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As a new homeschooling parent, finding online learning resources that are safe, well-designed, and fun for my kids is important - but inexplicably difficult. That’s why I was thrilled to learn about Ask.com’s expansion and redesign of AskKids.com.

I’ve already found Ask.com itself to be a great search engine for my kids, with its suggested searches and images in the sidebars.

But AskKids.com gives me even more confidence. Plus, there’s a SUPER FUN feature on the front page.

At the bottom right corner, there’s a box with a pen, pencil and highlighter. You can grab one of the utensils with your mouse and draw directly on the page! It rocks. There’s also a tab for “stickers” that you can put on your drawing.

Moving on to the search side of things, on the front page, in addition to the traditional search box, there are 5 categories kids can go directly to: Schoolhouse, Movies, Games, Video, and Images.

Clicking on one of the categories brings up even more options along with traditional search results.

Conducting a traditional search was much like doing so on Ask.com There’s only one sidebar, on the left, and no images.

I do have two criticisms:
1. The design theme is built around a traditional school setting. Kids are so much more than school. The background design of notebook paper is not a great way to reach kids, who learn much better through visual and interactive approahches and are far more tech-savvy than traditional, old school (pun fully intended) educational methods.

2. The search results have ads taking up a good portion of the space. The same criticism can be made of the Ask.com page. Being user-friendly and not ad friendly almost always wins the day and it would be nice if Ask could figure out a more user-friendly way to make the moolah.

Still, the homepage design is at least better than the old version:

What do you think of the new AskKids.com? Leave us your impressions in the comments.

Related Reading:
Student Searches: The Top 15 Searches for the K-12 Set
The New Multitaskers: Kids Split Attention Between TV, Internet
Content for Kids
Learning from Our Kids

More retailers are turning to social media as part of their back-to-school marketing campaigns, according to Jupiter Research. From Facebook to widgets, from virtual worlds to online video, retailers are targeting youth, who may not share the same feelings as their parents about a tough economy.

“The back-to-school season has grown in importance for retailers and leads into the all important fourth quarter sales period,” explained Patti Freeman Evans, Research Director and Online Retail Analyst at JupiterResearch. “With the shaky economy expected to impact the amount of money consumers spend on back-to-school shopping, retailers are using social media to capture the attention of younger consumers.”

Examples of social media back-to-school implementation are JC Penny and Sears. Both retailers used integrated marketing campaigns, using tv ads to drive youth online where they can view tips on getting the same looks seen in the campaigns.

To promote its two new clothing lines, department store J.C.Penney created an online game called “DorkDodge” in which a girl has to navigate through a number of undesirable boyfriends to find her dream date. The retailer also launched an integrated marketing campaign showing teens how they can “get that look” with an array of clothing brands sold at J.C.Penney stores, featuring the theme of “The Breakfast Club.”

According to David Schatsky, President of JupiterResearch, “Retailers experimenting with Web 2.0 experiences will largely find benefit from them in the form of branding and awareness building rather than direct sales as social media has shown little direct impact on actual online retail sales.”

What do you think of using social media in your seasonal campaigns? Let us know in the comments.

Related Reading:
Back-to-School Offline Purchases Influenced by Online Ads
Live Search Cashback Launches Back-to-School Rebates

With the Democratic National Convention starting today in Denver, I thought it would be prudent to see which search engine is handling the highly anticipated event the best. Of course, Microsoft rocked the Olympics and outpaces everyone in mapping Georgia, but who’s got political game?

Microsoft proved again that it’s on top of current events, but it’s AOL that takes the cake in my book. First, AOL makes use of its design as a portal to serve up content on the homepage, which eliminates searching for today’s biggest US story.

Then, AOL makes use of its news and content networks to provide relevant links in its search results. Something that caught my eye is a link to News Video. I would have thought YouTube would dominate online video for the conventions, especially considering their involvement in the debates. But YouTube left a lot to be desired, while AOL News Video served up relevant, organized video.

AOL Homepage

AOL convention search results

AOL News Video results

YouTube results

Ask.com didn’t have to do anything different. Their usual results, which includes a right sidebar with images, provided a nice offering of convention-related content.

Ask.com search results

Microsoft’s Live.com could have made use of their new design, making the image of the day related to the convention. But they still have an Olympics-themed image up. Still, a search provides the latest convention news results at the top, and I like how their links to image, video, and other types of search are below the search box instead of on top. That helps users find what they’re looking for even better. Searching for video via Live.com brings up results from AOL, YouTube and other sources such as the AP. The videos are organized like image results, which makes for quick browsing - probably quicker than AOL or YouTube. However, some of the videos are from past conventions.

Live.com search results

Live.com video search results

As I was writing this, Yahoo changed its results. Before, it showed News Results about halfway down the page, now news results for the convention are at the top. This puts it on par with Microsoft. Yahoo does take slight advantage of being a portal to provide content right on the front page so no searching is involved. But today’s headline is the new Dancing With the Stars cast and whether Kim Kardashian’s foot injury will prevent her from participating.

Yahoo convention search results

Google offered nothing special. They both provided News Results, but placed them about halfway down the page.

Google results

Yahoo front page

But don’t take my word for it. Do some searching of your own and then leave a comment giving your vote for best search engine for Presidential politics.

Ex-Googler Kate Burns has been tapped by social networking site Bebo to head up their European operations, according to the Guardian. Burns previously was Google’s managing director for the UK. She also helped launch DoubleClick and AltaVista in the UK.

Bebo was recently acquired by AOL for $850 million. The site boasts 40 million members worldwide. AOL’s Platform-A recently announced a guaranteed CPM for Bebo developers. Platform-A was the largest ad network in March.

Also in March, Microsoft announced a data portability with 5 social networks, including Bebo. However, AOL joined Google’s OpenSocial initiative in May.

Google owns a 5% stake in AOL, and was recently given permission to unload the stock, though it has yet to do so.

Meanwhile, rumor of a possible Yahoo-AOL merger have reared its (ugly?) head again, but today reports are suggesting any deal would not be completed in July. Yahoo’s shareholder meeting is August 1.

If a search engine allows its users to change the results, is it still called hacking? While many news outlets are saying Wikia’s new features allow users to hack results, it’s really just part of their modus operandi.

Today, Wikia announced a plethora of new features for users to have their say in how search results should really be. And here they are:

• The ability to edit any result, title and summary. The edits are then instantly available to everyone
• The ability to add new results for any search query instantly
• The ability to delete and/or hide any result
• Every result item can be rated 1-5 stars, which will slowly influence the ranking position
• The ability to add suggested and/or related searches for any query
• The ability to add public comments to any result item
• The opportunity to see site previews and annotate text, images, links and forms directly into the results
• The ability to try any search on Google, Yahoo, or any other search engine with a single click
• The ability to customize the background on the header for a more themed result for any search
• The opportunity to view the change history showing all the social actions for any page

Looks very social, don’t ya think? Let me know by leaving a comment.

Want to learn more about Wikia? Check out these posts…
How Will Wikia Grow The Index?
Wikia Search: Wikia Dream? Or SEO Wake-Up Call?
Wikia Search Requires Your Help
Search Wikia Launches Open Source, Distributed Crawler

The theme of Microsoft Advance ‘08 is “Connected Entertainment:” mobile, music, TV/video, gaming. The big Live Search announcement will be covered live tomorrow.

Today, filmmaker James Cameron’s producing partner at Lightstorm Entertainment, Jon Landau said the abundance of digital information and the ability to use technologies opened up a whole new window for Jim didn’t know e3xisted.

James Cameron started making films when they were photochemical emulsions. Now, films are digital.

“The essence of storytelling stays the same,” said Cameron. “Intense CG (computer-generated) scenes with multiple shots doesn’t change that. My greatest horror was the best thing we create would end up like Ark of Covenant and put in a warehouse somewhere. I will make all my films in 3-D. I’ve been banging on the door at Microsoft since I introduced Windows Media 9 with LL Cool J and Bill Gates in 2002. Now I tell them, this is what you guys need to be doing. I’m going to continue to
surf that wave.”

His new film, Avatar, features a man who tries to become a miner by combining his being with an alien during an interplanetary war in which aliens can manifest themselves through human bodies — avatars.

“‘Avatar’ will make people truly experience something,” said Cameron.”One more layer of the suspension of disbelief will be removed. All the syn-thespians are photo-realistic. Now that we’ve achieved it, we discovered CG characters in 3D look more real than in 2D. Your brain is cued it’s a real thing not a picture and discounting part of image that makes it look fake.”

Part of the movie is subtitled because it takes place on alien planet.

Avatar will have a human heart beating at its narrative center. It’s an emotional journey of redemption and revolution; the story of a wounded ex-marine, who’s thrust into an effort to settle and exploit an exotic planet rich in bio-diversity. He eventually crosses over to lead the indigenous race in a battle for survival.

Cameron has created an entire world, a complete ecosystem of phantasmagorical plants and creatures, and a native people with a rich culture and language. The film has a December 2009 release date.

“I don’t know whether will be great film from narrative and critical standpoint,” said Cameron. “The experience of Avatar will be an experience unlike any other movies.”

He started with Microsoft Research looking at the way people see. The project soon moved out of the realm of speculation.

“‘Avatar’ is the single most complex piece of filmmaking ever made,” said Cameron. “We have 1,600 shots for a 2.5 hour movie. It’s not with a single CGI character, like King Kong or Gollum. We have hundreds of photo-realistic CG characters. We were Microsoft’s sandbox for filmmaking beyond the cutting edge.”

During the film he would grab chairs, gather his team, and talk about what they were doing wrong, how to do it better. That just isn’t done on a film set.

The heart of the film technology is a digital asset management system created by Microsoft, which was praised by Cameron and Landau for understanding the arts and filmmaking. The system can track every cloud and every blade of CGI grass in the film.

Cameron noted that Titanic was about how technology let us down. He has always tried to be on cutting edge of what’s going on. The Abyss featured the first photo-realistic CG character. Then “The Terminator” combined CG and human actors. “True Lies” pushed the bar even higher with composite technology.

In “Titanic” as a filmmaker, I struck the perfect balance of technology and the human heart,” said Cameron. “I haven’t forgotten that lesson with Avatar. It’s the best lesson for any filmmaker.”

Cameron also noted the radical changes in film distribution and made a prediction for the future:

“I’m on the fourth screen. The giant screen. Then it scatters down to other screens. It gets more interesting as more means of digital distribution become available to us. The interesting thing the actual movie business going strong. If valued up revenues of what’s lost to piracy, movies doing better now than they ever have. You can have HD screen in your home.

He noted, “Windows organized things spatially. That gave it its power. But we’re not displaying things spatially. What could happen is now that digital cinema revolution has taken place is killer app is 3D. Dreamworks has announced all its animated films will be made and projected in 3-D. Gaming will be changed by 3-D. Consumer electronics people will need to make players stereo-enabled monitors. Future version of Windows should be fully stereoscopic. Smaller devices already are 3D enabled without glasses. If you play “Avatar” on a 50 inch monitor, you’re in the game.”

Cameron said, “This is the ultimate immersive media. It’s my fundamental belief that when you’re viewing media in stereo, more neurons are firing, learning rates are higher. Engagement levels are higher. As advertisers, you need to think about how you’re going to use this new dimension. How will you use the deeper levels of engagement?”

Part V of the 8-Part BRING YOUR NOVEL TO LIFE Series
By now, you have a solid grasp of the importance of having a theme for your story, of keeping it personal and hidden (to avoid writing the dre…
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I spent this morning installing a new theme for articlesnatch blog. I hope you enjoy it. In the process I tried to remove some of the other clutter as well. Some things were moved to the footer and we also implemented a tabbed system in the sidebar.
I used a theme called “options” [...]