Blogdimension and Zuula.com now in close cooperation!

It's done! The smart and fully customizable multi-search engine Zuula.com displays now also Blogdimension's blog results!

Zuula.com belongs to the family of metasearch engines. But unlike the other "metas", Zuula proposes an extensive choice of results provided by a clever combination of the most used search brands available on the net.

Like Blogdimension.com, Zuula tends to verticalize its results via a system of tabs. One can search for Internet content by type of sources in a very user-friendly way. The search tabs are: web, images, video, news, blog, jobs... No doubt that some other "verticals" will be added in the future.

Moreover, Zuula is a real "do-it-yourself" engine. Many of the parameters are customizable. For example, you can select or exclude a search engine by simply drag and drop its tab, change their order of appearance, add an "adult search" filter, choose the number of results to be displayed, etc. Of course, all these preferences can be saved so you find your custom search interface next time you use Zuula.

In a standard way, Zuula also proposes its toolbar and an Add-in. Let's call it a widget!

Oh yes! Zuula keeps the sponsored links (those provided by the search systems part of the results displayed in Zuula) well separated from the organic results. So, the users access directly to the true content they are searching for without being polluted by commercial results. This is also a good point which also corresponds to Blogdimension's philosophy.

Zuula is in Beta mode. But they are probably humble at Zuula because their search is in reality already fully functional, fast and provides extremely relevant results!

Congrats to Zuula's team for the great work they are doing there in their Princeton's (NJ, USA) labs.

So, good luck to Zuula! Blogdimension is of course proud to be part of Zuula's ecosystem.

NB: Zuula means "to take off" in a central-african language! That's all what we wish to Zuula here at Blogdimension.com! And to soar as well...

More on Zuula blog
More about Zuula on AltSearchEngine

Thanks for your support,

The Team

Blogdimension.com introduces the "tags cloud", a feature to feel the pulse of the blogosphere!

The bloggers and their readers usually do know what are "tags clouds". This feature visible on some websites displays a selection of the most frequently used keywords tagged (that's why they are called "tags") in blog posts or articles. Tags can also be the most searched for words. In general, the most popular tags appear either in the form of characters set in a bigger size, in bold or in a special color whereas less popular tags tend to appear with no particular emphasis. The more the tag is prominent, the more it is popular.

Tags can be compared to a form of website categorization. In the Web 1, Internet content was sorted in predetermined categories (or topics). Formerly, in order to appear in one or another category a website had to be referenced in a web directory or a vertical portal and linked to an existing category. If one of the categories was missing the website could not be sorted out, or the website editor had to ask to the directory's administrator to create a new category. Yahoo built its early succes on this idea that the web should be organized in a centralized way.

However, this approach revealed to be finally inaccurate with reference to the dramatic explosion of content published on Internet. Often, the webmaster submitting a website had to face the "misc." or "unclassifiable" category syndrome since the limited space of a web directory could not propose an unlimited number of categories or sub-categories that would harm to its ergonomics or usability. It's the eternal problem of the never ending branching trees.

The popping out of the "tags" concept represents a real paradigm shift! Tags are not defined in a central way (by an administrator of a directory) but by the websites editors themselves.

Indeed, it is the blogger who defines the categories related to the content to be published (blog post, note or article) in this new approach. A dedicated field in the edition form allows him/her to connect a series of keywords related to the content of the note. These words are chosen 'ad hoc' by the editor according to the topics developped in his/her article.

We are definitely in a Web 2.0 and contributive logic with the tags system.

With this decentralized system of categorization, we introduce the idea of a vast ecosystem of keywords on a global linguistic scale which can be potentially "captured" (indexed) by the search engines, provided their technology allows it. Blogdimension.com. is now one of these systems indexing the tags.

Instead of getting sucked into designing categories artificially and centrally which is a pure non-sense if we consider the Web is live, we, at Blogdimension, chose to implement a technology allowing to recognize and to index not only the links of the articles and blog posts but the tags as well. The retrieved tags are stored into a special database and counted. The more often a tag appears, the more it is listed at the top!

So, we get a long list of tags sorted in decreasing order of frequency.

The "tags cloud" represents a limited selection of the most popular keywords assigned by the bloggers to their articles or postings and found in our index!

The "tags clouds" can vary from a search system to an other since each brand has its own sorting formulas which are often an industry secret. Some search engines propose a "hit parade"-type of listing, some other do not propose anything.

One can clearly perceive the semantic power of these "tags clouds" and their statistical role since they allow to carry out trend analysis of the content published. It makes it possible to know the topics most favored by the bloggers. Moreover, on the other side, one can imagine to collect and analyse the most clicked through or searched for tags in order to get the reading tendencies. There's just one step to be able to follow up the consumer trends!

"Tags clouds" are valuable tools for all those who need to take some sense out of the Web and the blogosphere: communication, advertising, intelligence agencies, marketing departments, political parties... In short, it is a function essential to all kinds of trend setters.

A "tags cloud" is a momentary snapshot of the blogosphere. The clouds can even be compared following various criteria: in the timeline, according to a profile of users, with regard to particular events, sociological criteria or seasons.

As a start, Blogdimension has implemented the tags cloud feature on its English, French and Spanish versions. But, this feature will be soon extended to other Blogdimension linguistic versions like the Chinese or Japanese ones.

It is at the same time funny and curious to compare the "tags clouds" between several linguistic spheres. For example, English speaking users are much interested in topics related to technology, business and entertainment. The French speaking ones like to write and post about society, Christmas (now) and political questions. The Spanish speaking ones tend to be attracted by downloading, computers and of course the picturesque... Hugo Chavez!

If you are a professional and are interested in trend analysis, watch or intelligence activities do not hesitate to get in touch with us. We perhaps can propose you our services and (anonymous) data. Our index is rich of thousands of millions of links and tags pointing to blogs, microblogs, images, podcasts, videos and opinions from the blogosphere.

Blogdimension's "tags cloud" is a smart way to feel the pulse of the Web 2.0 and listen to its heart beat!

Thanks for your support,

The Team

"Nuage de tags": French version

"Tags cloud": English version

"Nube de tags": Spanish version

Alternative search engines and the "subjective Web"

The history of Internet led us through roughly 6 different stages reflected by the contents found in the World Wide Web:

* 1993-1995: most of the content to be found in the Web was from universitarian and scientific origin,
* 1995-1997: then came the era of personal webpages indexed by the first portals and search engines,
* 1997-1999: corporate websites and webmerchants started to flourish,
* 1999-2001: press media went totally online. Other media (TV, radio) were condemned to stay off-line because of the weakness of the bandwidth!

Then came a technological leap: broadband...

* 2001-2006: during this period the Web became suddenly richer (rich media) and more participative allowing multimedia files to be delivered and exchanged online. Blogs appeared, MP3 music systems like Napster paved the way with Peer-to-Peer systems. Immediately followed by video online sharing systems and voice over the net. The Web 2.0 was born making it possible for everyone to become a consumer and a producer of the content.
* 2007: this date is crucial since it marks the upcoming of virtual life and mobile and Internet convergence.

Gigantic and incumbent search engines like Google, Yahoo or MSN due to their longevity encompassed all these periods and therefore succeeded in indexing all kind of contents in their databases.

This enormous accumulation of content by the leading search systems during the web evolution can be considered as an asset in regard with the vast choice of sources offered to the users.

But it is not really! Historical search systems are overwhelmed by too much "noise" content making it difficult to find straightforward relevant content. Their links databases are spoiled with too many obsolete and commercial content making it hard to bring satisfaction to the users.

Moreover, the fact that their ranking models are all based on popularity (sometimes dubbed as "authority") makes their indices not very dynamical. Popular web sources are almost on top and new sources have to struggle in order to get to the the first results pages.

It is not a lie to say that if the users use only one search engine they miss much of the reality of today's web.

Things must now change as the users become more aware! The users should consider specializing their search operations.

To do this, a new generation of search engines is emerging on the market. These niche search engines are the "alternative search engines".

Each alternative system has its own speciality and positionning. Some are dedicated to the retrieval of images, other to blogs, still others to given topics and type of content. Some of them carry out this task in an extremely creative way thanks to smart interfaces enhanced by the Ajax language. Some are real AI tools.

If you wish to discover all the richness of the alternative search engines, we invite you to read the excellent www.altsearchengines.com, a blog from the ReadWriteWeb network specially dedicated to these new generation search engines. This blog is thoroughly animated and sourced by Charles Knight who scans the whole Internet on a daily basis to find and present new alternative search engines.

www.blogdimension.com also belongs to this breed of alternative search engines. It proposes a totally new way of addressing the usage of online search activities.

Blogdimension focuses exclusively on Web 2.0 content like blogs, microblogs, forums, online media, images derived from these sources, audio files & podcasts, videos. Generally speaking, Blogdimension retrieves syndicated (RSS) and user generated content only. In the contrary of all the big ones, Blogdimension.com does not give access to any general, encyclopedic or commercial web eventhough one can find such content also in our search engine incidentally.

By such a positionning, Blogdimension appears as a complementary tool to the incumbent search engines represented by the trio Google-Yahoo-MSN (Live.com). Blogdimension exists in English, French, Spanish, Chinese and soon in Japanese, Portuguese and Russian. Other great languages are in progress.

Said in a different way, Blogdimension gives access to the subjective part of the web. To the web made of opinions and viewpoints (blogs, forums, videos). This viral and unconventional part of the web which expresses individual thoughts, anger and passion. In other words the free web!

It is time to use several search engines to discover the still new unexplored dimensions of the World Wide Web!

你好 (Ni Hao!) Blogdimension.com now in Chinese!e!!

Great moment for Blogdimension.com, the Web 2.0 Search Engine! We are proud to announce the launch of Blogdimension.com in Chinese.

It is not conceivable to ignore such a great language and civilization even for a search company. Today Chinese (Mandarin) is among the most spoken languages in the World. Tomorrow it will be the first language of Internet.

So, after English, French and Spanish versions, Blogdimension releases now the Chinese version of its search engine oriented primarily on Web 2.0, RSS and multimedia content.

Chinese users can now find blogs, forums, news feeds, images, audio & podcast and of course online videos like "6.cn" in Chinese.

All this was possible thanks to Gao and Suying whose knowledge of the Chinese languages, culture and Web 2.0 context were crucial for this project.

Why a Chinese version for Blogdimension ?

China has its own search systems like Baidu, Bookee, Zhuaxia, Qikoo, Booso, etc. which are excellent, effective and adapted tools for Chinese users.

Blogdimension's aim, we insist on it, is not to appear as competitors to the Chinese search systems. In the contrary, Blogdimension is a complementary and additional tool not only for the Chinese users living in mainland China but for all Chinese speaking people included non-Chinese people learning the language.

It means that Blogdimension's Chinese version brings also value to the Chinese speaking users living overseas in South Eastern Asia, the United States, Europe and any other part where Chinese communities are present and active.

We believe Blogdimension being an international initiative it gives Chinese users the capacity to form a huge lingusitic community (metacommunity) all over the world by gathering in a single entry point all kind of Web 2.0, multimedia and blogospheric content written or published in the Chinese language. It helps the Chinese - be they from inside or outside China - to find information in their language, share viewpoints or cultural codes and stay interconnected independently from any geographic limit. We think language is as important as geography. China is often dubbed as "Middle Country" or "Middle Kingdom" in history books. We would be happy that thanks to Blogdimension China could be dubbed also as the "Extended Country".

Blogdimension delivers no political messages. It is aimed only at facilitating the access to the Web 2.0 content existing in the various languages it operates.

Blogdimension's goal is definitely to bring Web 2.0 and blogosphere content to a maximum of people all around the world, whatever country they live, in their language. There are no small languages in our conception. Every language in the world is as important as English, Spanish or French, especially in a world that tends to be more and more multilateral.

So we ask the Chinese users to be patient because our index of Chinese links is not as big as it deserves to be and in regard of the Chinese influence in the world. It will take some time before our Chinese index builds up! So if you are a Chinese speaking user and you don't find a source in Blogdimension, please just submit it! And be confident.

Dear Chinese users, thanks for your support and contribution.

The Team

A mobile version for Blogdimension.com's blog with MoFuse.com

Hey!

Blogdimension.com would like to introduce MoFuse a great web application allowing blog and other RSS sites publishers to "mobilize" their content. MoFuse provides a simple interface where you can create the mobile version of your blog. The result is a site adapted to mobile browsing and readable on most of the mobile devices.

Moreover you "can take control" of the layout of your MoFuse mobile site thanks to a set of powerful Ajax features.

This is really cool because other systems do not let you arrange the look & feel of the mobile version of your site. The content of the mobile version is always up to date thanks to a RSS enabled function that feeds it automatically with your blog or site content.

Here is, for example, the mobile version of Blogdimension's blog: http://blogdimension.mofuse.mobi/

Oh yes! Last but not least! MoFuse have also a revenue sharing program. It's "the only company with a mobile revenue sharing program that allows publishers to monetize their mobile site using Google AdSense Mobile" says David Berube, the CEO and Founder of the service.

Thanks to MoFuse.com you can "mobilize" and "monetize" your content in less than three minutes!

So, let's put Blogdimension's in your mobile links right now!

MoFuse.com are doing a really great job to help the convergence of both blog and mobile worlds! Blogdimension.com wishes MoFuse a great success!

Thanks for your support,

The Team

"Un, dos, tres! Un pasito pa'delante"... the Spanish version of Blogdimension.com is now online!

It's by a wink to this famous Ricky Martin's song meaning "A step forward!" that Blogdimension.com announces the release of the Spanish version of its Web 2.0 Search Engine!

The Spanish version is the third to be launched after the French and the English ones. Thus, Blogdimension.com gives the possibility to a community strong of around 350 million speakers to access and search Web 2.0 content such as blogs & microblogs, forums, news, podcasts, online videos published in Spanish.

Of course, the "advanced search" function enables the Spanish speaking users to zoom in content published in the different countries composing the Hispanic world. These sources can be located as well in Spain, Latin America, the United States than in other places of the world.

We are conscious that a powerful 'blogosfera' is now emerging in these linguistic areas. It would not have been very wise not to do something for such a vast and influent community in terms of Web 2.0 content search. So we didn't ask ourselves too many questions whether we should release or not a Spanish version of Blogdimension.com! We released this version naturally.

We will let you know about our further developments. New top languages are already in progress and will be launched very soon ;-)

Thanks for your support and bienvenidos!

The Team