http://web-owls.com Searching and Researching Wed, 07 May 2008 21:00:38 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I've been playing around with eHow.com for about a month now, and I must say, I'm pleasantly surprised and possibly, mildly addicted. They invite user-submitted content on "How to" topics. This can be pretty much any topic of your choosing (no matter how much of a stretch), as ... http://web-owls.com/2008/05/07/ehow-an-interesting-community-that-pays-for-content/ Harper, Raban, Rafaeli & Konstan from the University of Minnesota have investigated online Q&A services to find predictors of answer quality. In their paper, they report that: First, you get what you pay for in Q&A sites. Answer quality was typically higher in Google Answers (a fee-based site) than in the ... http://web-owls.com/2008/04/15/uofm-says-paid-qa-sites-get-best-results/ Google operated the Google Answers service for four-and-a-half years, and during that time regularly highlighted questions and researchers deserving of a moment in the spotlight. Here, for posterity, are the questions which were awarded "Question of the week/month/quarter": "Safety of Helicopter/Plane Tour of Grand Canyon" http://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=17078 "Trade Magazines in Western Europe" http://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=23032 "13 Companies ... http://web-owls.com/2008/03/13/spotlighting-google-answers-questions-and-researchers/ UNdata isn't the antithesis of data (in the way that UNcyclopedia is the antithesis of an encyclopedia). Undata is a remarkably convenient way to access statistical data collected from the many and varied international governmental organizations that make up the United Nations. Over 55 million database records are held on the site. ... http://web-owls.com/2008/03/06/undata/ In my previous post I mentioned a heuristic which we can use to help judge the reliability of what we read: Has a fact been derived from a single grand vision, or from many different ideas? That idea is that a fact derived from the convergence of many different ideas is ... http://web-owls.com/2008/02/05/dodging-misinformation/ So you want some information, and you need it to be more reliable than the average web page. Who do you turn to? You make the effort to track down an authority. Not so fast. It doesn't always work. Pope Urban VIII, who was learned in the sciences, ratified the statement that The ... http://web-owls.com/2008/01/10/authoritative-misinformation/ If I had to pick a topic that I thought was unsuited to wikis, market research would be that topic. Sources are closely guarded, figures are usually unverifiable and sometimes unsubstantiated, and the entire market research industry is built on some rather flimsy assumptions. No, a market research wiki could ... http://web-owls.com/2008/01/03/researchwikis-for-free-market-research/ Happy New Year Everyone! Here's how they ushered in the new year of 1795, according to the Times of London. Vive la Bagatelle, indeed. A new year and a merry one, to one and all. David http://web-owls.com/2007/12/26/may-auld-acquaintance/ I'm going to try something bold, and see if I can post an image here...somehow, it never seems to go as smoothly as I hope it will. W00t! (not Woot) -- a word I first came across in online groups just like this one -- is officially the Merriam Webster Word ... http://web-owls.com/2007/12/13/woty-w00t/ I'm here to blow off some steam. What is it about university-based search engines that makes them -- without exception -- so frustratingly clumsy? The latest entry from Carnegie-Mellon University -- the Universal Digital Library aka The Million Book Project -- should have us all jumping for joy.  Then Million Book Project ... http://web-owls.com/2007/11/30/a-great-new-resource/