Topic: Techmeme

Accoona Files For $80.5 Million IPO

Via PaidContent.org, Accoona Files for IPO from the Associated Press reports that Accoona has filed to go public, with an estimated IPO price of $80.5 million. Accoona hopes to list their stock as “ACNA” on the NASDAQ. The AP reports Accoona’s three business lines as online-lead generation, an online search engine in the U.S., Europe […]

Google Gets Some Of What It Wanted From The FCC

Google is seeking to penetrate and open up the walled garden that is the US wireless market. Carriers are the gatekeepers, controlling access and the devices available to consumers. In Europe the situation is quite different, allowing consumers to buy any phone and essentially use them with any operator. Google had made a very public […]

Microsoft And Google Moving More Deeply Into Each Others’ Businesses

Microsoft vows it won’t let its core businesses be undermined by “the cloud.” This article from the NY Times (and related discussion at Techmeme) quotes Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer saying that Microsoft will compete aggressively with Google and other online alternatives to Office and will offer Web-based versions of all its core software: “We’re not […]

SEO

Digg Buries Google AdSense For Microsoft Ads

Digg has dropped Google as its ad provider in exchange for for a three-year exclusive ad deal with Microsoft. Microsoft will be providing the display and contextual advertising on Digg’s popular social news site, with traffic estimated at over 17 million unique monthly visitors. The switch over will take place in early August and will […]

SEO

Yahoo Sees Revenue Growth, But Income Down

Yahoo released its Q2 earnings a little while ago. What they show is low double-digit growth in certain revenue categories, but also decreases in selected areas (e.g., operating income, free cash flow). Revenue and operating cash flow described as consistent with the “midpoint of guidance.” Here’s the earnings release (PDF file). Below are some additional […]

Google’s Wireless Spectrum Proposal To Win In FCC

FCC Draft Auction Rules A Win For Google, Hi-Tech Industry from CNN Money reports that Google’s wireless spectrum proposal gained backing from FCC chairman Kevin Martin. Ultimately, this could see Google buying wireless broadcast rights. The USA Today article, New rules could rock wireless world, explains part of the proposal means that you might be […]

Google Launches “Question and Answers” In Russia

Googling Google reports Google Russia has launched a Questions & Answers service in Russia. Although Google closed down Google Answers late last year, this launch of Questions & Answers is a new flavor of such an application. To me, it looks more like a Google Groups approach than anything else.

Apple iPhone Craze: A Search Volume Look

Hitwise sent me some data on the search volume for the term “iPhone.” As many of you know, Apple is releasing the iPhone this Friday, and the press and craze over this product is unprecedented. Just take a glance at the coverage at Techmeme and you can see, the news reports are overwhelming, to say […]

PPC

Yahoo Merges Search & Display Ad Teams, Karnstedt Heads Up Team

Yahoo announced that they are combining its search ad and display ad teams. As part of this move, David Karnstedt will be heading up North American sales. Karnstedt was Yahoo’s senior vice president of Yahoo’s search sales business and is now head of US sales overall. Wenda Harris Millard, Yahoo’s Chief Sales Officer in the […]

SEO

Yahoo Acquires College Sports Site, Rivals.com

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.

Microsoft To Change Desktop Search In Vista Over Google Antitrust Claim

Microsoft to change Vista after Google complaint from Reuters reports that Microsoft has agreed to make changes to their Vista desktop search application to make it easier for people to change the default search provider. Microsoft will make the changes in reaction to a Google antitrust complaint lodged with the US Justice Department. Google claimed […]

Yahoo May Buy MySpace For 25% Stock Swap

News Corp explores swap of MySpace site for Yahoo! stake from the Times Of London reports that News Corp is interested in handing over MySpace to Yahoo in exchange for 25% of Yahoo’s stock. Such a deal would value MySpace, the very popular social networking and video site, at about $12 billion. But at the […]

Google Acquires Zenter, Online Presentation Software Company

Google has announced that they have acquired Zenter, an online presentation software company. The acquisition will enable them to add presentation software to their Google Docs & Spreadsheets offering. In mid-April, Google purchased Marratech, a video conferencing company and purchased Tonic, a company that built software for presentation creation and document conversion. One would think […]

SEO

Yahoo’s CEO, Terry Semel, To Be Replaced By Jerry Yang

The Wall Street Journal reported that Terry Semel has stepped down as Yahoo’s CEO. The new CEO is Yahoo’s co-founder, Jerry Yang. With this change, Susan Decker, former executive vice president and head of Advertiser and Publisher Group, is now president. Semel told the Wall Street Journal, "As we discussed my future goals and plans, […]

YouTube Remixer & YouTube Mobile Go Live

The YouTube Blog announced that they have launched YouTube Remixer, a Web-based editing tool created by Adobe to edit your videos and mix them with other videos. Hat tip to Gary on this, plus you can see detailed screen captures at Techcrunch. Gizmodo reports YouTube Mobile going live at https://m.youtube.com/. You can browse and search […]

eBay Pulls Google AdWords Ads To Protest Google Checkout Moves

This week, eBay Live is happening in Boston, but the event is likely to be overshadowed by a fascinating and fast-developing controversy between the auction giant and Google. Rumors from ComparisonEngines.com and other sources last night and earlier today reported that eBay had pulled its ads off Google to protest a planned party (now cancelled) […]

YouTube Ready To Test “Fingerprinting” Video Tool

YouTube to test video ID with Time Warner, Disney from Reuters reports that Google’s YouTube is ready to begin testing their video fingerprinting tool on Time Warner and Walt Disney video content. The tool will be ready for testing in a month and will help prevent copyrighted materials from making its way to YouTube. The […]

PPC

Kevin Ryan Named VP Of Search Engine Watch & Search Engine Strategies

Kevin Ryan was named the vice president of global content for Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Strategies, by Incisive Media today. Ryan in the past worked as the vice president, Interactive Media for the Interpublic Group agency, Wahlstrom Interactive and CEO of Kinetic Results. He also founded Motivity Marketing, a strategic consulting firm. He […]

Search Results Getting Safer

The State of Search Engine Safety was released by Site Advisor today. In this report, we learned that search results are now safer then they were a year ago. 4% of the search results are link to risky sites, down from 5.0% reported last year. Sponsored results are 2.4 times more likely to have links […]

Insight Into Google’s Search Quality Efforts

Google Keeps Tweaking Its Search Engine from the New York Times has some deep insight into the workings of Google’s search quality team. Google Blogoscoped has an excellent summary of some of the highlights from the article. In short, Amit Singhal, the head of the search quality team, let the New York Times in, to […]

Microsoft Building New Secret Search Engine?

Microsoft: Silicon Valley Team Building Stealth Search Engine from Techcrunch reports rumors that Microsoft is working on a new search engine. Techcrunch says a “rock star” team of twenty or more people is developing this new search engine. They are building out the next generation “horizontal” search engine. I am told, Danny will ask Sanaz […]

eBay Buys StumbleUpon

As expected, eBay has purchased StumbleUpon for about $75 million. “StumbleUpon is a great fit within our goal of pioneering new communities based on commerce and sustained by trust,” said Michael Buhr, senior director, eBay. “StumbleUpon’s downloadable toolbar provides an engaging and unique experience to its users, but it is the similarities in our approaches […]

MyBlogLog Brands All Social Media Optimizers As Schmoes

So MyBlogLog has tagging. Yawn. Then I saw Andy Beal highlighted this part of MyBlogLog’s post about the new feature Spam – If you think someone is spamming you, tag it out loud! Internally, we like to call a user who games the system a SchMOe (Social Media Optimizer). Internally, you know, I like to […]

Facebook Opens Up Its ‘Platform’ To Everyone

“Facebook is the anti-MySpace” and “Facebook is a new type of “Web 2.0″ portal” are some of the things that were and are being said yesterday and today about the social network’s new “Facebook Platform” initiative. Basically there’s no direct search angle here but it’s an interesting and potentially important development. First, what is it […]

Technorati Blog Search Relaunches

Technorati has relaunched today, and I’m on a short day, so I can’t dive in to play with it in depth. Below, I’ll recap what some others are saying. add a few off-the-cuff remarks on blog search in general, plus comment on how Technorati continues to be masterful in working its own pages to the […]

Google Meme: Hot Trends Added To Google Trends

Google has launched a meme-like feature to Google Trends. The Google Trends home page now has a section named “Hot Trends,” which shows the hottest queries for the day. You can also look back historically and see the hottest queries for that day. Plus, Google Trends upgraded the trends history to show not only country […]