Comments on: Why I Want Localised, Specialised Search

By: Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Gargoyle: Channeling the African Blogosphere

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 17:26:27 +0000

[...] A skeptical Dennis McDonald: Thanks Mike, this is a terrific explanation. We should be able to �slice and dice� the web anyway we see fit � even if it�s just to be able to search a specialized collection of movie reviews or a specialized set of blogs related to social media and social networking. Geographic orientation is an obvious segmentation variable and certainly one of the most important criteria relevant to personal and professional networking. [...]

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 17:17:38 +0000

google’s hidden private project
see http://devshots.com

By: Henre

Henre — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 15:35:52 +0000

Yes yes yes Mike. This is exactly what I want. Have been troubled with this thing ever since I became familiar with Technorati. Muti and Gargoyle!!! We’re catching on us SAFFAS and it’s great.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 14:08:37 +0000

Both very real dangers, but on the first point I believe if enough power is in the hands of users we’ll maintain a global approach to local categorisation, and possibly interface with the existing tools to avoid that issue. In terms of Internet-unfriendly governments – prohibition is guaranteed to do one thing – encourage growth. Ask the US in the 20’s and today, Egyptian bloggers. Same patterns.

By: Dennis McDonald in Alexandria, Virginia USA

Dennis McDonald in Alexandria, Virginia USA — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 12:58:21 +0000

Thanks Mike, this is a terrific explanation. We should be able to “slice and dice” the web anyway we see fit — even if it’s just to be able to search a specialized collection of movie reviews or a specialized set of blogs related to social media and social networking. Geographic orientation is an obvious segmentation variable and certainly one of the most important criteria relevant to personal and professional networking.

Two possible caveats arise if we add metadata-based or infrastructure-based identifiers that simplify geographic aggregation of sites:

First, do we risk some “balkanization” of the web if different regions adopt different geographic tagging or aggregation techniques?

Second, do we make it easier for internet-unfriendly governments to track and restrict the free flow of information?

By: We’re Not Cloning, We’re Making It Relevant - Tyler Reed

We’re Not Cloning, We’re Making It Relevant - Tyler Reed — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 11:05:25 +0000

[...] South Africa is starting to boast some really impressive sites based on international models. I prefer not to call them clones, they are built on foreign concepts / models. They are fundamental in the growth of the South African internet. Mike Stopforth has already expressed his need for a South African version of Technorati. [...]

By: Peter Hart-Davis

Peter Hart-Davis — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 10:51:55 +0000

Oops, to give credit where credit is due, that link is to semantic info sourced from http:/ /www.powertrip.co.za. Jacques Marneweck’s site

By: Peter Hart-Davis

Peter Hart-Davis — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 10:46:41 +0000

Just a quick geek note, what is definitely coming out of the data is how many sites are so poorly configured from a semantic point of view. It seriously hampers search and research. For example if this is possible and yet there are bloggers who are not managing even their meta tags then there is a problem.

By: Tyler

Tyler — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 09:17:40 +0000

Very valid and so true Mike. I would also like to see South African Wordpress, Blogger and Typepad blogs included. Then comes in the question of how do we distinguish whether they are South African or not. I have to methods.

1) User submission and user moderation. Using the power of users again. Let the blog author or reader of the blog submit it as a South African blog, other users will surely be able to determine whether or not it is South African or not, if not it can be flagged or moderation / deletion.

2) Special meta tag. Users can insert a meta tag or maybe some other piece of code into their blog which the spider can detect and add as South African.

I prefer the 1st idea however.