From the PubSub webpage:

February 9, 2004 – PubSub Concepts (www.pubsub.com) today officially launched a no-cost “search-and-alert” subscription service that continuously scans over a million weblogs and RSS news feeds to instantly alert users whenever specified items of interest appear. This unique, real-time, notification service is made possible by PubSub’s proprietary technology. Every day, the company’s servers perform billions of matches of requests against newly published items.

PubSub’s “search-and-alert” service is based on a new internet-scale generation of Publish & Subscribe technologies designed to extend traditional search engine capabilities, which currently function on historic data. Today’s search engines crawl the web to fill databases and then wait for a user to come and search against that indexed information. Because of the time it takes for search engines to crawl and index billions of web pages, their information is, on average, several weeks old. In addition, a user must repeatedly visit the search engine to refresh their search.

Where search engines cover information from the past, PubSub’s “search-and-alert” service searches the future. The service receives a user’s search term only once, and then is continuously on alert as that search term is matched in real-time across a vast array of weblogs and RSS news feeds worldwide. Users are immediately notified whenever their search term matches newly released information.

Users need not register personal information to take advantage of this free service, which is actiivated once the user inputs a search phrase and selects their notification preference. “Search-and-alert” then stays active, continuously monitoring new content until the user commands otherwise.

In addition to providing up-to-date information on search requests, PubSub’s service makes it possible to connect users interested in the same subject matter. As users subscribe to alerts for real-time data on a variety of interests, and the service responds by pointing to information as it is published, people talking about the same topics will immediately find each other. For instance, a search subscription for “antique Porsche” will very quickly bring together all users who have mentioned those words in their weblogs.

“Our technology creates connections between people based on what is being said rather than where it is being published,” said Bob Wyman, PubSub’s CTO and co-founder. “The technology, because it matches on search terms, will rapidly find and connect users with the same interests.”

In addition to “search-and-alert” results, PubSub’s high-speed matching technology allows developers to build applications that perform statistical and trend analyses in real-time. The company has published an API to the service, allowing users to be notified via REST the instant their subscription is matched. Other interfaces such as SOAP will be added soon.

To illustrate the capability of the service, PubSub has created sample “search-and-alert” feeds that currently connect to news and conversation on the Oscars, the U.S. Presidential Elections and Technology Trends. On the site, users can very easily create their own customized subscriptions to track published information on any item of interest, including hobbies, favorite movies, interesting gadgets, favorite celebrities, etc.

PubSub Concepts is a New York-based company founded in 2002 by Robert Wyman, Chief Technology Officer and Salim Ismail, Chief Executive Officer. The company develops real-time, content-based Publish & Subscribe systems at internet scale and plans a series of product releases, extending the search capabilities of this unique technology, throughout 2004.

For more information, please visit www.pubsub.com or email us at info@pubsub.com.

6:25:45 PM    

MyStack.Com

This seems worth a try when I get chance, it seems similiart to Furl, in that I think you can create lists of links. However, instead of a storage area on an independent website. MyStack seems to create html you can paste into your blog.

So if this interests you, don't wait for my lead, just give a whirl!

4:26:32 PM    

Two bits on NPR recently changed my point of view on two things: The West Wing and young people's music. First about The West Wing. I heard several interviews over the course of a week with David Chase, the creator and producer of The Sopranos, promoting the new season, which of course, like everyone else I am watching and so far really enjoying.

They asked him to compare producing for HBO, a cable channel, with commercial TV. He said the difference is over-stated, and most of what's on The Sopranos could be done on the big networks. Then he explained how The West Wing works and opened my eyes.

Without naming the show, he said they give the plot a sense of urgency and importance by making the characters walk fast and using a SteadiCam. Now I've watched for both, and imagined a not-moving camera and actors that stay in one place, and all that's left is stupid unbelievable overly dramatized TV crap. I can't believe I was so easily fooled. Was I, or has the bubble of belief just popped, and if so was The West Wing ever more than a quick camera and quick feet?

Second perspective-alterer. Yesterday on All Things Considered, a very young thoughtful and sweet analyst, Mikel Jollett, explained slowly and carefully why rap music is a way for us old folk to look inside ourselves and find our parents and grandparents, disapproving of us as we now disapprove of the younger generation's music. It finally happened, the young folk have invented something that proves us to the hypocrites that we are. What relief. (No sarcasm.)

Here's the deal. What is it with the young people's music these days, the drugs, violence, raw sex, perversion, explicit language. Back in our day music meant something, it was a cause, we were fighting back against a heartless system that was killing us, both spiritually and physically. We took drugs to turn on and tune out.

But it's not true, the young man pointed out. And he did his homework. He played a long section of an old 60s favorite, Everybody Must Get Stoned, by Bob Dylan. It's a great song, one of his most popular (and it's so stoned that's not even the title!). But was it really better than Maggie's Farm, or Blowin in the Wind? Of course not. But it's fun because it's about breaking the rules.

I just listened to Lola by the Kinks. "I'm not dumb but can't understand why she walked like a woman but talked like a man." And Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison -- some of the biggest heroes of our day died tragic deaths at their own hands. Did their music mean something and if so did we get it, or did it just make us feel like we too were living on the edge? Probably more of the latter.

Jollett's point is that youth wants to be corrupted, and if I remember correctly, that's true. I never did most of the things that were in the songs I admired as a kid, and it certainly freaked my parents and grandparents to hear what I was listening to, but of course, that was the point. Music for young people is a ritual that's still sacred. That we grimace and don't recognize that it's exactly like the music we loved when we were young, is validation that they're doing something new. And god bless.

8:28:58 AM    

Weblogs and RSS are Hot Topics

"The most striking observation from two days at the CIL conference is that THE hot topics of conversation are Weblogs and RSS. I can't tell you how many times I overheard people taking about blogging or asking questions about RSS. There were no fewer than eight opportunities to learn about these technologies, and there were at least 200 people at Jenny's presentation yesterday on the wonders of RSS. I really get the sense that the news is starting to spread faster and faster. It's pretty cool to watch, as always...." [Weblogg-ed News]

Agreed! In fact, I ended up doing a 45-minute intro to RSS yesterday because so many of the presenters were talking about RSS but no one had really defined it. A lot of light bulbs yesterday!

In fact, I have a new goal for the Internet Librarian conference in California in November. When I do my next presentation about RSS there, I want to be able to highlight the following services:

• An OPAC vendor that provides native RSS feeds (with a wizard-like administrative interface that lets librarians choose which subjetcs and authors feeds they will provide);
• A third party database aggregator (like ProQuest, EBSCOhost, FirstSearch, etc.) that is offering saved RSS searches to which library patrons can subscribe, combined with library barcode authentication in the major news aggregator software.
• An RSS feed (including one for keyword search) from one of the major print trade journals (Library Journal and American Libraries, I'm looking at you!).
• An RSS feed of new additions from a library's digital collection, whether it be for images, audio, or video.

If your organization is interested in being the one to do this first and get all of the glory, please contact me!

8:24:43 AM    

Via a search on feedster for RSS and "tipping point," I found that Jeff Barr of syndic8 had suggested that RSS was near its tipping point a day before my post suggesting that RSS had reached its tipping point on InfoWorld.com.

It would be great to hear from folks at other traditional media sites how their RSS traffic stacks up against "regular" traffic.

12:29:57 AM