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We Are Hunted Offers A More Realistic Music Chart

Noel Kuhlman — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 22:13:15 +0000

Traditional music charts, such as Billboard’s and Rolling Stone’s, depend mainly on two things to put together their rankings: sales and radio airplay. Truth is, people are consuming music in more ways than those two mediums, especially with the internet in tow.

A new music aggregator called We Are Hunted is hoping to change this, providing rankings that go beyond traditional metrics. Instead of just sales and radio airplay, it digs deep into the web’s voluminous data to try and measure “sentiment, expression and advocacy,” reaching into such sources as user playlists of internet radio providers, music blogs, YouTube views, Twitter rolls and torrent downloads (yes, they went there), among other sources. Currently in beta, they add up the numbers and offer the top 99 songs of each day for listening on their site.

The site itself is simple and easy to use, with a very clean interface. The home page shows off the highest ranking songs, nine of them at a time, along with an artist name and an identifying image. Starting from the top spots, users can move through the listing all the way through to the 99th entry, without a single page refresh.

Not a lot of options are offered, though, which does keep clutter away from the site. Apart from the navigation and playback, users can post a comment directly via Facebook Connect or purchase it from iTunes.

Personally, I love everything about We Are Hunted, from the simple interface to the fact that it lets me discover new artists that people are listening to. Its all-inclusive measurements are the real future of music charts, whether We Are Hunted survives as the premiere player in that game or not.

iGoogle Gets a New Look, Boosts its Functions

khey — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 03:33:21 +0000

All feeds subscribers will love the new iGoogle. Just this Thursday, Google released their redesigned and updated version of their own personalized homepage offering. However, only U.S. users can enjoy the new look and the site’s new features, as it is still in its beta version.

One of the major improvements is the full canvas view that the website now sports. This new feature allows for full reading of your subscribed feeds, instead of just viewing the article’s title or the feed’s title then be directed to the original site that contains the piece. This makes everything simpler for blog followers all over.

There are no more tabs found at the topmost part of the iGoogle homepage too. Instead, it now has a sleek navigation bar. The new iGoogle also supports widgets, although they are called gadgets in this case. Customization of the page is a lot better now, compared to what it was before.

There are also specific gadgets that users can call. Right now, there were three choices – the one for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. You can virtually read three dailies in one go over your computer with iGoogle – all without going away from your personalized homepage.
What’s more, it is also possible to check your email right on iGoogle’s interface. You can also keep track of other important things, like your financial portfolio, the stocks market, weather, and other time-relevant information.

There are gadgets for entertainment and games too. As such, you could play Sudoku or any other games you love to while away time. It is also possible to watch YouTube videos on one side of the screen. Check movie trailers. Keep up with your followed TV shows. You can virtually do everything on one page now.

Ask.com’s New Look

khey — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 15:36:47 +0000

Relaunched on October 6, Ask.com is now sporting a new look and a new interface. The main goal of this transformation is to make sure that this search engine is not in anyway like Google or Yahoo. Ask.com would like to shy themselves away from the ruckus that Google and Yahoo (and their impending ad deal, for that matter) are creating. The people behind the company says that they would be keeping their website and search results both simple and relevant.

Ask.com is a portal that searches over the internet to give you the answers to your questions. And they would like to think that their service is not ad-based but relevancy-based. They want to give users the most accurate solutions, instead of pestering them with products to buy.

Ask.com used to be Ask Jeeves. However, a series of transformation had brought them to what they are now. But with the recent change in their search technology, it seems as if they’re simply going back to their roots. Ask.com says that they are currently using the semantic search technology and not the algorithm-based search technology that Google uses.

However, in trying the new Ask.com portal, almost the same results that Google dug up had showed up on the first few entries of their own results page. It seems like the semantic search technology is not much different from Google’s after all. Aside from the Ask logo at the left side of the search bar, there’s nothing really different in this particular search engine’s look and feel. In fact, they also have the same sponsored results on the topmost part of the results page.

The most notable difference between Ask.com and Google is the related searches panel on the right side. The links there can save you time in your next search, just in case you didn’t find what you’re looking for in the initial set of keywords you typed.

Either way, it’s a good thing to know that there are other search engines around that can give Google and Yahoo a run for their money. With internet users having options, search engine monopolization is far from happening.

Site Review: Google Blogsearch

khey — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 02:40:10 +0000

If you’re into blogging and would like to know what others in your league are talking about, there is only one place to check them out – through the Google Blogsearch. With this powerful Google-powered website, you won’t have to miss yesterday’s news, intrigues, and gossips. By simply going into the site and by typing in the right keywords, the results taken from blogs maintained by companies and individuals would be delivered to you instantly.

The site offers a quick and easy search tool and it works very much like the way it is on the main Google search page. The only difference is that this one has a special task – to provide results coming only from related blogs maintained all over. Such blogs could be news blogs, feeds, and reels. For a long as it is updated regularly and contains all the required keywords, they would be included in the search result.

Other than the news itself, Google Blog search also shows the date and the site where the story appears. It is also possible for users to narrow down their searches to a particular date and time of publication. Google Blogsearch also has a tool that shows the strength of the trend, which indicates the prominence of the story. Incidentally, this can change in as little as an hour.

Google Blogsearch has an easy-to-use interface. It has a single search bar where you can type in keywords. There are also categories on the left side of the page, which you can simply click to view stories relating to politics, business, technology, science, entertainment, and sports, among others.

Google Blogsearch analyzes several million blogs to deliver the most popular results. Each search result can provide as many as 500 related blogs that also tackles the story. Surely, users would find everything they want to know right from this powerful page. Check out Google Blogsearch here.

Facebook 2.0: A Big Improvement for the iPhone

khey — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 02:34:52 +0000

Facebook, one of the most popular social networking sites today, had enhanced their iPhone application features. And it’s about time. With the Facebook 2.0, iPhone users can now do more than just update their profiles and pictures. With the upgrade, interaction with friends, navigation, and adding threads are way easier.

The major issue with Facebook 1.0, which is sluggishness when adding a big number of friends or contacts, was solved by the new software. Now, almost everything you can do on Facebook using your computer can now be done on your iPhone. That’s total Facebook convenience for you even when on the go.

Another flaw fixed by the Facebook 2.0 is friend request. On the initial Facebook iPhone application, users cannot search for people to add as friends. They can’t accept friend requests either. With Facebook 2.0, doing this is not only possible – but much easier as well.

Uploading photos just became a breeze too. Using the new Facebook application, you can upload photos along with captions and tags right from your iPhone. So just take your picture and upload – it’s as easy as that these days.

Download the upgraded Facebook software for iPhones and you will be able to access your inbox, add message attachments, and communicate with the rest of your Facebook contacts better, faster, and easier. The software is now ready for download at the online Apple iTunes store.

With the friendlier Facebook application, you virtually don’t have to turn on your laptop just to check your Facebook account. For as long as your iPhone is around, then you are always connected with your friends and loved ones. Now if every social networking site has an application like this, your life online would be so much better. Wouldn’t it?

Site Review: The New Yahoo Page

khey — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:13:26 +0000

Yahoo is making a major upgrade on their website. Now, you won’t be able to search for websites, images, and videos alone – searching for music becomes a lot easier too. With the integration of Rhapsody, music downloads is as easy as 1-2-3.

And along with this new and in-demand search tool, Yahoo is integrating major changes on its website’s appearance. Such website is being tested right now by selected US, France, UK, and India users. Finding your favorite song is fast and simple. You can even play it in the browser to enjoy it soon enough.

However, don’t expect a total overhaul of the website. But just the same, the new Yahoo layout is worth checking out. Its refreshing look and added functionalities are certainly going to be a delight to avid internet users. What might have pushed Yahoo to change their homepage is the impending merge with Google.

One other big update in Yahoo’s website, as far as functionality is concerned, is on its mail preview. Now, you won’t be able to see only your Yahoo mailbox in the homepage. It is possible to see your Gmail and AOL accounts from there too. Yahoo’s new homepage can now truly work as a portal where you can manage everything at one place.

Overall, Yahoo’s new web design is more fluid and less cluttered. Advertisements can still be found in key areas, but the page now has more substance from the topics you’re interested in. It looks and works pretty much the same as the old MyYahoo page, although this one is more organized in the full sense of the word.

Right at the center of the page, interesting news, information, and articles are featured. All other things like weather, business, shopping, finances, and properties are neatly placed under the icons found on the side tool bar.

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We Are Hunted Offers A More Realistic Music Chart

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