T’rati Goes Live With New UI

Check it out, new UI, and more features….congrats to Dave, who is sitting behind me (a bit bleary eyed) with a grin on his face….

Check it out, new UI, and more features….congrats to Dave, who is sitting behind me (a bit bleary eyed) with a grin on his face.

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Eric S. At PC Forum

Listening to Eric speak here at PC Forum. He's already made a few interesting comments. First, he dodged the IPO question. Then, in response to a question about Google's business model, he made an interesting declaration: He went on a practiced riff about the media business, how large it is,…

ericsListening to Eric speak here at PC Forum. He’s already made a few interesting comments. First, he dodged the IPO question. Then, in response to a question about Google’s business model, he made an interesting declaration: He went on a practiced riff about the media business, how large it is, and how many “platform players” can thrive and no one approach will win. In other words, Eric views Google as a media company, or at least that’s the take I came away with. That is new, last time we spoke, Google was a technology company driven by media revenues…

Eric also told an anecdotal story about the “Don’t Be Evil” mandate at Google. Early in his tenure, when he still felt it was a bit odd for a company to be run by such a rule, he was in a meeting where a (unspecified) idea was tossed out, and one of the employees yelled out “That’s Evil!!” A lengthy debate ensued. Eric pointed out that Google’s culture has built in DNA around what is and is not evil, and when something comes up that might be evil, employees bring up an “evil alert.” I dunno. I still think it’s potentially dangerous for this kind of ad hoc, socially driven morality to drive cultures within large media companies.

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Just Announced: Microsoft Will Clean Up Its Search Act

This just in, from the folks at MSFT PR: Today MSN will announce that beginning July 1, MSN Search will clearly delineate paid ads from organic search results, with the result being that organic (or algorithmic) results will be above the fold (the top half of the page) for the…

msft_118x35This just in, from the folks at MSFT PR: Today MSN will announce that beginning July 1, MSN Search will clearly delineate paid ads from organic search results, with the result being that organic (or algorithmic) results will be above the fold (the top half of the page) for the first time since…well since recent memory.

This is clearly an opportunistic announcement (timed as it is in the wake of the Yahoo CAP dust up), but I must say, it’s a welcome one. Bravo, Microsoft, and I hope the execution lives up to the context and timing of this release. I’ve complained over and over about how crappy MSN search is, mainly due to the fact that you can’t see the organic forest for the commercialized trees. According to an email I received from MSFT PR informing me of this, “The changes are being made to allow better positioning of sponsored links based on relevancy. These changes are a result of a series of consumer testing to determine user satisfaction and search relevancy with various UIs.”

If I’m reading this right, MSN tested the idea that clearly labeling ads equates to more ads being clicked on and a better overall experience for the consumer, and found out – Holy Shit! – the hypothesis proves out.

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Paging Gary Price: The Librarians Have Found the On Switch

Launched: "Ask A Librarian" – a new service in Florida that puts the reference librarian online. Cool. ResearchBuzz reports….

Launched: “Ask A Librarian” – a new service in Florida that puts the reference librarian online. Cool. ResearchBuzz reports.

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Interesting New Toolbar

Viewpoint launched today. Beal reports a cool feature is the thumbnails in the bar itself……

Viewpoint launched today. Beal reports a cool feature is the thumbnails in the bar itself…

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Fire One Over Google’s Bow

Jeremy (yeah, he works at Yahoo) says: Google local needs work……

Jeremy (yeah, he works at Yahoo) says: Google local needs work

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Yahoo Announces New News Search

So Yahoo has made its News Search feature more robust…but, I wonder, where is the fresh angle that Yahoo brings, unique to Yahoo? Google has the "not touched by human hands" angle. Yahoo could do so much here…and I hope it does. For now, the news is this: the News…

main5So Yahoo has made its News Search feature more robust…but, I wonder, where is the fresh angle that Yahoo brings, unique to Yahoo? Google has the “not touched by human hands” angle. Yahoo could do so much here…and I hope it does. For now, the news is this: the News search feature now sources 7000 sites, adds a “also try” feature (related queries), and some other nifty features. I’d like to see a “make this news search an RSS feed” feature…

PS – Rich Skrenta and others point out, use the beta URL

PPS – Turns out, this news is a couple of months old. Sorry….too busy lately.

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Is Search Important to Ebay?

Sure is…"eBay Enhances Stores for Search Engine Optimization "… for more, see my talk with Monier here……

ebay.jpgSure is…”eBay Enhances Stores for Search Engine Optimization “… for more, see my talk with Monier here

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Google Takes Local Out of The Labs

This just in…Google takes local search and integrates it into main index…it's not a tab, following instead Danny's invisible tabs stategy….Have not had a chance to really play with this, though this link is for "Pizza Kentfield" and shows our local pizza joint first. Gary has done some testing, and…

This just in…Google takes local search and integrates it into main index…it’s not a tab, following instead Danny’s invisible tabs stategy….Have not had a chance to really play with this, though this link is for “Pizza Kentfield” and shows our local pizza joint first. Gary has done some testing, and he reports it needs more work…..Press release in extended entry below. (Reuters story here)

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Diller Buys TripAdvisor

The ever-alert Gary Price points out that Diller has made another move – buying the travel search engine TripAdvisor. Want to grok Diller's company, IAC? Me too. Gary points us to the recently filed 10-K……

The ever-alert Gary Price points out that Diller has made another move – buying the travel search engine TripAdvisor.

Want to grok Diller’s company, IAC? Me too. Gary points us to the recently filed 10-K

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