Search

Surprise, surprise, Google is still the king of search in the U.S. In fact, any other search engine pales in user numbers comparison.

According to new data released by digital analytics company ComScore today, 66.7 percent of users core searches in September were on Google, which is 0.3 percent higher than August. Trailing behind were Microsoft's search engines, which got 15.9 percent of the market share, and Yahoo came in third with 12.2 percent -- which is down 0.6 percent from August.

Over the last year, Yahoo's share has been in a steady free-fall. … Read more

In a sign of the mobile-centric times, desktop Web search declined in September for the first time since Macquarie Group began tracking it in 2006.

ComScore data for September showed that searches declined 4 percent year over year, according to a note Macquarie sent to clients. Growth rates in search have been slowing since February, when searches were up 14 percent. The increasing number of mobile searches appears to be the biggest reason for the decline, Macquarie analysts said in their report.

The decline in desktop search makes intuitive sense. These days, we're less likely to search for a … Read more

LinkedIn has accumulated more than 175 million "professionals" on its service, and after crunching billions of data points on its site came up with a list of the most sought-after employers in five countries and four job functions. Tech leads the parade, with Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, salesforce.com and Expedia among the top companies on the list. 

Also in the top 100 were Zynga (42), Amazon (25), HP (37), Netflix (39), Groupon (41), Oracle (60) and IBM (74).

LinkedIn, which said it has two million companies in its database, also tracked top employers by geography. … Read more

RockMelt has redesigned its social browser to optimize it for the iPad.

It's been awhile since RockMelt has made the news, but that doesn't mean its stopped working on new items and features. It also launched an iPhone app earlier this year, according to Engadget.

For those who don't know about RockMelt, it's a browser that launched in 2010 and remains in beta. It was created by Tim Howes and Eric Vishria and one of its backers is the king of venture capital Marc Andreessen who co-founded Netscape.

Google may be offering European regulators a new carrot in its effort to sidestep an antitrust suit.

Under a new proposal, Google would label its own in-house services to distinguish them from those of third parties among its search results, according to the Financial Times. The offer is Google's latest attempt to placate European Union regulators who say the search giant is crowding out the rest of the market.

"People familiar" with the proposal told the FT that Google would tag its own maps, stock quotes, airline details, and other information to clearly identify them in its … Read more

In 2011, Navy Seal Team Six was prepping for a possible raid to capture or kill a high-value target living in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The target, of course, was Osama bin Laden. A satellite image of the training facility located in Perquimans County, N.C., (via the Atlantic Wire and cyptome.org ) was captured by Microsoft's Bing search as it was ramping up its satellite data.

It's identified on the map as the Harvey Point Defense Testing Activity, near the Albemarle Sound.

The staged Bin Laden compound closely resembles the actual compound below:

The buildings … Read more

Twitter has made it easier to find its millions of users on search engines by launching a new "Profiles Directory" tool.

The directory lists all user accounts alphabetically and includes profiles with numbers and non-Latin character names.

Twitter did not formally announce its new directory but instead quietly debuted the feature on the bottom of its homepage. "We launched this a few weeks ago," a Twitter spokesperson told CNET, "to help people find the accounts they're looking for with various search engines."

A new service aiming to help media and PR companies determine which influencers can best amplify their messages launched today, with Mark Cuban as lead investor.

Known as Little Bird, the San Francisco startup was founded by former ReadWriteWeb reporter Marshall Kirkpatrick. Cuban led the $1 million round, along with additional investment from the Social Leverage Group, Hubspot co-founder Dharmesh Shah, and former Twitter engineer Blaine Cook.

For now, Little Bird is in private beta. In an e-mail to CNET, Kirkpatrick explained that the service is mainly used to help companies with their social-media or content-creation strategy. "For example, … Read more

Proving a point that Twitter made yesterday that the microblogging service gives brands a powerful way to build loyalty and find new customers, PBS today purchased a promoted tweet tied to one of the hottest terms to come out of last night's presidential debate, "Big Bird."

According to BuzzFeed, the purchase comes as a response by the network to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's suggestion that he would cut funding to PBS as a way of reducing government spending, despite his personal affinity for Big Bird, one of the main characters on the hit PBS children'… Read more