Search Biz: Google’s Project Management Tools, Iowa Seeks Microsoft, & More

Click Forensics gets $10 million in funding. An early Googler donates money to San Jose State. The fight to control IAC carries on. Disney doesn’t want AOL. Yahoo and Microsoft do research labs in Israel. A glimpse into the internal tools Google uses to manage products, and Iowa passes tax breaks in hopes of getting Microsoft to follow Google to the Hawkeye State. All in today’s Search Biz!

Click Forensics — they of the quarterly reports that the major search engines always disagree with on click fraud — has got different cash coming their way. Click Forensics Raises $10 Million B Round from TechCrunch covers new funding the company has raised.

Speaking of millions, Google billionaire Omid Kordestani has dropped $3 million to San Jose State University to fund an endowed chair to teach multidisciplinary programs that the college. Hey, if it means engineers learn to respect writers and writers consider programming, I’m all for it. Google billionaire donates $3 million to SJSU’s engineering department from the San Jose Mercury News has more about it.

The fight for control of IAC continues. The New York Times and Reuters have coverage. Liberty Media rested its case yesterday, claiming the spinoff proposal requires approval of both parties. That’s in the NYT. Reuters covers today’s testimony and the long standing relationship between Liberty Media’s John Malone and IAC CEO Barry Diller.

Rather than breaking up, Superpages.com & Local.com Renew and Expand Advertising Partnership from Search Engine Journal covers how those two kids have decided to step it up a notch when it comes to advertising.

In case you’re wondering, no, there won’t be an AOL-Land coming. AP reports that Disney’s chief executive has no plans to purchase the company if it gets spun off, as many expect.

I’ve got the coolest team from Yahoo’s official blog brags about its new research lab in Israel, plus new research labs in Bangladore. Microsoft has a new lab in Israel too, but Eli Feldblum over at Search Engine Watch thinks on the product side, both companies have a lot of catching up to do. And back to India, Yahoo! India appoints Gopal Krishna as Audience Head from The Economic Times covers a new head of consumer facing products being appointed for Yahoo in India.

Over at Google Blogoscoped, The Tools Google Uses Internally has screenshots and some coverage on how Google manages projects using its own in-house tools. They ain’t using Outlook. Scroll down to the "Moma Intranet and Search" screenshot, which shows a general page Googlers use to keep up on related news events. Who’s that guy holding up a trophy on the right-hand side? Why, that’s me! Here’s the larger picture and news about what Googlers were reading, their win in the SMX Search Bowl. Cool.

Finally, Iowa Offers Tax Breaks to "Web Search Portal Businesses" from Eric Goldman is worth a chuckle. Iowa, having lured Google to the state, now has passed tax breaks designed to get Microsoft to do the same.