Search Engines: A Toy Hunting Tutorial

Every once in a while, I'll get an email from a Flickr pal or blog reader asking me to help them find a toy. While I don't mind helping folks out, I think the hunt is part of the fun of collecting - while it can be frustrating, it's a blast to finally run across that elusive gewgaw that you've been searching for. Many people are amazed at how quickly/easily I can usually find something, but the search method is really quite simple. Here's how I do it:

Search engines are your friend - you can find almost anything online if you want to (and sometimes when you don't). Here's my three best guides when thrashing through the undergrowth of information:

1) Google - I guess that's pretty obvious, but maybe it's not so obvious that I favor the Google Product Search over regular ol' Vanilla Google. It's called "Shopping" in the topmost menu. Not only might you find what you're looking for, but since you're using the product search, it's probably for sale, too!

2) thefind.com - I just discovered this one. It may not be as powerful as the almighty Google, but it does turn up stuff that Google doesn't, so it's worth keeping in your backpack as another option. I have found toys here that don't show up in either of the other two methods.

3) eBay - This is especially good if your toy isn't currently available. I'm sure you've read my advice that I've written constantly in my Toy OTD columns about saving eBay searches - if you can't find your toy right away, you can save your search for up to a year, and eBay will automatically send you the latest results every day without you having to do anything! Pretty cool, huh? I generally find that almost anything I want usually turns up within a year.

So those are the tools that I use, but how do I use them? It's not super-tricky to use search engines, but it is a bit of a skill - or at least a way of thinking. Here's how to enter search terms into an engine for the best results!

Let's say you're looking for a toy from the latest Transformers cartoon. Right now, you don't know anything else but that. You can enter "transformers toy" into a search engine, but you'll get tons and tons of results to wade through. How do you narrow it down? Well, first you need to find out what the new show is called - that will distinguish it from all of the other Transformers programs that have aired over the last twenty-five years or so!

Maybe you've just seen a clip, (but not the opening title sequence). You can drop "transformers" into Google's Image Search, and look at a bunch of robot pictures until you find one that looks like the clip you remember. Every picture has a link to the original page it came from, so chances are you'll be able to figure out which program was the source of the picture. Since you're looking for a brand new show, you'll probably find it more easily, since fans of a newer program will be much more likely to jump online right away and post a bunch of stuff about it.

Another way to go is to enter "transformers fan site" into Vanilla Google, and find out about the show that way. More than likely, a huge group of internet nerds have already done a lot of the work for you!

Okay, now you know that the show (and the toy line) is called Transformers Animated. Generally, that should narrow things down sufficiently to find the toy that you want. But let's say that it doesn't - let's just say (for the sake of argument, because this will happen in other searches) that the websites that you found didn't have much more information than the title. So now you'll need to narrow things down a little further. The more specific you can be, the less digging through search results you'll have to do.

Who makes the toys? This can be really helpful to learn, especially if you don't have a lot of other information (or if the toy is an older one). You'll need to use a search engine ("transformers animated manufacturer"?), ask your robot geek friends, or chat with some online at a Transformers fan site. Most internet folks love sharing information (aka showing off their knowledge), and will be happy to help you!

By now, you've figured out that Hasbro makes a lot of the Transformers Animated merchandise. Okay, now you need to figure out which toy you want. Let's say it's an action figure (as opposed to bedsheets or something). Now you need to know which character you want. Hopefully by using one of the methods I've already mentioned, you can figure out which robot you want - for instance, you find out that the character you like best is the one that turns into a police car, and that its name is Jazz. Great!

Now you can jump onto any of the search engines you want and have a really good chance of finding exactly the figure you want (or at least thinning the results down to an acceptable amount). Here's some other things to keep in mind:

How big is the toy? - many characters (oh, say Batman for example) come in a very wide variety of sizes.

Can the name be misspelled easily? - I missed out on a bunch of eBay auctions for Dr. Seuss items because a lot of eBay sellers spelled it 'Suess'. Enter a few variations in your saved searches!

Be specific, but not too specific - you may have learned more about the toy you want than the seller by this point! Try more generic terms too, just in case, but add one really specific word to keep the results manageable. Most engines pick out keywords for additional results, but it's good to keep in mind.

Is there anything else distinctive about the toy? - is it an exclusive? Does it have a special name? Was it featured at only one toy show/online shop/convention? Who designed it? Who customized it? Etc.

Don't hunt on a deadline - some toys can take months or years to uncover. Be patient and thorough!

Well, that's the thinking that I use when I'm toy hunting. I hope these tips help you to find some long-loved, long lost toy. Good luck!

You Never Know What You'll Find...

...when you use Google Image Search. I was looking for the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom CD art (so I could have it come up as an iTunes icon), and this showed up!

What's even wilder is that one of my co-workers went to school with him! Small world...

Viacom Sues Google

LA TIMES: Viacom files $1-billion suit over YouTube
By Dawn C. Chmielewski, Meg James and Thomas S. Mulligan, Times Staff Writers
March 14, 2007

With a $1-billion lawsuit, Viacom Inc. is aiming to upend Google Inc.'s plan to change the way people watch TV and movies.

Viacom, which owns MTV Networks and Paramount Pictures, sued Google in federal court Tuesday, accusing the Internet company of "brazenly exploiting" the power of the Web to make easy money off Hollywood's hard work.

Google's YouTube video-sharing service has "deliberately chosen not to take reasonable precautions" to stop users from posting unauthorized clips of shows including "SpongeBob SquarePants" and "South Park" and movies such as "An Inconvenient Truth," the suit says. "YouTube profits handsomely from the presence of the infringing works on its site."

Viacom isn't the only old-media company with that opinion. Several book publishers and news agencies have sued Google for alleged copyright infringement, though none has Viacom's deep pockets or fighting instincts.

Until recently, Viacom was one of several companies struggling to reach deals that would allow them to share in the YouTube advertising revenue that their shows generate. NBC Universal recently sent a letter warning that Google should better protect copyrighted material.

"Everybody recognizes litigation is not a particularly desirable business outcome," NBC Universal General Counsel Richard Cotton said in an interview before the Viacom suit was filed. "What you have is everybody going the last mile to try to find a constructive business solution. But I guess what I would say is this is the last mile."

Viacom's lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, seeks at least $1 billion in damages for alleged copyright law violations. A Viacom spokesman called that "a very conservative estimate." Under copyright law, Viacom could win $150,000 per "willful" infringement, meaning that penalties on the more than 150,000 alleged violations would approach $23 billion.

Google attorney Glenn Brown said the company was confident about its case.

"More importantly, we're proud to continue giving creators a place to post and discuss their videos, whether it be a family's home video or a company like the BBC or any of the other big professional media companies to partner with us to host their content," he said.

The Mountain View, Calif., company has become both friend and foe of TV networks, newspapers and other traditional media companies. They crave the traffic Google can direct to their websites but fret that it's making so much money off their material.

"Google has said its mission is to be able to provide quick access to all of the world's information," said Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff. "Much of the world's information is copyrighted. So unless there is a resolution to this question, they can't succeed."

It was clear Google was in for a fight when it bought YouTube in November for $1.6 billion. TV networks, movie studios and record labels were already complaining about the website's failure to block pirated videos.

YouTube launched in December 2005 with videos of a founder's cat. People began to flock to the site's karaoke bits and online confessionals, then figured out that they could share and watch snippets from thousands of TV shows, music videos and movies. The site became perhaps the Web's largest collection of buzz-worthy TV highlights.

The site's traffic rocketed to more than 34 million U.S. visitors in February, up from 4 million a year earlier, according to Web research firm ComScore Networks. Networks and producers were happy to be along for the ride, until it became part of an emerging Internet behemoth.

"When YouTube was a fun start-up that wasn't monetizing the content, I was fine with it," said Ben Silverman, executive producer behind such popular shows as "The Office" on NBC and "Ugly Betty" on ABC. "But the moment they sold themselves for $1.6 billion and became a service that was making money off other people's content, the game changed."

Viacom contends that since YouTube has successfully screened pornography from the videos its users contribute, it should be able to police the site for copyrighted material. When Viacom asked Google to take action, "they kept saying, 'It's difficult,' " Viacom spokesman Carl Folta said. "If it's difficult, shut your site down until you get it right."

At NBC, executives have struggled to decide how to deal with YouTube. A year ago, the "Lazy Sunday" skit — a satirical rap about cupcakes and the "Chronicles of Narnia" — found its way onto YouTube and reintroduced NBC's "Saturday Night Live" franchise to millions of young viewers.

The leak triggered conflicting impulses within NBC. It wanted to use the emerging technology but couldn't let what it saw as copyright infringement go unchallenged.

NBC decided to play along with the online video start-up, if only to gauge YouTube's promotional potential. Perhaps this online community attracted by videos of toilet-trained animals and skateboard antics could be harnessed to lure young viewers to professionally produced new shows such as "Heroes" or "The Office."

The video-sharing site reaped only $15 million in revenue for 2006 — roughly the same amount broadcast networks typically collect in advertising in one night. But TV executives resented that their shows had helped make multimillionaires of YouTube's young founders, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim.

They also feared that YouTube would disrupt their advertising business by becoming the gatekeeper between online viewers and TV programming.

NBC went full circle: from demanding the removal of "Lazy Sunday" and other NBC clips, to striking a broad promotional partnership, to once again considering legal action.

The company declined to comment Tuesday.

Legal analysts said the case would test the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a 1998 law that shields Internet service providers from liability for material their users post online. To qualify for protection, service providers must remove unauthorized material when notified of its presence by copyright holders.

YouTube has long maintained that it is protected because it immediately removes copyrighted video when notified.

"We feel it's a very clear law," said Glenn Brown, Google product counsel. "It makes clear that sites like YouTube basically enjoy this safe harbor, providing they make this removal process easy for content owners to make a choice about what they want to do with their content."

But Greg Gabriel, a Santa Monica entertainment lawyer, said YouTube was stretching the boundaries of the safe harbor provision, which was intended to protect Internet service providers that wouldn't know that infringing materials were on a website unless notified.

"This is where YouTube is in trouble," he said. "You can't even log on to YouTube's Web page without seeing a half-dozen infringing clips."

The stakes are incredibly high in the fight, San Francisco intellectual property lawyer Annette Hurst said. The outcome could tilt the balance between allowing technology to flourish and protecting the creative community's interests.

"Google is probably the only company that could have bought YouTube," she said. "They had an already-existing business model not premised on infringement. And they were the only ones who could afford to take a risk."

meg.james@latimes.com dawn.chmielewski@latimes .com thomas.mulligan@latimes.com Times staff writer Joseph Menn contributed to this report.

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I've got mixed feelings about the lawsuit. I certainly understand wanting to protect intellectual properties that you own (I really don't agree with posting entire films or TV episodes), but at the same time, it seems like everyone involved understands how YouTube operates and what makes it valuable.

What would happen to YouTube's audience if you remove all infringing clips? Why did Google buy it if infringement is a significant part of its appeal? Are YouTube and Google simply being punished for being too successful?

Why not strike a deal with them, rather than trying to sue them into the ground? Allowing some content to be viewed (or more content for a limited amount of time) could potentially broaden a paying audience, or (best of all) reveal demand that hadn't been known to exist before.

Maybe I'd be more hardline about the infringements if it were one of my films on the site. Still, I don't think YouTube clips make me not want to buy something - most of the videos are of such poor quality that I'd still buy anything that I'd want to own permanently. I think, properly used, YouTube could be a very powerful promotional tool, with exposure to a huge audience.