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Will Internet Stop the Press?

New Look for Search Engine Results

Grokker is a new way to look at search. It shows Web search results on a circular map rather than in a list. Grokker displays a Web search as a series of categories set in a circular map, it runs as a Java plug-in for browsers. The program will rely on online search revenue from advertisements placed by the Yahoo ad placement service, a.k.a. Overture. The idea behind Grokker is that by showing categories instead of a ranking listing, web searchers may uncover gold they would have otherwise missed. However, this fancy visualization system is somewhat confusing at first. Even for expert users this situation don't enhance search productivity. Groxis (pronounced GRAHK-sis) is named for a term in "Stranger in a Strange Land," by the science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein. To grok something is to understand it completely.

Another search company, Vivisimo, has introduced a consumer-oriented search engine called Clusty, www.clusty.com, which tries to deal with the problem of hidden information by displaying a list of folders to the left of the search results, adding an alternative category view in addition to a simple ranked listing.

Try the new format for round search results and then try the vivisimo cluster search. Next compare the speed and quality of the results for these two alternate web search tools. You be the judge.

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Will the Internet Stop the Press?

The latest numbers on newspaper circulation tell the story: most of the biggest dailies in the United States dropped, and none scored big gains. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), daily US newspaper circulation took its biggest fall in nearly a decade, dropping 1.9% in the six-month period ending March 31. That was the largest decline since 1995-1996, when circulation fell nearly 2.1%. Sunday circulation declined 2.5% over the last six months, compared with the same period a year ago.

The rate of decline has been 0.5% to 1% since newspaper circulation peaked in the mid-1980s, but this year's drop alarms many in the business. In a Carnegie Corporation report, 44% of the 18-to-34-year-olds surveyed said they frequent Internet portals such as Google and Yahoo News once a day or more, to stay up-to-date on the news. Most see the Internet news as being as trustworthy as newspapers. Only 19% of them rank newspapers as their primary source for current information.

"The future course of the news, including the basic assumptions about how we consume news and information and make decisions in a democratic society, is being altered by technology-savvy young people no longer wedded to traditional news outlets or even accessing news in traditional ways," wrote Merrill Brown, a media consultant and founding editor-in-chief of MSNBC, in the report.

Youth-drain is not the whole explanation for the decline. Readers simply have access to a great many news outlets that didn't exist 20 years ago — including the online sites of the newspapers themselves. In reaction to falling revenues, many newspapers have trimmed staff and coverage — eroding both the quality and quantity of their basic print product. Is this a death spiral?

Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp, owner of 175 newspapers around the world, in a recent speech warned that newspapers risk being "relegated to the status of also-rans." He also pointed toward a way forward. "Today, the newspaper is just a paper, Tomorrow, it can be a destination." In other words, the newspapers will become like the Internet portals, and the Yahoos, Googles and the MSNs will become like newspapers.

Take a look at the BBC News, the NY Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Online Sun, and you be the judge about Internet stopping the printing presses.

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Firefox Update 1.0.6

The Mozilla Foundation has now recommended that all Firefox users of Firefox 1.0.4 upgrade to Firefox 1.0.6 a new update issued in July, 2005. This security update is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Users can download Firefox 1.0.6 free from the download page in several language versions. (Current FF version is now 1.5+ and it is recommended you upgrade for better surfing security.)

By the way, Firefox downloads passed the 75 million mark this week. This is equivalent to an 8.0% penetration rate among Internet users.

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That's all for today. Stay tuned for market research news and the latest Internet usage statistics subscribing to IWS, and don't forget to visit All About Market Research.

Best regards to all,

Enrique de Argaez,
editor and webmaster

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