So I tried out Speegle, an interface that accesses Google's search results (via their api I hope) and reads them back to you. Of course I selected the female voice, because what guy wants a man reading their search results back to them.

I must say that I'm a bit disappointed. Even though my blog is no.1 in Google for a search for Jason Dowdell, the speechbot Speegle uses still doesn't pronounce my name right. It's Dow like Dow jones and Dell like Dell computers. Not Dowdl. How annoying is that?!

I've got 5 gmail invites and they're first come first serve. Been wanting one all year and just waiting for Santa to drop one down the chimney? Wait no longer, Santa Dowdell has your gmail invite and I'll even tell you why using the GMail notifier is better than enabling it's pop3 capabilities. Better hurry though, they won't last long. Just drop an email to [marketingshift at gmail.com] or simply post a comment on this thread and provide your contact info.

Dave Sifry's excited about the first ever Technorati User Group (TUG) meeting to be held tonight in SF. So that's actually SFTUG to be proper. I must admit that if I was Dave I'd be excited too. It's not every day that you're able to develop a [tool / service / application] or whatever you want to call it, that people are so excited about they get together to discuss the possibilities of it on their own free time. It reminds me of ColdFusion User Groups and the excitement around the meetings.

It also makes me think about the bigger picture and what this tiny event means in the ever changing landscape of the internet and blogs in general. We're entering a new and exciting phase, not only from a marketing perspective but from a social networking and information distribution perspective. This SFTUG meeting represents a fundamental shift in the focus of developers everywhere. When the dot com bubble was still inflating developers were working on all sorts of applications but the only feature those apps shared was diversity. Meaning, there was so much opportunity for new sites and apps because there were few authorities online in almost all verticals that you could literally develop a mortgage calculator and be famous ,nearly overnight. If you even think about developing a mortgage calculator now you'll be the laughing stock of your coworkers. Now that we have authorities in most fields online from search engine marketing to NBA insiders its not as easy to develop an app and become famous overnight.

That being said, there's a new and emerging sector online that's maturing before our very eyes and that's blogs. From blog search engines like Technorati & Feedster to blog aggregators like Bloglines to OddPost err MyYahoo. And with the rise in popularity of API's and geeks like me who can't get enough data its a very exciting time. Technorati is capitalizing off of this and doing it well.

First off they're pulling great data from blogs and they're opening up their data coffers to anyone who registers for an account and download the sdk. So now, instead of developers meeting to discuss a specific language of code, they're discussing APIs and the possibilities that lie in those APIs. Do you have any idea what that means? Do you see a pattern emerging? Blogs and APIs accomplish the same thing. The common man may be an expert with a single post or a single application. That's what I call maturing. Yes programming languages and their progression is critical but they're becoming more and more robust. Allowing smaller and smaller companies to create APIs and benefit from their loyal user communities to get ideas for features and enhancements. That's going to be the secret sauce of data-centric startups now and possibly for good.

With that I must say I'm really excited about Blogs, APIs and companies like Technorati that are aggregating data in real time and opening it up to anyone interested in using it. Information technology companies that don't think about this fundamental shift in data mining and analysis will be left behind in the next 2 - 3 years. Don't believe me? Do your own research and see what conclusions you draw.

This is pretty interesting, seems as though Microsoft has acquired an anti-spyware company noone's ever heard of. I know spyware and adware removal software is big business now but I've never heard of Giant Company Software Inc. (the company Microsoft acquired) and you'd think Bill would want to buy the best and brightest. Hmmm, wonder if the insider at MSFT found a diamond in the rough or if it's just a lemon. Looks like Microsoft has already made Giant's anti-spyware software available for download.

A story by MediaPost points out the need for online directories to incorporate ratings, reviews and social networking elements to draw consumers (traffic) to their sites. The Kelsey Group provided the report which won't be available for a few weeks. Greg Sterling forwarded me an excerpt of the report and will provide the full report next week. I'll read through it and post my thoughts in a couple weeks.

I agree with that philosophy and that's what I did for my wife a few years ago when I created gogoMama. It's a maternity directory that she adds sites to and then rates the sites. Consumers can also provide feedback on products or merchants if they want to. Shannon's decided to redo the site so it will be interesting to see what she comes up with. The reason I pointed out her site is because this report from The Kelsey Group isn't anything new. The need for objective/unbiased reviews and information from consumers is something that's been around for a while.

Just ask Michael Yang, the founder of MySimon (which was acquired by CNet). MySimon was one of the first and most well known product review and comparison engines out there. Now Michael and YeoGirl (incredible search engine technical expert) are at it again. The shopping comparison search engine they're getting ready to launch started out with the name Exava but is now called Become. I'm really looking forward to seeing which features they'll implement in the first round of Become.

It's folks like Michael Yang and Yeogirl Yun that will lead us into the next phase of search technologies. Keeping an eye on them is a good idea because you'll probably learn a thing or two and see the future of search evolve before your eyes.