It was pretty funny - Stephen Colbert started The Colbert Report last night talking to Siri on his iPhone 4S and not feeling particularly happy about the responses, all of which were real. Colbert began by asking Siri to "write the show" since, as he later explained, he'd been playing with it all day and hadn't gotten anything done. In response, Siri offered to search the web. Colbert's iPhone screen wasn't shown, but the response from Siri was read back. Doing the same thing myself, the response was real: After that, Colbert snaps back at Siri, "I don't want to search for anythin [...]

Related Topics: Apple: Siri | Channel: Mobile | Search & Society: General

Wondering if some celebrity is Gay, Lesbian, Straight or Bisexual? Plenty of people do and turn to Google to find out. But the search engine just stopped offering direct answers about these questions, after they became more noticeable. Google's "Best Guess" About Sexual Orientations Here's an example of one of the answers that were being shown, in response to a search for is anna paquin gay: You can see that Google provided a direct answer: "Best guess for Anna Paquin Sexual orientation is Bisexual." This worked for Paquin and other some other celebrities up until a few hours ago, when [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: Analysis | Features: General | Google: Suggest | Google: Web Search | Search & Society: General | Search Features: Shortcuts

The search industry is getting a little more mainstream recognition every day, as tonight's episode of The Colbert Report picked on Google's handling of the Spreading Santorum situation. This time the target was software engineer Matt Cutts, long known to search industry insiders as head of Google's Web Spam and search quality team, he doesn't often get the same national media spotlight as Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin or Larry Page. But as the man responsible for weeding out poor quality content from Google results, Cutts made the late night news desk. First notified of his Comedy Centra [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Employees | Google: Web Search | Search & Society: Santorum Google Problem | Top News

Is Google (and Bing, by the way) not being "responsible" by failing to remove an anti-Rick Santorum web site? The Republican presidential candidate believes so, speaking out this week against an unfavorable listing for his name. But "fixing" Santorum's "Google problem" isn't as easy as it sounds. Defining Santorum For those who aren't familiar with Santorum's situation, back in 2003, the former US Senator angered gay columnist Dan Savage, not to mention some in the lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender community, with several anti-homosexual comments during an interview with the Associated [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: Analysis | Search & Society: General | Search & Society: Santorum Google Problem | Search Marketing: Public Relations | Top News

Former Senator and likely Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum hasn't yet figured out what to do about his "Google Problem" -- a negative listing orchestrated by gay syndicated sex columnist Dan Savage, which results in the association of Santorum's name with anal sex. And the search issue is getting attention from that much-watched political "fake news" show, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. (The mention is around 1:46 on the clip below.) The Daily Show - Indecision 2012 - Good Luck Motherf@*kers Edition - Blather for Elephants Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Hum [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: SEO | Search & Society: Santorum Google Problem

I remember distinctly how Google reacted during the 9/11 attacks. Miserably, having to resort to using its ad space and special links on its home page to keep people informed, because its results were so out of date. How things have changed, in so many ways. Google On 9/11 Recall Google back on September 11. The screenshot below is four hours after the attack: You can see how Google was literally telling people not to try searching, putting links to news sites on its home page (unprecedented, for Google). That's because the results people got, if they did do a search, were chilling, sad a [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: Analysis | Search & Society: General

The last time Britain had a big Royal Wedding, one didn't tweet about it, Facebook about it, Flickr about it and certainly didn't air it on YouTube. One couldn't. These things didn't exist. But the 21st century British Monarchy is hip to the social media channels of today. Here's how to tune in to the Royal Wedding, via social media. YouTube: Streaming The Royal Wedding Live Want to watch the Royal Wedding when it starts tomorrow (Friday, April 29, 2011) at 11am British Time (3am Pacific; 6am Eastern). Fire up your web browser and tune to YouTube: The Royal Channel is the official cha [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: General | Search & Society: General

Royal Wedding madness had descended upon Google. Do a search for royal wedding, and you'll be treated to a special box telling you the time it happens in your location. The image above shows the box, with the time of 3am Pacific Time tomorrow, because that's the time zone I'm in. The box is actually pretty helpful for those around the world who plan to tune in but aren't certain what time the wedding happens (it happens tomorrow, April 29 at 11am British Time). What Time? What Time! Checking Google Insights For Search, I can see that indeed, many people must be wondering about when the [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: OneBox, Plus Box & Direct Answers | Search & Society: General

The Royal Wedding of Prince William & Kate Middleton is about two weeks away, and interest continues to rise -- including on Google. Below, a look at some wedding-related search activity. Wedding Terms Spiking On Google Google gave CNN Money a list of some top-rising terms that it deemed related to the wedding. Here's a sample: fascinator (a style of hat that Kate -- may I call one Kate? -- likes) fruitcake (you have them at a British wedding. I know this first-hand. Searches up 25% in the last month) wedding tiara (up 70% since last year) carriages (up 70% from apparently last [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: General | Search & Society: General

Do you remember this video from a few weeks ago? It was probably the funniest of Google's myriad April Fool's Day jokes. Part of the joke is actually real, as I found out Monday when my friendly mailman visited Casa McGee. Much to my surprise, and probably to the mailman's curiosity, there was a non-descript white envelope with a mailing label that said it's from "Everybody Chromercise" at an address in Aurora, Colorado. The Chromercise.com website that Google launched as part of the gag included a form where you could order a set of these finger sweatbands. I assumed it was a dead-e [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: General | Google: Other | Search & Society: April Fool's

It's a well known feature of Google. Start typing in a search, and Google offers suggestions before you've even finished typing. But how does Google come up with those suggestions? When does Google remove some suggestions? When does Google decide not to interfere? Come along for some answers. Google & Search Suggestions Google was not the first search engine to offer search suggestions, nor it is the only one. But being the most popular search engine has caused many to look at Google's suggestions more closely. Google has been offering "Google Suggest" or "Autocomplete" on the Google [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: General | Google: Instant | Google: Suggest | Legal: Censorship | Legal: Privacy | Search & Society: General | Top News

Don't tell Google that Comic Sans is dead. The company has announced it's coming back for all products, at least for April Fools Day. The April Fools joke begins with a page explaining that Google has conducted research into various fonts and found through eye tracking that Comic Sans beats other fonts: Comic Sans For Everyone! More fun comes in the form of an extension from Google for its Google Chrome browser. Install Comic Sans For Everyone, and all your search results will appear with that font: But it's not just search results that change. Any site you go to will be Comic [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search & Society: April Fool's

It's not even April 1st in Mountain View, but the April Fools Day comedy game is already over and I'm declaring Google the winner. Hiring autocompleters? YouTube 1911? Gmail Motion? Chromercise? Ding, ding, ding and ding. Game over. If you're planning any big pranks tomorrow, skip it. Below, what's out there now -- and a running update of what else gets discovered as April Fools Day pranks related to search. Google Hiring Autocompleters If you search with Google Instant turned on, you'll see a new link at the bottom of the search suggestions. Google is hiring Autocompleters. That link [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Other | Search & Society: April Fool's | Top News

Having your yacht mentioned in a TechCrunch article can be alarming. Follow a few simple guidelines, and maybe you can avoid this. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search & Society: April Fool's

Search activity spiked late last week in response to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the two sites benefitting the most in terms of web traffic were MSNBC and YouTube. That's according to a series of tweets from Experian Hitwise this afternoon. As the image above shows, Hitwise says that the phrase "japan earthquake" had more search activity than always-popular one-word brand terms like "google" and "mapquest." In a separate tweet, Hitwise shared a chart showing that five of the top 20 search terms on March 11 were related to the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Where'd a [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Search & Society: General | Stats: Hitwise | Stats: Search Behavior | Twitter

Everyone knows that print newspaper circulation is declining and consumers are increasing accessing news online. Some may wonder why newspapers are slow to move way from print, but the truth is that print still provides the bulk of newspaper revenue and at this point, print heavily subsidizes online efforts. Print, then, enables newspapers to experiment with the online medium. However, the day will come when it will cost more to print newspapers than the revenue they bring in. And at that point, the presses will stop running. The question then, is this. If consumers are increasingly getting [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Search & Society: General | Stats: General

With Hollywood's golden night fast approaching, buzz is building in Yahoo! search for the 83rd annual Academy Awards set to air this Sunday, February 27, 2011. We'll know soon enough if Yahoo! users are any better at predicting winners than Bing or Google Trends. [caption id="attachment_65748" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Yahoo! Oscars 2011 Hot Searches"][/caption] According to Yahoo!: Searches for "when are the Oscars" are spiking on Yahoo! Searches on Yahoo! for "Oscars 2011" are up 1403% Oscar ballots are spiking on Yahoo! up 38% Searches for the award show are s [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Search & Society: General | Search Headlines

Among those watching IBM's Watson win Jeopardy last night were folks at Google, which just tweeted congrats over to IBM. In response, IBM has said thanks. Ah, sweet. The Google tweet: The IBM response: For more about the Jeopardy match involving Watson, see our post from yesterday: Could Google Play Jeopardy Like IBM’s Watson? [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Marketing | Search & Society: General

As former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum sets his sights on the White House, he has a lot of awareness-raising to do, and he desperately needs some help with search, a Roll Call piece this week shows. Currently, when you search for Santorum, the first result is a blog apparently started by gay syndicated sex columnist Dan Savage, who masterminded a successful campaign to associate the Senator's name with anal sex -- on Google and Bing, at least. Savage, and other like-minded folks, launched and supported the site against Santorum back in 2003, after the Senator made comments against hom [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | Search & Society: General | Search Marketing: Public Relations

Like many people, I was amazed to watch IBM's Watson supercomputer playing Jeopardy this week against past human champions. But could Google have done the same thing? Let's go behind the scenes of these two search masters to understand what they can -- and can't -- do. Which Clue Should I Take? Watson has been programmed to play Jeopardy. That doesn't mean just being stuffed with millions of possible answers. It means that Watson has been taught the game's strategy. Watson has been taught to go for where Daily Doubles are likely to be. It knows to go for the lowest value clues in a topic [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: Analysis | Google: Web Search | Search & Society: General | Top News