All for Good - Google's New Community Service Search Engine

Google has launched a new community service search engine called All for Good which allows people to look for volunteer opportunities in their communities and within certain areas of interest. As described in the Google blog posting about All for Good:

All for Good provides a single search interface for volunteer activities across many major volunteering sites and organizations like United Way, VolunteerMatch, HandsOn Network and Reach Out and Read. By building on top of the amazing efforts of existing volunteer organizations like these, we hope to amplify their efforts.

Out of curiosity, I entered the search term "genealogy" (being a big fan of RAOGK and the like) and was surprised by the number of opportunities available, such as:

• Publicity and Marketing Coordinator for the Southern California Genealogical Society (producers of the upcoming #scgs09 Jamboree!)
  
  
• Assistant for the Old New Utrecht Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY
  
  
• And one of my favorites: A Genealogy Project To Remember! at the Saint Elizabeth Home in East Greenwich, RI which is looking for someone to help document the heritage of the residents of this facility.

For genealogical societies and non-profits in the genealogy and family history field, now is the time to get those volunteer opportunities posted, especially since All for Good is now on the scene!

Google Goes Semantic?

[Note: I just posted this info over at my genealogy wiki blog, Lowville Long Ago. Normally I don't repost verbatim from one of my blogs to the other but I feel this information is just too important]

If this is true and if it holds, this is hot stuff:

Google appears to be exposing semantic data in its searches. The concepts of semantic forms and semantic data is one that is close to my heart. I feel that genealogy applications should be more than just looking up articles - it should be a highly advanced way of organizing and managing data and rendering results.

It appears that Google is taking its usual search results and then parsing out the semantic data. Example: enter What was Karl's Marx's Birthdate in the search field and this is what you get:



Sweet, no? According to a post on Read, Write, Web, it appears that Google may have been performing this function for quite while but there have been recent refinements to results when you use a "subject - predicate - object" format for your searches.

Many web and tech gurus are predicting that semantic data is a core component of Web 3.0 and I agree. I also believe that this is where genealogy database software and websites will need to go: allowing users more than just looking up data. These applications and sites will need to offer the ability to see relationships between data, between people.

Magazines Now Included With Google Book Search

Google has announced on its Book Search blog that it is now offering results for magazines.

As a test drive, I used the search term "genealogy" and also limited the results to only magazines.



Using the "cover view" gave me an idea as to which magazines are currently included. It appears to be mostly popular magazines and not genealogy or family history magazines, which is to be expected.



But when searching for your family surnames this might be something of value to the genealogist/family historian.

Google's Chrome - Still Bright and Shiny?

I am still working with Chrome but as I said yesterday it is not yet my default browser. It isn't very often I am willing to buy into something brand new without a test drive, let alone Version 1.0. I usually wait for at least another "dot version" and jump in at Version 1.1. or higher.

Also, several people including Denise Olson at Family Matters have given me a heads up to a HUGE issue with the privacy policy that one accepts when downloading Chrome:

11. Content license from you

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

11.2 You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this license shall permit Google to take these actions.

11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above license.

And as I predicted Google has had to do a HUGE pullback from this policy. It seems that as of this evening the language has been removed. According to Google, Google is:

"working quickly to remove language from Section 11 of the current Google Chrome terms of service. This change will apply retroactively to all users who have downloaded Google Chrome."

It turns out that this language is standard practice with some of Google's applications but it really doesn't fit in with using a browser.

Crusin' With Chrome

In case you haven't heard yet today, Google finally released its own Internet browser called Chrome. It appears to have lots of great bells and whistles, especially if you already have many of the other Google toys such as Google Mail, iGoogle, Google Calendar and Blogger.

It was quite easy to install and imported all my bookmarks from Internet Explorer 7.0. The options are fairly easy to change and it seems far more intuitive than IE 7.0. In addition, it has a nice clean look. Also, it did not automatically assume that I wanted Chrome to be my default browser. Once I use Chrome for a bit, I will decide whether or not to dump IE 7.0 and then go to Options to set Chrome as my default.

Check it out and download Google Chrome now before their servers get overloaded!

Problem with Google Subscribe Gadget

Time for me to get into tech mode here! I finally figured out what was slowing down this blog from loading in Internet Explorer or any other browser. Culprit: the Subscribe gadget from Google Gadgets.

Using time tested troubleshooting techniques, I removed all my widgets and gadgets, added them back in one at a time, and after each addition cleared my browser cache and did a page reload. After a short time, I could see that the gadget which allows visitors to subscribe to Destination: Austin Family in various ways was causing the problem.

I'm not very interested in the "why" right now. If a visitor really likes this blog, they will most likely subscribe using various other methods. What is vexing me now is getting the feedback to Google so they can work to improve what could be a valuable gadget. But for now, a slow page load is not worth using the Subscribe gadget.