Month: March 2006

Walt Likes Ask

Well looky here, the WSJ has put Walt Mossberg outside the paywall, and it's a Valentine to Ask.com. Now that makes Steve, Jim and the folks at Ask happy, I'd warrant! I've been testing the new Ask.com against the search champ, Google. I've found that in terms of relevant…

New Ask-1

Well looky here, the WSJ has put Walt Mossberg outside the paywall, and it’s a Valentine to Ask.com. Now that makes Steve, Jim and the folks at Ask happy, I’d warrant!

I’ve been testing the new Ask.com against the search champ, Google. I’ve found that in terms of relevant results and ease of use, Ask holds its own with Google, and even beats the champ on some searches. It has some very nice features Google lacks, including previews of the sites it finds, an easy way to narrow or broaden your search results, and frequent top-of-the-screen answers that lead you directly to core information.

The retired butler Jeeves is probably pissed he got canned right before the Journal gives his company props. But no, the stock (well parent IAC stock) did not pop…

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Don’t Forget….April 1st Is Coming

It's this Saturday. All the major engines compete for the funniest prank. Keep yer eyes peeled…. (I still think the King of all these pranks was Google's Pigeon Rank…Prank for short, natch) PS – Track all the pranks at new FM Site Museum of Hoaxes……

PrankIt’s this Saturday. All the major engines compete for the funniest prank. Keep yer eyes peeled….

(I still think the King of all these pranks was Google’s Pigeon Rank…Prank for short, natch)

PS – Track all the pranks at new FM Site Museum of Hoaxes…

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Google Launches Biz Local AdWords: It’s Just the Start….

Just got this news: Google Introduces Local Business Ads Through AdWords In line with its commitment to add value to advertisers and users through local advertising, Google today announced local business ads, a new feature in AdWords that allows advertisers to promote location-based products and services. Local business ads…

Wine-TmJust got this news:

Google Introduces Local Business Ads Through AdWords

In line with its commitment to add value to advertisers and users through local advertising, Google today announced local business ads, a new feature in AdWords that allows advertisers to promote location-based products and services. Local business ads appear with an enhanced map component on Google Local and in a text-only format on Google.com and other sites in the Google network. Currently, this service is available to any advertiser who targets locations in the U.S., Canada and the U.K.

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CorpDevDude writes….

Reader CorpDevDude writes: There's another factor at play besides maximizing shareholder return. Ego. Does Zuckerberg want to be Chris DeWolfe (founder who sold) or does he want to be Jeff Bezos (founder who controls)? If you haven't noticed, Rupert (who probably doesn't even have a myspace profile) is getting ALL…

Reader CorpDevDude writes: There's another factor at play besides maximizing shareholder return.
Ego. Does Zuckerberg want to be Chris DeWolfe (founder who sold) or does he want to be Jeff Bezos (founder who controls)? If you haven't noticed, Rupert (who probably doesn't even have a myspace profile) is getting ALL THE CREDIT for myspace's current success.

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Thanks for The FOIA, InfoWeek

Good work, Tom. Turns out, the DOJ demanded records from 34 businesses. Check out the list. Wow. In its effort to uphold the 1998 Child Online Protection Act (COPA), the U.S. Department of Justice is leaving no stone unturned. Its widely reported issuance of subpoenas to Internet search companies…

Good work, Tom. Turns out, the DOJ demanded records from 34 businesses. Check out the list. Wow.

In its effort to uphold the 1998 Child Online Protection Act (COPA), the U.S. Department of Justice is leaving no stone unturned. Its widely reported issuance of subpoenas to Internet search companies AOL, MSN, Google, and Yahoo is just the tip of the iceberg: The government has demanded information from at least 34 Internet service providers, search companies, and security software firms.

Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by InformationWeek, the Department of Justice disclosed that it has issued to subpoenas to a broad range of companies that includes AT&T, Comcast Cable, Cox Communications, EarthLink, LookSmart, SBC Communications (then separate from AT&T), Symantec, and Verizon.

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Hey S&P, Thanks for the Secondary!

From Bloomberg: Google to Sell 5.3 Million Shares for S&P Index Funds March 29 (Bloomberg) — Google Inc., the most-used Internet search engine, plans to sell 5.3 million more shares to satisfy demand for the stock as the company joins the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. The sale would…

From Bloomberg:

Google to Sell 5.3 Million Shares for S&P Index Funds

March 29 (Bloomberg) — Google Inc., the most-used Internet search engine, plans to sell 5.3 million more shares to satisfy demand for the stock as the company joins the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

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Oh, To Be A Fly On The Wall In A Facebook Board Meeting

Om says: when offered $750 million for your company, well… Erhmmm. TAKE IT. Bizweek is reporting that the company turned that figure down and is looking for something more like $2 billion. Is this going to be another Friendster tale of woe? Well, perhaps. As I learned when similar…

Facebook

Om says: when offered $750 million for your company, well… Erhmmm. TAKE IT. Bizweek is reporting that the company turned that figure down and is looking for something more like $2 billion.

Is this going to be another Friendster tale of woe?

Well, perhaps. As I learned when similar sized offers came to the Standard’s board table, selling the company is not always the entrepreneurs’ decision. The investors usually have final word, though I have no idea if that is true or not in the case of Facebook. And the company does have a remarkable business, in terms of its nearly complete reach into one of the most sought after markets in America – college kids. I can certainly see why Facebook board members might pound the table and say “We’re worth more, dammit!”

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This Time, It’s Serious

The net neutrality debate is heating up, and this time billions are at stake. Back in the 1990s John Doerr and other tech luminaries created TechNet in an attempt to rally the tech world into realizing that the industry needed to play, and hard, on Capitol Hill. This time…

Gpw-20040807B

The net neutrality debate is heating up, and this time billions are at stake. Back in the 1990s John Doerr and other tech luminaries created TechNet in an attempt to rally the tech world into realizing that the industry needed to play, and hard, on Capitol Hill. This time no rallying cry is needed. Case in point: Google’s lobbying efforts (as outlined in this NYT piece), and this Cnet piece, outlining the NN debate. Also, see this Post article about the legislative angles.

I’m planning on focusing on this issue (among many others, of course) at the Web 2.0 conference this year (it’ll be Nov. 7-9 in SF, at the Palace hotel.) If there are folks who you think can speak to this issue, or resources where I might go to get smart on the issues, please point me in the right direction. Thanks!

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Ash Writes…

Reader Ash writes: A made-for-Adsense (MFA) site is not click fraud by any stretch of the imagination. MFA is a very common phenomenon that is condoned by the ad networks and presumably the advertisers, else the latter would turn off content partners……

< ![CDATA[Reader Ash writes: A made-for-Adsense (MFA) site is not click fraud by any stretch of the imagination. MFA is a very common phenomenon that is condoned by the ad networks and presumably the advertisers, else the latter would turn off content partners…]]>

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Search Share

From a Bear Stearns report on comScore data, Google continues to gain ground in search share in the US. Given all that's going on in search and related media, that's impressive. From the report, which was emailed to me: Google now has a 42.3% share of the domestic search…

Bearsearchchart-1

From a Bear Stearns report on comScore data, Google continues to gain ground in search share in the US. Given all that’s going on in search and related media, that’s impressive. From the report, which was emailed to me:

Google now has a 42.3% share of the domestic search market (the highest since comScore starting tracking market share data), up from 41.4% in Jan 06 and 39.8% in 4Q 05.

…Yahoo’s share dropped 110 bps to 27.6%, MSN share dropped 20 bps to 13.5% while AOL’s share increased slightly to 8.0% from 7.9% in Jan 06. Ask market share rose to 6.0% from 5.6% in Jan 06. The marketing push behind the Ask brand likely contributed to its share gains.

Year-over-year, Google and Ask showed strong search query gain of 29.4% and 27.9%, respectively, while the other search providers in the top five declined. On a sequential basis, Google and Ask also showed the highest growth at 8.3% and 14.6% respectively.

While Google’s unique searcher market share remains flat at 59.1% level from Jan. 06 (Yahoo and MSN both declined in this metric), searches per search increased to 29 from 27 in Jan. 06 and from 26 in 4Q 05.

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