Sunday, May 11, 2008

How To Archive Instant Messages | eHow.com

Thanks to the practical nature of modern life, a lot of important conversations now happen through Instant Messaging programs, such as Yahoo Messenger,

read more | digg story

Yahoo Is More Popular Than Google - says Google.

Google's own product - 'Google Trends' says that Yahoo is more popular than Google since a long time. Even though the graph of Google has been steadily climbing, it has never beaten Yahoo. Should we or shouldn't we believe you Google?

read more | digg story

Yahoo Messenger for Vista Beta

download

Ford Partners With Yahoo! To Deliver Industry-first

In an unprecedented move, Ford Motor Company of Canada, Limited and Yahoo! Canada today unveiled a global and industry-first feature on www.ford.ca.

More...

MySpace to let users to share data with Yahoo

Social networking site MySpace said Thursday it will soon enable users to quickly share profile data with Web sites operated by Yahoo Inc., eBay Inc. and others.

MySpace aims to save its users keystrokes and allow them to export their photos, videos and lists of friends.

"There's this concept that social networks are walled gardens," said Amit Kapur, MySpace's chief operating officer. "We're taking those walls down."

Civic groups urge DOJ probe of possible Google-Yahoo deal

As reported on ComputerWorld.

A group of civic leaders is calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate any potential deal between Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc.

The civic groups, comprised of rural organizations, civil rights leaders, technologists, business advocates and concerned citizens, sent a letter to the DOJ today urging it to investigate the proposed alliance, saying it “threatens to concentrate power on the Internet.” They said such a partnership between the two largest search and advertising companies would give Google control over approximately 90% of the search market.

A DOJ spokeswoman said because there is no deal between Google and Yahoo, the department has no comment.

According to published reports, the DOJ has been looking into the antitrust implications of a partnership between Google and Yahoo. Last month, the two companies were engaged in a test whereby Yahoo delivered relevant Web advertising from Google alongside its own search results. However, there has been no news regarding a continuation of that test.

Neither Google nor Yahoo could be reached for comment.

The civic groups have expressed concern that Google “has already exhibited a pattern of violating privacy, engaging in anticompetitive conduct, and using its monopoly power in the search market to drive Internet users to its affiliated services and its viewpoints on policy matters.”

The groups, which include the Black Leadership Forum Inc., the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement and the League of Rural Voters, said there will come a day when no one will be able to get any information without Google’s permission.

Gary Flowers, executive director and CEO of the Black Leadership Forum, said the effect of large corporate mergers on the black community is hardly ever positive.

He said any proposed Google-Yahoo partnership is no different because doing away with competition would increase prices and limit new Internet business opportunities for members of the black community.

Other spokespersons for minority groups said a deal between Google and Yahoo would not be good for consumers.

“Privacy is a basic [tenet] of American law and culture. Google’s Gmail invasions of consumer privacy are the kind of worrisome behavior that you expect when there is no competition in the Internet’s gateway,” said Gabriela Lemus, executive director of the Labor Council, in a statement. The statement charged that Gmail service has repeatedly violated consumer privacy by scanning the actual text of individual customer e-mails in order to extract information for its advertising.

“We urge you to open an investigation into the current market concentration in online search and to oppose any combinations that would result in undue market concentration,” the groups said in the letter.

[via ComputerWorld]

Week in review: Yahoo, Microhoo's biggest loser

After Microsoft failed to make a love connection with Yahoo, we got a clearer picture of Yahoo as a company that didn't even want to be in the dating game.

read more | digg story

Inquisitor Purchased by Yahoo!

Last year, Yahoo! Search launched Search Assist to help users find what they're looking for quickly and easily by providing query suggestions and related concepts in real-time. Today, Yahoo! Search is embracing the Mac community and offering similar search assistance features with the acquisition of Inquisitor software, a Safari browser plug-in.

inquisitor-screenshot 2.jpg

Inquisitor 3, a search technology that auto-completes queries and delivers results right in Safari Web browser, is similar to Yahoo!'s existing Search Assist technology. Simply type in your query and websites will appear immediately, as well as suggestions for refining your search. Just as with Search Assist, the goal with Inquisitor is to help users find exactly the site they're looking for as quickly as possible.

The new version of Inquisitor removes affiliate ad links, simplifies the search provider selection interaction and refines the preferences user interface. Additionally, the new version provides quick access to Yahoo! Search however, existing users may still utilize their current default search engine or a different search engine entirely, such as a vertical alternative like Amazon or Flickr, if they prefer.

While search interface design has remained fairly utilitarian over the years, David Watanabe, founder and developer of Inquisitor, has done a fantastic job designing a simple and elegant UI. David and our team of macphiles will continue to innovate on both form and function for Inquisitor.

Mac users have been using the Inquisitor plug-in already and they seem to like it. It's a free download, so whether you're familiar with it or just trying it out for the first time with Yahoo! Search, let us know what you think in the comments below.


Ariel Seidman
Director of Product Management
Yahoo! Search

Microsoft will now focus on inhouse talent to grow

Microsoft Corp. will focus on growing its own advertising and Internet search business after it withdrew its takeover offer for Yahoo Inc., Chairman Bill Gates said Friday.

Microsoft has not presented an alternative strategy to compete with its dominant rival in the Internet business, Google Inc., since withdrawing a $47.5 billion bid for Yahoo Inc. last weekend.

Glue pages - Yahoo Launched Beta Version in India

Yahoo has launched Glue Pages Beta in Yahoo India. Glue Pages are specialized pages that contain an enhanced visual search result page, for select search queries. The search results that trigger the special "Glue Pages" run across searches in health, sports, entertainment, travel, technology, and finance categories.

The Glue Pages combine classic search results on the left hand column with more visual information related to your query in the middle and right section of the page. The results contain images, videos, articles and more. For example a search on diabetes returns standard search results on the left, in the middle we have WebMD results, followed by HowStuffWorks.com results, then results from Yahoo Groups, Yahoo Answers, Yahoo News, and even Google Blog Search.

  • Gopal Krishna, Head of Audience, Yahoo! India said: Searching on Glue Pages Beta will result in an experience that promises more than just web links. Users will receive more relevant, visually appealing search results from across the Web in one topical page. The new Glue Pages Beta feature for Yahoo! India Search supports our strategy to make Yahoo! the starting point on the Internet and demonstrates our commitment to provide a compelling online search experience.

Article source: SearchEngineLand.com [1]. Fair use under educational and information purpose.

Google keen on greater Yahoo ties

Google has expressed interest in extending an advertising partnership with fellow search engine Yahoo.

The comments from Google co-founder Sergey Brin and chief executive Eric Schmidt were made before the firm's annual general meeting on Thursday.

Google and Yahoo recently shared advertising for two weeks, but some analysts said the trial was more about stopping a Microsoft bid for Yahoo.

Microsoft ended its interest in buying Yahoo last weekend.

'Shared values'

"We have been talking to Yahoo and we are very excited to be working with them," said Mr Brin before the AGM.

"We share a lot of values with them."

Mr Schmidt said the two week trial with Yahoo had been "successful".

"That's a good basis to talk to Yahoo some more," he said.

Human rights

As expected, Google defeated two contentious shareholder proposals at the AGM.

However, Mr Brin decided to abstain on both votes.

The first wanted the company to create a special committee on human rights, while the second asked Google to increase its opposition to censorship demands from countries such as China that wish to limit their citizens' internet access.

While both votes were defeated, a breakdown of the vote has yet to be released.
news.bbc.co.uk

Blogger port by Blogger Templates

Powered by Blogger, state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform