogger is trying to start a campaign of “bashing”.

1) A blogger sends us a message accusing us of copyright infringement

From: Jason Hogle
Email: jason@xenogere.com
IP: ————-

Kind regards,
Jason Hogle

2) Here is our response sent on March, 31st:

Hi Jason,
Thanks for your message and interest in Blogdimension.com.
You are right it seems we have detected a bug with the nocache function. It seems it is not properly recognized by our system.
We are solving this problem ASAP.
If you are in a hurry we have no other choice than to remove your site from our index.
Removing your url means your site will not be searchable in Blogdimension.
But if you could be patient we will let you know when it is fixed.
We put this tpic on top of our ToDo’s.

We would like to tell you that we are pleased you sent us this message in a friendly manner and we would be happy to keep you as a satisfied user of our service.
Best regards,

3) This blogger starts a real stinky bashing directly on his blog

http://xenogere.com/2008/04/12/blogdimension-is-a-thief/

Here is a copy of his post:

Blogdimension is a thief
Saturday April 12, 2008 at 11:21 pm
I contacted Blogdimension a few days ago regarding its apparent republishing of my material.

I hold little hope this will work. Companies bent on thieving content for their own gain, those like Blogdimension, seem to have far more time and money than those of us who actually create the content they present as their own.

4) Our answer to his blog directly on his blog:

Jason,

Why things could not happen normally by discussing instead of bashing publicly?

No doubt our comment on his post will be promptly removed.

Well, we are sad of such a situation when everything could be arranged simply by discussing.

And you what is your opinion?

Are search engines really the new “evil”?

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

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 

(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.

So, Blogdimension provides now its quality Web 2.0 search results also to Pleegs.

Pleegs ?

Pleegs (there is no rational explanation to this weird brandname… if you are interested to know more about it, please leave us a comments!) is a hybrid product between an online news metasearch providing results from over 17 leading sources (general or specialized search engines) AND a powerful Internet buzz tracking set of tools. Pleegs is particularly efficient and usable to allways be aware onf what goes on on Internet.

Like all metasearch websites, Pleegs allows to concentrate and aggregate your Internet searches within a unique interface instead of carrying multiple search operations on every search engine which is time consuming. So, what? In the same spirit as Blogdimension, Pleegs’ metasearch part concentrates only on results provided by search engines specialized in the live web (blogs, RSS-based content, news feeds, etc.). The users are therefore assured to find only pure up-to-date and actual information and not the antique archives dating back from the 90’s!

This approach of the Internet is similar to the one adopted by Blogdimension which consists in proposing only the dynamical part of the Web to the users. Leaving aside thus all expired sources. If you still like to browse into the prehistoric Web and you are an addict of commercial results there are very good search engines, whixh are - into the bargain - also very famous! Definitely, the new generation tools (alternative) tend to focus exclusively on content moving very fast, in real-time.
But the genuine “gem” in Pleegs resides in its buzz tracking system. It is a complete set of functions allowing to track information on one or several keywords. Are you interested in following up a brandname, a product, an information or even a person? You’ve got just to configure some warning/watch/alert messages in order to be notified of new events happening on the Web. You can choose to be notified either by email or RSS. Pleegs proposes a list of incredible filters which make it possible to define extremely precise alerts through a complete choice of time frequency options. Interesting sorting option and charts are also available if you sign up.

We could unveil and review all the functions of the buzz tracking system right here. But we prefer to invite you to test Pleegs by yourself. You’ll be surprised by the sophistication of the functions imagined by its creator!

Behind a simple GUI (Graphic User Interface) and an uncluttered design (in the vein of all Web 2.0 services) hides a complete and very well-thought-out buzz tracking service. It’s a website you will not be able to do without if you are in the economic or strategic watch business or simply a buzz hunter.

The wildest rumors are going around a new version specially adapted to the professionals and experts. Stay tuned.

It is interesting also to notice that Pleegs was created alone by a only 23 years talented young man working from his homeoffice there in Switzerland! Hat in hand Mister Pleegs! No doubt some sponsors will be attracted soon by your creation.

Pleegs is a “Swiss Made” product.

Blogdimension.com is happy to provide its search results to Pleegs.

The Team

1) From your device, open Safari and navigate directly to http://www.blogdimension.com

2) At the bottom of the current screen, tap on the ‘+‘

3) A menu with four options shows up, tap “Add to home screen”

4) A new screen appears where you can notice the “Blogdimension” icon

5) Add or complete the word “Blogdimension” in the form just right from the icon

Et voilà !

A nice icon should appear now on your iPhone or iPod Touch home screen allowing you to access directly to Blogdimension.com

Why not doing the same for your own website or blog?

It’s very easy! You must first design the favicon for your website in an image editor (like Gimp). The picture should be 57 x 57 pixels. Name it “apple-touch-icon.png” (the image should be saved under “PNG” format). Upload this file and place it to the root of your website. Carry out the same operations as described above for Blogdimension. You will then have the shortcut of your own website on your iPhone or iPod Touch home screen. Share this tip with your friends, contacts, partners or customers!

But we find it quite uneasy to explain about our positioning because the Internet content we give access to our users has no clear definition yet.

Q: What is then this still undefined Web content you call “Web 2.0 content”?

A: the type of content BD gives access to is characterized at least by one or several of the following aspects:

1) Real time and live web

• “Live web“: it means content that has a limited lifespan. It consists of RSS or Atom-like content which we could define as “As soon published, as soon consumed, as soon scrapped“. Typically it includes all the blogs, microblogs, forums, online news, podcasts, online videos… NB: our frenemies - from Technorati - also mention the idea of a “live web”.

• “Real time“: next step is to introduce the idea of a real time content. It is not so difficult to implement. The only limitation is technical resources (servers) because this process requires much computation and storage capacity.

2) Tags

• There is quite a big difference between Web 1 and Web 2. Previously, a content used to be classified not by the author but on the search engine side when it was indexed. Categories and topics were fixed and defined statically by the webmasters. Today, the author has an active role in sorting out the content by associating descriptive tags. Categories and topics are changing constantly. This new possibility makes now the web really live! One can notice this new phenomenon in tag clouds which are virtually booming on the blogosphere.

3) Opinion and subjectivity

• This kind of content has the peculiarity of aggregating users’ comments and viewpoints. That means something distinctive from general, informative, encyclopedic or commercial web. Of course, the latter can also include some opinion (personal comments, critics, etc.). In this case they fully enter into Blogdimension’s scope.

4) Multimedia

• In recent years, the web is going through an increasing amount of multimedia content. The success of online audio and video sharing services speak for themselves. Just carry out a basic search and you will consistently find a bunch of YouTube or Blogdimension video files and tons of podcasts from blogs or other online media mixed in the results.

Q: So, finally, what is Blogdimension’s contribution to the Internet search industry?

A: Blogdimension allows the user to search via a single entry-point mainly for:

• live,
• opinion,
• multimedia,
• and commented upon

web content.

At the end of the day, the question is: how to clearly define this new kind of web content?

We will definitely have to imagine a new concept. We at Blogdimension suggest “opinion web” or “popular web” because “Web 2.0” appears to be a rather technical definition. “User Generated Web” could also be an option for defining the New Web.

And, you? What is your opinion?

Thanks for your support.

The Team

Blogbar is now a quite widespread search widget the bloggers can easily add on their blogs or websites. It is a module with a nice look & feel and a typically Web 2.0 style of design. The Blogbar allows your visitors and readers (and yourself of course!) to carry out Internet searches directly from your site.

It is difficult to believe that there are so many powerful search functions (it is in fact a metasearch) hiding behind such a tiny, minimalistic and compact widget. The users can search for in practically all the search engines existing on Internet: all the stars of the search industry and now also Blogdimension.com, the Web 2.0 Search Engine! Like Blogdimension.com, they propose the service in many great languages.

Following one of the two creators of the Blogbar and author of the influential French techno-geek Netwizz blog they decided to add Blogdimension’s results because of (translated) “the quality of their results, filtering options and the rapidity of their page display“. I can tell you we are always quite happy to read such phrases!

But the Blogbar does not only propose a flat scrolling list of search engines. The engines are organized in a smart way by coherent types of search: web search, blog search, job search, social networks and even video search! They still do not propose any audio search… But for that specific search the usesrs can maybe be satisfied  by the “podcast search” to be found directly on Blogdimension.com.

Oh yes! I’ve almost forgotten to tell the Blogbar makes it possible to search for your content published on your own blog or website as well. I should even had begun the article by this crucial information!

Okay. We could call it quits with the Blogbar. But we would miss quite a lot other interesting features imagined by its cunning designers. So you can also set your Ad-Sense parameters, if you have any. As you can see, the Blogbar is not only free of charge but can also bring you some little money. Every blogger knows that Ad-Sense is not a real bonanza! Still, this intent shows the Blogbar creators paid some attention to the users’ interest and wallet. A quality that becomes rare in the software or Internet industry.
The setting up of the Blogbar is very easy and the guidelines uncommonly clear. Even a 6-year child could do it!

And last but not least, if you feel affraid that adding a widget may clash with the look & feel of your website, it’s simply nay! Blogbar’s inventors anticipated a whole range of colors so their widget integrates seamlessly to all kind of web and blog designs.

Long live then to the Blogbar!

For Blogdimension.com, this new cooperation - short after the North-American Zuula.com and more recently with the Spanish Alianzo.com - indicates that we begin to harvest some cool effects. We, at BD, put everyday much energy and commitment to bring our Web 2.0 users a greater choice in their daily search activities, more fun and finally an alternative Web content cleared as much as possible of all the noise and scoria that begin to overwhelm big players’ results pages!

Thanks for your constant support,

The Team