News Blog

Over at Micropersuasion, Steve Rubel is making a bold prediction: The portals will be big winners in the social-networking wars.

"Social networking is certainly rising and there seems to be no end in sight to the phenomenon. However, what I do know is that people will jump around from one Myfaceborkutspace to another and not all of them will win," Rubel wrote.

He is referring to Long Tail author Chris Anderson, who points out that all good web sites should have elements of social networking and therefore suggests that social networking is a "feature, not a destination." Rubel believes that the portals' key advantage is that they "own the glue that keeps many of usconnected to our structured social networks (e.g. Myfaceborkutspace) and the looser ones--e.g. a personal network of contacts. And that glue is a trusted communication system that works with every person and social net."

That's true. You could also say that our buddy list is our social network, and we appreciate just plugging it into the most convenient and trusted network of our choice. Call it the "floating network." I therefore also agree with Rubel when he says, "No matter which social network(s) you participate in, even if you float, you're going to turn to your trusted communication system to manage it all. This will include any or all of the following: a) Web-based e-mail, b) instant messaging (which is nowadays integrated), c) RSS and d) telephony tools like Grand Central."

There are good reasons why there is a lot at stake for the traditional portals, and there are good reasons (Rubel names them) to predict they will not just sit back and watch the young social-networking sites own the game, especially now that business has begun facing up to social networks. And yet, I am hesitant to follow Rubel's prediction that the portals will have the upper hand in this conflict. In fact, I think he gets the conflict wrong.

I don't think this is as strict an antagonism as Rubel describes it, and I would even question the "war parties" as he identifies them: On the one side, the emerging social networks that are relentlessly trying to enhance the one main feature they're built upon ("making connections") into a platform. On the other side, the big portals, the AOLs, MSNs, Yahoos, that are seeking to operate more like social networks. This is an over-simplified showdown, for Rubel stages a competition where, in fact, we witness a co-evolution. The portals will adapt the best social-networking features, for example by activating the "dormant social networks" they own (see Yahoo Mash), and the social networks will adapt some of the portals' features; just yesterday AllFacebook and Paid Content speculated that Facebook is preparing to launch a music platform, either as a potential iTunes killer (according to AllFacebook) or a MySpace competitor (according to Paid Content).

However--and herein lies the major difference to Rubel's assumption--both social networks and portals are striving to eventually become something entirely different: the new operating system. Facebook is not shy about its intentions, and you could argue that it has already transformed the site into something much bigger than a social network.

It is a not a social-networking war; it is a race to become the de facto operating system for the social networker. And that is, of course, why Google, which is neither a social network nor a portal, is in the game too. The company is said to be feverishly working on "out-facebooking" Facebook by introducing a meta-platform that integrates not only a suite of Google services (like iGoogle, Gmail, Google Talk, Orkut, etc.) but is also 100 percent open to third-party developers--and other social networks. Google's recent acquisition of mobile social-network Zingku indicates that this uber-platform may have a strong mobile component and the long-rumored free, ad-based phone service. In other words, while social networks and portals are fighting the "social networking wars," Google may be winning the actual competition at hand: to become the dominant operating system for all of our communications. You can also call it the World Wide Web.

A new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office charges that the Department of Homeland Security used biased methods to enhance performance results in tests on a new generation of radiation detectors meant to protect U.S. ports.

At stake are $1.2 billion in contracts to produce advanced spectroscopic portal (ASP) monitors and thousands of lives should they fail to work.

Experts from four national laboratories were consulted prior to publication of the report (PDF) by the GAO, the nonpartisan audit and investigative arm of Congress, which was released yesterday.

(Credit: Domestic Nuclear Detection Office)

The agency found that the DHS' Domestic Nuclear Detection Office "used biased test methods that enhanced the performance of ASPs." Specifically, it conducted preliminary tests and then allowed contractors access to the results, which they then used to adjust systems accordingly.

It is "highly unlikely that such favorable conditions" would be found in a real-world situation, the GAO report deadpanned.

Portals in use today detect radiation but cannot distinguish between different types. This leads to expensive and time-consuming delays at ports of entry when customs officers respond to false alarms, according to the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. To remedy this, DHS sponsored research on new technology to enhance detection capabilities at the nation's ports. In 2006, it awarded contracts to three companies based on performance tests in Nevada the previous year: Raytheon, Thermo Electron and Canberra Industries.

The GAO, however, was not convinced that any "additional detection capability provided by the ASPs was worth the considerable additional costs." The accounting agency found that the DHS had no sound basis for spending taxpayer money and "relied on assumptions of anticipated performance instead of actual test data." It recommended further testing and a rigorous cost-benefit analysis.

It wasn't the first time that problems had been found in the procurement process. In a March 2007 report (PDF), the GAO concluded that DHS' decision to procure and deploy the new equipment was not supported by the cost and suggested that the department come up with some "objective" assessments of ASP capability.

The question was whether the new equipment, at six times the cost of current models, was better able to detect radiation through different masking materials, such as a lead. The GAO charged that the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office did not test portal limitations or make any effort to replicate the material that would be used to mask a radiation source from detection, a "critical oversight in DNDO's original test plan." Instead, the detection office is attempting to get off the hook by substituting what are essentially computer simulations that are not comparable with "actual testing with nuclear and masking materials," according to the GAO.

The GAO recommended that production of the new portal monitors be delayed until the DHS provides a "sound analytical basis for its decision to purchase and deploy the new technology."

Web site owners and SEOs alike often feel at odds with the search engines, but times are changing. This was often the case in the past when the engines made updates and changes to their algorithms that seemed to send Web sites into a SERP tailspin, leaving everyone scrambling to regain their precious page-one positions. The engines were also a lot less forthcoming with information and guidance, perhaps taking the view that giving this information gave too much power to the spammers and phishers.

While this view was understandable on the surface, it didn't float all that well in reality. In the real world, those who are out to game and manipulate the engines may have as many or more resources to keep up with the engines than "the rest of us." So over the last few years, the search engines have continued to be more open with what they consider important as well as what abuses may get sites into trouble, perhaps realizing that there are also a lot of sites that may not have been purposely trying to mislead the engines, but were just victims of bad advice. And of course the algorithms have become far more powerful and fine-tuned than they once were.

By openly helping everyone, they are really just helping to raise the bar of quality for all sites, and maybe even making it even harder for bad sites to game the engines. Along with providing more detailed information and answering more and more questions publicly, the greatest advancement they have made has been in creating tools to actually give site owners (who have validated their sites) more information about their sites than they've ever experienced before.

Webmaster Central and Webmaster Tools

Google introduced Webmaster Central, which continues to add more and more features for site owners. Not surprising, Webmaster Central is leading the pack in delivering great information and tools to Webmasters. At the center, literally, is Webmaster Tools, which provides site owners with fairly detailed information on site crawling, queries, considerably more backlink information than can be queried outside of Tools, and much more. The query information in particular provides an unprecedented view of the search phrases that a site is showing up for, including those terms that aren't actually delivering traffic to the site.

Site Explorer

Yahoo's Site Explorer is still lacking in a few areas compared with Google's Webmaster Tools, but they almost make up for that with their powerful link information. Through simple drop-down menus, it is quick and easy to tailor results based on links to a specific page or the entire site, to include all links or to exclude links from the site and focus on external links only. Yahoo added a new feature that may give even more control to site owners. The Dynamic URLs tab gives site owners the ability to inform Yahoo of their site's dynamic URL patterns to help eliminate duplicate content issues, better handling of multiparameter URLs, addressing session IDs, and even presenting "cleaner" URLs in search results. Ideally, it would be best to address as many of these issues through rewrites and the robots.txt file on the server, but this is a great addition as a backup or for when that isn't possible.

Webmaster Portal

Trying not to be outdone, the Live Search team at MSN recently announced their entry into the mix with the Webmaster Portal, currently in beta and by request only. Little detailed information is available, but their tool also is claiming to help troubleshoot crawl issues, assist with sitemaps, and provide site statistics, including a replacement to the "link:" operator query that was decommissioned back in March. The portal is slated to be fully available to the public by late fall, but it may be worthwhile to request an invite to participate in the beta now.

The advancement in all of these tools is great news to Webmasters and SEOs alike. They continue to put more information and control into our hands. Not wanting to be outdone by the others, hopefully each of the engines will add each other's additions to their own toolsets. As each of these is free, there is no reason for site owners not to take a few minutes to validate their sites and start spending a little time each month putting these tools to work for them. This is one invitation from the spiders you don't want to turn down.

Good news for Yahoo: a new survey finds that customers are more satisfied with Yahoo than the other search engines and portals.

According to the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index, Yahoo's score in the index rose 3.9 percent over the past year to 79 while Google's score fell 3.7 percent to 78.

But it's hard to really get a read on things because the survey combines two different categories: search engines and portals. No question, Google by far leads the pack when it comes to search and it is not a portal. Yahoo is the leading portal and second when it comes to search. So it is on the basis of Yahoo's portal strength that the annual survey finds Yahoo inching out Google for the first time.

Having said that, the results may still bode well for Yahoo. In the past, the scores have served as an indicator of growth and stock prices, and thus a predictor of future success or failure, according to study authors.

And what does Google think of a study that shows Yahoo inching them out? A Google spokeswoman declined to comment beyond this statement: "We are continually working to provide the best online experience for our users and welcome strong competition that helps drive market innovation."

As for the other search engines/portals, Microsoft's score was up 1.4 percent, Ask's rose 5.6 percent and AOL's dropped 9.5 percent, according to the Index.

Ian Howells, Alfresco's chief marketing officer, did some analysis of the company's customer and user community, and I found the results interesting. I've been hearing rumblings for some time that Windows increasingly serves as a great evaluation platform for open source, but most companies use Linux when they're serious and want to go into production. Ian's data confirmed this, and more. (Zmanda has published data that corroborates our findings.)

First of all, the Alfresco data shows that Windows is plays a healthy role in the open source ecosystem. (In the graph, Windows = green, and Linux = blue, in case you can't see it well.) We have plenty of companies going into production with open-source Alfresco sitting on top of closed-source Windows. From my work with SugarCRM, JasperSoft and others, I know the same holds true for them. I don't suspect that this is going to change anytime soon.

Windows plays a large role because it's the OS sitting on the most desktops. But when customers are serious about production, the majority favor Linux. Again, I think you'd find very similar results were you to talk with MuleSource, Funambol, SugarCRM, etc.

We've been hearing reports of lag and downtime issues involving Yahoo and several of its properties Friday morning: Yahoo's instant messaging client has been on and off, a reader reported that the Flickr photo-sharing site was down (worked fine for me, though) and the Yahoo main home page and Yahoo News portal have been fickle as well. Some CNET editors and writers encountered similar problems when testing the sites out; others found them to be working fine; still others reported unusually slow load times but no downage.

We've put out a request to Yahoo for comment but have not yet received a response.

Last summer, we saw some heat-wave-related server issues, including a high-profile outage at MySpace. Some regions of the country have had some pretty hot days recently, so the root of these issues at Yahoo could be similar.

Let us know if you've had issues with Yahoo services Friday morning.

Sun launched an open-source project around its Java System Portal Server 7 on Wednesday, following through on its stated plans to eventually open source all of its software products.

Called OpenPortal, the software is available under Sun's Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL).

The project's goals are to expose Sun's portal software to developers and create modular components that can be combined with other open-source projects, according to Sun. There are already existing Java servers which are open source.

The software complies with the JSR 168 and OASIS Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP) standards.

On Tuesday at JavaOne, Sun released the remaining portions of the Java platform in an open-source form.

Company executives have said that they intend to use open source for all its software because it allows it to get it products into the hands of developers and potential customers more easily.

AOL began beta testing a new look for its portal this week. It allows for more personalization and highlights relevant local information like traffic and gas prices, video content, e-mail and search. The redesigned site is randomly being exposed to about 5 percent of AOL's users during the test. The new version of the site should be widely available this summer. Meanwhile, AOL also launched an updated version of its portal in Canada and launched a new portal in India.