Google TV has finally arrived, not just for pre-order but as an actual device you can get in a retail store. And so I did, hitting Best Buy yesterday and walking out with a Sony Blu-ray player that is Google TV-capable. Here are my impressions, after my first day — well, first evening — with […]
Yesterday afternoon during the Apple earnings call we heard a lot of what might be called, on the basketball court (and elsewhere), “trash talk” from Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Jobs was “on fire” and took on various Apple competitors but especially Android and why he thought that Apple’s “integrated” approach was better and ultimately would […]
Yahoo to Offer Media Links from the Wall Street Journal reports Yahoo will create a similar tool to Facebook connect for their media publishers, web developers and other websites to integrate with. Yahoo would not comment on the new system, but the purpose behind it is to help Yahoo better track users around the web, […]
Today at YouTube, I had a chance to play briefly with YouTube Leanback, best described as a way to channel surf YouTube on your regular TV. It was pretty cool. Here’s my quick impressions and a short video of it in action. I tested out Leanback on one of the new Sony televisions that are […]
About two years ago, NBC and Google teamed up to enable Google to sell TV ads to be aired on NBCU cable channels. adWeek reports the deal has be “aborted.” adWeek said: NBC Universal and Google have discontinued their ad sales partnership begun in 2008, the companies have confirmed. The split deprives Google’s TV ad […]
At long last, Facebook’s social data is coming to search in a big way. Bing is now making use of it to show new “Liked By Your Friends” matches and Facebook-powered people search results. The move offers a huge amount of promise, and perhaps gives Bing a edge that Google can’t quickly replicate. But at […]
comScore has released its latest search share figures to analysts. UBS is first out of the gate to report them. In the wake of Google Instant, Google is once again gaining share, after several months of slight decline. Meanwhile after months of gains, Yahoo drops after becoming “powered” by Bing.
Bloomberg reports Google’s popular Marissa Mayer, VP of search products, is switching roles and moving into location and local services. Marissa is responsible for what you see today at Google.com. She is responsible for pretty much all the user interfaces tested, deployed and torn down on Google’s various search products, including the most recent Google […]
Google’s mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Their next step into that realm is making auto driving cars. The Google Blog announced Google has “developed technology for cars that can drive themselves.” Yes, auto-driving cars, like from the movies and high tech TV shows. Google’s reasoning behind […]
In my “how to choose a URL shortener” article last year, I warned that the country domain that a shortener used might be an issue to consider. A year later, that’s even more so, as a Libyan .ly domain used for an adult content shortener has been closed. Libyan Registrar Takes Back Domain Earlier this […]
Jason Calacanis was a bit upset with Facebook’s new Facebook Groups feature, after he discovered someone added him to a supposed NABMLA group on Facebook. But it wasn’t some stranger that added Jason. It was one of his own Facebook friends. Facebook: Where 5,000 Friends Know Your Name Jason has nearly 5,000 friends on Facebook. […]
I missed Facebook’s press conference yesterday about the new Facebook Groups feature that promises that you can share comments, photos and other information more tightly among only people you trust. But I learned about the feature firsthand soon enough, when I found myself added to a group without being asked. And that was worrisome. Robert […]
If Twitter were like an old-style McDonald’s, the sign outside would have changed to “1 Billion Queries Served” today. And to keep serving up those queries to humans and machines alike, Twitter is now using a new underlying search technology. The news was announced in a post on Twitter’s Engineering blog today. Let’s take the […]
In a bid to give users more tools and control over the sharing of information (and perhaps preempt Google) Facebook introduced a new way to create and communicate with small private groups of people. Through an API this same functionality will be extended to publishers and third party developers like Facebook Connect is today. The […]
Just what the world needs, another URL shortener, right? Google seems to think so, and it’s now making its own Goo.gl service widely available to anyone — complete with tracking and statistics — for free. Below, more about the new entry, how it compares to the more established Bit.ly plus a look at Twitter’s “wrapping” […]
Google rolled out a new Google Phone Gallery today, a handy way to see the amazingly huge number of Google-backed Android phones out there. But if you’re looking for what Google CEO Eric Schmidt called the best rival to the iPhone, the Samsung Galaxy, it’s missing for Verizon. Why? Verizon’s Galaxy phone uses Bing as […]
Xmarks, the popular browser bookmark synchronization service, is going to shut down on January 10, 2011. Xmarks is a free service that saves your bookmarks across different browsers and different computers, and currently boasts about two million users. I’m a longtime user and fan of the service, going back to when it was called Foxmarks; […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google Turns 12 Years Old Today Today is Google’s 12th birthday and to celebrate, Google has posted a special Google birthday logo cake. The birthday cake was designed by Wayne Thiebaud, […]
A newly released year-long study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism looked at US tech coverage in general and individual company coverage in particular and found some interesting things. Most of the technology coverage from June, 2009 to June 2010 was positive. However the single biggest story was about the dangers […]
WPP Group’s CEO Sir Martin Sorrell was the one who coined the term “froe” to describe Google. He said in 2008 that Google had gone from being a “frenemy” to a “froe” of the agency holding company. Presumably “froe” is a more direct competitor than a “frenemy”– at least that’s the implication. Google and Apple […]
One of the disturbing things about the Skyhook Wireless lawsuit against Google is the allegation that Google made Motorola drop Skyhook as a location provider, especially when Google CEO Eric Schmidt said last week that such restrictions would be “violating the principle of open source.” Schmidt’s comment came during a press lunch at the Google […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Bing Social Search Now Recommends People To Follow On Twitter Who’s an expert in a particular topic that you might want to follow on Twitter? Bing Social Search has a new […]
Over the weekend there were two much-discussed mobile-related rumors, both coming out of TechCrunch. The first — still a very hot topic on Techmeme this morning — is that Facebook is building a branded phone or mobile operating system. The original rumor yesterday was that Facebook was working on a mobile OS with a hardware […]
Twitter’s rolling out a new design to users that makes the site more interactive and shows more information than before. What’s new for searchers? Here’s our guide!
I’m at Twitter HQ in San Francisco eating cheese and guacamole in anticipation of the announcement. No one will talk but TechCrunch has reported that it’s video and inline images. I’ll make an attempt at live blogging, though I don’t like it much. The room is full of press. Ev Williams and Biz Stone have […]
A busy day for Google on the legal front continues with news that the company has agreed to $8.5 million in payments to settle a federal lawsuit surrounding Google Buzz and privacy. According to AFP, court documents filed today show that seven plaintiffs will get no more than $2,500 each, lawyers that filed the case […]
It’s sort of a baby step in Facebook’s efforts to improve its search results, but certainly worth noting here: Facebook is now showing news articles in its search results and ranking them by how many “likes” and “shares” the articles have received from Facebook users. The All Facebook blog says the number of friends who […]
Google this evening has launched what it calls “priority inbox” for Gmail. It uses a variety of algorithmic and machine learning techniques to automatically capture and organize “important” emails and de-emphasize other email. It’s like a spam filter in reverse: Gmail’s servers look at several types of information to identify the email that’s important to […]
Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder and one of the richest men on earth, has filed a patent infringement suit today against several Internet titans, the Wall Street Journal reports. The lawsuit centers on technology developed a decade ago by Interval Research Corp., a technology lab that Allen owned between 1992 and 2000. Eleven companies are […]
Google Realtime Search has finally gained its own home page, as well as some new tools including “conversations view,” Google Alerts for real time content and the ability to see tweets filtered by geography. New Home Page Back in June, my Can Google Real Time Search Have Its Own Home Page Now? covered how frustrating […]
Google’s holding a small press gathering today at 9:30am in its San Francisco offices. Topic? The ability to place phone calls using Google Voice integrated within Gmail. Anyone with a US Gmail account will get this rolling out today and over the next few days, along with the ability to make free calls to numbers […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Back to School Time: A Refresher Course on Writing Great Ads In this month’s column, we’ll take a quick refresher course on what goes into writing great ads and then we’ll […]
One of the questions that came up after the formal launch of Facebook Places last night was: how will this affect Google Places (among others)? As an aside, I have to say it’s really strange that these products have nearly the identical name. It’s almost like Honda offering a car with a particular name and […]
Oracle has filed suit against Google for allegedly infringing on patents they hold for Java, which Oracle acquired last year. Karen Tillman from Oracle said, “In developing Android, Google knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle’s Java-related intellectual property. This lawsuit seeks appropriate remedies for their infringement.” Google said they have not yet been served the […]
As rumored yesterday, Twitter has launched an official “Tweet” button that’s available to all web site owners. You can see it in action already right here on Search Engine Land — look how well it plays with others in the sharing options for our Tweet button story from yesterday: The Tweet button builder has some […]
Google’s having an impromptu small press “gathering” today at its offices in San Francisco. Topic? “Cool new mobile features.” Want to know more? Stay tuned, as I’ll be live blogging the event that begins at 10am. This is all we know so far: We’ll be unveiling a couple of cool new mobile features at the […]
Twitter is planning to launch an official “Tweet” button this week, according to Mashable. The button will come in three forms, according to internal Twitter documents that Mashable has published. When asked to confirm Mashable’s report and the authenticity of the internal documents, a Twitter spokesperson would only tell us, “Stay tuned.” The button will […]
Google’s internal debates over privacy and how to monetize the mountains of data it has about its users — including whether to monetize it at all — are detailed today by the Wall Street Journal. The lengthy article examines a confidential, seven-page “vision statement” that made the rounds at Google as far back as 2008. […]
South Korea Police Raid Google Office from the New York Times reports South Korea has started a formal investigation against Google over the Street View privacy topic that has been haunting Google for the past few months. Google’s South Korea offices were raided today by the South Korean police. Korean National Police Agency (KNPA) issued […]
Google and Verizon have announced that they’ll be hosting a conference call today at 10:30 AM Pacific Time. Topic? Not said, but probably related to the rumor last week that the two companies have cut a deal to ensure Google’s content has preferential treatment in Verizon’s network, something that made many wonder if Google’s abandoned […]