I think there’s no question that Bing is a success. People had widely expected it to fail (as Live Search had) when it entered the market. Instead it has steadily gained share and has even prompted some UI enhancements and changes from Google. Google is not “threatened” by Bing in any real way (today). But […]
Apparently, Google’s Sergey Brin now believes that the US government should make fighting Chinese censorship a high priority, is disappointed with Microsoft for continuing to censor and is surprised that some question Google’s sudden U-turn in China. I’d say Google needs to get a little time under its belt being outside of China and setting […]
Beginning today, Google is no longer censoring results on its Chinese search engine, the company has announced. But rather than the expected “pullout” from China, Google hopes to continue operating within the country. It all comes down to whether the Chinese government decides operating off a Hong Kong domain — rather than the main Chinese […]
Twitter’s search team is working on a project to uncover the most popular tweets for any search query, but it’s unclear when or where the project might be implemented. Taylor Singletary, a Developer Advocate at Twitter, announced and described the project today in a post on the Twitter API Announcements group. The Search team is […]
The three-year-old lawsuit in which Viacom is seeking $1 billion from Google over copyrighted videos on YouTube moved a step forward today with the release of several court documents. The three documents unsealed today are:
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Facebook Passes Google (Again) As Most-Visited US Site: Hitwise Facebook.com was the most-visited web site in the U.S. last week, surpassing even Google.com. And this is not the first time it’s […]
You may have caught this in Danny Sullivan’s liveblogging of Ev William’s keynote at SXSW today, but just in case … Twitter has introduced a new platform called @anywhere that will allow web sites to integrate Twitter features more easily. The details seem a bit foggy to me, but it sounds like @anywhere takes many […]
Live blogging from SXSW continues, with Twitter cofounder Ev Williams to take the stage shortly. Will he announce Twitter’s rumored ad plans, as expected? Stay tuned for the news.
Over the weekend the New York Times ran an article that summarized and largely substantiated all the rumor and innuendo about the increasingly contentious relationship between Apple and Google. A hot topic on Techmeme over the weekend, the following excerpt captures the essence of the piece: While the discord between Apple and Google is in […]
Taking a page from Salesforce.com, last night Google formally launched the anticipated Google Apps Marketplace at its “Campfire One” developer event. In short it allows companies and developers to gain access and sell into Google’s “2 million businesses and 25 million Google Apps users.” The marketplace launches with 50 partners including Intuit and competitor Zoho. […]
Twitter has just announced that to protect people from scams, links in direct messages and sent via email will be shortened using its own URL shortener. It’s a welcome move. Still, I was curious about any impacts this might have for good marketers who are not trying to scam people. Good news, on that front. […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: The Pitfalls Of A/B Ad Split Testing, Part 1 Most search advertisers have no question that testing ads is a good thing, and can lead to much higher performing campaigns. But […]
I’m attending South By Southwest for the first time, later this week. I have to say, already I find SXSW to be overwhelming — and I’m not even there yet! To get myself organized as to how to attack this monster, I starting making a list of search-related sessions. I thought it would be useful […]
Techmeme is one of my favorite sites. It’s my morning “newspaper” that covers technology headlines from across the web. And now it’s joined by a new site just for media news, Mediagazer. I’m thrilled to see the new site arrive, even if it means more reading for me. Much of the “tech” news on Techmeme […]
Three Google executives have been found guilty of criminal charges over a bullying video that appeared on the Google Video service. Google has responded with a blog post pledging to appeal the convictions and suggesting that they undermine “the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built.” The video involved a youth with […]
As both the Wall Street Journal and Telegraph UK are reporting, the EU has received complaints into Google’s competitive practices and potential abuse of its dominant market position in Europe. These come from some private companies, which we discussed in part before. One of those companies, the shopping engine Ciao, was acquired by Microsoft in […]
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. […]
Perhaps yesterday’s tweet by Google CEO Eric Schmidt put it best. Hell has indeed frozen over. Google has run its first major television ad, during the Super Bowl, no less. Below, the ad, how it has been received, how it compares to other search engine commercials from rivals and some questions about why market leader […]
Google CEO Eric Schmidt is causing quite a stir with this tweet from about an hour ago that suggests Google will run its first major broadcast television commercial during tomorrow’s Super Bowl. NOTE: This has now happened. See Hell Freezes Over: Google Airs Ad During Super Bowl. For those who can’t see the image above […]
Google and the Associated Press have reached an agreement allowing Google to continue using AP content. But whether this is a long-term agreement replacing the one that expired last month is unclear. And despite the agreement, AP stories won’t be hosted by Google News any time soon, it seems. Yahoo’s also struck a new deal […]
According to a hearsay report in Wired, Apple CEO Steve Jobs allegedly said the following at an internal town hall meeting for Apple employees coinciding with the launch of the iPad: We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We […]
Google’s decision to potentially pull out of China if it cannot operate without censorship is a remarkable story. The statement was made after Google discovered a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack” on GMail. Google didn’t say the Chinese government was behind the attacks but that’s the clear implication. The attacks involved more than just Google […]
Google has revealed that the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists were targeted last December in a hacking attempt. That, along with other issues, has convinced the company that it will no longer censor results China as the Chinese government wishes. In particular, Google has willingly allowed self-censored its search results since January 27, […]
France to explore “Google tax” to pay creative work from Reuters reports the French government wants to find a way to tax Google and other companies like them. The President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, said: For the time being, these companies are taxed in the country in which they are headquartered even though they make […]
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 […]
We just received a press invitation from Google to an “Android Press Gathering” for January 5. That coincides a report that T-Mobile has advised employees that Google will be selling its own phone with T-Mobile “support” on January 5. So, the rumor of a new Google phone called “Nexus One” is moving closer to reality. […]
ReadWriteWeb is reporting from “sources close to the project” that Yahoo will shut down MyBloglog next month. MyBlogLog doesn’t hold the blogging community’s attention today the way it did a few years ago, but if the report is true, it will disappoint many who continue to use the service. There was a time in 2006 […]
Yahoo engineers in France went on strike and protested yesterday over Carol Bartz wanting to close down the R&D center in Grenoble and ultimately putting 78 engineers out of work. Some of these protestors created a web site named Yahoo It Was You on a Google owned Blogspot, as a way to mock Yahoo’s “Its […]
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 […]
Wow. Asa Dotzler, community coordinator for Firefox marketing projects, is urging the world to add Bing to Firefox and dump Google, over comments Google CEO Eric Schmidt made about privacy. Does this mean Bing will finally be allowed into Firefox as a default choice for users?
Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz says the company’s recent search market share declines are due, in part, to the loss of toolbar deals with HP and Acer computers. She made the comments during a keynote presentation today at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference in New York City. Late last year, Acer dropped Yahoo as […]
Google has unveiled a new Living Stories are, where the New York Times and the Washington Post are experimenting with how coverage of a particular news story would look if content was all centralized within a single page. The experiment puts into practice a vision that Google has long expressed previously as “Living URLs,” a […]
It’s somewhat ceremonial, but also an important milestone: Yahoo and Microsoft have announced the finalization and execution of the search deal that was first announced in late July. The companies issued this statement: “Microsoft and Yahoo! believe that this deal will create a sustainable and more compelling alternative in search that can provide consumers, advertisers […]
Newspaper reader Eric Schmidt, who happens to be Google’s CEO, has spoken frequently about his reverence for news journalism and the important role it plays in society. He and his organization have worked with and reached out to publishers to find ways to promote and expose their content online. Yet despite these overtures many newspaper […]
After a couple months of testing, Google has confirmed that it’s switching to a home page that fades in as it loads. The rest of the text and links on the home page will only appear when a user moves his/her mouse.
Yahoo announced on their blog and press area that Yahoo will integrate their properties with Facebook Connect at a pretty massive level. The Yahoo announcement reads: Yahoo! Inc. today announced further integration with Facebook that unites social experiences from across the Web to provide a place for consumers to enjoy meaningful content and stay in […]
I’m at the FTC’s “Journalism & Internet Age” Workshop in Washington DC today, where we’re expecting addresses from Rupert Murdoch and Arianna Huffington, along with Josh Cohen of Google News and a variety of panels. I’ll be on one of those panels later today. I’m going to do a big live blog of things I […]
It should come as no surprise that the defining moment of (real-time in particular) search in 2009, came on June 25, the day on which Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, died. Overwhelmingly, the number of searches for information about MJ and the circumstances surrounding his death, both on the day of and in the […]
Bloomberg has a story out suggesting that the publishers of the Denver Post and the Dallas Morning News may be joining Rupert Murdoch’s coalition of the willing to block Google. But I don’t think that’s what going on at all, and I’m trying to clarify things. Dean Singleton, CEO of MediaNews Group, which publishes the […]
It’s back, the prospect that Microsoft might try to make Rupert Murdoch happy by offering a “get listed with Bing” exclusive deal. Later, I’ll revisit the topic in a coordinated fashion. But for now, I’ve collected a number of thoughts I’ve put out on Twitter, in blog comments and elsewhere. First, I’ll point readers back […]