Answering the question which Answer service is best?

I had a couple issues come up in the last few days that I wanted guidance. So I decided to try LinkedIn’s new (launched January 2007) Answers service. I also posed a similar question to Yahoo Answers (launched Dec. 2005).

These Answer services aren't much different than a standard web forum, but the presentation is definitely better and there is a focus on answering a specific question rather than having threaded discussions. (Google also had an answer service staffed by experts charging for answers, but this was shut down last December.)

LinkedIn and Yahoo Answers are fairly similar. You need an account with Yahoo or LinkedIn (if you’re not familiar with the many benefits of joining LinkedIn see my post HyperLinkedIn).

Once you are member, you can pose a finite number of questions. LinkedIn limits you to five a month and Yahoo has a point system that limits how many questions you can pose (basically you have to answer others’ questions to get points to be able to pose your questions – but Yahoo starts you off with a bunch, so you can easily test it out). Both will email you when you get a response (which typically happens in the first couple days and then that's it) and both seem to offer RSS subscription to the topics and questions. Both also allow you to vote on the best answer.

Which one is better?
Both are quite useful and were a big help. Both also have problems that are based more on human nature than any technical glitch. In Yahoo’s case, I found people were posting stupid responses just to get points, and in LinkedIn’s case some were posting inappropriate responses for self-promotion. Wikipedia offers a good look at other criticism of Yahoo Answers.

Overall, I slightly prefer LinkedIn as it gives the opportunity to pose questions only to your network and I think that in helps build community that may lead to new contacts.

As per my previous post, I was thinking wouldn’t it be great if Shakira was on LinkedIn? The questions I have for her.

Shakira on MySpace and I asked her if she’ll be my friend. I had to ask the PussyCat Dolls three times to be my friend before they’d finally have me. Sucks to be turned down by former burlesque dancers, even if they are all gorgeous and can actually sing (seriously, I have their album and it's good!)

Shakira, if you’re listening please join LinkedIn!

Twitter bashing

Twitter is generating a lot of hype lately while also earning a lot of scorn. I updated my previous Twitter item to capture some of the criticism. But today, I saw the funniest comic that says it all.

It's from PC Weenies by Krishna M. Sadasivam.


The PC Weenies archives are hilarious too, check it out. (Used with permission.)

Naming dropping online works

I was doing a vanity google today, as I am wont to do. Not much new on the Glen Farrelly front. There is that other Glen Farrelly (well, there are several) that is doing a charity trek soon for testicular cancer called "Say Balls to Cancer".

Not seeing much action with any of my entries coming up in normal search or Technorati and no one is linking to me (I'd have to have someone reading this first, eh).

I did learn that I don't need to embed the special Technorati tags for them to work in Technorati's tag search. Technorati can now read Blogger's "Labels". This has the added benefit of having a search and archive method available on the right-hand side here.

So back to the my online presence or lack thereof - that is until my post two days ago. The post about the search queries of Americans vs. Canadians.

Even though I was reprinting Yahoo's results all the name dropping worked!

Just the mention of Beyonce got me posted on an all Beyonce news site. Jessica Simpson did likewise. But it was my beloved Shakira that really got results. There was serious pick-up of my blog entry from various Shakira sites.

So thank you Shakira, wherever, whenever you may be.

All my months of diligently and, if I do say so myself, insightful blogging have not paid off. But one entry mentioning hot celebs and Bob's my uncle or rather Paris Hilton's my aunt.

I'm going to Mesh!!!

This post has been archived.

How do Canadians & Americans differ? NHL vs. Britney

I just got the latest issue of Backbone Magazine, a Canadian tech and business magazine. I should be reading the cover story on the top 300 Canadian tech companies, but what struck me is an item they had on Canadians vs. Americans top search queries on Yahoo last year.

Yahoo compiled the top searches for 2006 and the results reveal a lot about each country's national character. Neither country comes off looking particularly erudite, we just exchange one shameless pop-culture obsession for another.

Top 10 Canadian searches
1. NHL
2. FIFA World Cup
3. American Idol
4. Rock Star Supernova
5. WWE
6. Neopets
7. Revenue Canada
8. Days of Our Lives
9. Environment Canada
10. Jessica Simpson

Top 10 U.S. searches
1. Britney Spears
2. WWE
3. Shakira
4. Jessica Simpson
5. Paris Hilton
6. American Idol
7. Beyonce Knowles
8. Chris Brown
9. Pamela Anderson
10. Lindsay Lohan

NHL vs. Britney - that really sums up the difference between Canada and the U.S.

Despite our differences though, we both share a great love and obsession with Jessica Simpson, wrestling (WWE) and American Idol.

At least, Canada has some items on our top ten that aren't embarrassing - though it is embarrassing that Shakira didn't show up. I'm sure I searched for her enough times to get her on the list. But then I guess search logs, like hips, don't lie!

Another interesting point, the American show Rock Star Supernova appears on Canada's list (as Canadians won both seasons) and Canadian superstar Pamela Anderson doesn't appear on our list. Guess we're all residents of a dorky global village now.

While Revenue Canada is on the top ten for Canada, I can't imagine the IRS appearing too highly in American queries. But then as the saying goes "Canada is the only country where an accountant is a national hero".

Biggest surprise: Days of Our Lives. I had no idea that show was so popular with my countrymen. I can' t believe it beat the great totality of my searches for Shakira????

Site index - to do or not to do?

I prepared a site index for my website. A site index is like a book index; an alphabetically listing of the topics contained in the website, in the users words. Site indices don’t try to contain every link but point to the content that is best suited for that term.

At this point, it is a given that all websites should have search engine functionality and a site map (a hierarchal map of the pages in a website).

But someone commented that our site doesn’t need a site index. With most websites above-the-fold real estate is at a premium and thus my site index will probably be relegated from the very-useful utility bar to the purgatory of the site footer.

Today, I read this article in Boxes & Arrows called “Improving Usability with a Website Index” by Fred Leise. Leise describes the advantages of site index as:

They offer easy scanning for finding known items, they provide entry points to content using the users’ own vocabulary and they provide access to concepts discussed, but not named, in the text.

A good search engine (and frankly many sites have crappy ones) can go a long way, but they often pull up too much information and are confined by the ability of the user to articulate – and using the correct terminology – what information they are looking for. A site map can help for browsing, but can also be overwhelming, and unless the webpage titles are very indicative and definitive they may not capture what the user is looking for.

To help with some of these problems, I compiled a thesaurus of both official and user terminology, that is built into the search engine. This helps a lot, but still requires users to be able to articulate their query and may actually increase the already too-plentiful results.

Who better than a human very familiar with a website’s content and the site’s users and their vocabulary to devise a search aid?

According to Leise they aid website usability:

Indexes, as flat lists of terms, are easily scannable. Users need only use their browser’s scroll bar to navigate through the entire index. (Large indexes often provide alphabetical anchor links at the top of the index, which take users quickly to the portion of the index they need to use.) There are no multiple levels to navigate, nor must users decide which branch of a hierarchy to click on, which often results in their missing information, they are looking for or taking longer to find it. In fact, the easy scannability of the index on a single page is an important argument against having separate pages for letter of the alphabet, whenever possible.

Okay, I’m sold on the site index, but I’d love to hear anyone else’s opinion or experience using them or developing them for their site.

Gone in a Flash

The problems I described with Flash in my last post were partially sorted out.

However, my confidence in Flash (which had taken years to warm up to) is completely gone.

I saw on Adobe's site that according to various studies, roughly 90-95% of the population had at least Version 8 of the free Flash player.

First of all, I find these figure a bit dubiously high. The other problem is for those users that choose to not upgrade. And there are some users that don't upgrade due to download restrictions at work, personal paranoia about downloading anything from the Net, or just too busy to do it even though it only takes a moment.

For those that don't upgrade, they can either get a broken site or you can set up a sniffer to send them to a static page version, but then the user isn't getting a top experience and two versions of the material in different formats now have to be maintained. Or you can send them to a page asking them either to upgrade Flash or go to a static page version. This last option seems the best, but then you still have all the problems of the second option, and the user's first impression is diminished - they may even click away.

Judging from my recent problems with Flash, I suspect there may be more problems than is commonly acknowledged.

So here is my request of you, gentle reader, please let me know what you think of Flash? Is it safe enough to use on a homepage?