Bing is announcing new visual search features today. The post outlining it all is not yet up, but here are details and links from an email sent to me earlier: Link to the blog post, not yet up, but soon they promise. Link to the announcement on TC50 stage….
From Neiman: Google is developing a micropayment platform that will be “available to both Google and non-Google properties within the next year,” according to a document the company submitted to the Newspaper Association of America. The system, an extension of Google Checkout, would be a new and unexpected option for…
Google is developing a micropayment platform that will be “available to both Google and non-Google properties within the next year,” according to a document the company submitted to the Newspaper Association of America. The system, an extension of Google Checkout, would be a new and unexpected option for the news industry as it considers how to charge for content online.
The revelation comes in an eight-page response to the NAA’s request for paid-content proposals, which it extended to several major technology companies and startups.
Read MoreMy second post (of two) is up over at the BingTweets site, part of an FM partnership with Microsoft. In it I describe my frustration with search as it relates to helping me make a complicated decision: How to possibly buy a classic car. From it: So first, how would…
So first, how would I like to decide about my quest to buy a classic car? Well, ideally, I’d have a search application that could automate and process the tedious back and forth required to truly understand what the market looks like. After all, if I’m looking for classic Camaro or Porsche convertibles from the mid to late 1960s, there are only so many of them for sale, and they can be categorized by any number of important variables – price, model, region, color, features, etc. And while a number of sites do a fair job with a portion of the market, I don’t trust any of them to give me a general overview of what’s really out there. That’s where an intelligent search agent can really help.
But the next step is the harder one. I am not “smart” about how to buy a classic car. I don’t know enough to buy one with confidence. I don’t know what to ask about. I don’t know if it’s good or bad that an engine, electrical system, or transmission is original or rebuilt. I don’t know how one model does versus another in resale value, or insurance cost or…well, you get the picture. There’s a lot to consider, and I don’t know how to value everything. The world of classic cars is complex, like most major decisions. In short, there’s no easy way to decide in this case (unless, of course, I could just buy the most expensive one. That usually guarantees you’ve gotten what the market thinks you paid for it. Not an option for most of us).
Read MoreYesterday I got a chance to debrief with two leaders of Yahoo's search team (yes, I know how that sounds given the Bing deal, but bear with me here). Late last week Yahoo announced its intentions with regard to continuing its innovation in search, and I had noted the irony…
I think most of the industry has written off Yahoo as a search player, and for some good reason. It’s true the company has abandoned two key pieces of the search puzzle – indexing and search monetization. But it’s also true, as I noted in my coverage of the deal, that Yahoo is retaining its right to control the user interface to search, and it’s clear that’s what the company is now focusing on.
What I find fascinating about this is how clearly it positions Yahoo to compete, directly, with its partner Microsoft and Bing. More on this later today.
It feels a bit odd to be writing that headline – "Yahoo's New Search" – given the company's deal with Bing/Microsoft. But Yahoo seems intent on declaring its independence with regard to search, even as it sells its asset and audience away to its newfound partner. Yahoo does retain, in…
Yahoo does retain, in the deal, the right to innovate on top of Bing results, and I guess that’s where this announcement is pointing – noting that Yahoo has been innovating in search UI and plans to continue to do so. I’m talking with the Yahoo folks next week and will have more on their plans then. But it strikes me as potentially conflicting to the deal for Yahoo to be innovating in UI on top of Bing, as one of Bing’s strengths is its innovation in UI….
As part of BingTweets, an FM/Microsoft promotion blending the two services, I was asked to opine on the idea of how we use the web to make decisions. My first post has been up for a while but I managed to lose track of time and forgot to let you…
From the first post:
If what you are looking for is a hotel room, a plane ticket, or something else in the “head end” of search results, plenty of sites aggregate tons of results for you. But as soon as you go a bit down the tail – like my example for classic cars – search becomes a pivot point for an ongoing and often taxing decision process. The opportunity, I think, is to figure out a way to support that process down the tail – saving us time, clicks, and frustration along the way. I see two paths toward that goal: one is creating applications on top of “ten blue links” which help me organize and aggregate the knowledge I process while pursuing a search query, and the second is making my searches social, so I can share the process of learning and learn from those who have shared – not unlike Vannevar Bush’s “Memex” concept.
Read MoreBack when I predicted this in January, I recall worrying I was calling it too early. Now it appears the timing was about right. From Mashable: …while Google grew from June to July, it still lost market share to its competitors – from 66.1% in June to 64.8% in July,…
…while Google grew from June to July, it still lost market share to its competitors – from 66.1% in June to 64.8% in July, a 1.3 percentage point drop.
From my prediction: 3. Google will see search share decline significantly for the first time ever. It will also struggle to find an answer to the question of how it diversifies its revenue in 2009.
Read MoreMatt Cutts points to a video interview (embedded above) on Google's Caffeine infrastructure update. "It's a pretty fundamentally big change" Matt says. What I'd like to know is why and in response to what changes on the web. Of course, the major changes in how the web works are…
“It’s a pretty fundamentally big change” Matt says. What I’d like to know is why and in response to what changes on the web. Of course, the major changes in how the web works are clear: Real Time Search.
In this post (and/or this one) I said:
Read MoreFacebook's previously announced realtime engine has been released, coverage from Mashable: Fast forward to today: Facebook just announced that it is rolling out the new Facebook search. With realtime search and FriendFeed in its pocket, Facebook is gunning directly for Twitter. Also for Mashable, a story on Google's "major revision"…
Fast forward to today: Facebook just announced that it is rolling out the new Facebook search. With realtime search and FriendFeed
in its pocket, Facebook is gunning directly for Twitter
.
Also for Mashable, a story on Google’s “major revision” of its engine. I plan to dig into this one, as I sense it has a lot to do with crossing the infrastructure chasm to real time:
Secretly, they’ve been working on a new project:the next generation of Google Search. This isn’t just some minor upgrade, but an entire new infrastructure for the world’s largest search engine. In other words: it’s a new version of Google.
Read MoreSorry, it's late, and I just saw this piece in the NYT. But for Bartz to say that Yahoo was never a search company is simply not true. Yahoo was the original search destination, and a place folks first learned to "search" for stuff on the Web. As the original…
Yahoo was the original search destination, and a place folks first learned to “search” for stuff on the Web. As the original directory of things worth paying attention on the Web, Yahoo was – and remains for many – the definitive place to start a search query. And also, in the history of Yahoo, let us not forget the entire homepage was redesigned around search just three years ago.
Feh.
