paidContent reports the lawsuit brought against Google in 2008 over quality of ads showing on parked or error message web pages has been thrown out by the court. On Thursday, January 5th, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila turned down the class action suit brought against Google. He said he would not allow the suit because […]
Google Maps. Google Places. Google Earth. Google Hotpot. Google Latitude. Google Street View. Different mobile and desktop versions of some of those. Different Android and iPhone versions of some. The list could go on. If you think Google has too many locally-oriented products, you’re not alone. Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP of Search who recently began […]
paidContent reports Rosetta Stone, which lost their trademark case against Google a year or so ago, is taking the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals. Rosetta Stone claimed that the ads on Google infringed trademark law and confused consumers. The court ruled in Google’s favor but Rosetta Stone decided to appeal. This is significant […]
Via paidContent comes news that Google might launch a micropayment system for newspapers by the end of the year. paidContent references this article from the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, which says Google is encouraging publishers to try out a system called NewsPass. In its article, paidContent describes NewsPass like this: La Repubblica says that, with […]
Yahoo is laying off more people in its seemingly ever-shrinking search group. In addition to previous general Yahoo layoffs, many search executives and employees have left or are being moved to Microsoft as part of the Yahoo-Bing search integration. According to PaidContent and TechCrunch Yahoo is cutting an undisclosed number of search jobs. Yahoo provided […]
Speaking today on CNBC, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz said that Yahoo would “absolutely” consider a buyout offer from “any company at the right price.” According to paidContent, Bartz later qualified her comments to indicate that she’s not actively looking for a buyer, and that if she were in charge of Yahoo when Microsoft made its […]
paidContent.org reports Quintura, the Russian search engine, may be filing a lawsuit against Google over Google’s Wonder Wheel “visual search engine interface.” Quintura hold 8 patents on the technology and Google may be infringing the company’s patents. Quintura CEO Yakov Sadchikov told paidContent: The strategy is to make all those search engines and tools that […]
paidContent.org is reporting Facebook and Microsoft are scaling back their ad relationship. Microsoft powered much of Facebook’s display ad network. Facebook is no longer using Microsoft for their international display ads but might also drop them in the U.S. as well. Back in 2007, Microsoft invested $240 million in Facebook, and made an ad deal. […]
Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz says the company’s recent search market share declines are due, in part, to the loss of toolbar deals with HP and Acer computers. She made the comments during a keynote presentation today at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference in New York City. Late last year, Acer dropped Yahoo as […]
Yahoo has confirmed the recent rumors that it will test a real-time search feature in its search results. According to the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo will run a test “in the coming days” with OneRiot, a real-time search engine that focuses on links and content from Twitter and other social media sources. PaidContent reports that […]
Appropriately top Microsoft executives, coming off the “worst year ever” for the company, are sharing some of the pain. As PaidContent reports, the top executives at the company took a compensation hit based on the sales and revenue declines. Here are some of the numbers: CEO Steve Ballmer $1.265 million vs. $1.34 million a year […]
AOL announced today that it’s hired former Google employee Shashi Seth as its Senior VP of Global Advertising Products. While with Google, Seth was head of monetization for YouTube. Most recently he was the Chief Revenue Officer for Cooliris. AOL’s addition of Seth is the latest in a series of hirings from the search industry […]
Is it possible that, say a couple years from now, you might visit Yahoo.com and its Bing-powered search engine, but actually search Google, instead? It seems so. PaidContent reports on Yahoo’s appearance Wednesday at the 2009 Deutsche Bank Technology Conference, where Burke Colligan, a senior director for Yahoo Front Doors — the company’s user experience […]
Ambivalent is word that best describes newspaper publishers’ relationship with Google and Google News in particular. Some publishers see Google as a partner or potential partner and some consider Google to be the devil incarnate, responsible for virtually all their woes. For its part Google sees itself as a supporter of newspapers, helping them by […]
First to pounce on the SEC 8-K filing by Yahoo was PaidContent, which provides an extensive bulleted list of many of the deal terms not revealed last week during the frenzy of conference calls and articles that followed the official announcement of the Microsoft-Yahoo search deal. CNET also writes about selected aspects of the deal […]
There are reports coming out of the Wall Street Journal and AllThingsD that a search/ads deal between Microsoft and Yahoo will be announced within the next 24 hours. According to the Journal’s coverage: The likely deal, which has yet to be approved by either company and could still be delayed further, involves Yahoo agreeing to […]
Yesterday at the EconSM conference in San Francisco, Kevin Thau, director of mobile biz dev for Twitter, suggested that the company is currently exploring and/or working on several revenue streams: search, content partnerships and mobile carrier-based deals (sharing in data revenues). There are probably others on the “white board” as well including fees for premium […]
Apparently talks between Google and the Associated Press aren’t going well, or so says Forbes today, with AP chief executive Tom Curley threatening to take his content and play elsewhere. Where that will be is hard to say. Part of the AP’s original issue with Google was that AP’s own member publications would reprint AP […]
paidContent reports Microsoft has registered a new trademark for the term, “Sift.” The trademark filing describes the name as: Operating system software for mobile phones; computer search engine software; computer programs for searching email, text messages, address and contact information It was filed on January 9th and can possibly be used as the mobile search […]
The Yahoo-to-Microsoft defections continue with news today from paidContent.org that Jan Pedersen is the new chief scientist for Live Search. This one isn’t exactly a defection, because Pedersen comes to Microsoft from Amazon’s A9.com. But he was Chief Scientist and VP, Search and Advertising Technology Group, at Yahoo prior to that. And before his Yahoo […]
Three intertwined stories appeared today about Yahoo. The first from Dow Jones Newswires picks up on a Thomas Weisel report about the company, following a meeting between analysts and CEO Carol Bartz. Ironically the report (as described) is highly positive but it sent shares down because it suggests that a Microsoft-Yahoo deal is not going […]
Former AOL Chief Seeks Funds for Yahoo Deal from the Wall Street Journal reports Jonathan Miller, ex-AOL CEO, is trying to put together enough money to buy Yahoo. Miller is reportedly looking to raise raising about $28 billion to $30 billion, equivalent to $20 to $22 per share, to buy all of Yahoo. The Wall […]
Wait, they already have. PaidContent posted a fairly comprehensive roundup yesterday of possible successors to outgoing Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang. (Yahoo is up in early trading on the news of Yang’s resignation, which was received favorably by most financial analysts.) PaidContent also poses the question: will the board go with a tech executive or a […]
Everyone is talking about the new Microsoft TV ad featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld. paidContent.org called the ad pretty pathetic, Sam Diaz didn’t get it, nor did I. TechCrunch got word from Microsoft that the ad is triggered to “engage consumers” and “spark conversation,” which I guess it is doing.
While Microsoft and Yahoo move further apart from creating Microhoo, they both continue to make changes internally with the intention of building out a better search company.
A new report from analyst firm Borrell Associates contains fairly dire revenue projections for both local newspapers and print yellow pages ($5 billion in projected print revenue losses in five years). The newspaper angle is picked up today by the Wall Street Journal and PaidContent, which both lay out some of the numbers. The report […]
Rob Norman is CEO of Group M Interaction Worldwide. Perhaps then it’s appropriate that he uses the “M-word” — monopoly — in an AdAge piece about Google. Norman has been a critic of the Google-Yahoo paid search deal and has said several times that he thinks it will result in higher keyword prices.
Democratic presidential candidate Barak Obama’s online organizing and fundraising successes are perhaps unprecedented. He’s also the query volume king, among the candidates. But how does he do as an online marketer? We might not know his CTRs or how his campaigns “convert” but now we know where he spent his money. According to US Federal […]
Forbes is out with the latest billionaires list, and Google executives are well represented. Plus, Yahoo president Susan Decker saw a 63-percent increase in her salary, with a 29-percent bonus increase from last year.
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 […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
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:
The expected Yahoo layoffs started a few hours ago. Two very good people I know are among those cut. No doubt we’re going to be hearing from many more. Below, a rundown on reports I’ve spotted from others on the web about the cuts. As more comes in, we’ll update or do a fresh post. […]
Over the past several days, a number of blogs (PaidContent, Silicon Alley Insider, TechCrunch) have reported and speculated (based on tips) that Yahoo was contemplating significant job cuts, perhaps as many as 2,500.
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Beverage maker and uber-brand Coke has had a few false starts in “social media.” Not long ago it ended “The Coke Show,” a video-centric platform that was intended to engage consumers and support user-generated content. Most recently, the company opted out of Facebook’s Beacon program amid the controversy surrounding involuntary tracking of user behavior on […]
With the exception of online, the ad industry is in a slump. Growth is in the low single digits and will only gain next year because of the US presidential election, European football, and Olympics. Accordingly, ZenithOptimedia has released an advertising forecast that reflects projected growth of a modest 4.1 percent in the US and […]
If you have curiosity, a vested interest or just have a lot of time on your hands, you can listen live to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearings today considering the implications of the intended acquisition of DoubleClick by Google (courtesy of Gary Price, who has instructions on a couple of ways to listen in). […]
RH Donnelley, which acquired SEM firm LocalLaunch in 2006 and owns the local search/online yellow pages site DexKnows, has announced the acquisition of Business.com and its related properties for $350 million.
Yahoo has acquired Rivals.com, an online college sports site. Yahoo said this acquisition “will significantly expand the community offerings and open publishing capabilities of Yahoo! Sports.” Although Yahoo did not discuss the financial matters of the agreement, paidContent.org suspects it was about $100 million.