Bing has added voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation to the Bing mobile app for Windows Phones 6.1 and above. Bing thus joins Google, Nokia and to a lesser degree MapQuest in offering free mobile navigation services. It also means more woe for the PND makers (TomTom, Garmin, et al). The voice component of the Bing navigation service […]
Move over Google, Yahoo, and Bing; blended results or not, personalized search, Twitter results and OneBoxes … you guys are just too predictable for this article. There’s a new breed of search engines out there, and they’re letting users search and find some utterly crazy stuff. And by “crazy,” I mean a lot of things: […]
This morning in Barcelona, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer delivered a keynote address at the GSM Mobile World Congress trade show. I’m not there (regrettably) but I watched most of the keynote live online. Nobody’s really used the new Windows Mobile 7 OS yet though it appears to be a significant upgrade from the disappointing 6.5. […]
Google, which to some eyes increasingly looks and acts like a VoIP/mobile carrier, is now effectively being treated like one by the US FCC. Today the regulatory body sent out requests for information to wireless carriers about the adequacy of their consumer disclosures associated with early termination penalties, which can be several hundred dollars in […]
The Google AdWords blog announced new targeting and ad features for the mobile search ad product. The first feature allows you to specify the device type and carrier you would like to target your ads to. The device type options include iPhone/iPod Touch, Android and Palm WebOS. The current carriers targeting is Canada or Unites […]
It’s Nexus One day! At least, that’s what we’re all expecting from the “Android Press Gathering” event that Google is hosting today. I’m attending it and will be liveblogging all the news that comes out of it. Not up to speed on the Nexus One? It’s the widely expected Google Phone, a phone that Google […]
As everyone knows by now the weekend saw an explosion of interest, speculation and posting around the “Nexus One,” the so-called “Google Phone” predicted first in an article by TheStreet in October and then further exposed by TechCrunch. I wrote two posts this weekend as the story evolved:
TechCrunch is reporting, based on a range of Tweets and chatter, that many Google employees were given an unlocked HTC handset running Android 2.1 as a holiday gift. “It’s beautiful . . . Like an iPhone on beautifying steroids” wax the rapturous Tweets. NOTE: See our follow-up piece, More Detail On Google Phone From A […]
Google hosted something of a formal “status update” on Chrome the operating system in Mountain View on Thursday. There we discovered the company is open-sourcing the code. We also found out it’s intended as a netbook OS (for now) and that Google is working with several hardware partners to create a better netbook experience (full-sized […]
In case you didn’t see it there was an article in the Wall Street Journal this morning that seeks to capture a kind of shift or broadening of advertisers’ attitudes toward search marketing. Formerly search was something of an island and not well integrated into wider marketing campaigns. Many search + display studies and several […]
Google has decided to extend and pick up the pace of its “Going Google” (Apps and enterprise products) traditional media campaign. The ads were first launched in August in four cities with billboards. Now Google says the campaign will be expanded globally to “the U.K., France, Canada, Japan, Australia and Singapore” and appear “in train […]
The Bing Search Blog has announced a new mobile voice search capability that competes with, and even one-ups the more well known mobile voice search tools from Google. The Bing voice search tool has three capabilities: search Bing by speaking a query dial a contact’s phone by speaking the number compose a text message by […]
Tomorrow Palm’s Pre (comeback) smartphone will go on sale through US carrier Sprint. In early 2010 it will reportedly come to Verizon, which opens it up to a much larger market. To date, the Pre has received mostly positive reviews, though, as with the G1 and soon ION/G2, reviewers seem to agree that it falls […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
An Illinois small business owner is suing Google and 46 other companies because he says they’re infringing on his business name: Android Data. Forbes reports that the lawsuit was filed Tuesday, and seeks almost $100 million in damages from Google and all other companies in the Open Handset Alliance, which includes T-Mobile, Motorola, Toshiba, Sprint […]
Since it launched a couple days ago there have been several predictable responses from persistent Google critics who regard the new location-aware Latitude service on Google Maps as a threat to privacy. The phrases “tracking,” “stalking” and “Big Brother” popped up in a range of articles in mainstream news outlets. Those stories were quickly written […]
Way back in 2007, an iProspect/Jupiter Research study found that two-thirds of those online are motivated to search online due to an offline channel such as a TV ad. Since 2007 was an eternity ago in internet time and search continues to grow, that number has surely only gone up. That TV ads cause viewers […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Yahoo’s oneSearch will be the “default” search engine on T-Mobile’s new Web2Go portal. Yahoo has such a relationship with T-Mobile in Europe already. In the US, Yahoo also provides mobile search to AT&T. Verizon and Google are battling for similar “default” status on Verizon handsets. Both Google and Microsoft have a relationship with Sprint.
Last week the Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft was trying to “steal away” an almost-done default search deal between Google and Verizon Wireless that would have given Google a high-profile presence on Verizon handsets. Verizon is the largest wireless carrier in the US with more than 80 million subscribers (post Alltel acquisition). Reuters now […]
The US Federal Communications Commission approved a plan to allow unlicensed broadcast TV spectrum to be used by companies to create wireless broadband services that amount to “WiFi on steroids.” This was a hotly contested issue, with tech and electronics companies like Google, HP, Microsoft, Intel, Dell and Motorola, among a number of others, lining […]
Not long ago, Google rolled out its “Geolocation API” (via Google Gears). Initially it was intended to enable third party publishers and developers to get location for their apps on mobile devices using a combination of the phone’s inherent location-awareness technologies (i.e., GPS) and Google’s cell-tower database (which has been expanded now to include WiFi […]
Smartphone Is Expected via Google from the New York Times reports that T-Mobile will be the first carrier of the Google’s Android powered mobile phone. HTC is the manufacturer of the phone’s hardware, while Google is heading up the software for the phone. The phone is expected to launch as early as October, well before […]
“We didn’t get to paid search first, and it turns out that’s the best part of the market,” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told Washington Post Editors as part of a meeting that explored a range of topics. Among other things, Ballmer discussed Microsoft’s strategy and mission statement, why it aspires to be competitive in search, […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web
Sprint, the troubled, third largest US wireless carrier, has been mulling a spin off or sale of Nextel and has been the subject of takeover rumors itself. It had ambitious plans to roll out a national WiMax network that had seemingly been placed on the back burner. However, today the company announced a major deal […]
At the CTIA wireless industry trade show yesterday, among the scores of announcements, Microsoft said that it would be releasing a new and improved mobile IE browser for smart phones in the fall that promises to bring “desktop quality” to the mobile Internet experience. (Numerous others are engaged in this same pursuit, including Safari, Mozilla, […]
Greg Sterling and I have just finished a short Q&A with Microsoft’s Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of strategic partnerships, about his company’s bid to acquire Yahoo. How does Microsoft plan to integrate Yahoo, if its proposal wins? The plan right now is one more about how the two companies will coordinate to figure out […]
Each month, I compile Search Month — a recap of all the stories that have happened relating to search, categorized by topic. I thought it would be fun to take all the Search Months over the past year and produce this edition of Search Year 2007. It was far more work than I imagined, but […]
Google finally makes it official. After saying it would “probably” bid on the 700 megahertz wireless spectrum, then pulling back on that statement, it is diving in after all into the auction.
It a potentially dramatic move, Verizon Wireless is saying that it will allow customers to use phones and applications that it does not specifically sell. As a practical matter that potentially means that a mobile consumer could buy any phone and use it with the Verizon network, so long as the phone meets certain technical […]
With all the talk of Amazon’s new $399 ebook reader (and blog, newspaper, magazine) Kindle, it made me think: What if Google had developed this or a similar device (the Gindle? Goodle?) instead of putting out Android? Of course, there’s nothing that precludes Google from doing such a thing in the future, but for now […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
A TMCnet blog repeats a rumor that Google might buy US wireless carrier Sprint. This is based in part of Google’s aggressive push into mobile with Android, its willingness to bid on wireless spectrum licenses, and its efforts to gain access to unused parts of the television spectrum, so-called “white space.” It’s also based on […]
Last week Forbes wrote that Google will “definitely” participate, according to CEO Eric Schmidt, in the upcoming 700MHZ wireless spectrum auction. Also last week, Google partner Sprint said that it was ending its relationship with wireless broadband provider Clearwire to build a nationwide WiMax network. (Sprint is a member of the Android Open Handset Alliance.) […]
This article from Forbes sort of quotes Google CEO Eric Schmidt saying, for the first time, that the company would “definitely” participate in the forthcoming 700 MHZ wireless spectrum auction to be held in January. It also says that Google would open that spectrum up to anyone willing to pay for it, in defiance of […]
Yesterday I wrote (with myriad contributions from Danny) a largely bullish overview of Android and the Open Handset Alliance (which sounds like a JK Rowling title, I admit). Now, on day two, the bears are coming out. The Wall Street Journal blogs that the “Google Phone” is “A Business-Tech Nightmare Waiting to Happen.” Wired says […]
After literally years of anticipation, rumor, and increasingly aggressive speculation about a Google Phone, Google has formally announced that the Gphone cometh — sort of. Today, the company has gone public with news of an open source mobile operating system called "Android," named after the company Google acquired in 2005. Backing Android is the Open […]
Earlier this year, Google’s Marissa Mayer argued that Google wasn’t coming out with a piece of mobile hardware, as she explained that the iPhone has dramatically boosted use of Google Maps and other mobile services. Yet there have also been articles quoting people who say they’ve seen a “GPhone.” Miguel Helft’s piece this morning in […]
British Telecom has invested in FON, the Spanish WiFi provider, and says it will build out a free (to BT customers), UK-wide free WiFi network. MarketWatch reports that “BT’s three million plus Total Broadband customers will be able to join the FON WiFi network, which already provides more than 190,000 hotspots worldwide. By doing so, […]