Visitor from Planet Microsoft

We've had many TrailBar downloads from Google but it seems Microsoft like the idea of trailblazing too ... ;-)

search@skippy:~> whois 207.46.98.142

OrgName: Microsoft Corp
OrgID: MSFT
Address: One Microsoft Way
City: Redmond
StateProv: WA
PostalCode: 98052
Country: US

NetRange: 207.46.0.0 - 207.46.255.255
CIDR: 207.46.0.0/16
NetName: MICROSOFT-GLOBAL-NET
NetHandle: NET-207-46-0-0-1
Parent: NET-207-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Assignment
NameServer: NS1.MSFT.NET
NameServer: NS5.MSFT.NET
NameServer: NS2.MSFT.NET
NameServer: NS3.MSFT.NET
NameServer: NS4.MSFT.NET
Comment:
RegDate: 1997-03-31
Updated: 2004-12-09

RTechHandle: ZM39-ARIN
RTechName: Microsoft
RTechPhone: +1-425-882-8080
RTechEmail: noc@microsoft.com

Trexy on Tour

We're going on Tour.

1st Birthday Blog

The blog is one year old today!

And what a year it's been ... we started the blog because we wanted to share a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into creating a new search engine: the trials and tribulations.

The past year has seen lots of perspiration and some inspiration. If you've been following along you'll know that the march to our BETA release was long and arduous. The battle with the bugs raged all year:

• Bugs Run
  
• Cluster Growing Pains
• Basket cases
• Day 4 Bug-a-Thon - Brain Drain
• KISS This Bug
• WebTrailBar War
• Got it!

We had some 'environmental' problems too:

• Wireless Wipeout
  
• Baton down the Hatches

But it has also been a lot of fun! During the year the team has more than doubled in size:

• A Special Day
  
• Welcome Sven
  
• Then There Were Five
  

For the first time there were more than two people at the office Christmas party!

All along Meg and I have pursued the dream of making a useful search engine that fulfills the trailblazing aspects of Vannevar Bush's 1945 vision.

It was really emotional when we finally hit the "Go Live" button: Trexy is off and Trailblazing.

But we didn't send Trexy out into the world without protection. We had already prepared the company and our research and development efforts were recently rewarded with some patently good news. It wasn't long before Google paid us the first of many visits.

The competition is fierce but The Goat is now well on its way! Looking forward to more trails and tribulations next year ...

More Trailblazers From Different Countries

The latest countries to start trailblazing are:

Poland
Japan
Sweden
Lebanon
Iran
Brazil
Thailand

To start waving your country's flag, download the TrailBar.

Hot Off The Press

We've had some interesting articles written about us since the SES conference in New York. You can check them out here:

Roundup: Search Engine Strategies: http://www.clickz.com/experts/search/results/article.php/3589231

A Goat Blazes the Trail at SES: http://www.dmnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=35919

Trexy – Rhymes with “Sexy”: http://blog.xodp.org/blog.html

Trexy - Suchanfragen speichern und teilen: http://www.at-web.de/blog/?p=467

Creating Trails in the Blogosphere: http://reblogger.wordpress.com/

Trexy Sees Trails with new Technology: http://www.adotas.com/2006/03/trexy-sees-trails-with-new-search-tool/

If you spot any articles about Trexy, it would be great if you could let us know.

Goodbye Jeeves. May The Force Be With You!

Nige and I say our farewells to Jeeves at the Code Red party in New York.

It's How You Throw It.

We had a great week exhibiting at the SES conference in New York last week.

It was the first time we've put our Cycle of Search board game to the test.

To win a soft goat, exhibition attendees needed to throw a hoop on one of the hooks on the steps in the Cycle of Search. So it is essentially quoits.

Standing over a meter away from the game, it was great to see all the different throwing styles.

Variations included:

• The overarm slammer - powerful throw that quite often sent hoops flying
• The gentle toss - timid throw that sometimes fell short of the game
• The upsidedown shaker - dramatic inverted underarm throw
• The reverse frisbee toss - emphasis placed on spinning.

We were glad that people could play it in their individual ways and win.

We designed the game so conference attendees could take the Cycle of Search for a spin and think about the psychology behind how we search for things in everyday life.

To play the game we asked people to give us their business card, given we gave out over 350 goats, you can imagine we have a bit of follow up to do.

Trexy on Show

We've had an intense two days! Here's a quick summary:

• Trexy has been well received and the media is beginning to pick up the story
• Met lots of partners, old and new
• Meg did an interview for the Washington Post. We're both doing a radio interview this afternoon.
• Hundreds of people stopped by our booth
• 350 Trexy soft toys have found new homes
• The first ever "Trexy Pub Trail" took place last night
  

The news is spreading around the blogosphere too:

• http://www.pandia.com/sew/181-trexycom-old-idea-gets-new-life.html
• http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-03-01-n56.html