OpenStreetMap debuts Google Street View alternative: OpenStreetView
The company seeks to crowd-source street-level photography on a global basis.
Topic: Gary Price
Mount McKinley Becomes Mt. Denali On Google Maps; Bing Stays With Old Name
Restored to its native name by US President Barack Obama, the transformation has yet to fully complete on the major search engines.
New Disconnect Tool Enables Private Searches Without Logging Out Of Online Accounts
Online security software provider Disconnect launched their latest search tool, Disconnect Search this week. According to the announcement, Disconnect Search allows users to perform private searches on sites like Google, Yahoo and Bing via their address bar or omnibox, “without having to change their behavior.” Disconnect says their new tool routes search queries through the […]
Are Search Engines Driving Libraries To Extinction? Not Quite Yet
With today’s instant anywhere-anytime access to Google, Bing and Wolfram Alpha, where searching for information takes a few scant heartbeats via an internet-connected device, some people regard physical libraries as a quaint relics of a forgotten age. But new research from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project suggests just the opposite: that in […]
Library Of Congress Struggling To Make A Searchable Twitter Archive
The Library of Congress is still working on plans to create a searchable archive of nearly every public tweet ever sent, but the challenges inherent in that task are making it a slow process. Understandably so, considering the substantial growth in tweets in recent years; the LoC is essentially trying to tame a very rapidly […]
Apple’s Siri Drives 25 Percent Of Wolfram|Alpha Queries
Yesterday knowledge engine Wolfram|Alpha announced an intriguing new paid service Wolfram|Alpha Pro. Gary Price wrote an overview of the new service, which will likely appeal to academics, data geeks and a range of other specialized users. Wolfram|Alpha is by no means a mainstream search engine, yet it has managed to establish something of a beachhead […]
Google Buys Zagat Ratings, Rocks Local
Google is buying the venerable Zagat survey, which is the original local reviews provider and has been in business for more than 30 years. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Rumor had it that Zagat has been “on the block” for some time, as the company increasingly struggles to compete in a world that has […]
Whoa Doggies! Bing Lassoes Search On The iPad
Microsoft is updating Bing for iPad with a useful new search feature called “Lasso.” It offers a simpler way to search in context — with your finger. On any page within the Bing app (which is effectively a Safari browser alternative) users will be able to circle a word or phrase — hence the name […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 7, 2011
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Where To Use Twitter’s New Follow Button This week, Twitter launched the instant follow button for websites to make it even easier to connect visitors to Twitter accounts. This button joins […]
Welcome, Greg Finn & Gary Price To Search Engine Land!
Today, Search Engine Land welcomes two new contributing editors: Gary Price and Greg Finn, who will focus on search and social media for the site, respectively. I’ve known Gary for years, and it’s a pleasure to be working with him again. There is nothing related to search engines or research tools that Gary doesn’t know. […]
Federal Appeals Court Allows Keyword Bidding On Competitor’s Names
paidContent reports a California federal court ruled that it is allowed to bid on a competitor’s name for search ads. The ruling was done in an appeals court in the case between Network Automation and Advanced Systems Concepts. Both companies sell scheduling and management software and Network Automation purchased the keyword “ActiveBatch,” a trademarked product […]
When OCR Goes Bad: Google’s Ngram Viewer & The F-Word
Google launched its Google Books Ngram Viewer this week, a tool that lets you research how popular words and phrases have been over several centuries, based on their appearance in books. But can you trust it? In the case of the F-word, no — and perhaps in many other cases, as well. I read several […]
Mark Zuckerberg Named TIME Magazine Person Of The Year
TIME Magazine has named Mark Zuckerberg Person of the Year. Zuckerberg is the founder of Facebook, arguably one of Google’s biggest threats in 2011. Facebook has made a search deal with Microsoft Bing this year, which we expect to be expanded in the future. There has been a lot of controversy between Google and Facebook. […]
Searching The Wikileaks Cablegate Archives With Cablesearch
Want to explore the “Cablegate” material that Wikileaks released last week for yourself, but have no idea where to start? There’s a new search engine for the material. Cablesearch: A Google For Cablegate Called Cablesearch, it’s a project from the Eccar: The European Center of Computer Assisted Reporting. Gary Price from ResourceShelf tipped us to […]
Google Sued Over Toolbar Sending Data While Turned Off
Jason Weber is suing Google over how the Google Toolbar in the past sent data to Google even while the toolbar was turned off. The suit was filed on November 5th by Webner and his attorneys, KamberLaw, based in New York. The plaintiff is suing on his “personal” experience and claims that the toolbar was […]
Googling Your Polling Place? It Pays To Double-Check
Today is elections day and Google has been touting their wonderful Google Election Center to aid voters in finding the polling place locations. The problem is, Google might send you to the wrong polling place, ultimately costing you time, instead of saving you time, in voting on today’s U.S. elections. Fast Company posted some examples […]
President Obama Goes To Dinner At Google’s Marissa Mayer’s Home
President Obama paid a visit to Google’s Marissa Mayer’s home on Thursday night. Mayer was holding a charity event, selling seats for $30,400-per-plate at the fundraising dinner. Obama gave a speech at the event, where he reportedly said: My task has also been to try to figure out how do we address some of the […]
At Google Images, “G” Is For “Girls In Bathrooms”
The launch of Google Instant last month drew new attention to what Google suggests that people search for — and what it purposely omits to keep things family friendly. But over on Google Images, some of the suggestions that appear as you type are more of the soft-porn variety. Girls Gone Wild On Google Here’s […]
Czechs Say “Zastavit” To Google StreetView
Zastavit means stop or halt. And that’s what the Czech government has told Google regarding StreetView image collection in the central European country. The stated reason, according to the Czech Office for Personal Data Protection, is that Google did not have the required license/registration to conduct the activity. It’s not the case that Google failed […]
StreetSpace Sues Google, Nokia, Apple, Mobile Ad Networks For Infringement Of Location-Based Ads Patent
StreetSpace is a company you probably haven’t heard of, but it’s not a so-called “patent troll” seeking to cash in on unimplemented intellectual property. Rather StreetSpace is a company that has been around since 1999 and installs internet kioks in public spaces, such as airports, retail locations and restaurants. Here’s a description of its main […]
Google Scholar Adds Cited By Search
The Google Scholar Blog announced a new feature where you can search for citations of a search result, or paper. Google calls this “searching within this set.” To try it out, go to Google Scholar, search for something and click on “Cited by.” Here is a picture: Gary Price does a more detail analysis of […]
Waiting Game Begins On Google Book Search Settlement
The dust has settled from last week’s Fairness Hearing on the proposed Google Book Search, and now all parties are playing a waiting game. Judge Denny Chin began the hearing by announcing — to no one’s surprise — that he wouldn’t be announcing a decision during or immediately after the hearing. According to the Wall […]
Get “Inside The Mind Of Google” On CNBC Tonight At 9PM ET/PT
Tonight at 9pm ET/PT on CNBC there will be a special premier of “Inside the Mind of Google.” The show will go over how Google got started, how they grew over the years and what challenges they have had recently. Our very own Danny Sullivan is interviewed in this documentary, so you do not want […]
Google Maps Creates New UK Town Called Argleton
Google and its UK map provider, Tele Atlas, are cleaning the egg off their faces this week over the appearance of a town called Argleton in Google Maps. It’s right there on Google Maps, and there’s even an Argleton place page with photos and more. Problem is, Argleton doesn’t exist. The Telegraph picked up the […]
Google Execs Among The Very Richest
Forbes has published its annual list of who has the most money in America and Google’s co-founders and CEO Eric Schmidt are among the very richest of the lot. At the top is perpetual leader Bill Gates. Among the top 100 roughly 10 percent made their money from tech or the Internet. However four of […]
9/11, Google & The Internet
As everyone knows, today is the 8th year anniversary of the terrible 9/11 attacks. Many people, companies and organizations are doing things to remember the day. A lot of people are asking why there is no logo from Google for today. The quick answer is that Google does not do Google Doodles (aka logos) for […]
Wolfram Alpha Is Already Monetizing Search Results
Have a look at an Internet first: “computational knowledge ads” on Wolfram Alpha. (We can’t call them “search ads” if it’s not a search engine, now can we?) Gary Price tipped us to the presence of an ad for Lenovo’s ThinkPad appearing on what appears to be mainly math-related queries. The screenshot above is from […]
Google Launches Public Data Search & Charts During Wolfram Alpha Demo
During the Wolfram Alpha demonstration today, the Google Blog announced the launch of their own structured data search feature that allows you to find and compare public data. Searches such as [unemployment rate new york] will now bring up a quick answer that looks like this: Clicking on the result will take you to a […]
Google Image Search Adds “Exact Size” Advanced Search Option
Gary Price reports that Google Image search added to the advanced search page an option to enter in the exact image size you are looking for. Here is a picture: The ability to search Google images for specific sized images has been around since at least late January 2009. Google Operating System wrote how you […]
See Yahoo’s New Image Search Ads In Yahoo News
A couple weeks ago, Yahoo announced they will be going forward with rich ads in Yahoo search. Back then, we only saw a few examples in the raw Yahoo Search results, and they were for mostly video ads. I received a heads up from Gary Price that Yahoo is now showing image ads on Yahoo […]
Google Brings Back Video & Drops Shopping From Top Navigation
Google has dropped the “Shopping” link from the main top navigation on Google.com and replaced it with a “Video” link. What is the big deal? Well, in November 2007, Google did the exact reverse. They dropped the video link for products to replace it. Then Google renamed products to shopping but that link remained at […]
Now Blogging: Google Cofounder Sergey Brin
Sergey Brin becomes the first of Google’s three major executives to begin blogging. Spotted via TechCrunch, his blog at too.blogspot.com covers today his personal experience of being at risk for Parkinson’s Disease. In his first post, he explains the name of his blog:
Google 10-Q Filing: AOL Investment “Impaired,” And Other Tidbits
Gary Price alerted us yesterday to Google’s 10-Q filing. There’s lots of stuff in there worth drilling into. The headlines this morning, however, concern Google’s statement that it thinks it’s not going to get full value from its previous $1 billion, 5 percent AOL investment several years ago.
How Cuil Is The SEO Industry?
Philipp Lenssen’s The World According to Cuil blog post inspired me to take snapshots of how Cuil, the new search engine, matches up the names of our industry to pictures. Here’s Danny Sullivan’s Wikipedia article, but showing a picture of Danny Sullivan the race car driver:
Googlers In Space: Google Founder Brin Books Flight
Google Co-Founder Brin Books First Private Space Flight from SmartMoney reports that Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder, is booked to visit the International Space Station in 2011. One of two seats available for the first private space flight to the International Space Station was reserved by Brin. Google Co-Founder Books a Space Flight from the New […]
Twitter Beats (Wow, By 3 Minutes) The USGS With China Earthquake News
Hey, I like Twitter, but this entire thing Robert Scoble started about how Twitter had news of the Chinese earthquake before the US Geological Survey seemed absurd. Did it really? As it turns out, probably so — by about three minutes. Reading some of the accounts, you’d get the impression Twitter seemed to alert the […]
Google Now Fills Out Forms & Crawls Results
One of the biggest search challenges has long been that the major search engines like Google cannot crawl material that can only be retrieved through the use of forms. Now Google is filling out those form to obtain the information previously hidden, the company has announced.
IAC Cuts 8% Of Ask.com & Kills Search Engine
IAC’s Ask.com to Cut Staff, Outlines New Search Strategy from the Wall Street Journal reports IAC has cut 8% of Ask.com’s workforce, by letting go 40 people. Not only that, the Wall Street Journal says IAC is changing the strategy of the search engine to “focus to better answering search queries posed as questions.” Ask’s […]
Google: Not American’s Most Admired Company (But Almost)
FORTUNE magazine released its America’s Most Admired Companies of 2008 list, and guess what? Google was not rated number one. Hard to believe? Well, they did make number four. Apple took the top position, which doesn’t surprise me since everyone I know is buying Macs, even oureditor-in-chief, Danny. Google ranked at number four while Microsoft […]
Google 10K: 55% More Employees, 99% Of Income Via Ads & More
PaidContent.org reported on Google’s recent 10-K filing with the SEC this past Friday. PaidContent summarized some of the key details in that filing. I will summarize only a few points from paidContent’s article: