Zomobo - A Real-Time Encyclopedia

Zomobo is a new site that bills itself as a real-time encyclopedia. Zomobo, like the similar Mashpedia, pulls the latest information available about specific topics that you're interested in. When you look up a topic in Zomobo you will get information pulled from blogs, social networks, Flickr, YouTube, newspapers, news sites, and Wikipedia.

Zomobo's Greece Page. 

Applications for Education
Real-time encyclopedias can be very useful for students studying current events around the globe. Students have access to reference materials (via Wikipedia) and up to the minute news stories in one place. While Zomobo is good, the advantage of its competitor Mashpedia is that Mashpedia includes reference materials from the multimedia encyclopedia Qwiki.

Update: July 3. I just looked at Zomobo again and found that some of their "related topics" are not appropriate for school. I'll stick with Mashpedia.

Mashpedia, the Real-time Encylopedia, Adds Qwiki Element

Mashpedia is a real-time encyclopedia that publishes reference pages comprised of information from the social web. Each Mashpedia page pulls information from sources like Flickr, Twitter, Wikipedia, and blogs. Recently Mashpedia added a Qwiki element to their service. Qwiki, as you may recall from this post, is a multimedia encyclopedia that contains narrated overviews of more than three million topics.

Applications for Education
The combination of Mashpedia and Qwiki provides students with a wealth of current information about millions of topics. Mashpedia was designed with current events stories in mind, but it also offers a lot of good resources about topics that aren't as rapidly developing.

Topsy - Real-time Search of the Social Web

Topsy is a search engine that scours the Internet for the most recent and most talked about links, images, and Tweets on the web.

To use Topsy just enter a search term like you would with any other search engine. The difference with Topsy is that your results are ranked according to how much a link or image has been discussed or shared on the web. The more something has been shared or discussed, the higher it ranks in results. You can sort your results by links, images, Tweets, or "experts." Experts in Topsy's rankings are people and organizations that are linked to most frequently compared to other sources. You can also narrow your search results according to time of posting on the web. For example, you can narrow your results to just links that have appeared in the last hour.

Applications for Education
Topsy and other real-time search engines are quite useful for finding up to the minute resources during major events worldwide. This morning I used a different real-time search engine called Mashpedia to find some videos, images, and news stories about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan to share with my students. I could have just as easily used Topsy for the same purpose.

Mapeas - World News on a Map

Mapeas is a new service for geographically exploring the news. Mapeas places sports, entertainment, business, science, and general news stories on a map. Click any circle on the map to zoom-in on a location and select a story. Stories are provided by ABC, NBC, Fox, the Associated Press, and AFP. Stories are linked to articles for further reading and or to videos.

Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo for the link.

Applications for Education
Mapeas could be a great resource for anyone that requires students to read global news stories. Students can locate stories by location which provides a geographic context for the stories they read.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
The Full Wiki - Wikipedia Meets Google Maps
Mashpedia - The Real-time Encyclopedia
Nachofoto - Realtime Image Search

Google Launches a Realtime Search Engine... Again

Last December Google launched a realtime search element that displayed realtime updates within standard search results. Today, Google launched a stand-alone realtime search engine. Google Realtime Search is a stand-alone realtime search engine that draws its results from social networking sites as well as other news sources.

There are a couple of features in Google Realtime Search that should prove to be useful. First, you can refine your search results by time (go back an look at what was being said 12 hours ago) and by location. The other useful feature is a the "conversations view" of results. Conversations View will enable you to see the entire progression of a conversation on a social networking site without having to click through a series of links and updates. Learn more about Google Realtime Search in the video below.


Applications for Education
Google Realtime Search could be a great resource for anyone that has a current events component in his or her curriculum. When a story breaks, have your students look at how quickly a story develops on the web by monitoring the updates to Google Realtime Search results.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
Real-Time Search Options
Collecta, Real-time Search, and Professional Learning
Free 33 Page Guide - Google for Teachers

Five Real-time Search Engines for You to Try

Today at Edubloggercon the post-lunch session was labeled as a technology apps smackdown. A smackdown is organized as a fast-paced presentation of many tools by many people. Everyone takes a turn sharing for two minutes. I came to the session late and missed out on the chance to share three real-time search engines with the audience. Real-time search engines draw their results from popular social media services like Delicious, Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr.

What makes real-time search results different from standard search results is that the most current links are given priority over older links. Real-time search is very helpful for finding information about the latest trends or news in a particular niche. Here are some real-time search engines that you should try.

Scoopler is real-time search engine that allows you to simultaneously search Delicious, Digg, Twitter, and Flickr in one place. Scoopler is quite simple, enter a search term and you'll find results from all four of those services. Results are sorted into two columns, "live" which provides the most recently shared links and "popular" which is based on the number of times a link has been shared.

Mashpedia is an interesting service that matches reference articles from Wikipedia to materials from other sources like YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Digg, and the web in general. The purpose of drawing materials from multiple sources is to provide users with a comprehensive view of news stories and reference topics.

NachoFoto is an image search engine designed to bring you the latest images from across the web on emerging trends and breaking stories. According to their whitepaper NachoFoto searches for images based on recency, image density on a webpage, inward links, and domain authoriy. What this means for people searching on NachoFoto is that they will see new photos before older photos, will find images from sites that frequently post new quality images, and find images from websites that are family friendly.

Faroo is a real-time search that offers a couple of options not found in other real-time search engines. Faroo allows you to sort your search results by current popularity or sort your results in a timeline format. Faroo also gives you the option to preview a link's content by hovering your cursor on the link without actually clicking the link. Finally, if you're following a topic, you can subscribe to the RSS feed for your search and be notified of new results as they appear.

Collecta is a real-time search engine designed to draw the latest links about any given topic from a variety of sources. Collecta draws its results from Twitter, YouTube, and various blogs and news websites. Collecta offers a free widget that you customize to search for particular terms and place on your blog or website.

Here is a related item that may be of interest to you:

Beyond Google - Improve Your Search Results

NachoFoto - Realtime Image Search Engine

A picture is worth a thousand words and when a news story is breaking that is especially true. NachoFoto is an image search engine designed to bring you the latest images from across the web on emerging trends and breaking stories.

According to their whitepaper NachoFoto searches for images based on recency, image density on a webpage, inward links, and domain authoriy. What this means for people searching on NachoFoto is that they will see new photos before older photos, will find images from sites that frequently post new quality images, and find images from websites that are family friendly.

See NachoFoto in action in the video below.


Applications for Education
NachoFoto could be a great resource for anyone that uses current events in his or her classroom. NachoFoto provides images that could help complete the picture for students after reading a story. You could also use the images to introduce a story.

Through the use of NachoFoto's timeline slider your students can look back at images taken over the course of the development of a news story.











Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
Real-Time Search Options
Collecta, Real-time Search, and Professional Learning
Google Real-Time Search: Here Comes Everything!

Mashpedia - The Real-time Encyclopedia

Mashpedia is an interesting service that matches reference articles from Wikipedia to materials from other sources like YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Digg, and the web in general. The purpose of drawing materials from multiple sources is to provide users with a comprehensive view of news stories and reference topics.

Here's how Mashpedia worked when I searched for "Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill." When I entered my search, Mashpedia returned results from Wikipedia, Digg, YouTube, Flickr, and Twitter. As a part of the same results page Mashpedia also returned collections of blog stories, news articles, general images from across the web, and books related to my topic. All of the results from a search on Mashpedia appear as categories on one page.

Applications for Education
Mashpedia could be a great resource for a current events class. By offering video and image results, Mashpedia provides materials that can be accessed by almost all students regardless of reading level. By listing links from multiple sources students can quickly compare news stories to what real people are saying about a story.

Mashpedia is also useful as a starting place in a student's quest for multimedia resources about a reference topic such as Winter Olympics or World War II.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
Search Cube - Six Sided Visual Search
Spezify - Visual Search Engine
Beyond Google - Improve Your Search Results

Add Real-time Search Results to Your Blog

Real-time search engine Collecta has just released a customizable widget for putting real-time search results on your blog or website. Creating your custom widget is an easy process of specifying search terms, choosing dimensions, and giving your widget a name. After making those three specifications simply copy the code and paste it into your blog's template. I've already placed my custom widget into the right hand column of Free Technology for Teachers.

Applications for Education
Collecta's real-time search widgets are very easy to create and edit. They're so easy to edit that you could alter them to adjust to the trends in the news. This could be helpful if you teach current events. Creat a widget to give your students a place to keep up with developments in big stories like the earthquake in Haiti.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
Collecta, Real-time Search, and Professional Learning
Google Real-Time Search: Here Comes Everything!

Google Real-Time Search: Here Comes Everything!

Last week Mashable's Pete Cashmore wrote, for CNN, 10 Web Trends to Watch in 2010. First on that list is an increase in real-time search options. Today, Google announced that they will be rolling-out their own real-time search options over the next few days. Google's real-time search will draw results from a wide variety of places including Twitter, Facebook, and FriendFeed. Real-time search results will appear within the regular list of search results. The real-time search results will continously update unless you pause the updates. See my screen capture below.













You can get a preview of how Google's Real-Time search will work by visiting the Trends page and clicking on a trend.

The video below provides a brief overview of Google's Real-Time search.


Applications for Education
Real-time search engines are great resources to have when a story is breaking. These resources could be put to use by students in a current events course or in a journalism course. When I taught a current events course one of my favorite things to do was to have students analyze the reporting of one story from multiple sources. Real-time search brings in not only the stories from the major news outlets, but also brings in the "person on the street" perspective from social networks like Twitter and FriendFeed.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
Collecta, Real-time Search, and Professional Learning
Real-Time Search Options

Here Comes Everything! Google to Search Twitter

Yesterday, Google made a significant announcement, they're going to start serving up results from Twitter when you perform a Google search. As TechCrunch said, "Get Ready for the Firehose." If this works as intended, Google will be able to offer search results powered by the crowd. This could be a great thing when you're searching for time sensitive content such as I did when wrote the post Honduras, Scoopler, and Current Events.

Refine Google Search Results for Timeliness

Over the last year I've written about real-time search engines numerous times because I believe that there are some good reasons to search for not only accurate information, but also timely information.

Last week Google announced some new search refinement options that will allow users to find more timely information. The new search refinement options allow users to specify a range of dates from which to draw links, specify the last 24 hours, or specify the last hour. To access these search refinement options select the "show options" link in the top-left corner of the search results page.













Applications for Education
Being able to sort the timeliness of search results could be an excellent option for current events teachers and students. Refining by date could be useful for other academic fields as well so that students aren't using information that has been supplanted in the field by newer, more relevant information.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
OneRiot Now Offers Realtime Search Results
Scoopler - Search Delicious, Digg, Twitter, and Flickr
Real-Time Search Options

Faroo - Real Time News, Real Time Search

As I've written a few times, real-time search engines are a great way to find the latest developments in a news story. Real-time search engines are also great for finding trending topics in a niche area. For example, I use real-time search engines to discover trending topics in educational technology.

Faroo is a new real-time search that offers a couple of options not found in other real-time search engines. Faroo allows you to sort your search results by current popularity or sort your results in a timeline format. Faroo also gives you the option to preview a link's content by hovering your cursor on the link without actually clicking the link. Finally, if you're following a topic, you can subscribe to the RSS feed for your search and be notified of new results as they appear.

Applications for Education
Real-time search engines are great resources to have when a story is breaking. These resources could be put to use by students in a current events course or in a journalism course. When I taught a current events course one of my favorite things to do was to have students analyze the reporting of one story from multiple sources. Real-time search brings in not only the stories from the major news outlets, but also brings in the "person on the street" perspective from social networks like Twitter and FriendFeed.

Here is a related item that may be of interest to you:
Real-Time Search Options

Collecta, Real-time Search, and Professional Learning

Collecta is a real-time search engine that launched a little over a month ago. I've written about some other real-time search engines recently and you can find those articles here and here. In general all real-time search engines are designed to draw the latest links about any given topic from a variety of sources. Collecta draws its results from Twitter, YouTube, and various blogs and news websites.

Applications for Education
I've written before about using real-time search engines in Social Studies classrooms, you can read that post here.
Real-time search engines could become valuable tools for educators to learn about new research, ideas, and trends in education. In addition to learning about topics in the education field, teachers can also keep up on the latest information regarding their particular content area.

Itpints - A New Real-Time Search Engine

The creation of real-time search engines is one of my favorite developments of the web in the last year. As I mentioned in this video, using real-time search engines is how I find quite a few of the resources that I mention on Free Technology for Teachers. Real-time search engines are also great for tracking the developments of a breaking news story.

Itpints is a new real-time search engine that pulls results from Backtype and Twitter. The benefit of pulling results from Backtype is that is finds not only new stories, but also it finds stories that are being actively discussed and commented on by readers at any moment.

Applications for Education
Real-time search engines like Itpints are great resources to have when a story is breaking. These resources could be put to use by students in a current events course or in a journalism course. When I taught a current events course one of my favorite things to do was to have students analyze the reporting of one story from multiple sources. Real-time search makes it possible to get coverage of a story from multiple perspectives.

Here are the three other real-time search engines that you should try:
OneRiot
Scoopler
CrowdEye

Question Most Commonly Asked of Me at NECC

This is the last morning of NECC 2009. Since Saturday the one question that I've been most frequently asked is, "how are you finding so many things to blog about?" In the video below, filmed in the NECC Blogger's Cafe, I give the answer that I've been giving most frequently.


Here are the three real-time search engines mentioned in the video:
OneRiot
Scoopler
CrowdEye

Honduras, Scoopler, and Current Events

The news broke earlier today that the President of Honduras, Jose Manuel Zelaya, had been removed from power by military force. The first thing I did upon reading this was jump on Scoopler to search for real-time links and comments on the story. Scoopler allows you to find the most recent Twitter comments and links about a breaking story. I just got back to my room here at NECC and the real-time search results just keep pouring into Scoopler at rate of about one item every 3-5 seconds.

Applications for Education
Real-time search engines like Scoopler and One Riot are great resources to have when a story is breaking. These resources could be put to use by students in a current events course or in a journalism course. When I taught a current events course one of my favorite things to do was to have students analyze the reporting of one story from multiple sources. Real-time search brings in not only the stories from the major news outlets, but also brings in the "person on the street" perspective from social networks like Twitter and FriendFeed.

If you'd like some resources for learning about what's going on in Honduras here are a couple of links:
CNN News Video
BBC News Video

For general information about Honduras (and all countries) the CIA World Factbook is always a good place to start.

Twitter Search in Plain English from Common Craft

Here is another great production from Common Craft. Twitter Search in Plain English reviews what Twitter is and what Twitter search (and real-time search in general) can offer you that static searches cannot.


On a related note, Common Craft is hosting a meet-up at NECC later this month. I plan to attend and hope to see many of you there too. You can get the details about the meet-up here.

Here are some related resources that may be of interest to you:
Present.ly - Your Private Microblogging Community
OneRiot Now Offers Real-Time Search Results
Seven Ways to Find Teachers on Twitter

Real-Time Search Options

This video from Tekzilla gives a brief overview of some options for real-time search. The video is embedded below.


Applications for Education
Real-time search is a good option for students studying current events. Real-time search provides students with access to the most talked about current news stories on the Internet.

Using real-time search tools is one of the ways that I find new resources to write about every day. For example, if I was to just search Google for "math lesson plans" I would get pretty much the same results everyday. But, by using real-time search I find new links everyday.

Here are two real-time search tools not mentioned in the video that I've reviewed in the past:
Scoopler
OneRiot