ArticleSnatch Blog

You are browsing the archives of New York.

No, this isn’t the latest update of Google Maps Guide to Grand Theft Auto IV.

This is the real deal: Manhattan crime committed in New York, NY and depicted over a two month period from April 2008 to the end of May, 2008.

Spotcrime.com claims it’s the most comprehensive online source of crime information. The site is probably right. They offer local maps, crime reports, crime classifications, and real-time interactive maps.

Soon you’ll be able to find the exact location of the Manhasset High School lockdown as reported by News 12 Long Island, where two students were found at the Manhasset high school carrying firearms.

Spotcrime.com is a Google Maps mashup. Sure Google I/O and 3D apps have drawn all the media attention lately. We thought it would be worthwhile to keep our readers safe in this dangerous world.

You have your choice of crime alerts if you’re interested in a particular illegal act, or if you need to brush up on definitions of illegal acts, Crimespot.com offers a handy index of crimes:

SpotCrime.com Crime Classifications

* Theft - The act in which property belonging to another is taken without that person’s consent.

* Burglary - The criminal offense of breaking and entering a building illegally for the purpose of committing a crime in that building.

* Robbery - Using force or intimidation to take property away from another person in the presence of that person.

* Assault - A physical attempt or threat to use violence with the intent to do harm to another.

* Arson - The crime of intentionally setting fire to a building or property of another or the burning of one’s own property to collect insurance.

* Shooting - The act of firing a weapon in order to hit, wound, or kill someone or something.

* Vandalism - The intentional destruction of or damage to the property of another.

* Arrest - The seizure of an alleged or suspected offender to answer for a crime.

Plus, you can drill down to see the details of the crime. Oh look, here’s one that occurred uptown just from last week:

Shooting - 126th St and Lenox Ave, New York, NY 2008-05-26

EMS command is reporting 10 people shot in total. During this situation multiple foot pursuits, random gunfire, and a RMP MVA took place. Several large pockets of crowds are within the confines this large scene. Ems command has given a general summarization describing the victims as either yellow or green tag patients.

Of course, if you’re a criminal it doesn’t hurt to know what neighborhoods have been overfished by your fellow criminal element. It’s all here for you at Crimespot.com, with new service available on the iPhone.

SEW Expert Eric Enge published a terrific interview on his Stone Temple blog with Yahoo Chief Scientist Andrew Tomkins, who keynoted SES New York. What makes it a great read? Eric asks spot-on questions that cut to the heart of the matter.

Eric Enge: In New York you talked about the future of search, but the thing that really struck me in the conversation was the notion of “webmaster supplied content” communicated essentially directly to the search engine. Maybe you can tell me whether that notion resonates with you in just your general thoughts on the concepts that you laid out in the presentation?

Andrew Tomkins: I’ll start by saying that characterization of webmasters and publishers sharing more structured representation of their content is exactly what we are talking about. I guess it’s easy to think of it as sharing it with a search engine.

The exchange that really impressed me was late in the interview when Eric and Andrew discuss a site’s authority:

Andrew Tomkins: Understanding how authoritative a site is, then specifically for each part of the site; what they are about, how much you should trust them and how much people tend to believe them. How deep they go; all of this is very valuable from the ranking standpoint.

photo credit: Marc_Smith in Flickr

Eric Enge: You could have a site that has a million links, and that has many sections like I talked about, but the tennis section for some reason has very few inbound links from third party sites. Whereas, the camping section has half a million links, where you would actually allocate trust differently by site section.

Andrew Tomkins: That’s a great example of a good cue that you would want to pay attention to.

If you care about how search enignes work and where they’re headed in the future, this interview is a must-read.

Grand Theft Auto 4 sales topped half a billion dollars during its first week of release, earning about 5 times as much as the blockbuster movie, Iron Man. GTA 4 takes place in Liberty City, a parallel universe of New York, NY. More realistic than ever, many buildings and landmarks in the game are spot-on. The soundtrack rocks.

So how are GTA 4 fans navigating the game? Google Maps is powering the Grand Theft Auto Big Map, a wiki-style map where gamers can update places they’ve found in Liberty City.

The Google map has proven so popular with the GTA 4 community, moderators have posted the following message:

Note: Due to the sheer amount of submissions from all you pimps, the review process is taking longer than expected. Please do not submit the same marker twice out of fear your submission didn’t go through.

Here’s an example showing “Missions” and “Services” identified on the Google Map:

There’s a helpful outline of the basic controls of the Liberty City Interactive Map system at GTA ‘Hood. Yo’u'll also find a detailed guide to help you add new marker location points within the Liberty City Interactive Map.

If you want to explore Liberty City online, you have lots of categories to choose from in addition to “Missions” and “Services.” Here’s what’s currently listed: Clubs, Bars, Cabaret Clubs, Strip Club, Comedy Club, Emergency Services, Police Station, Hospital, Fire Department, Missions, Start, End, Primary Objective, Secondary Objective, NPC, Steps 1-10, Most Wanted, Items, Body Armor, Health Pack, Weapons, Vehicles, Secrets, Hidden Package, Easter Egg, Funny Signs, Multiplayer: Extraction Point, NPCs, Contact Person, Pervert, Pigeon.

How detailed is the Liberty CIty Interactive Map? Here’s a screenshot showing all markers:

Of course there are always GTA 4 cheats available, like this one from Playstation Insider, if you want to find the flying rats, weapon locations and half-naked zombies faster.

After the jump, a quick lesson on how to use Google Maps to add your own markers.

Click to read the rest of this post…

What is Cinco de Mayo? It’s the best reason to party (May 5th) at the Cinco de Mayo bash hosted by 212, NYC’s interactive advertising club. Sure there will be lots of Cinco de Mayo activities in New York and Cinco de Mayo food (margaritas!)

What’s the origin of Cinco de Mayo? Whether you spell it Cinco de Mayo, Sinco Demio, Cinco de Mio, or Sinco de Mayo, it’s a great Mexican holiday. Here’s a very brief Cinco de Mayo history:

In the Battle of Puebla, on May 5, 1862, an underdog Mexican army defeated the massive, well-trained French army, arguably the most powerful in the world (that year). The French lost the battle but won the war. That can’t stop us from celebrating Cinco de Mayo traditions, though:

If you’re not 21 years old, please click thru to the next post.

Cinco de Mayo Bash
Dates: May 05, 2008
Times: 6:30 PM - 9:30 PM
Where: Touch Night Club, 240 W. 52nd St. (b/w Broadway and 8th Avenue)
Event Type: 212 Event

Description: Complete madness and good times. Kevin M Ryan will be there with Matt McGowan. Open bar.

A few reasons why you should scrap whatever plans you have on May 5th to party with 212:

1) Touch Night Club (Midtown Manhattan)
2) Hot 97’s DJ Camilo on the ones & twos
3) Open Bar
4) VIP floor (more on that later)
5) Dance performance by Tre Armstrong (from “How She Move”)
6) Open Bar (one more time for emphasis)

And there will be more surprises the night of that 212 can’t share now but would be a shame to miss.

The Web Analytics Association has announced a new board of directors, and here they are:

• Vicky Brock, Highland Business Research, Inverness Highlands, Scotland
• June Dershewitz, Semphonic, San Francisco, CA
• Andrea Hadley, NetSetGo Marketing, Vancouver, BC Canada
• Avinash Kaushik, Author, Analytics Evangelist — Google, Mountain View, CA
• Alex Langshur, PublicInsite, Medford, MA

Neil Mason, Applied Insights, Oxford, England

• Lauria Paxia, I.C.C. S.r.l., Catania, Italy

Seth Romanow, Microsoft, Redmond, WA

• Marshall Sponder, Monster Worldwide, New York, NY
• Robbin Steif, LunaMetrics, LLC, Pittsburgh, PA
• Jim Sterne, Target Marketing, Santa Barbara, CA
• April Wilson, The Dallas Morning News, Dallas, TX

WAA Chairman Jim Sterne said, “The WAA is growing and maturing, and this new Board is a wonderful mix of talent and geography. The cumulative experience of these people is exceeded only by their cumulative IQ. We have a great team for tackling our objectives for the coming year.”

Related Reading:
Bryan Eisenberg Talks about Persuasion Architecture
Interview of Analytics Expert, Eric T. Peterson

Google’s YouTube is the dominant video search engine in the world. So if you’re looking for a “divorce” where else would you search? YouTube divorce, naturally.

Divorce by YouTube? Sure, we can think of lots of ways online video could lead to marital dis-bliss. But using YouTube to prevent a divorce? Brilliant.

Apparently that’s the thinking - or lack thereof - behind UK actress and playwright Tricia Walsh-Smith. She lives in New York (Park Avenue!), sometimes with her husband, Schubert Organization President Phil Smith, the broadway impresario who’s evicting her from their posh apartment.

That’s the set for this UGC reality show. Getting picked up by one of the cable networks, though, or another millionaire is a likely outcome for Ms. Walsh-Smith, who joins the short but impressive list of women scorned who exacted their pound of flesh online.

In the late ’80s, “Trish the Dish Best Served Cold” wrote the now quite appropriately named play, Bonkers. Several of her plays, including’ “Addictions,” “Change the Day” and “The Last Journey,” are scheduled to open in London this year.

Her rant replaces what the UK Telegraph journalist Aislinn Simpson revealed as a bizarre but effective revenge plot - at least to Desperate American Housewives: “stuffing fish fingers” in the curtain rod.

Of course in the Battle of the Ex-es and Sex(es) in the City, men aren’t sitting idly by while women take over the search engine world. (Unless you’re the famously eBay-ted Jimmy “Jimbo” Wales who had his wiki waxed by ex-girlfriend airing his dirty laundry on eBay.)

Try a YouTube search for keyword ”crazy ex-girlfriend voicemail.”

See the full uncensored and unexpurgated video rant after the jump:

Click to read the rest of this post…

Almost a month after the EU approved Google’s DoubleClick acquisition, officials from 27 EU nations have unanimously adopted a proposal that could force search engines to reduce the amount of time they store personal information. The Article 29 Data Protection Working Party met for 2 days in Brussels last week and agreed that six months should be the maximum amount of time data is stored.

Last year Google cut its data storage to 18 months to comply with EU rules. Microsoft and Yahoo followed suit by reducing their storage to 18 and 13 months respectively.

Experts think this could have implications for online advertising. The booming industry is expected to see tremendous growth in the coming years, but relies heavily on personal data to target ads.

In the U.S., efforts have been made by various state officials to limit the way search engines collect information but to largely no avail. Most recently, state officials in New York and Connecticut introduced bills to thwart data collection.

Yahoo announced an agreement today with Computational Research Laboratories (CRL) to support cloud computing research. At Search Engine Strategies (SES) New York last week, Yahoo Chief Scientist Andrew Tomkins previewed the future of search in his keynote address. (For a video of his keynote click here soon.) No doubt cloud computing will one day make search engine innovations possible that we can only dream of today.

CRL, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Sons Ltd., a Mumbai, India-based industrial conglomerate, will lend one of the world’s top five supercomputers to Yahoo for joint research. The CRL supercomptuter has “substantially more processors than any supercomputer currently available,” according to Yahoo.

The first Data-Intensive Computing Symposium held at Yahoo’s campus this week will bring together leading industry and academic experts from all aspects of data-intensive distributed computing.

The symposium is part of a larger effort to explore opportunities for research and application of large-scale computing to benefit applications ranging from machine translation to genomic medicine.

So who in the world are CRL and Tata?

Tata Sons Limited–founded in 1868–could be the poster boy for The Big Switch, a brilliant book by SES keynote speaker, thought leader, and Mike Arrington BFF Nick Carr on the transformation of corporations and computing leading up to the Age of the Internet and beyond Google.

Click to read the rest of this post…

New York State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky has introduced a bill aimed at regulating the way search engines collect private data of its users. Similarly, in Connecticut, the General Law Committee of the State Assembly has a bill that seeks to tighten data collection rules on companies that serve ads on sites they do not own.

State laws attempting to restrict data collection are nothing new. Both Alaska and Utah have laws on the books preventing adware from serving up targeted ads based on the behavior of searches, specifically on trademarked keywords. And California State Senator Liz Figueroa tried to stop Google from placing targeted ads in Gmail based on email content.

Eric Goldman, Assistant Professor, Santa Clara University School of Law, said that states don’t really have the authority to pass these laws because they involve interstate commerce. Instead, the federal government should have jurisdiction over these matters.

“My experience is that state legislators usually ignore any dormant commerce clause defects in their laws and let the courts strike down the laws; after all, I’m guessing no politician was ever voted out for passing a law that courts later declared unconstitutional.”

Privacy expert Alan Chapell, of Chapell & Associates, said that state bills that are passed still have an effect on consumers nationwide. He cited California SB 1386, which requires companies to inform California citizens when a data security breach has occurred. Chapell points out that if citizens of another state find out about a breach affecting California citizens, they’re naturally going to worry about their own data.

But the kind of data search engines collect is not necessarily personal information such as addresses and telephone numbers. Search engines are primarily interested in what people are searching for, and providing them with ads and search results according to historical searches. Because consumers and even politicians don’t truly understand how search engines work, many of these state bills are “attempts by lawmakers to get their name in the news,” according to Chapell.

Assemblyman Brodsky is up for re-election this year. Meanwhile, companies are lobbying Brodsky to preserve their best interests.

According to the New York Times, Microsoft supports - and seeks to expand - the New York bill, drafted by State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky. The bill would force search engines to get permission from users before displaying ads targeted towards their search behavior.

Microsoft’s intentions seem all too clear, with recent declarations by Steve Ballmer to catch Google in the search game. Yahoo sees things differently, and sent lobbyists to meet with Brodsky, apparently to express their opposition. There are obvious implications for how this will affect any merger of the two.

The software giant’s ambition fails to address the question at the root of internet privacy battles: “Who owns the data?” While there are no clear answers, one thing is certain. Many a politician and businessman will attempt to climb their career ladders waging a battle in these murky waters.

It’s Day 4 at SES New York 2008 and the folks from Pan Communications found more than 20 stories about the Search Engine Strategies conference that had been written before 1:45 p.m. when the press room was closed. So, I may be missing some of the additional coverage of the event that appeared later in the day.

Plus, Kevin Ryan, VP, Global Content Director, SES & Search Engine Watch, added a morning keynote to the schedule along with new sessions like “My Search is Better than Your Search.” So, there were plenty of sessions to cover.

Plus, there are so many search engine marketing news sites and SEO blogs that have been covering SES New York that I’m sure I’ve missed some of stories from the event – because its been called “SES New York,” “SES NY,” “SES NYC,” “Search Engine Strategies New York,” “Search Engine Strategies NY,” “Search Engine Strategies NYC,” the “Search Engine Strategies conference,” and the “Search Engine Strategies expo.”

So, while watching the NCAA Mens Final Four in my hotel room, I’ve looked through the news articles and blog posts that I could find from Thursday, March 20, 2008. Here’s the best list that I could assemble of the top ten stories on Day 4 of the event:

1. Yahoo Wants Sites to Play Ball on Semantic Web
Kenneth Corbin of InternetNews.com says, “In his keynote address here at the final day of the Search Engine Strategies conference, Andrew Tomkins, chief scientist of Yahoo’s (NASDAQ: YHOO) search division, described an industry at a tipping point. The search engines are only now beginning to adapt to the explosion of content and the increasing complexity of the tasks people perform on the Internet, he said.”

2. My Mahalo preview at SES New York
Jason Calacanis of Calacanis.com says, “Had a blast at SES New York this week… at the conference we previewed some new features called My Mahalo that build semantic relationships between our users and object in our database (fancy way of saying you and the thing you own, have seen, want to see, want to read, etc.).” He adds, “We also spent some time doing interviews with the SES team. I’ll post a couple here.”

3. WSJ Digital Network gets aggressive with search: SES NY Keynote
Ellen Keohane of DMNews says, “Gordon McLeod, president of the Wall Street Journal Digital Network, spoke at Wednesday morning’s keynote session at the Search Engine Strategies conference in New York, sharing insights about the network’s efforts to grow its site traffic and search presence.”

4. John Battelle on Google Universal Search at SES NY 2008

John Battelle, Founder/Chairman/CEO, Federated Media, is interviewed by Pauline Ores, SES Advisory Board and Senior Marketing Manager, Social Media Engagement, General Business, IBM Corporation.

5. Search Goodness in Bite-sized Chunks
Jason Lee Miller of WebProNews summarizes the highlights from the Search Engine Strategies conference, “Or, SES you can put in your pocket.” He says, “There’s a ton of information pouring out of the Search Engine Strategies Conference in New York City, but we’ve done our best to bring you the best of it so far, via text and via video. Below is a representation of all of that knowledge, boiled down until each little bit fits into its own little nutshell.”

6. Live from Search Engine Strategies New York 2008
Andrey Milyan of Search Marketing Standard summarizes the 16 sessions that his The SES conference in New York has begun and our correspondent, Kent Lewis, is on the scene, bringing you the latest from one of the biggest events of the year.

7. My Search is Better than Your Search
Charles Knight of AltSearchEngines says, “The entrepreneurs and those who dare to do things differently have shaped the web and search as we know it. Is innovation dead? We at Search Engine Strategies and AltSearchEngines don’t think so. Though most experts agree there will be no ‘Google Killer,’ there will be several emerging technologies that will shape the way we search, find and retain content.”

8. Blogging Boogeyman:WHAT Is Social Media Good for? PART 2
http://www.aimclearblog.com/2008/03/20/blogging-boogeymanwhat-is-social-media-good-for-part-2/
Charlene Jaszewski of the aimClear Blog says, “Are you afraid of bloggers? Sleep with the light on? You’ll find reasons to sleep above the covers after you read the next installment Social Media: What Is It and What Is It Good For? from Search Engine Strategies New York.”

9. Search Engine Strategies NYC 2008 Recap - my own thoughts
Marshall Sponder of The Analytics Guru says, “Many people are already familiar with Search Marketing and SEO and there needs to be a way to present material satisfying to all levels, but that might not always be possible.” He adds, “The Social Media/Social Search Tract was the most interesting for me this year and was more expanded than in the past.”

10. Totally Plugged In @ SES New York: 13 Undeniable Symptoms
Marty Weintraub of Search Engine Watch says, “Search marketing conference attendees seem to be the most plugged-in-public group of techno-comrades on earth. We rove in packs of iPhone and laptop-totting pied-pipers evangelizing link love, holistic patterns, authentic participation, conversion tracking, and good will.”