Google posted Q4, 2007 revenues that represented 51 percent growth vs. 2006. Quarterly revenues were $4.83 billion, compared with $3.21 billion a year ago. However, earnings and revenue per share fell short of analyst consensus estimates. The headline that everyone is repeating is that social network monetization is not performing as well as hoped by […]
Google to kill Domain Tasting from Domain Tolls reports receiving a tip from a Google informant that Google will be preventing “domain tasting” from participating in the AdSense for Domains (aka Domain Park) program. Domain tasting is the practice of trying out a domain name for a 5 day-period. Registration companies will refund a domainer […]
The head of an EU group looking into search privacy issues said yesterday that Internet Protocol addresses assigned to computers should be treated as personal information. Below, more about that plus a look at some comments about how the search engines have been reported to the European Parliament to be dealing with privacy.
Paris-based Publicis Groupe is one of the four largest ad agencies in the world, with a portfolio of subsidiary brands that includes Leo Burnett Worldwide and Saatchi & Saatchi, among many others. In late 2006, the firm also bought online ad agency Digitas. Reuters is reporting that Publicis and Google are “combining their expertise to […]
Yahoo has sent word that they are testing integration of data from their Delicious social bookmarking site within the Yahoo search results pages. For some users, a search will now show whether a page listed in Yahoo results is also on Delicious and how it has been tagged. It brings back memories of Yahoo My […]
What does mobile computing, that online all the time phenom of the future, look like, and how soon will we have ubiquitous mobile search? Apple Chairman Steve Jobs offered some serious clues in his keynote address here in San Francisco at MacWorld this morning.
President of the Microsoft Business Division, Jeff Raikes, is retiring and will be succeeded in that same role at the end of the month by Juniper Networks’ COO Stephen Elop. The Business Division controls Microsoft Office, Unified Communications, and Microsoft Business Solutions. The announcement comes a day after news of Microsoft M&A chief Bruce Jaffe’s […]
With Jim Lanzone being replaced as Ask.com’s CEO, I thought it time to do a piece that’s been banging about in my head. Do successful search companies have to have CEOs or top execs who "grew up" from the search product side? The jury is probably still out, but it’s interesting to look back at […]
Matsushita’s Panasonic, Google To Work On Internet-Ready TVs from SmartMoney reports Panasonic is working with Google to make TVs that display internet content. Matsushita Electric Industrial, the company behind Panasonic, said the TVs will enable users to browse and watch YouTube videos from their TVs. The announcement was made at the Consumer Electronic Show yesterday […]
Microsoft Agrees to Buy Fast Search for $1.23 Billion from Bloomberg reports that Microsoft is buying FAST Search. The Norwegian search company, Fast Search & Transfer ASA, will be bought by Microsoft for 6.6 billion kroner, or $1.23 billion. Microsoft will buy the company via the Oslo Stock Exchange, share by share. Here is the […]
I am a huge fan of Techmeme, and I always thought it was interesting to watch the Techmeme home page change throughout the day. Amit at Digital Inspiration has actually captured 50 hours of the Techmeme home page and then posted a video of it playing those 50 hours in about 50 seconds. You can […]
Wikia Search has launched their Alpha version at https://alpha.search.wikia.com/, and boy is it an Alpha launch. Chris Sherman is writing up our long review of Wikia Search and it should be live shortly. Even Wikia said the “quality of the search results is low.” There is not much I can add to that than simply […]
Rich Skrenta — who, aside from creating the first computer virus, is more notable to search as a cofounder of the Open Directory Project and the Topix news search engine — has announced he’s founded a search start-up. A stealth one, as TechCrunch puts it. Don’t we already have several stealth search start-ups? Yep. Here’s […]
As promised, now that a full calendar year has gone by, it’s time to look at some key stats about how Search Engine Land has grown in various ways over the year. Let’s dive in!
Google Artificially Promotes Recent Web Pages from Google Operating System reports that Google has been recently showing a bit too much love to new or very recent pages indexed by Google. Ionut’s Alex Chitu’s example was that Google’s New Years logo promoted a search for January 1 tcp/ip, which then showed results for Digg and […]
Google’s plan to socialize its various applications continues. Google Operating System has spotted code in Gmail that may lead to a Facebook-style news feed of status updates from your Gmail contacts. More about this and Google’s continued “stealth social network” moves below.
Almost two weeks ago, I wrote my Google Reader Gets Social With Friends Shared Items post detailing how disturbing it was that Google Reader was now sharing items with people it considered my friends, on an opt-out basis. Privacy concerns over this finally exploded this week, with Google Reader itself now reacting mainly to highlight […]
Wikia Search Launches Private Beta; Public Launch On January 7 from TechCrunch has an email sent to a limited number of beta testers, announcing that Search Wikia has launched. Jimmy Wales, cofounder of Wikipedia and driving force behind Search Wikia, said in the email that Search Wikia is “going to be letting people in slowly […]
Yahoo! Found Guilty of Mass Copyright Infringement from TorrentFreak reports Yahoo China lost the case over linking to unlicensed music in China. Didn’t they already lose the case? Well, in April they were ordered to remove those links and ordered to pay 200,000 yuan. But they then appealed that ruling in November. Now the Beijing […]
The US Federal Trade Commission has granted its approval for Google to purchase DoubleClick. Google has a press release up with the news (and see also here), and the FTC announcement is here. The many parties have raised privacy issues with the deal, and the FTC noted this was not germane to its approval:
Today Microsoft and Viacom announced a wide-ranging content and advertising deal that involves Viacom content distribution on Microsoft-owned sites, ad serving by Microsoft on Viacom properties, mutual distribution of game-related content and ads, as well as collaboration in other areas. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the announcement are apparent guarantees of Microsoft advertising on […]
Dow Jones reports (shorter Wall Street Journal version here) that some software developers are experiencing considerable frustration writing for Google’s much-touted Android mobile platform. “Functionality is not there, is poorly documented or just doesn’t work. It’s clearly not ready for prime time,” said one of the developers quoted in the story, which acknowledges that early […]
The Google Talkabout Blog announced the launch of an instant messenger bot that is an interpreter. An instant messenger bot is a little computer program that accepts instant messages and automatically replies to them. AOL has the AIM Bot program for years, allowing developers to create these bots as they see fit. In any event, […]
Google Operating System discusses the integration of Google Profiles into most Google services and products and the unification of disparate profiles into a single master profile. Whether and how this might ultimately be integrated with Google’s newly reinvigorated social network, Orkut, is unclear. Although they are much less extensive, Profiles may turn out to be […]
TechCrunch reports that social network Bebo launched its new Open Application Platform this morning in San Francisco. But the platform is an exact duplicate of Facebook’s platform, based on Facebook opening up the code to third-party developers. (Here’s the Bebo press release.) Bebo is part of OpenSocial, the competing Google initiative that also features MySpace, […]
Yesterday, Google announced that you can now login and talk to AOL Instant Messenger users via Google Talk, through Google Talk’s Gmail interface. Making the two instant messaging tools work together is a feature promised way back when AOL and Google formed a strategic alliance in December 2005. If you read the old press release, […]
I went to Google on my iPhone, and I saw a new interface. I then did some searches and saw that TechCrunch has a piece on it named Google Pre-Launches New iPhone Interface. Here are some pictures of the new interface from my iPhone:
The Flickr Blog announced that the integration of the expected Online Photo Editing software from Picnik is now complete. Meaning, you can now edit your Flickr photos directly on the web with a click of a button. Personally, I am very excited about this feature and hope to utilize it often. Here are screenshots of […]
The Google Blog announced that Gmail has added colors to labels. Labels in Gmail are basically virtual folders. Assigning labels by actions can really streamline how you use email. Google has decided to add colors to labels in order to make the labels you defined more visual. If you want to add colors to your […]
The Digg Blog announced several additions and changes that went live on Digg last night. The first is the addition of an image tab to the top of Digg’s main categories.
Happy Birthday to us! Today, Search Engine Land officially turns one year old. Below, I wanted to share some thanks to all those who’ve helped make it such a successful year, and I’m going to save the in-depth "what have we achieved" statistics for sharing for January, when the entire 2007 calendar year has passed. […]
The Google Reader Blog announced that they have added two new features unique to Google Reader but not unique to many other RSS readers. The new features are “recommendations” and drag and drop capabilities.
As we wrote yesterday, Facebook faced a furor from critics who argued its Beacon program went too far in tracking its users’ actions on non-Facebook sites and broadcasting those back through Facebook newsfeeds. As of last night the company had decided to make changes in the advertising program to appease critics who have brought much […]
Google has rolled out a new experimental feature that allows anyone to alter search results in the way they like. You can move good results higher, hide ones you think are bad and suggest your own.
Subverted search sites lead to massive malware attack in progress from ComputerWorld reports that Google, along with Yahoo, Live Search have been targeted in a massive attack that puts links leading to malware sites into top search results. Alex Eckelberry, Sunbelt Software’s CEO said “So far we’ve found 27 different domains, each with up to […]
Google Plans Service to Store Users’ Data from the Wall Street Journal reports Google may be offering an online storage service within a few months. We have heard rumors of such offerings in the past, going under code names such as “Platypus,” GDrive, Google Drive and Google “My Stuff.” Are these renewed rumors legit, or […]
Digg The Candidates is a new area on Digg that allows you to see what US presidential candidates are digging and doing on Digg. That’s right, you can check out what Barack Obama (with about 3,200 Digg friends) and Ron Paul (with about 6,000 friends) are up to. But is it really the candidates doing […]
Facebook’s Tracking of User Activity Riles Privacy Advocates, Members from the Wall Street Journal reports privacy group MoveOn.org is attacking Facebook over their Beacon Ads product. MoveOn.org has an online petition that asks:
Registered Google users are now permitted to adjust the place markers for businesses on Google Maps and soon will have the ability to more broadly edit local business information. Changes will initially go through a human editorial process to ensure the accuracy and propriety of information as the new capabilities are rolled out. Google told […]
A much discussed blog posting this morning comes from Saul Hansell at the New York Times, who spoke to both Google and Yahoo about their plans to turn their email products into social networks, in a manner of speaking: “Inbox 2.0.” The plans discussed in the post suggest some clever and creative thinking about how […]