|
The
Film and Performing Arts Search allows users
to filter out irrelevant content and spam,
concentrating on search results that are
truly relevant to their needs and interests.
Although the Google Film and Performing
Arts Search will be improved and tweaked
significantly over the next year, the site
is now ready for use by all entertainment
industry professionals and related websites,
including actors, casting directors, producers,
models, singers, dancers, writers, and directors.
This
new search engine is being developed using
customisation tools and options provided
by Google, and the search results are presented
using Google’s servers and Google-hosted
pages. Although Google is not directly funding
or legally responsible for the development
of the Google Film and Performing Arts Search
Engine or for the engine’s independent
development team, the developers are enthusiastic
about the possibilities of these new niche
search tools and resources recently opened
up to businesses, programmers, and the general
public by Google Inc.
Entertainment-industry
websites can add the Google Film, Theatre,
Casting and Performing Arts Search to their
websites either as a stand-alone search
box or as an integrated part of their current
search options. The technology is entirely
free, with no options or obligations involved.
All entertainment-industry professionals,
webmasters, and enthusiasts are encouraged
to submit feedback for continued improvements
to this new search engine.
Users
will be able to use the Google Performing
Arts search box (on any website site that
offers the search box, or from the Google
Film, Theatre, Casting & Performing
Arts Search homepage) to find content that’s
uniquely relevant to the site’s readership.
Google will bulk up the results using a
worldwide search of all sites, with the
results weighted by which sites have been
added to the engine as "Preferred sites,"
along with weights based upon specific tags/refinements/filters
and keywords relevant to the entertainment
industry. Full sites and/or specific pages
of sites are added as “Preferred pages”
for the search engine to weight in a positive
or negative manner.
Users
and webmasters can recommend what Refinements
(aka, tags, filters, or labels) they’d
like associated with any given website as
a whole, or specific pages of the sites.
That way, when users drill-down the search
results using Google Refinements/Labels,
they’ll be more likely to find relevant
pages in the search results. Current Google
Refinements under development for the site
include the following category labels: Casting,
Auditions, Entertainment Jobs, Acting, Dance,
Singing, Comedians, Film, Theatre, Cabaret,
Writing, Musicians, Models, Television,
Entertainment Industry News, and Reviews
and Gossip.
Webmasters
that add the Google Performing Arts search-box
to their site should contact the search-development
team via email; the team will in turn add
the site’s URL to the current rotation
of websites that link directly from the
main graphic that appears at the top of
every search-results page. Currently the
main graphic links to a Back Stage MySpace
page where this Google Search is already
being used (www.myspace.com/casting_calls_auditions),
but the plan is to change the link once
every few weeks to showcase other relevant
websites.
The
Google Film, Theatre, Casting & Performing
Arts Search Development Team is led by award-winning
writer and content-developer Luke Crowe,
the co-founder of the now-defunct RoboFilms.com
(a pioneer of offering short films and animation
online in the 1990s) who is currently the
New York editor of the Casting Departments
of Back Stage Magazine and BackStage.com.
| 
