A pack of text indexing, web crawling technorati have started an open source indexer project. This looks like a great idea on multiple fronts: spreading the knowledge of how such things work, having an engine where the biases are transparent, and providing a platform for experimentation by those not employed at Google or Yahoo. They will undoubtedly run straight into the myriad attempts at index spamming encountered by the commercial search engines, and watching that arms race play out in open source will also be educational.

If you've got money, server equipment, or coding time to offer, cruise on over.
2:53:24 PM    

The movie industry starts to feel the bite of greater inter-personal communications. It's not P2P, but instead text messaging of instant reviews by movie goers. Word of mouth is swamping out opening week marketing blitzes, spreading the word if the flick is a canine.

Hunters, not sheep. Get used to it.

Via Smart Mobs
2:48:06 PM    

...sort of. Bereft of DARPA's $8m budget, but also of the political correctness now hanging around that institution, the folks at Rantburg - an open intelligence site that is definitely not fair and balanced - have decided to cook up their own. The first sketchy implementation is here. I expect they will have some fun figuring out how to get meaningful input without troll overrun, but it should be amusing and informative to watch. No funding, no oversight, no shit - the blogosphere in action.
10:43:31 AM