Buzz: Google Does BlogSearch

Posted by

Recently, Google announed that they have improved BlogSearch, and boy! They did so with avengeance.

newblogsearch at google

It looks like Google is now about to take on Technorati and several other blog aggregators with the revamp. It’s been done to look similar to the NewsGoogle, and will work in a similar fashion to NewsGoogle, taking summaries, images and links from popular blogs all over the web, aggregating the stories and presenting them in an automated fashion as a summary of what’s happening. For top bloggers, and those who are ‘discovered’ this will be a huge boon to their traffic as the service becomes increasingly known. For readers, it makes it easier to find news stories, popular blogs, though it may break or weaken loyalty between readers and ‘their’ blogs. Worth watching, though it didn’t show up much from after September 16th for my blog…

Today, we’re pleased to launch a new homepage for Google Blog Search so that you too can browse and discover the most interesting stories in the blogosphere. Adapting some of the technology pioneered by Google News, we’re now showing categories on the left side of the website and organizing the blog posts within those categories into clusters, which are groupings of posts about the same story or event. Grouping them in clusters lets you see the best posts on a story or get a variety of perspectives. When you look within a cluster, you’ll find a collection of the most interesting and recent posts on the topic, along with a timeline graph that shows you how the story is gaining momentum in the blogosphere.

Questions remain: how is a story rated “most interesting”, how are stories ranked or clustered, will spidering occur more often as a website or blog gains ‘momentum’? At what point does a blog become rated “most interesting”, by whom and by what means? Mmm. To read more, visit BlogSearch Blog for the announcement.

Purchase Order: 10 DIA at 105.14

Posted by

Just a quick note: I purchased 10 shares of DIA at 105.14 or thereabouts this afternoon. I had originally owned this stock (ETF) about three years ago, and regretted selling it. I was finally able to buy the shares back cheaper than I sold them. Of course, I lost out on the dividends on the intervening years totalling over $6 per share (after tax); I think these stocks represent a good price, and that the bailout (part 2.) will pass this time around, so I’m kind of expecting a turnaround shortly on the DJIA. Whether it will last or not, I don’t know. But the PE of 12 and yield are beginning to look attractive.

Oddly, though, the stock is already cheaper than I paid. I guess the markets don’t have any confidence in Congress as it’s already trading down.

I’m not recommending this stock, etc. please read my disclaimer.

Buzz: Inner8 – Can you be one of the Inner 8?

Posted by

It’s the holy grail of the Internet these days: the social ‘net. Every major industry has joined, and now it’s the turn of the investing fraternity to get the kind of social feature set now found in Facebook, MySpace and much more. Inner8 seeks to provide a similar social service for investors. InvestorBlogger, as one of the earliest members to join SocialSpark in the pre-launch period, is delighted to be one of the first to review this social service.

Inner8

True to form, you will find all the social bells and whistles you need for this online investors’ community called Inner 8 which seeks to bring investors of all kinds together under the following statement “Inner8 technology gives you the best, personalized ideas, and lets you keep the savings“. Given the background of the owners of Inner8, this site should not be underestimated as it tries to bind investors with complex data analysis.

The deal for investors though is quite simple: you connect with investors from a wide range of backgrounds as you all seek to make money trading online, whether it is stocks, bonds, or whatever. There are several pages in which you can interact: Tools and Community.

The tools page is worth playing with: you can simply tweak the controls at the bottom to show what kind of market segments you are interested in, then you will see the results on the right.

scenario explorer

The community page is also worth a look to find people online who are investing. There are similar slider controls that you can play with as you search for members to form your community.

Both tools and community pages are works-in-progress as the range of tools are limited, as is the size of the community. But one thing is sure: if Inner8 sticks around long enough, they will be able to develop a focused and passionate group of users. The tools are innovative and promising, as is the community. I’ve already joined, and have filled in a bit of my profile.

Post?slot_id=21714&url=http%3a%2f%2fsocialspark