The most applicable point for me in Damien’s post, was

It was in a past blog post here where I said that if we controlled our activity data, we could actually make money from search engines and the likes of Microsoft HealthVault, so there’s potential there. So I was quite interested when Mozilla announced Weave, their system which will store your Firefox preferences on their servers and when you install a new Firefox on a new computer, it can go to the Mozilla servers and download all your preferences and bookmarks.

According to Mozilla

The idea behind Weave is that all your personal information — bookmarks, passwords and account names, for example — are synced to your Mozilla account via Firefox. If you lose your computer, you can download Firefox, log into your account and you can restore all that information. You can do some of this today if you use Google Browser Sync and Dot Mac services. You can start by creating an account with Mozilla Services. You will need Firefox 3.0 or higher to get this working.

This is relevant to me as the functionality behind the Mozilla Weave has been available in Glaxstar‘s Firefox browser for more than 2 years. When I say available, I’m referring to every single last detail. Whilst Glaxtstar’s Glubble browser is new, I’ve had insight to their technology for quiet some time.

Glaxstar is possibly the only development company in the world that could build a competitive Firefox browser to Mozilla in my opinion (Flock is a 1.0 effort compared to what these guys can do!). That’s if Ian decided to take that route. As it happens, he’s just interested in helping guardians to protect their loved ones from inappropriate content.

Note that I didn’t say, help to protect minors, or help governments protect people. That’s not his job. It’s not Google’s job, it’s not Segala’s job and it’s not the Government’s job either. Ian’s job is to help guardians who are responsible for deciding what’s appropriate and inappropriate for the people they’re responsible for. Technology should be perceived and used as an enabler, not a prohibiter. Furthermore, what a guardian in Germany deems approproate is not likely to be the same as what a guardian thinks in the UK for example. This is why I’d like people to perceive Content Labels as an enabler to help mainstream search engines and browsers to provide better content discovery, not a method for policing the Web.

So, I wouldn’t be surprised if Glaxstar gave the Weave code to Mozilla given that they’ve had it for more than a couple of years and they built Mozilla’s mainstream browser extensions for companies such as Google, Yahoo!, PayPal and eBay. They also maintain spreadfirefox.com and are responsible for resolving defects in the mainstream Firefox browser. That makes Glaxstar the most qualified company in the world to build Firefox add-ons in my opinion.

Luckily for me, Ian Howard, Founder of Glaxstar, is a personal friend of mine. So, who better to build Segala’s Firefox trust extension (not plug-in, that’s something different) Search Thresher. Our extension really is based on The Semantic Web, unlike the claims made by many of the co-called Semantic Web search engines.

Sorting the wheat from the chaff

As I’ve said, Glaxstar and Segala have been working together for the past couple of years. Although, we haven’t updated our extension in over a year (I guess that demonstrates how ahead of the curve we’ve been). As of February though, you should expect to see regular updates for our Trust extension.

Search Thresher is just one of the pieces in our jigsaw to help demonstrate why and how we feel very confident that 2008 is the year to tell Segala’s story. You will notice me talking less about conferences that I host and Chair and more about our Semantic Web method of classifying content.

What’s with the name?

The thrashing machine, or, in modern spelling, threshing machine (or simply thresher), was a machine first invented by Scottish mechanical engineer Andrew Meikle for use in agriculture. It was invented (c.1784) for the separation of grain from stalks and husks.

For thousands of years, grain was separated by hand with flails, and was very laborious and time consuming. Mechanization of this process took the drudgery out of farm labour.

Today, searching the Web is equally laborious. You may or may not find what you’re ’searching’ for and even when you do find what you want, can you trust what you find?

Think of Search Thresher as a threshing machine. It’s a Firefox extension used to demonstrate to search engines and mainstream browsers, how they can (and should!) provide users with more trust on the Web using a method called Content Labelling.

We haven’t touched the extension for over a year as we’ve been focused on other stuff that I’ll tell you about soon. If you’re a designer and would like to be recognized for your work, please feel free to volunteer your services to rebrand the Web site. Search Thresher is a non-profit standards based browser, so this may be of interest if you’re a standards enthusiasts.

We’re not emotionally attached to the name Search Thresher. What do you think of it? We’re open to suggestions if you can propose something better.

Read more about Content Labels – this post also includes sample use cases.

Watch a quick video about Content Labels

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Getting other trust providers to adopt Content Labels sooner rather than later will help build the ecosystem more quickly. It will then become more compelling for mainstream browsers and search engines to read this extra Metadata.

Why should you have to visit each Web site to see if they have a trustmark of some kind? You should be able to specify in your preferences; ‘show me Web sites that are qualified by a medical authority’, ‘show me Web sites that allow me to reuse content under creative commons’ and ‘show me Web sites that enable text resizing’.

Furthermore, we’re going to announce new price points which will shock even our partners. This will help get more Web sites certified and more importantly, labelled.

If you haven’t seen the power of Content Labels yet, why not download our Firefox extension to see how the future of search is likely to look like. If you install the extension, please note that it’s a pre-alpha build. You will also need to search for specific terms such as ICRA, Segala and E-consultancy. There are plenty more terms that will bring up labelled sites but that’s enough to get you going.

This is an exciting time inside Segala as we’re about to see our hard work over the past few years pay off by launching a *true* Semantic application that makes a real difference to end users, by enabling more trust, relevance and reliability in search.

If you’d like to help us seed interest, please get in touch and we’ll give you show and tell before making a formal announcement.

Visit our Web site where you can find out more about our Firefox extension.

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Glaxstar is a company run by a very good friend of mine, Ian Hayward. These guys have built what I believe to be the only 100% full proof way of protecting minors from inappropriate content on the Web. Their newly released product is called Glubble. I’ve known about this for a very long time but have been unable to blog about it.

These are the same guys behind Mozzilla’s bluechip extensions for companies such as Google, Yahoo! PayPal and more recently, eBay.

They’re also responsible for building Segala’s (Semantic) Firefox extension to enable more trust on the Web by reading Content Labels. Ian has asked me enough times for a roadmap of functionality changes so I better get on with it!

Actually, come to think of it, Glaxstar’s Firefox extension built to our requirements to read Content Labels is equally compelling as it adds more trust on the Web based on standards and codes of conduct.

You can read TechCrunch’s review here.

Check it out, it’s fantastic!!! http://glubble.com

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Here’s another go at explaining what Content Labels are. I’ll start by explaining what problem is being solved and then talk about how to accelerate the process of getting mass adoption by building an ecosystem.

Steve Clayton, Microsoft UK Partnerships CTO sums up what we’re doing quite nicely on Facebook.

Had a great chat with Paul Walsh this morning – he has some cool shit going on with Segala that need to be more widely seen!

What problem are we solving?

When conducting a search on the Web, search engines such as Google only display the title and description of Web sites. They do this by displaying the title as a hyperlink, followed by the description of the site. Search engines don’t provide information about the suitability of content to individuals.

What type of information about the suitability of content are users likely to demand in the future?

1. Parents will want to know which Web sites are appropriate/inappropriate for their children in their particular country
2. Disabled users will want to know which sites comply with specific W3C Web accessibility guidelines, to enable them browse the Web in comfort. This is now a legal requirement in countries such as the UK, US, Canada and Australia
3. Some users will want to know which sites have been independently verified by a medical authority so they can trust information which helps them make important decisions
4. Users (e.g. bloggers and journalists) may wish to know which sites permit them to reuse content such as copy, images and video
5. Consumers may wish to only buy from Web sites with privacy statements or follow a code of conduct for e-commerce.

Content Labels enable all of the above

1. Based on the Semantic Web, a Content Label is a file that contains metadata
2. Web site owners use Content Labels to promote their conformance and/or commitment to industry standards and codes of conduct
3. Content Labels are more flexible than any other solution. It is possible to make assertions about an entire Web site or specific Web pages. That is, pages abc are child friendly but the rest of the sites isn’t and the entire site is accessible apart from pages xyz. SSL and current identity certificates don’t support this level of flexibility
4. Search engines and browsers read Content Labels in order to provide more information about the suitabilty of content.

Reasons why mass adoption should be seamless

1. Content Labels (POWDER) will soon become a ratified W3C standard (hopefully by September 2007)
2. Content Labels is going to be proposed as a replacement for PICS; the outdated solution adopted by Internet Explorer today
3. Current implementations of trust use proprietary technology, prohibiting scalability across the entire Web. Why? Well, because unless Web site owners implement their solution and users download/use their plug-in or client software, you won’t be able to see which Web sites should be trusted from search results. In my opinion, they all act like vertical entities without due consideration for each other to help get mass adopt for trust across the Web. Implementers include Netscape Navigator, VeriSign, McAfee SiteAdvisor and GeoTrust etc.
4. The W3C Mobile Web Initiative trustmark (mobileOK) will come in the form of a Content Label. This demonstrates that the W3C see the benefit in using Content Labels for making conformance claims to standards
5. Segala’s Semantic Firefox extension reads Content Labels and alters Google search results. It can even filter out sponsored links. Our extension is being endorsed and promoted by the W3C Semantic Web Education and Outreach (SWEO) Special Interest Group.

Segala is helping to build the ecosystem

1. Segala recently launched a global partner programme to audit and certify Web sites for Web accessibility standards compliance (soon mobileOK amongst other standards in the future)
2. Partners have already started to certify and label Web sites such as Tesco Personal Finance and St. Paul’s, demonstrating scalability at opposite ends of the tail
3. Segala is certifying technology and product providers as ‘Accessibility-ready’. That is, tools that build Web sites which are automatically compliant with specific accessibility guidelines
4. Segala has created ContentLabel.org to provide an independent framework that enables new industry best practices and codes of conduct to be created by anyone, any association or any government agency in any country. Anyone can create a new code by using the inbuilt wiki
5. Segala is almost finished the build of a system that will be white labeled for other trust(mark) providers, including the aforementioned above. Our technology can also be used by new trust providers that want to launch new standards and codes of conduct anywhere in the world
6. Segala is helping mainstream browsers and search engines to better understand ‘how’ to make the simple changes required. We are doing this by providing the Firefox extension and soon, Internet Explorer plugin.

We are delighted to partner with Segala as we believe the Segala Trustmark provides excellent, highly credible recognition based on stringent best practice for accessibility. I am confident that our clients who attain the Trustmark certification will benefit from it.

- Emma Kirk, Strategic Director

How to get your Web site certified and labelled

Contact Segala to have your Web site audit and certified. We will also provide the Content Label to ensure your Web site is highlighted in future search results.

How you can certify and label your clients’ Web sites

Join the Seagla-certified partner programme and we will provide you with all the required tools that will enable you to sell and provide Web accessibility services.

Check out what current partners have to say.

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I still don’t like listening to myself as I find all the faults of slipping up on the ‘odd’ mispronunciation and of course, repetition, which I’m particularly good at. We covered quite a lot of (different) ground so Paul has split the interview into 3 episodes;

1. About Segala
2. About Content Labels and how they will improve search by enabling trust on the Web
3. Best practice guidelines for blogs, the positive spin

The third episode has not yet been published on Chilibean. I’ll post it as soon as it’s released (scheduled for next week).

You can also find a useful explanation about Content Labels in a previously written blog post.

Enjoy!

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ICANN

ICANN has voted against the introduction of a new domain called .xxx which would have given the adult industry its own domain. The so-called independent body cited a list of reasons why the application was rejected. However, they didn’t cite ‘how’ it failed to meet their requirements. The application has now been put forward and rejected 3 times.

The idea behind the .xxx domain was simple. Each registered Web site using .xxx would use a Content Label to enable browsers and search engines identify adult orientated content. This would help parents protect their children from potentially harmful content by selecting preferences to exclude all .xxx Web sites from search results.

The application received widespread support from those who know more than anyone, how to protect children from inappropriate content and those of us who specialise in content classification to enable more reliable and relevant search for the future.

On March 30th 2007 I received an email from Stephen Balkam, CEO of the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI, formally known as ICRA) informing me of the bad news. FOSI’s board represents brands such as AOL, Microsoft, AT&T, BT, Cisco, GSM Association and others. Due to project work, I haven’t been able to write about Segala’s position until now.

In order to declare our relationship, Segala has a licence agreement with FOSI for the provision of Segala-verified services to Web sites that carry an ICRA label. This helps users to differentiate between self-labelled and independently verified Web sites.

A recent news release put out by FOSI includes

We are disappointed by ICANN’s decision not to approve the .xxx domain.
We believe it has missed a great opportunity to increase the use of content labels and thus make filtering and other child protection efforts more effective.

We also regret that the voluntary funding of the International Foundation for Online Responsibility from the .xxx registrations will not now become a reality. Contrary to the ICANN resolution, which erroneously asserts that the .xxx proposal avoids the protection of vulnerable members of the community, the proposal was actually an important self-regulatory effort in the field of online safety, and passing it up only hurts parents and children.

- Stephen Balkam, CEO of FOSI.

I think ICANN has not only demonstrated its lack of understanding in how to protect children online, it has also demonstrated that it is not independent and free of political agendas. It has fallen foul to religious commentators who have the ear of one or two seats in the White House. In my opinion, ICANN should not reside in the US, it should reside with the United Nations, which is completely independent.

What is the answer?

Well, current filtering methods are certainly not the answer as they are extremely limited and mostly ineffective. For example, Internet Explorer uses a very old W3C recommendation called PICS (Platform for Internet Content Selection). To the end user, this is called site advisor and can be found in the options section of the browser’s preferences.

Segala amongst others such as FOIS, Vodafone, T-Mobile and others, feel that Content Labels is much more appropriate. Content Labels is currently going through a W3C Full Recommendation Track to ratify the method as *the* standard for content classification and labelling. Content Labels is also being proposed as a replacement for PICS.

You can read what Jemima Kiss’ has to say on her blog at the Guardian.

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Viacom, owner of Paramount, studios and MTV says that Google has breached its copyright 1.5 billion times by allowing YouTube users to share video clips. And the outcome of the $1bn lawsuit may have a knock on effect for newspapers and blogs. So, newspapers such as the Guardian and Independent and bloggers such as TechCrunch, Robert Scoble, ReadWrite/Web and Vecosys better watch the outcome of this lawsuit.

Make sure you read beyond the quote as I go on to talk about *the* solution to this problem.

According to the Independent (original article)

The case, which accuses Google’s YouTube video-sharing site of building “a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others’ creative works”, has the potential to redefine how content is used on the internet. “If it goes to court, this will be the biggest case since Napster [the music-sharing website shut down by litigation in 2002],” says Edgar Forbes, senior lecturer in media law and intellectual property at Bournemouth University.

[snip]

Bloggers and websites increasingly use newspaper articles to attract users, provoke debate and sell advertising on their sites. “This is a big issue,” says Larry Kilman of the World Association of Newspapers. “If a company like Google is using content and selling advertisements around it, that is of concern to many newspapers and publishers.” The association, with partners including the global news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP), Macmillan Publishers and Independent News & Media (parent group of The Independent on Sunday), is working to create an international protocol to regulate online use of newspaper content.

The Automated Content Access Protocol (Acap) would let owners of published content communicate permission information automatically in a form recognised by internet search engines. This would allow legitimate online users to comply easily and quickly with copyright law. Lawyers say such an international standard would be immensely useful. But making it work requires absolute clarity about what is protected by copyright and how it can be enforced.

Paul M. brought this to my attention because of the ACAP (Automated Content Access Protocol) connection. What ACAP is looking to achieve is exactly the type of use case that we have in mind for Content Labels .

In fact, I discussed this particular use case with Philip Hallam-Baker, Chief Scientist at VeriSign over dinner last year. Philip told me of their proposed (and very propritary) solution with Microsoft before the launch of IE7. I remember saying that what VeriSign could do to combat Phishing for $800 per certificate, Segala could do for $8 using Content Labels <g>

Jemima Kiss wrote an article about Content Labels, covering some of the major use cases in the Guardian today. Perhaps Jemima will write about Segala’s proposed solution for ACAP soon…

According to Acap’s homepage

ACAP will enable the providers of all types of content published on the World Wide Web to communicate permissions information (relating to access and use of that content) in a form that can be automatically recognized and interpreted, so that business partners can systematically comply with the publishers’ policies. In the first instance, ACAP will provide a framework that will allow any publisher, large or small, to express access and use policies in a language that search engines’ robot “spiders” can be taught to understand. It is anticipated that, in future, the scope of ACAP will be extended to other business relationships and other media types.

As a result, it will be possible for publishers to make more content available to users through the search engines, and to continue to innovate in the development of business models for network publishing.

I hope they’re not spending too much time and money on developing a new ‘standard’ for which there is a solution already, a solution that is going to be the standard for labelling content on the Web (and potentially for mobile and TV). In short, Content Labels does exactly what ACAP want to achieve.

Known within the W3C as POWDER (Protocol for Web Description Resources), Content Labels is moving onto a full recommendation track. This means our Content Labels are set to become the standard method for content classification on the Web. The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) is responsible for creating standards such as HTML and WAI Guidelines. This helps to ensure that our method of labelling content is (beyond) scalable and importantly free or low in cost.

Furthermore, Content Labels (I mean POWDER, sorry, I can’t get used to the new name), will be proposed as a replacement for PICS. PICS is the old/out dated W3C recommendation still in use by Internet Explorer for Site Advisor.

I came up with the idea of contentlabel.org to help organisations like ACAP adopt a system for its own code of conduct almost immediately and seamlessly. It also helps industry create new codes of conduct for which Content Labels will be created, as reported by the Guardian.

There are too many proprietary technologies and so-called standards looking to achieve the same goal. I’m not saying for a second that this is what ACAP is trying to do, but let’s not create another standard if it’s not necessary please. In fact, I’ve already been introduced (by email) to ACAP’s project coordinator and technical project manager and look forward to hearing from them.

I’ll write a separate post which looks at all the current attempts at enabling more trust on the Web using ‘a’ standard. For now, I must catch a train into an Internet People event.

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The article is entitled ‘Boost for Web Content Labelling’.

Technology firm Segala is spearheading an initiative to help internet users identify trusted web content through a comprehensive labelling system.

Irish-based Segala has been developing content labels for more than two years and is now in talks with major web organisations and publishers to roll out the service for a number of applications.

Different content labels could be developed for different uses, although three of the most significant applications could be for labelling sites that meet accessibility standards for web users with disabilities; blogs that have signed up to a set of agreed editorial standards; and adult content.

Sites that have signed up to agreed editorial standards would display a small logo in search results and different content labels would have different logos. The logo could also be displayed on the site itself.

To read the full article on the Guardian Web site you need to register, but it’s free!

As a side note, Vecosys has just reported about our recent partnership announcement with Terapad.

Please get in touch if you’re a trustmark provider, or want to know how to create a new code of conduct.

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Did you ever wish you could have a blog that was guaranteed to meet W3C Web Accessibility standards?

Well, Segala and Terapad are working on a strategy to deliver an Accessibility-Readyâ„¢ blog solution.

In fact, Terapad isn’t just a blog platform; it’s a simple way to build Web sites (as well as blogs) with an integrated shopping basket and PayPal payment system. Terapad is an existing platform with existing blogs and Web sites running on it. However, soon you will be able to setup a Web site or blog that’s guaranteed to be accessible, with the push of a few buttons (literally!).

We started off with the Segala-Certified Partner Programme to help agencies and freelancers sell and deliver accessibility services. This enables them to award their clients with the Segala Trustmark (and Content Label). Taking accessibility to the next level is coming sooner than we anticipated; certifying products and technology as Accessibility-Readyâ„¢.

I’d love to hear from people who would choose Terapad for their blog or Web site if it meant a guaranteed level of Accessibility compliance.

Watch this space!

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I met Scott Rutherford from Cominded for dinner last week. Our aim was to eat plenty of grub, drink too much and discuss how Content Labels can help improve search results. Our discussion was quite productive and Scott came up with a good idea to allow self-labelled sites have a badge of some kind that allowed users to rate the trustworthiness of the assertions made by the site owner. So, he’s thinking like us as it’s on the roadmap for Search Thresher.

More importantly and much more interestingly (now I’m getting to the photographs!), we met Sarah Harding from Girls Aloud in the restaurant. She’s even more beautiful in real life than she is on TV or in these photos. Really nice girl too!

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