|
 This week’s main search engine news headlines from all over the Web.
This should have been the week for discussing the way social media and the Web has caused a revolution in Egypt. It wasn’t. Instead the press has focused on Google’s complaints about Bing copying their search results.
We have written a separate post about the Bing/Google quarrel.
The only Egypt relevant angle that made it to the main search engine news headlines this week was the story that Google has created work around for blocked Egyptian tweeters. Google made it possible for the revolutionaries to post and listen to tweets via the phone.
Here are some of the other search engine news headlines:
Bing UK announces in-search-engine casual games
techradar: The likes of Bejeweled 3, Plants Vs Zombies and old fave Solitaire are on the list of 46 free “casual” games available on Bing.
Answers.com Acquired For $127 Million
SE Land: The popular questions and answers site, Answers.com has announced they have been acquired by AFCV Holdings, LLC. for $127 million.
Google: Only 2% Opt-Out of Instant
SE Watch: Launched in September, Google Instant tries to predict what you’re looking for and shows you results as you type.
Google Search Results With Hotpot
SE Roundtable: Use Google Hotpot to review and identify restaurants and places.
Google Shopper For iPhone
SE Roundtable: Learn more about products and read relevant user reviews; Compare prices at online and local stores; Save and share products for later consideration.
Google Music Streaming : Launching Soon?
SE Journal: What exactly is the Google Music Library? First, we have the actual music player itself. We know for a fact that this is coming out, since early debugging versions have been discovered and even released to the public for the Android 2.3 smartphone line. Second, we have the ‘OTA download library.’ And third, we have the ‘full library streaming’ feature.
Google Revamps Docs Organization
SE Journal: For all files, it’s easier to get an “at a glance” idea of what the document is. The right-hand panel of the document list will now provide important details of the document you’ve selected, including a thumbnail, your “last modified” date, the folder of the document, and detailed sharing settings.
Google Hiring 6000+ in 2011, While Yahoo Trims Further
SE Journal: According to a video interview, Google representatives told MarketWatch that they would have a ‘record year’ in 2011. This indicates that they will beat their figures for 2007, a year in which the company hired approximately 6000 employees. Exactly how many hires there will be is uncertain, but Google is dedicated to what they call the ‘war for talent.’
Bing Yahoo Bingahoo Alliance Shows a Payoff
SE Journal: The total search impressions for Bingahoo increased by 4% (from 19% up to 23%), their paid search click increased by 2% (from 19% up to 21%), and their total ad spend increased by a full 44%.
Microsoft releases Chrome extension to support H.264 video
techradar: Microsoft has hit out at Google over its decision to drop support for the H.264 video format by making available a Chrome extension compatible with the format.
Google Uses Amazon’s Algorithm For YouTube’s Recommendation Engine
SE Land: Greg Linden reports that Google has switched the algorithm they use for YouTube’s recommendation engine from their own to a variation of Amazon’s algorithm that was designed in the late 90s.
Google Hotpot now on Google.com and around the world
Google Blog: Back in November, we introduced Hotpot, a new local recommendation engine powered by you and your friends. Using Hotpot is simple: you rate places on google.com/hotpot—restaurants, hotels, cafes—and add friends on Hotpot whose opinions you trust. Then the next time you perform a search, Google will serve up personalized results, listing places based on your tastes, as well as recommendations from your friends.
5 Social Sites You May Not Have Heard About (Yet)
SE Land presents buzzfeed.com, fiverr.com, thisorthat.com, kickstarter.com, storeenvy.com
Yandex & Seznam: Local Powers That Be In Europe
SE Land: The reasons for the position of Seznam in Czech are several. The first and very important one is that Seznam is a local search engine and many Czechs are really fond of their local products compared to foreign products.
Google’s Intrusive Advertising March Continues
SE Journal: That’s right. Google’s advertisements in Gmail, once some of their least intrusive (and a good thing, too, lest we get even more distracted while in our inboxes), may be featuring display ads in the near future.
Google Censors Piratey Searches
SE Journal: According to Unite the Cows, Google is now censoring any searches that are closely associated with piracy from its primary search results pages (the Instant and Auto Complete services, specifically; non-instant searches, real-time searches, and so forth are being left alone).
Bing Adds a Destination Comparison in Travel Search
SE Journal: Bing only introduced destination pages in the last few weeks, but their Bing blog is already excitedly discussing new user-end abilities to interact with the page. More specifically, users can compare various destinations by showing flights, weather, events, videos, attractions, hotels, and more for each, all in a sleek side-by-side display.
Google Brings Instant Previews to iPhone, iPad
SE Watch: Google’s Instant Previews are beginning to show up in Safari for Apple devices including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, 9 to 5 Mac reports. Google has yet to make an official announcement.
Google +1: Google’s Answer To Social Search & Facebook
SE Roundtable: Two sources familiar with it, who asked not to be named because the project is not yet public, confirm that it is tentatively called Google +1 and that it is designed to cull data about relationships among users from current services such as Gmail and YouTube. Google will then let users share material through those connections, while using the information to make other products more social.
Microsoft’s Online Efforts Keep Losing Money
Marketing Pilgrim: The chart from the Silicon Alley Insider gives a history of the excessive hemorrhaging that the online space has provided for the company with the latest quarter reporting a loss of $563 million.
U.K. Debates Google Monopoly, Search Neutrality
SE Watch: Introducing first, in the “we need search neutrality because Google is destroying Britain” corner: Graham Jones, Labour MP for Hyndburn. And in the “people are free to choose whatever search engine they want” corner: Ed Vaizey, Department for Culture Media and Sport Minister.
Google launches Cloud Print
Search Cowboys: The feature allows you to give the print command from an Android or iOS smartphone. All you have to do is open a document on Google Docs or Gmail and click the print option from the drop-down menu. You’ll also need to activate the feature by connecting the printer to Google Print.
Grayed Out Google Images Fix
SE Roundtable: Ever since Google launched their new image search interface last year, there have been complaints of blank images being displayed in the search results.
Google To Buy Sentiment Analysis Engine, fflick
SE Watch: oogle has started a process of acquiring sentiment analysis startup, fflick, for $10 million according to TechCrunch. It seems unlikely that fflick will be kept alive for its own sake, but rather the purchase is about acquiring the talent within this company founded by four former Digg employees.
One Area Where Google Is Way Behind Microsoft
Business Insider: If Google really wants to compete with Microsoft for business customers, it’s going to have to get a lot better about support and documentation.
See our new Search Engine Marketing Wrap-up for search engine optimization headlines.
src='https://poccdn.com/images/aff_img/wide-rec-468x60.jpg' border='0'>
Read more
|
