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 […]
William Vicary tweeted that he is seeing a colorful Google top navigation bar. The navigation bar is very similar to what is there now, except for the colored stripe at the top and the settings icon at the right of your email address. I assume the icon replaces web history, settings and signout links to […]
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 […]
Google Instant is expanding. The company has just announced new features and wider availability of the search-as-you-type feature. Let’s start with the latter; Google says Instant is expanding in two ways: Google Instant On Vertical Search Properties: In addition to being available on Google.com searches, Instant Search is now functioning on “many” of the vertical […]
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. […]
The experience of viewing place photos in Google Maps got a little easier this week. Google has announced that it’s now showing certain place images in a photo album. The album pops above the place as an overlay — similar to what you’ve probably experienced before via the Lightbox javascript application. The photo albums only […]
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’s holding a highly anticipated “can’t miss” press event today. The news? Perhaps the new results-as-you-type your search feature that started showing today. Perhaps something else. We’ll know at 9:30am Pacific Time today, when the event gets underway. Stay tuned for live blogging. UPDATE: For more, see our article, Google Instant: The Complete User’s Guide. […]
A couple weeks ago we reported Google was testing updating search results as you type. Google confirmed this to be a test and we went on with our business. Today, there are reports of Google’s home page showing search results as you type your query. You can be on Google.com, see the search box and […]
For some searchers, Google seems to be forcing them into 20 or more search results on a page. By default, Google shows searchers 10 results on a page, but even if that searcher specified 10 on a page, some may be seeing twenty or more per page. Andy Beard and myself are in that test […]
Google’s announced a special press event for next Wednesday on search that “you won’t want to miss.” What big news could there be? Let’s speculate — but I wouldn’t get too excited. Here’s what the invite says: We invite you to join us on Wednesday, September 8, to share our latest technological innovation and to […]
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 […]
Update: Google has confirmed that this is a ranking/UI change. See statement below. Is it a test? Is it a bug? Is it a permanent change to Google’s search results? No one knows, and Google hasn’t answered our questions about it yet. What’s “it”? As Malcolm Coles describes in a blog post today, Google is […]
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 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
We knew that Bing was added as an option in the default search engines used on the new Apple iPhone iOS4. But if you try to searching on either Bing or Yahoo when your default search provider is Google, both will prompt you to switch to their own search engine. Not only will you be […]
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 […]
Confused about why Google was showing a picture on its home page today. Apparently, plenty of people were, some to the point of being upset. In reaction, Google’s dropped the feature. Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search products and user experience, confirmed the change via an update to the official Google blog post that […]
If you visit Google today, you may notice the home page is a bit different. About a week ago, Google began letting users to upload their own background images on Google.com, to help them customize the Google home page. To drive more awareness to this feature and to inspire users to change their home page, […]
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 […]
Google announced they are testing out a new billing page within the AdWords console. The new features, as Google said, include: Get more control. Choose to initiate a payment on your account at any time and use any form of payment available with your country and currency settings. Make payments directly from your billing summary […]
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 […]
The Google AdWords blog announced they have added an ad extensions tab to campaigns with ad extensions as an option. Ad Extensions are features that can be added to your AdWords ads and include Ad Sitelinks, Product Extensions, Video Extensions, Location Extensions, Multiple Addresses for Location Extensions, and Click-to-Call Phone Extensions. To learn more about […]
Danny’s otherwise exhaustive discussion of the new Google UI left out mobile. As you might expect, everything Google does these days it does with an eye toward mobile. And that includes the new UI changes. All the options available on the PC side don’t entirely show up in mobile but the major icons/filters do. Here’s […]
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 — […]
Google has bought BumpTop, a company that makes 3-D desktop UIs for the PC (Windows and Mac). The purchase amount was not disclosed of course, although the company had only raised a small amount of investor cash, less than $2 million. So figure the acquisition was less than $20 million — probably more like $10 […]
If you try to access Google’s external keyword tool, you may notice that you are sent to the new keyword tool Google began offering in September 2009. A Google spokesperson told me that they are now encouraging users to use the new tool over the old tool and have decided to direct a portion of […]
Google has updated their Google Mobile App for iPhone to now support the iPad and take advantage of the iPad user interface. Truth be told, there are not that many changes from the iPhone version to the iPad version except for a overlay search suggestion tab, larger screen real estate and Google showing the standard […]
The Google blog posted their weekly, “this week in search” announcing small but important changes released on Google search. They include expanding the search suggestions user interface internationally, adding more language support to real-time search, adding refinements to local search queries and introducing lists for bookmarks. On Google.com, Google used a boldface for search suggestions, […]
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 […]
A reader sent me a new Google search results feature, which is only activated once you visit a web page from Google and then click the back button to go back to Google’s search results. Follow these steps: (1) Search for [smiley html code] (2) Click on the first result, which is forum.yola.com (3) Click […]
Continuing to improve and emphasize its search capabilities, Facebook today announced the inclusion of an auto-suggest feature to its search box. Just as it does in other settings, the auto-suggest appears as you type a query. But, with some Facebook content and connections behind a wall, the question is, Where will auto-suggest look for suggestions? […]
We’re getting more and more reports from readers who are seeing a “new” Google look-and-feel for its search results. This is a three column design that Google’s actually been testing for some time. That testing appears to be accelerating.
Yahoo has announced a fairly substantial overhaul of how Yahoo Answers looks and works — and as a semi-regular user of the site, I’d say these changes are very welcome. The primary functional changes involve a new set of navigation tabs and a new way of browsing the categories on Yahoo Answers. The four new […]
Google has made some subtle changes to its mobile homepage and searchbox. As the Google Mobile Blog explains: The Google logo has been moved up to the top of the search results page, allowing us to increase the width and height of the search box. You can now more easily touch the larger box to […]
We came to a strange realization on Friday at SEL headquarters: Google Street View is terribly unintuitive on the iPhone. As Danny Sullivan suggested, you practically need a map to find it. For those of you with an iPhone or iPod Touch who know how to use Street View already, move along — there’s nothing […]
Google Operating System noticed that Google’s Search suggestions got smarter. Google Suggest, as you type, shows you search suggestions to help you complete your query. But what if you want to refine that query? Google will show you refinements to the search suggestions with the single addition of a letter, even in the middle of […]