A few blogs — Richard MacManus and others — have pointed to my post from Monday as “confirmation” that Live.com is the new homepage, and it must be true because a future employee of Microsoft said it. There could be a little more research from the publishers, but this is the wild west known as the blogosphere after all. My information about Live.com came from the Windows Live launch last November when Bill Gates mentioned it on stage. The news is not new, and the products discussed such as Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Vista haven’t even launched yet. As…
Category Archives: Search
Yahoo! My Headlines widget
Yahoo! released version 3.1 of its Widget Engine today including a new widget that displays the latest headlines from your My Yahoo! feeds. The new widget, Yahoo! My Headlines, allows you to see the latest headlines, source feed, and publish time of your My Yahoo! feed subscriptions….
PodSession: You’re being watched, and Macs now do Windows
Om and I received a variety of feedback last week as podcast listeners stood up against research reports about podcasts and their audiences. Some people thought a 20-minute discussion of hot tech news was just right and others wanted even shorter, more digestible chunks. This week Om and I recorded two 10-minute podcasts to try something new and introduce a little variety. It was also tough to pick just one topic this week since both Apple and Google had big announcements last Wednesday. You’re being watched Your cellular carrier knows where you are at all times. Pinpointing your location helps…
Google Toolbar adds feed subscriptions
The latest version of Google’s Firefox toolbar adds support for feed subscriptions to online aggregators with just one click. Users are able to choose from a list of five popular online aggregators as well as Firefox’s own Live Bookmarks option. The icon was located right below the address bar feed icon in my Firefox window and seems like the least confusing place for the button even though it’s odd to see two options. I was able to choose between Bloglines, Google Personalized homepage, My Yahoo!, NewsGator Online, and Pluck. It would be nice to provide advanced users with the…
Google and Clear Channel partner for web search
Google just signed an exclusive deal with Clear Channel to provide its search services across all of the radio conglomerate’s web sites. Clear Channel is the dominant radio network in the United States. The partnership is for text-only ads at the moment but Google has been interested in extending its advertising reach to radio and print media. Google currently advertises its jobs site on NPR stations….
Technorati Director Richard Ault leaves, joins Metroblogging
Richard Ault just announced he has left Technorati to join Metroblogging, a network of blog sites focused on local content from over 45 cities throughout the world. Richard was Director of Product Marketing at Technorati since January 2004, and one of the first company hires. Metroblogging was co-founded by Jason DeFillippo, who left Technorati in February to focus on the blog network full-time. Richard enjoys skiing and it wouldn’t surprise me if he and his family is working from Lake Tahoe until the snow melts and their house is remodeled. Tags: metroblogging…
Google and Verizon partner to bring yellow pages online
Verizon’s SuperPages.com has partnered with Google to turn the phone company’s yellow page advertisers into sponsored listings within Google Local. It’s a huge development in a fragmented local search advertising space. Verizon will act as an authorized Google AdWords reseller using its 3,000 local sales people and existing small business portal to connect merchants to a larger audience….
Are portals back in fashion?
In this week’s episode of Om and Niall PodSessions Om and I talk about Google Finance, the latest piece of the search company’s portal play. According to Hitwise, 10% of Google UK’s visitors clicked out to Business and Finance sites last week. Yahoo! Finance received .02% of those clicks. Is Google in denial about its move towards a portal service? I liked the new Google Finance, especially the chart overlays and integration with other Google products. Om found the new product lacking a few of his favorite features from Yahoo! Finance such as institutional holdings and insider trading. A search…
Google launches personal finance site
Google just unveiled Google Finance aimed at private investors. The new service correlates stock quotes, trading volume, executive bios and information, top news, blog posts, and Google-hosted moderated message boards. Check out the information page for GOOG for example. The site uses Flash technology to create interactive graphs. You can hover over any data point on the graph for more information and adjust a date-range slider beyond the default 3-day view. Blog data from Google Blog Search appears above message board content for selected blog. Given the frequent posts about a given company it makes sense to filter the…
Google Reader platform
Google built a feed platform that is freely available for any user with a Google account. The first implementation of the Google feed platform is the Google Reader lens, already used by thousands of Google users. The Google feed platform is web-based and therefore works with any operating system. It can be used as a pass-through for one feed at a time for small implementations or a full aggregator backend. It’s running on the Google’s expansive (and expensive) back-end hardware and network, creating fast response times and high reliability. Atom 1.0 output The Google Reader platform outputs all data in…