Have you ever wondered how large the Google empire is? I was pointed to a French Google blog Zorgloob via SearchEngineLand and Google Blogoscoped. Zorgloob has actually created the empire on a map. Maybe one day we will see a Google branded Monopoly edition.

In March I took a look at how much Google knows about each of us. Looking at this map tells another story. Of course the map will be outdated by next week with Google's acquisition pace. Don't forget CEO Schmidt's note, "Google buys a start-up once every few days, or around one a week."

This chart includes the GrandCentral acquisition this week.

I wonder what charts for Microsoft and Yahoo might look like.

When I step into a fight I make sure that I have the needed ammunition to win. If you use a gun in battle, make sure it has bullets. If you fight online, make sure you have the right tools to win.

Yesterday Owen Thomas at Valleywag used Alexa to point out how poorly Mahalo is doing. As most of you know I am not a fan of Mahalo. But using Alexa to try to make Mahalo appear a joke is plain stupid. All it does is draw more attention to Mahalo. There are plenty of other ways to pick on Mahalo. :)

What the chart that Owen embedded shows is the topic I discussed last week that the initial "celebuzz" can only take one only so far. Now it's up to the product and Jason to get the buzz to continue and to grow.

The issue with using Alexa to do battle with is a topic we have discussed numerous times on CN. There is so much more that is wrong with Alexa than is right. While Alexa can sometimes be used as a rough guide for tech only sites, I would never use it in a battle.

Services such as Hitwise and Comscore are also flawed but much typically provide more accurate results than Alexa. Quantcast will also be a player as more sites signup to be "Quantified." I can only guess that sometime in the near future Google Analytics will offer a way to share your metrics. Once this happens we may see an Alexa replacement that "may" serve some value.

When I say to you "Web 2.0 Television", what comes to mind? Is it Joost, PodTech, Splashcast, or even Justine? Somehow I landed last night on a site called "Web 2.0 Television". This is the furthest thing from a Web 2.0 TV network I would have ever expected.

Loading the home page you see two women who want you to play the video. The featured video appears to be some party for the launch of Web 2.0 Television in the southwest region of the U.S. They talk to someone from thousandlist.com and then the balance of the video looks like a wanna-be porn tape. Overall the videos across the site appear to be similar to the local channels on a hotel television.

Each city has a 2.0 version.  There is no ability to embed a video and except for comments on the page, there is nothing that makes me believe this is Web 2.0. Where is video commenting like Viddler has? Where is tagging? No Ajax?

I can only guess the founders were trying to think of a name for this city tv network and realized Web 2.0 was hot and decided to go with it. Lame. The truth is that if they had a better local name and design, it might not be such a bad web site.

Note: Alexa says they are the 62nd most popular web site in Kenya!

Tonight I have another submission into CenterNetworks POTY (Post of the Year). This one comes from Richard McManus at Read/WriteWeb. Richard reviews the past year for the "new" Netscape.com. Having been around the Web long enough, Netscape will always mean one thing to me: the browser. Since then it has been through several iterations, the last being Calacanis' attempt to "Digg-ify" the site.

Check out the analysis on RWW for all of the charts and graphs showing Netscape vs. Digg. Unlike Rocky vs. Drago, this one didn't even go one round.

Richard and I seem to agree that Netscape focuses on non-tech stories mainly. However Netscape just does not have the same viral nature as Digg. Netscape is missing the tech kiddies.

My belief is simple; Jason Calacanis left AOL/Netscape at the right time because he knew Netscape would never grow. Will it continue at it's current pace? Sure. But will it be the Digg-killer some called it? Nope. Not today nor ever in it's current form.

Also someting to consider: How much float does Netscape have? How much traffic are they receiving from being listed for years? This is why a sole Alexa chart is meaningless.

TWERQ was one of the first sites we reviewed on CenterNetworks. I was impressed with how much time and effort it saves with regards to searching. I started using it again this spring and now devote a tab to TWERQ. Below I ask founder Wesley Long about TWERQ: what it is, why it's better, how they generate revenue along with questions about the Canadian Web startup market and tips for ya'all building a startup.

Note: TWERQ is a current CN sponsor.

Allen: Can you provide a brief background about yourself?

Wesley: My name is Wesley Long and I have been a professional graphic designer for 15 years, 7 of which have involved website design and development. My experience with search leading up to the development of TWERQ in March of 2006 was strictly from a user perspective with some SEO.

Allen: What is TWERQ and where did the idea come from?

Wesley: The idea for TWERQ came from the frustration of using conventional search methods. I came up with the idea for tabs by just playing around with a design for what I felt would be the ultimate search interface. The name TWERQ which is pronounced as TWORK is an acronym for "The Web's Effective Result Query"

Allen: How does the service work?

Wesley: In many ways TWERQ works like any conventional search. People can search for information and content by keyword or phrase. There is however much more functionality under the hood so to speak.

TWERQ is designed to save you time. It addresses key inefficient navigation barriers with traditional search interfaces that collectively consume a large amount the time spent searching.

Allen: What's the team like at TWERQ?

Wesley: I have been lucky to work with people who are talented and care about the success of the company. Both the management and development team are great professionals and really great individuals who focus on the quality of user experience with ethical and responsible business practices.

Allen: Who are your competitors?

Wesley: With thousands of search engines being developed world wide and the clear domination of Google our competition seems staggering. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft could all be considered competitors although technically they are not due to the fact we display results from all three and let users choose which they prefer.

Allen: Why should I use TWERQ instead of just using Google?

Wesley: There are numerous benefits to using TWERQ. I think to best way to begin is to demonstrate with a simple example. If you are looking for news sources, you may want different kinds of news like world, technology or business news. Traditionally you would search for each of these items separately.

Simply enter the same three searches at once on TWERQ and what would have taken you about 25-30 seconds or more to do using any conventional search will take you 3-6 seconds on TWERQ depending on how fast you can type. TWERQ's interface offers a faster, easier way to navigate searches which can cut the time you spend searching in half. It reduces the amount of memory your system uses, the amount of typing required and offers a centralized solution to searching. Additionally with the TWERQ Hive people can work together and collectively find information even faster.

Allen: Do you have a monetization plan? If so, can you share some details? Are you funded?

Wesley: We are funded, though we do not disclose details or the amount of funding. I can tell you TWERQ is here to stay. Both our group of investors and development team are dedicated and committed to making the web and safer and easier place to search for information.

We intend to monetize initially with our SpotLight Advertising Program which is now available. SpotLight Ads offer advertisers more creative control over how ads are displayed. Advertisers pay a flat monthly fee which is determined by the number of keywords and campaign coverage. There are other plans in the works, all of which will contribute to our LuckyDay@TWERQ Program which shares 30% of the revenue generated with our users.

Allen: Can you share some details about your marketing plan?

Wesley: We are only in the early stages of marketing so again I can't say much. There is still much to be done in the lines of development before fully accelerating our marketing plans.

Allen: What's coming in the next 3-6 months for TWERQ?

Wesley: You will see many new features and enhancements of the existing features. I cannot say too much specifically, but what I can tell you is that you can expect a huge expansion on the number of available sources of information. You can also expect additional features and refinements to the TWERQ Hive.

Allen: Where do you see search moving over the next year?

Wesley: Many people believe search is moving in a more local and personal direction. This is the case in fact if you look at what Google and others are doing in these areas. I have a slightly different perspective in that search is without a doubt moving to a more localized approach but I think that rather then a more personal experience you will see a more collaborative and collective experience.

The problem with personalizing results in my opinion is it that it is a waste of resources and not very efficient. Computers simply do not have the ability to process any kind of information the way people can. Social and collaborative experiences essentially do this in a much more efficient yet fundamental way, word of mouth! This creates by far a better "personal" experience.

Allen: Do you find it harder to get startup buzz in Canada vs San Francisco/Silicon Valley?

Wesley: The power of the internet and blogs in particular has made that less of an issue I think. While it is true that being in the tech capital would have it's obvious benefits I do not think it is the key to creating buzz and gaining exposure to any startup. I think the key to creating buzz on the web besides having a compelling product or service to offer is the social motor of the web. It is truly making the world smaller and location less of an importance.

Allen: What's been your biggest lesson learned since you started TWERQ?

Wesley: Staffing is not easy! Like any start-up the hours are extreme and it can be tough finding people who care about and share your motivation and drive toward the same goal.

Allen: What advice do you have for those thinking about starting a web application?

Wesley: The best advice I can offer is be different. Really try to focus in on things you can use to separate yourself from your competitors. Many people say everything has been done but just when you think that, something completely new and different comes along. You have to be willing to try new things and different approaches. Another piece of advice I would offer is pay less attention to the hype or positive exposure, and more attention to the negative and constructive comments. This is the best way to learn how to improve or better present any software or web application.

Allen: Which RSS feeds are you reading these days?

Wesley: I follow CenterNetworks of course, TechCrunch, Read/WriteWeb, AlternativeSearchEngines, SearchEngineLand, Google, Go2Web20, and many more.

This week has been a very busy one for eBay. We had the U.S. launch of their classifieds site kijiji on Tuesday and today a partnership with Firefox in the UK/Europe and a new Yahoo/eBay co-branded toolbar.

Kijiji in U.S.

Rafat at PaidContent has a good overview of the U.S. Kijiji launch. The classifieds site has been live since 2005 in Asia, Europe and Canada and launched this week in the U.S. My initial question is whether this raises any conflict of interest issues as eBay, parent of Kijiji also owns a 25% stake in category leader Craigslist. At the Social Media Club last month, Craigslist founder said that he rarely meets with eBay. Comparing Kijiji and Craigslist on usability, Kijiji wins. We will need to see if Kijiji can generate an audience which is the most critical element for any classifieds site. (side note: how do you pronounce this company name?)

Firefox eBay edition

Today eBay has launched a customized Firefox version for the UK, France and Germany. The feature list looks perfect for the heavy eBay'r. Almost anything you can do on the actual web site, you can monitor in the browser. Using this customized Firefox version should assure you never miss the chance to win an original Optimus Prime Transformer. It's only a matter of time before this customized version works with the U.S. eBay version.

Duncan wonders, "Whilst Mozilla is more than entitled to partner and provide such a service, open source purists may see the deal as Mozilla selling out." I think there is nothing wrong with what Firefox is doing here and I am sure we will see more of this as their browser share grows. As long as they always offer the base version there is no reason they shouldn't be able to generate revenue from these type of partnerships.

Co-branded eBay/Yahoo toolbar

Yahoo and eBay have partnered together to offer a toolbar that offers search on both eBay, Half.com and Yahoo. Advanced search features let you search any Yahoo property. I would think that heavy eBay users would prefer the above Firefox customized edition as the toolbar offers you only some basic eBay functions. More details on the eBay blog. I believe we will see more of this co-branding between popular service offering and advertising partner/search engine.

Earlier this week I received a note from the Oodle team that their Canadian classifieds search engine went live. Today Mashable posted several Craigslist alternatives and I thought it might be a good time to take a video look at Oodle.

Oodle is a classifieds search engine which means they take listings from classifieds sites and merge them together to allow you to search all of them at once. On the USA version, they have 20 million listings from 75,000 sites and the Canadian version has somewhat fewer listings. Oodle has also released a facebook app recently and they raised $11 million in March.

I enjoyed using Oodle in my testing and found it to be more comprehensive than just searching on eBay. I like that when you click the link to the item you go directly to the source site. If you have used Oodle or will use it in the future, please report back on how it worked for you.

My concern with using Oodle is similar to my concern with using a search engine for Jobs such as SimplyHired or Indeed. What happens if they miss that one listing that I am looking for? What happens if they aren't indexing the one site that might have the action figure my son is looking for?

Another note about book searches… it seems like many of the book searches take you to Overstock via an affiliate link. Not sure how I feel about this since Overstock is not a classifieds site. Perhaps those listings should be noted appropriately as merchant links?

Here is my video review: