Briefs: CustomizeGoogle New Release; Open Yahoo; Portico News; Tracking Political Buzz in the U.S.
CustomizeGoogle the robust and popular add-on for Firefox is online with a new release (V0.63) Included in the new release:
+ Added : Stream Google Images search result pages
+ Update: Google Suggest should now also be working on google.com/firefox and google.com/ig
+ Update: Image search sites were updated with DeviantART and Photobucket
+ Update: “Rewrite links to point directly to images” at Google Images was slightly changed
Some of the many features CustomizeGoogle also offers include:
+ Ability to turn Ads/Sponsored Results on and off***
+ Add other web engines to results pages (An easy way to get a variety of results and features from a variety of engines, also useful in training sessions)
+ Block Google Analytics cookies
+ Add a result counter in search result
+ Stream Google search result pages
+ Sticky Google Preferences
and many more.
*** UPDATE: Web ad blocking may not be (entirely) legal (via News.com)
Note: CustomizeGoogle is one of MANY products both free and fee-based that will block advertising from various sites. CustomizeGoogle, like its name says, only works with Google.
++ Yahoo to Break Open (via MarketingPilgrim.com
+ AT&T Expands 800-YellowPages Coverage (via LocalMobileSearch)
The states covered by the service include Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. A similar service was introduced earlier this summer in California.
+ Optical Society of America to archive journals with Portico
+ Tracking Political Buzz in the U.S..
An excellent compilation of resources from Matt Hurst.
Although not offering a politcal only site at the moment, BlogPulse is also worth a look. Of course, forums and message boards also track politics so make sure to add BoardReader, BoardTracker
See Also: More Buzz Monitoring Services in these posts. 1 ||| 2.