Google Search vs Yahoo Search vs MSN Search Engine

[David Tan]

All things, search engine news (although Google makes the most news).

In this month of October, predictably, Google's share of Web searches went up in the US. Rising to 71.7 percent, a jump from 71.2 percent in September and 64.5 percent in the month of October.

[David Tan]

Also, if you've noticed, gmail has this video chat. It's called Gmail Voice and Video Chat. Need to install a windows plugin.

[David Tan]

Jerry Yang is getting kicked out of Yahoo. It was bound to happen after botched deals one after the other. Plus with shares sinking by $19 since January to $10.63 a share, enough is enough. Yahoo has no standing left, no solid future outlook, and Microsoft has said that it's not interested to buy Yahoo anymore. Although, Microsoft can afford to wait, as Yahoo's share prices can only go lower and by then it'll be much cheaper. Google's not gonna buy Yahoo as it'll constitute a monopoly.

[David Tan]

Google Search Wiki for Customized Search Results
Google has a 'SearchWiki' that will be able to bring customized search results for every user. This Google SearchWiki lets you promote, add, delete or add comments to search results, for free. It will then remember the changes made to search results, so repeat searches will show the same customization and comments/notes made on the results.
Google has yet to incorporate such customization into their search algorithm, but they are considering it. Much like a 'recommendation system by google members' to better weed out irrelevant spam sites. Ofcourse, it'll only be good if generally everyone uses it. Then we get better search results through the collaboration although it'll have a drastic impact on SEO.

Google's Book Search has a competitor, Europeana.eu
On another note, an European competitor Europeana has over three million digital objects. Film, photos, sounds, maps, books, newspapers and papers from the past 2000 years and over 1000 institutions coming from 27 EU states. But it promptly crash. Clearly underestimating the demand, and failing in providing the costly infrastructure that is required. Inexperienced? By the way, as of date, nothing is turning up in the searches. They could have at least mention that it's down. Wait, some keywords are starting to show results, like 'book'. Perhaps they're not tagging the digital object sufficiently with relevant keywords. If only there was a browse option. Oh, and it's really slow.

Google's Lively - 3D interactive chat - set to die this December
The experiment has failed and Google has decided to discontinue the service. Not surprising since virtual worlds are meant for exploration, quests and battling monsters, not just chatting. Google didn't put much to work out the 3 activities into Lively. Heck, at the very least, they could have incorporate some games into the environment.

[David Tan]

Google is reducing their use of contract workers, adding fewer employees and they'll focus more on reducing costs and controlling expenses. If Google is taking such measures, what's happening to Yahoo?

Also, below is a video clip on how Google SearchWiki works

[David Tan]

Microsoft is finally making a return move to acquire Yahoo, but this time round, they're backing a new management team that is trying to take over Yahoo Inc. Microsoft's seems to only have interest on the Yahoo's Internet search business.

Putting in $5 billion to back the team lead by Jonathan Miller, former CEO of AOL and Ross Levinsohn, former FOX Interactive Media president.

The deal this time is to acquire the rights to manage Yahoo's internet search business for 10 years and a two year option to be able to purchase it for $20 billion. A far cry from it's previous $47.50 billion bid. Rather than paying a bundle to acquire Yahoo, they'll first acquire the management team.

If this goes well, it'll better balance the competition level between Google and it's competitor.

[David Tan]

Google's Book Search is now listing magazines. Many full view magazines. Page by page (and of course including ads). There's alot of past issues, maybe 10% which are within this year. Magazines include Baseball Digest, CIO, Women's Health, Popular Science, Indianapolis, Popular Mechanics, Vegetarian Times, Men's Health, and much more.

Few strategies, you can go to Google Book Search Main Page and keep clicking on the refresh button, to quickly view a few sets of magazines at a time OR

Click on the Google Book Advance Book Search, select 'Magazines' and do a search.

[David Tan]

China increasing pressure on Google to better filter out explicit content. Particularly targeting their 'image search' function, officials having given them notice, they failed to please China's demands.

Google's statement of 'clear policies to protect freedom of expression' and 'not allowing illegal content in sites in China' is a total contradiction.

290 million internet users in China, is too good an opportunity to sell ads to, but still they are considered only the no.2 search engine in China, outranked by the number 1, Baidu.

China's efforts to curtail smut brought about some of the recent news, such as the arrest of a Shanghai woman, posting some of her 'explicit videos' online.

[David Tan]

Washington post has an interesting article commenting about some top stories in Techmeme, that mentions the environmental impact of search engines, especially Google. To provide users with the top and most powerful search engine, Google has servers running, with networks and users generating electricity, etc. Every search done, cost about 7g of CO2.

But considering the benefits and energy saving changes in lifestyle, like not needing to travel as much to shops (just buy online!), determining fastest routes to travel, etc, one might say that it's worth it.

But the exchange of information and the rise of the internet has also introduced increased time usage, which does nothing positive to the environment. One might say, that because there's so much to do in the internet, and with more and more people using it, overall, we're using more electricity than ever before.

And it's not just our own electric bill we're talking about. Google has huge data centres that consumes a great deal of power. Especially when it does it so fast and well.

What happens when we link more and more of the internet to everyday life and appliances. Our energy needs and demands will further increase.

[David Tan]

Chandler Bing from TV Friends, pops into the head everytime I visit Bing.com. A little annoying. While google, gives me the impression of 'huge', 'plenty' and 'vast'.