Carnival of Web Search

Every Friday, I'm going to be doing a Carnival of Web Search, which basically is a round-up of some of the best web search and search engine-related blog posts out there. Please feel free to send me additions to the Carnival of Web Search.

• Silicon Gossip [BuzzMachine]
  "Valleywag, the latest from the Denton boutique, is up and running with Nick Douglas, who did a great job on Blogebrity, at the snarkboard, proving that there can, too, be gossip about unattractive people."
• 5 Growing Internet Technologies of 2006 [rev2.org]
  "I hear a lot about these technologies on a daily basis, so I thought it would be cool to make a list of technologies - not companies- but protocols and new ways of getting information across, that will make 2006 feel like 1999 all over again (but better)."
• Human Rights Caucus briefing [Official Google Blog]
  "For today's Member Briefing of the U.S. Congressional Human Rights Caucus on "Human Rights and the Internet -- The People's Republic of China," we've submitted the following statement..."
• Contrasts in presentation style: Yoda vs. Darth Vader [Presentation Zen]
  "Edward Tufte says: "PowerPoint is Evil." This got me thinking... What if Darth Vader -my favorite fictional bad guy- gave a formal presentation? How would it look? How would it compare to the presentation style of Yoda, the wise Jedi master?"
• Social Software Top 10 [Corante]
  "With the caveats that Alexa's data is not comprehensive-and even if they had perfect stats, "Alexa Rank" is still just one definition of popularity (a combination of reach and pageviews)-here's the 10 most popular social media sites (with corresponding Alexa 100 rank):"
• Gracenote: The Music Info Database You've Used But Possibly Know Little About [SearchEngineWatch]
  "The International Herald Tribune article: The End User: Sounding new notes, offers a brief but interesting profile of a music information database that you've likely tapped when you enter a CD into a CD player or download a track."
• Internet Explorer 7 Goes Beta...Way, Way Beta [SearchViews]
  "Yesterday Microsoft released a beta preview of their Internet Explorer 7 update, which anyone can download and test. Well, anyone who's running Windows XP. And who's got Service Pack 2 installed. And who can pass muster with Windows' software licensing authentication process...anyone at all!"
• The Blogosphere and the Mohammed Cartoons [BloggersBlog]
  Bloggers are discussing the widespread outrage in the Islamic world about cartoons that were recently republished in several European newspapers....There have been threats of violence against those publishing the cartoons and boycotts of Danish products by Muslims who consider the cartoons and production of images of the Prophet Mohammed to be blasphemous."
• Do Your Users Trust You?: 21 Tips for Improved Website Credibility [StuntDubl]
  "One way to increase on the conversion question is to increase credibility. To me it makes sense that if it adds credibility for the user, it's eventually gonna be rolled into an algorithm somewhere as well."