Users of Yahoo’s mobile web search site (https://m.yahoo.com) on smartphones should notice new enhancements and expanded search results the next time they search using certain types of queries. Yahoo has announced changes to how it shows search results for local business listings, entertainment, stocks, videos, and images on smartphones. Yahoo says it’s “pulling more essential […]
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. […]
Yahoo is launching a number of search enhancements this evening that start to deliver on the UI innovation that the company has been promising since the Microsoft search deal was announced. It’s part of Yahoo’s bid to remain relevant in search by spicing up the user experience and trying to bring more utility to page […]
Patrick Altoft reports seeing full page previews with a magnifying glass in the Google search results, as to others. It’s not their imaginations. Google has confirmed with us this is an experiment it’s testing.
The Google Blog announced a few new small Google search features added this week. They include quick links to the IMDB results, showing a TV filter for some TV show queries and adding stars to the local web search results. (1) IMDB.com results in Google now get “directed by” and “starring” quick links that anchor […]
Talk about eating your own dogfood! Today, Twitter CEO Evan Williams took questions for an hour on Twitter, about Twitter, replying from his own account. What was he asked? Many questions about how the new Twitter works, from people who don’t yet have it. And if he likes cats (yes). I’ve compiled a transcript, below. […]
Yahoo previewed a new search experience that’s coming this fall during its Yahoo Product Runway event this morning. The event focused on several Yahoo products, and included a sneak peek at what Yahoo calls “rich, immersive” search results in the news and entertainment niches. The Yahoo Search Blog gives a hint at what’s to come, […]
On the Daily Show earlier this week, Jon Stewart did a funny takedown of the White House and the Republicans having a back-and-forth on Twitter. But while the conversation was real, hunting it down to see it yourself an ordinary Twitter user is pretty tough.
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!
Google Instant promises to change the way people search. Speaking at today’s announcement, Google’s Marissa Mayer called it a “fundamental shift in search.” As with any big Google announcement, there are questions: Who can use Google Instant? Can I opt out or turn off Google Instant? Why am I not seeing it when I do […]
Google Operating System reports some users are seeing Google search results center or middle aligned. For some reason, Google may be testing padding white space on the right and left of the search results. I personally cannot replicate it but Google Operating System posted a screen shot, which I will share here as well: I […]
Do your web pages, graphic images, and videos effectively communicate aboutness to both web searchers and search engines? How do search engines and searchers determine aboutness?
I noticed this morning that Google News has added a toggle for the right side column on the home page, allowing it to have a “two column” format that the old version of Google News had. It’s the second change now that allows people to make Google News like the old version, something many people […]
Rob Ousbey documented on video how Google is testing a feature where the search results on the page are updating as you type your search query. This is a form of search query refinement and Google Suggest that dynamically modifies the search results on the page as you type. Here is his video: The internet […]
The Google AdSense blog announced they have updated the layout of some AdSense units. The main changes were to make the ads “more space-efficient and visually pleasing,” said Google. Specifically: Leaderboard (728×90): the title, description, and URL are now arranged in rows instead of columns (except in the case when only one ad is showing) […]
Hunch has announced what it calls a “streamlined and simplified” home page, but the changes really reflect a slight change in focus, too. When the site launched last year, we referred to Hunch as a “personal decision maker;” Hunch itself used the term “decision engine.” The new home page, though, presents a change of emphasis; […]
Flickr has redesigned the photo page, the primary page used on Flickr.com by users. The changes include: Photos are 28% larger now Navigating from photos and to photos is faster now A new lightbox feature to enlarge photos Preview up five photos at a time Changed location of photo’s title, description, when a photo was […]
Bing Maps has been doing some cool stuff lately on the functionality side of things, but the look-and-feel has been pretty stagnant for about a year now — since Bing’s launch last summer. To remedy that, Bing has announced the full launch of its new Maps experience. Here’s what Bing Maps looked like in June […]
Before the revamped Google Image Search design went live 9 days ago, there was a clear and quick way to report offensive images to Google. In fact, Google released the report offensive image feature just about a year ago, due to complaints. Now, that feature is no longer found in the new design. Here is […]
Google has begun rolling out a new background color for the AdWords listings on Google’s search results. The new color is a pale purple, as opposed to the current pale yellow. Google has been testing the pale purple since May of this year and last week we have seen it ramp up in the number […]
Google announced they have redesigned and enhanced their dictionary results. Google said you no longer have to type define or what is prior to your search to trigger a dictionary. Google added “implicit triggering” of the dictionary result, so for example, a search on [stupendous] shows a dictionary result at the top of the page: […]
Google announced a new image search UI and new Image Search Ads today. Barry wrote about the new UI last week. Consumer image search is much improved in several respects while the new Image Search Ads opens up ads on Google Images to all advertisers. It had been essentially limited to retailers with image feeds […]
Google seems to be testing a brand new design for image search. I personally do not see it, but as I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable a few days ago, some people are seeing the new image search design. Today, I finally found pictures of the design via a Twitter user. Here is the […]
In response to sometimes loud and angry user feedback, Google News has tweaked its home page tonight — and one of the new features is very reminiscent of the old version of Google News. Just announced tonight are several feature changes to how the Google News home page looks and works. The most noticeable is […]
Google has changed how they display the large map result for a single listing in web search. First covered by Mike Blumenthal, the OneBox map result has some minor changes but at the same time can have a large impact on your search referrals from Google. The example I gave was for a search on […]
Though late to the Android party Yahoo has released Search, Mail and Messenger for Android. I downloaded Mail and Messenger — by using a 2d barcode scanner in my EVO off my iPad screen — but was unable to open Search to test-drive it before writing this. (See postscript below.) Yahoo has also improved its […]
Today, Google News is undergoing its first major redesign since being launched in 2002. Gone is the default “section” view, replaced instead by a “news stream” view of stories. Creating a personalized collection of stories has been made easier, as is the ability to share stories with friends and others via email, Twitter, Google Buzz […]
While Bing is throwing a star-studded party to announce changes to its entertainment-based search results, there are several other changes that deserve a close look, not the least of which is the amount of deep content — including full articles with thousands of words — that Bing is now hosting in its search results. More […]
Google’s Real Time Search is awesome. I’d love to point more people at it, but I can’t. That’s because unlike many other specialized Google search services, Google Real Time Search doesn’t have its own home page. That sucks, and it’s time to change.
Our online activity is about to be spread over more and more devices. This opens up some interesting implications for UI design. More and more, we’ll be launching queries from more places that will have different environmental challenges. For example:
Yahoo is laying off more people in its seemingly ever-shrinking search group. In addition to previous general Yahoo layoffs, many search executives and employees have left or are being moved to Microsoft as part of the Yahoo-Bing search integration. According to PaidContent and TechCrunch Yahoo is cutting an undisclosed number of search jobs. Yahoo provided […]
Bing’s received plenty of praise for its home page that shows a different picture each day. How long until Google would copy it, some have wondered. Today, almost exactly a year since Bing launched, Google has rolled out its own feature that lets you put a picture on the Google home page. In a blog […]
Yahoo announced they have redesigned the home page for Yahoo Image Search and Yahoo Video Search to include trending search results. The new pages are no longer dull looking, they show up to “five pages of topics that are trending in search,” in a sleek black background. You can scroll through the pages manually or […]
Today, Facebook announced new simplified privacy controls designed to ease a settings overload problem that it admitted has challenged its users. Did it succeed? I’d give it an A for effort but a C+ to B- for actually solving the overload problem. Rather than a “one click solution” or a single-page recap, there remains a […]
Facebook is holding a special press conference today, where it will be discussing the new “simplied” privacy settings that the company has developed in hopes of easing recent concerns over privacy. I’ll be live blogging the news. NOTE: See Drill (Down), Baby, Drill: Facebook’s New “Simple” Privacy Settings Still Pretty Complex, our story after this […]
As part of releasing a new design and search options last week, Google also added a new search filter named “sites with images” this week that it has spotlighted on the Google Blog. To activate the search filter, conduct an image related search at Google, and then click on the link under “All results” named […]
As I covered in my article about Google’s new look, while the new design appears to have been widely accepted without complaint, there are some who want “old” or “Classic Google” back. Google tells me that’s not going to happen. But there is an unofficial way to force the old look to appear, for those […]
It’s kind of crazy. I’ve been playing with Facebook’s “Posts By Everyone” search feature recently, and many people who hide their profile information have no problem sharing sometimes really personal updates with the world. Are there people on Facebook who don’t understand how to keep their updates out of the public eye? And why doesn’t […]
“Download time” and “speed” are terms that often confuse SEO professionals, web designers/developers, information architects and usability professionals alike because of various interpretations. A number of items influence download time, including but not limited to:
After months of testing, Google is releasing a new look-and-feel for its search results today, a three column design that provides a permanent menu of search options and tools to help searchers refine their queries. Google also gains a freshly-updated logo along the way. The new user interface — UI for the tech crowd — […]