Jimmy Wales, Founder of the web based encyplopedia known as Wikipedia join hands with Amazon to create a brand new search engine.Amazon has never been shy about their interest towards competing with google in the search engine industry. 

The latest development in amazons aspirations toward search engine dominancy comes with the same idea driving wikipedia’s success.The project has been code named “Wikiasari” which is a combination of wiki, the Hawaiian word for quick, and asari, which is Japanese for “rummaging search”.

Google does have flaws that come with it’s massively popular search engine which Jimmay Whales hopes to exploit for his benefit.

Traditionally Encyclopia’s were created by authors who were limited to a specific area of expertise but with the launch of Wikipedia back in 2003, people from all over the world were able to add in their input.To put it into simple words “user interaction” has been the driving force behind its success, and the same may hold true of a search engine.

Basically,Jimmy plans to create a search engine in which the general public decide the usefulness of the content found in sites all through out the web.His Wikipedia project has been a huge success and so the possibility of success in his newest venture could also prove to be viable. 

Mr.Wales did however conclude that catching up with Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft’s MSN or even smaller operators such as Ask.com will be a difficult challenge.

Update:Jimmy has stated that Amazon has nothing to do with this except for being a financial investor.This just goes to show you the extent in which certain reporters would go to create a sensational story.

[via:Times Online]

Often publishers of PDF files do not take into count the basic idea behind creating pdf files for the web.When creating pdf files you are trying to make them easily accessible.There are many tips that can be used to help optimize your pdf files for web use.If implemented correctly pdf files can even increase your site traffic significantly.

I am still suprised to find that many people out there still do not realize that google bot can crawl and index pdf files.In fact google claims that pdf files are second most common filetype in their database after html files.

Other than google itself,major search engines including yahoo and msn are capable of indexing pdf files.If you have any doubts regarding this information,just enter a query such as SEO filetype:PDF in google,which will display results containing the PDF format. 

When creating PDF files to be used in your website or blog,you should keep in mind some of these tips:

»Limit the size of your pdf files to be as small as possible.Keep in note a large portion of the web is still using traditional dial up lines. 

»Create pdf files using programs that are completely text based, instead of graphic based ones such as photoshop.Photoshop converts your pdf files into a image file,which can be a hassle for search engines to crawl. 

»Place a link to your pdf on your homepage for easy crawling by spiders.Visibility is everything in search engine optimization,so you want your files available at a page you know is crawled regularily.

»You should also place a link to your website inside the pdf file for visitors seeking more information about you.This could in fact turn that viewer into a regular visitor to your site.

»If you are placing images inside pdf files,you should provide a caption for each image.This helps search engines better index your page.However, avoid using alot of images inorder to preserve your file size.There are ways to compress the size of pdf files using various programs.I really haven’t tried using any of these tools.

»You should always add keywords relating to your topic in the document properties.

Using these simple tips could bring about significant results in the accessability of your pdf files.

Its no secret that digg.com is one of the most popular sites out there for bloggers.Digg provides a way for bloggers to reach out to the community.In fact an appearance in the front page of digg.com can boost your traffic to thousands.

Have you ever wanted to see the diggs being populated live?

Digg has included two flash applets in their tools section.These applets were designed to show stories being digged live in front of your eyes.

One is called stack which shows diggers stacking up on popular stories.However this tool only shows up to 100 stories at once.All of the activities are color coded,meaning the stories that are brightest have most diggs.The visualization has three modes: all activity, popular, and newly submitted stories.It is certainly great to see the whole digg process live before your eyes.

The other applet does almost the same as stack but with a different graphic.Instead of diggs being stacked up on popular stories,diggers swarm around stories.This also is color coded to show the most digged stories as being bright.The visualization has the same modes as stack. 

Check out these tools here at Digg.com