So much for those fun and games. Zoo.com, which was lauded as a safe online haven for kids, may not be completely what it seems. Child-friendly? Maybe, though it depends on your sources. Is it completely effective? Doubtful.

Effort has been made in the past to create a kid-friendly search engine, and we thought this one was it. We were excited and we cheered. But ResearchBuzz ran into several shortcomings and questioned the vitality of this system as a whole.

ResearchBuzz finds two issues, primarily that it’s still providing results for terms like “ritalin prescription” (spam, anyone?) and that it is being intentionally devious with its “sponsored” listings scattered throughout regular search results. This issue is a big concern on a search engine intended for children between the ages of 8 and 13, and I completely agree.

The success of this model will require a lot of feedback from individuals if it is to thrive. For one, filtering out over 50,000 phrases might not be enough. Only certain sites should be considered for the engine, because even with its shortcomings and admittance to the system’s imperfections, InfoSpace is almost saying that it endorses the sites that appear in the search engine results.

• Daily Color Scheme: A nifty little tool for web developers who need a creative push for a website’s color scheme.
• Blobs Game: A cute little addictive-quality game where your goal is to eliminate blobs by jumping over adjacent pieces.
• Giveaway of the Day: Each day, one piece of shareware (or commercial) software is available to download — for free.
• Top 100 Network Security Tools: A list of useful security tools for the system administrator.
• Healing Food Reference: Contains a list of fruits and vegetables will aid in healing of illnesses.

Some of the best things in life are free. I am thankful to those who have shared wonderful tools with me and I would like to share them with others too.

A few of these are new tools. Some are old and well-known. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

SEO Tools

• SEO for Firefox: An excellent Firefox addon that provides users market data from Google and Yahoo search results, including PR, age of domain, links from external pages (and types), type of domain, Technorati data, Alexa ranking, DMOZ listing, number of cached pages, Bloglines subscriptions, Yahoo directory listing, and whois information.
• Page Strength SEO Tool: This SEOmoz offering calculates the value and visibility of your page and incorporates links pointing to the URL/domain, Google search results position, age of domain, links from .edu and .gov sites, Alexa rank, number of results in Google that include the domain, internal link percentage, Technorati links, del.icio.us links, DMOZ listing, Wikipedia reference, and Google PR.

With yesterday being the Microsoft Zune official release and the fact that people are adamant about getting a Zune over all other such products out there, I’ve begun questioning how and why people choose to support certain brands.

From recent Hitwise data, Google accounts for over 60% of search. Why doesn’t Google have more than 60% or closer to 70% or even 100%? Is it because the other approximately 40% believe that their search engine of choice is superior (which could very well be the case)? Do they hate the Google ads and not want to see them? Do the others simply not know about Google? Do they dislike monopolies? Or do these individuals in the minority simply not want to support the Google brand on principle?

Consider the hype surrounded by Microsoft (which I noticed was most prevalent in the Windows 98 era). Everyone chanted “Microsoft sucks,” though everyone continued buying Microsoft products and we saw no shortage or significant shifts that evidenced a market shift to something “superior.” Why is this so? Microsoft is what was easiest for everyone. Windows was what worked. Windows had more compatible applications, whereas other competing operating systems (MacOS, Linux) simply did not. Microsoft was the winning brand, but we still saw people, albeit in small numbers, change course.

I find it ironic (and totally unplanned) that the blog topic I wrote on usability on at work today is featured in a similar light from the New York Times in today’s article about web site usability. They must have attended the conferences yesterday for World Usability Day. (For the record, that work blog had been a work in progress since yesterday, before I knew about World Usability Day as well.)

I’ll summarize my blog points on web usability guidelines:

1. Make the goal of your website (a product sale, for example) stand out at you on the landing page.
2. Understand the emotions of someone interested in your website and know that you are not your audience.
3. Include persuasive content. Use power words.
4. Design something memorable — in a good and catchy way.
5. Don’t add unnecessary bells and whistles that detract from your offerings.

The New York Times article reiterated important guidelines that I also touch upon, such as approachability (contact information being easily found), eliminating unnecessary design elements, and even mentions a bit of SEO basics (using quotes from Matt Cutts) as well.