Twitter is rolling out an update to its search results that will put a new “Top Photos” section above matching tweets. “Top Videos” may also appear. Twitter will also begin automatically showing tweeted pictures for those searching on the iPhone or with Android devices. Top Photos & Videos Twitter already shows top photos and images […]
Google has beefed up its Google Now feature. In addition to the existing content (Calendar, Sports, Traffic, Weather, Places) the company has added a range of new cards/categories to Now: Flights Hotels Restaurant reservations Events Packages/shipping Stocks Movies Breaking news Nearby attractions Nearby photo spots Google Now is in a way Google’s answer to Apple’s […]
DuckDuckGo’s ongoing mission to challenge Google (and other search engines, but mainly Google) on privacy issues has taken another turn with the recent launch of a video that accuses Google of putting searchers in a “bubble” of personalized results. The video hits on a few of DuckDuckGo’s consistent talking points in its ongoing battle to […]
Google released a “field trial” today allowing people who enroll to do Google searches and get information from their Gmail messages mixed in with their web results. Don’t worry. Only those enrolled see their own messages this way. Below, a look at how it works. If accepted into the program, after you do a search, […]
This evening Foursquare is launching a redesigned version of its iPhone app (with Android and Blackberry to follow). It represents both a simplification and expansion of the app, based on what the company has learned over the past three years. The app is also cleaner and visually stronger. It features three nav buttons on the bottom: […]
Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman are on the stage at SMX London to interview Amit Singhal. Amit is a Google Fellow, a honorary title reserved for Google’s most accomplished engineers, and he has spearheaded Google’s core ranking team since 2000. He’s also a key influencer of Search Plus Your World, Google’s search experience centered around […]
Earlier this year, Google made its results more social with Search Plus Your World. Now Bing has reshaped how it handles social information as part of its “The New Bing” launch. Which does better, Google’s blended search+search model or Bing’s more segregated approach. Let’s look at some examples. Hey Google, How’s New Girl? I thought I’d start […]
Bing announced a relaunch of its search engine today, with a big emphasis on bringing social into search. But wait! Didn’t Bing already have social as part of its search experience? Yes, but now the search engine hopes to do it better, especially by largely off-loading social elements into a new sidebar area. The new […]
Google’s taken flak over the past year from critics about how the company has been integrating actions such as booking flights or hotels into its search results. It’s also faced criticisms that it is leveraging its search dominance to build its Google+ social network. I found it notable that Google CEO Larry Page, in his […]
The good folks over at Stone Temple Consulting released an in-depth interview with Bing’s Principal Group Program Manager for Bing Social Search, Paul Yiu. The Bing social search team integrates social content and indicators into the search results to add both personalization and relevance to the search results. Bing currently ties in data from both […]
SMX West day one is just about over and I wanted to post the live blogging I have found throughout the day. Here are some of the sessions that were live blogged today. Creating Conversion Friendly Mobile Landing Pages, Search Engine Roundtable Creating Conversion-Friendly Mobile Landing Pages, outspokenmedia.com Does Google Favor Brands? An In-Depth Look, […]
Two weeks ago, Google launched Search Plus Your World. Since then, Google has faced strong criticisms that SPYW is making its search relevancy worse and favoring its Google+ social network too much. Not so, says Google search chief Amit Singhal. Most Google users are happy, Singhal said. Of course, Search Plus Your World isn’t perfect, he admits, […]
What Every Paid Search Marketer Needs To Know About Google +1 Presentations from SMX East – NYC, NY, September 2011 Google’s new "+1" experiment allows searchers to publicly show what they like, agree with, or recommend on the web. And not just for algorithmic search results, but for ads as well. Google is using +1 […]
The Google News Blog announced that the Spotlight section on Google News may contain stories that your Google + friends and Gmail contacts have +1’ed. If you are logged in while using Google News and your friends or contacts have used the Google +1 button to like the stories in your Spotlight section, that information […]
One of the complaints often leveled against email-delivered daily deals is that they’re not “relevant.” A refrain I’ve heard repeatedly is, “How many ‘main-pedi’ deals do I need?” To combat this “deal fatigue,” a range of sites, including Yipit, Groupon and Google, among others, have introduced personalization. But some would argue search is a better […]
Somewhere between the “precision of search and the serendipity of social media” lies Trapit. Trapit is a “personal discovery engine” based on the same underlying technology that forms the core of Apple’s Siri virtual assistant. From the outside, however, it looks something like a cross between StumbleUpon and Flipboard or Zite. Co-founders Gary Griffiths and Hank […]
During the 2010 U.K. general elections, I, like thousands of others, was glued to my various screens as I kept up to date with one of the closest contest in living memory. This included the first ever televised leadership debate in a British election, during which Twitter acted as a default running opinion poll. At […]
Google Offers has recently begun offering personalization options that include selecting Offers that are based on interests and/or geography. It gives consumers the chance to avoid getting offers that don’t interest them, and offers advertisers a better chance at sending their offers only to people who are more likely to redeem the deal/coupon. On signing […]
Bing has announced at SMX East today a new personalization feature named adaptive search. It seems a lot like Google’s previous query feature but supposedly, it goes well beyond just the previous query. Bing said the “more you search, the more Bing can learn” and thus adapts the search results for YOU based on your […]
Good morning! Welcome to day two of our SMX East Conference in New York City. We’re beginning today with a keynote conversation with Eli Pariser, author of The Filter Bubble, a book in which Pariser argues that search personalization leads to users being unaware of viewpoints and opinions that are different than their own. We […]
Google has announced the end of supporting the Google Toolbar for Firefox. Google said the Google Toolbar works in versions of Firefox 4 or younger, but not the new version 5 of Firefox. Google explained, “many features that were once offered by Google Toolbar for Firefox are now already built right into the browser.” So […]
Twitter has added a new “Top Tweets” search results feature, along with “Top Images” and “Top Videos.” It’s a major shift away from showing Twitter search results where the most recent tweet comes first, regardless of real relevancy or quality. The change is welcome. Unlike regular search engines, which try to show the most relevant […]
Google announced some new features that are being rolled out to Google News users. The features include expandable and collapsable news clusters, story labels displaying diversity information, more multiple media content, more personalized news stories and changing the default view from a two column view to a one column view. I personally do not see […]
Tired of seeing blogs or press releases in your Google News homepage? Google’s got a cure for that, new settings that allow you to see fewer results from these sources, or none at all. That may cause some “blogs” to consider asking Google to reclassify them as news sources. You’ll find the new options on […]
Google has added a pair of features today that make Google News a little more personal. First, the “News for you” section of Google News now includes stories based on your previous Google News activity. If you click on a lot of articles about a certain topic, this section will begin to show more articles […]
For those who follow search it was initially one of those “WTF moments”: Walmart acquiring erstwhile Google challenger Kosmix. However AllThingsD reports that the price was $300 million-plus vs. $55 million raised. So the founders and investors get a seemingly nice exit. Kosmix will now become part of the newly established “@WalmartLabs.” When it launched […]
Discovery Engine Worio has taken its search technology and reinvented itself as an iPad magazine along the lines of Flipboard. Called Zite (after Zeitgeist), the iPad app uses the same search and machine learning capabilities developed at the British Columbia-based Worio to create a personalized magazine that “gets smarter” as you use it. (CEO Ali […]
Like “seat guru for hotel rooms,” was my immediate thought; Room 77 is a search engine for hotel rooms. The site is creating and indexing data on hotels in the US and UK (and eventually around the world) that qualify with three stars and above. There’s also an iPhone app launching simultaneously today. There are […]
Google News has quietly added a new button that allows you to easily bookmark frequent searches and create custom sections within your personalized Google News home page.
Traditional search on Google is already personalized (and has been for some time), and now the company has announced that its Voice Search service can also be personalized. With personalized voice search, Google will use recordings of your voice search to “build a speech model” that’s tied to your Google account. In doing so, Google […]
Earlier this month, Bing announced a new deal with Facebook, where it would be showing you what your Facebook friends liked within search results. People are now reporting seeing the personalization appearing. Bing originally said the new feature was rolling out in the US when it launched on October 13 and that it would be […]
Speaking today at the IFA consumer electronics event in Berlin, Google CEO Eric Schmidt painted a vision of the future in which search is fast, personal, and all-knowing — even to the degree of providing search results when searches haven’t been conducted. “A new definition of Google would be, we’re trying very hard to get […]
Even though its traffic is down, Hunch says new user registrations have risen dramatically recently. And as more users register, Hunch says its recommendation engine keeps getting smarter. Barely more than two months ago, Hunch began requiring visitors to register/login to use the site. In doing so, all Hunch visitors were required to answer the […]
If you had the time and resources to personalize every sales pitch, every piece of marketing collateral, every special offer, how would that affect your bottom line? If your customers told you, “I don’t want that, but if you offer me this in a different color, I’ll buy three,” you would listen, right? Onsite behavioral […]
Today, Google News is undergoing its first major redesign since being launched in 2002. Gone is the default “section” view, replaced instead by a “news stream” view of stories. Creating a personalized collection of stories has been made easier, as is the ability to share stories with friends and others via email, Twitter, Google Buzz […]
Our online activity is about to be spread over more and more devices. This opens up some interesting implications for UI design. More and more, we’ll be launching queries from more places that will have different environmental challenges. For example:
This never happens to me. Until now. While writing my earlier piece, Google News Tests Editors’ Picks, I went to Google News on the off-chance that I’d be able to see the “limited test” of editors’ picks. Nope. As expected. But totally unexpected was that I’ve been opted-in to a test of a completely new […]
Confused about why Google was showing a picture on its home page today. Apparently, plenty of people were, some to the point of being upset. In reaction, Google’s dropped the feature. Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search products and user experience, confirmed the change via an update to the official Google blog post that […]
If you visit Google today, you may notice the home page is a bit different. About a week ago, Google began letting users to upload their own background images on Google.com, to help them customize the Google home page. To drive more awareness to this feature and to inspire users to change their home page, […]
Bing’s received plenty of praise for its home page that shows a different picture each day. How long until Google would copy it, some have wondered. Today, almost exactly a year since Bing launched, Google has rolled out its own feature that lets you put a picture on the Google home page. In a blog […]