Search

Google and Daum teaming up in Korea?

Daum Communications could partner with Google on search-related keyword advertising, putting Daum's deal with Yahoo Search Marketing, formerly Overture, at risk, according to ZDNet Korea.

A Daum official told ZDNet Korea that it had no comment. "When it's right, we will make the statement," Daum official Jaewoong Lee said.

"Overture also stated 'Presently, we are still in talks and have not reached agreement on extending a contract yet,' but we should know for sure by the end of this year when the contract expires," the article says.

Google spokeswoman Eileen Rodriquez said in an … Read more

Google hasn't gone all goofy after all

In a keynote speech this morning at the 12th annual Cyberposium at the Harvard School of Business, Marissa Mayer, Google's VP of search products and user experience, addressed various media headlines that suggest that the company's recent product announcements and purchases are all over the map. Not so, says Mayer. In the course of an hour, she laid out four areas that Google has deemed to be important--more content, easier computing, personalization, and better search--then demonstrated how various Google products currently fit into each bucket:

More content --includes Google Book Search, Blogger, YouTube, and Google Earth

Easier computing … Read more

Yahoo trying to buy AOL, report says

Yahoo recently talked with Time Warner about the prospect of acquiring AOL, according to an article in Fortune.

"Fortune has learned from multiple sources that Yahoo recently approached Time Warner (parent of Fortune's publisher) about buying America Online--essentially trying to jump-start talks that broke down a year ago," the report says. "A source close to Yahoo disputes that Yahoo approached Time Warner and says that there are no active conversations between the two companies." A Yahoo-AOL merger would be a "face-saver" for Yahoo CEO Terry Semel, who lost out on a deal with … Read more

Google goals: more ads, less spam, go green

Google Blogoscoped blogger Philipp Lenssen has gotten ahold of an internal Google document that details the company's goals for 2006. Among them are: to sell $1 billion of new ad inventory, which is the number of page views a site has available for advertising; to focus on getting rid of spam in the top 20 user languages; to increase the accuracy of information collected; to push communities and content; and to "increase the scale of innovation," according to Blogoscoped.

The search giant "also wants to build 10 megawatts of green power to be on track to … Read more

Yahoo moves time capsule to New Mexico

Yahoo will be projecting images for its time capsule project for three nights beginning Wednesday from the Indian pueblo Jemez in New Mexico. Yahoo had initially planned to show the projections on the Pyramid of the Sun in the Teotihuacan archaeological site in Mexico, but officials there denied the company permission, citing fears that it might damage the ruins.

The more than 15 hours of pictures, video, poems and stories chronicling "humanity across the globe" will be projected at night through Friday on the walls of the canyon at Jemez and beamed via digital laser light into space. … Read more

Google Video on mobile devices--but not from Google

There's a Google Video for mobile devices, but not from Google. Independent developer Scott Robbin has created the unofficial version of Google Video for mobile phones. It lets people search, download and view content off Google Video directly from their mobile phones. All you need is a phone that has an XHTML-compliant browser and enough storage to hold large video files. It helps if the Internet connection is fast and if the phone has an application capable of playing AVI or MP4 files.

Robbin has also posted a video demonstration on YouTube. "I've got it running on … Read more

Googler in chief, George W. Bush

Searching for answers? Google. No matter how big your staff, no matter how large your army, Google helps.

President George W. Bush admits to Googling. The Wall Street Journal's blog on politics has a transcript of a TV interview where the president talked about Googling.

To quote the chief Googler: "One of the things I've used on the Google is to pull up maps. It's very interesting to see that. I forgot the name of the program, but you get the satellite and you can--like, I kind of like to look at the ranch on Google, … Read more

Click-fraud rate on Google, Yahoo down, report says

According to a new report on the scope of fraudulent clicks on search-related ads, the click-fraud rate among top-tier search sites like Google and Yahoo is dropping. It fell to 11.9 percent in the third quarter, compared with 12.8 percent in the previous quarter.

But at second-tier search providers, it rose to 23.2 percent from 20.3 percent. The overall industry rate inched down to 13.8 percent from 14.1 percent, according to figures released on Wednesday from Click Forensics, which operates the Click Fraud Index. The index compiles data from more than 2,500 online … Read more

Forget the butler, I'll take the sexy librarian

Talk about an interactive search engine. A new search site called Ms. Dewey features a sultry woman who makes wisecracks related to the keywords that are typed in. The search results appear as a long, scrolling list in a window that pops up on the upper right.

Set against a futuristic cityscape background, Ms. Dewey--with her hair pulled back--probably represents a digital-age librarian. Her name refers to the Dewey Decimal classification system used for cataloging books in libraries.

Her quips relating to keywords range from mundane and silly to provocative. For instance, during a search for "George Bush" … Read more

Google not spooked by ghosts of deals past

Every deal is unique. Every deal gets compared to past wins and losses. Most deals look good the next day.

Google's YouTube deal is worth just over 1 percent of the infamous January 2000 deal between AOL and Time Warner.

Former AOL CEO Steve Case has rued that deal publicly. Hordes of other Time Warner shareholders have suffered as well. Time's stock hit a high of $90 shortly after the deal. By the next year it was below $60. By 2002, Time Warner shares were below $30 to stay. They've now remained under $20 for over a … Read more