Posted 11/04/09 at 06:00:15 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Google has risen to become a behemoth in the tech world in just a bit over a decade. Even in that short time, enough weird tidbits of information resulted that it makes an entertaining read. Perusing this list of ten interesting facts about Google will make you chuckle and scratch your head.

For instance, did you know that the original name for Google’s PageRank algorithm was “BackRub"?  PageRank is probably better and less creepy. Have you ever used Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” button? Well, that button costs Google about $110 million per year, because it skips past the ads on the results page. Hit the story link for the full list.

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Posted 10/29/09 at 08:26:58 AM by Paul Lilly

In a filing with the SEC, Yahoo said more time is needed to complete the search and advertising deal with Microsoft. The two sides had agreed in late July to have everything squared away by October 27, but hammering out the details of a long term deal is taking longer than expected.

"The parties are working diligently finalizing the agreements, have made good progress to date, and have agreed to execute the agreements as expeditiously as possible," Yahoo wrote.

Assuming the two sides can get this done -- and both sides said they are committed to doing so -- Microsoft's Bing will power Yahoo's search results in exchange for those all important advertising dollars. In a joint statement, Microsoft said the companies are "optimistic" they'll be able to close the deal by early 2010, but did not specify a new deadline.

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Posted 10/27/09 at 09:25:26 AM by Paul Lilly

Up until Bing, it was pretty much unfathomable that Google would ever see any kind of real competition in the search market, and perhaps Bing's early success has been a wake up call. It seems Google has been aggressively trying to improve the search experience as of late, including a bunch of just-released updates to its customizable search service.

Google Custom Search now comes with six additional themes to play with, all of which can be customized by changing fonts, colors, backgrounds, promotion settings, and various interactive features like tabbing and mouseovers, Google said. Even the search box and results placement are tweakable.

In addition to cosmetic tweaks, Google also launched a new Custom Search feature called Structured Search. With Structured Search, end users can look up information based on specific attributes instead of general terms. For example, if a Web publisher includes an author's name as an attribute in the app's metadata, users can ping the Internet for just a specific author and only get results that match the query.

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Posted 10/18/09 at 10:12:41 AM by Justin Kerr

Google poured some much needed optimism into the markets last week by announcing some stellar third quarter earnings, giving hope that advertising markets around the world might finally be on the mend. Google turned in a Q3 profit of $1.64 billion, with a very respectable earnings per share of $5.13, a 27 percent boost from the same period last year. During the conference call Google CEO Eric Schmidt also declared that the search engine giant would be on the prowl for new acquisition targets, and would consider any company be it large or small.

News like this usually gets analysts all fired up trying to figure out where they will strike first, but Schmidt clarified that Google is primarily interested in search engines that target specific verticals, or could help them refine how search is performed. Google apparently is also on the lookout for companies that can help them improve their display ad business, or with the development of Chrome. "We have historically done an acquisition, perhaps, one a month or so, and those are typically small, they're typically a complete offering, they're typically technology-intensive," said Schmidt on the call. "They're not very expensive in the scheme of things, and they bring some specific technology."

Schmidt also confirmed that Chrome OS is on track for a beta release later this year, claiming that internal demos have proven it to be a superior offering for netbooks, and far beyond anything offered by either the Microsoft, or Linux camps in both “speed and efficiency”.

So who do you think Google should buy?

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Posted 10/16/09 at 09:06:03 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, held the company’s third quarter conference call today and has some things to say about Android. According to Schmidt, “Android adoption is about to explode.” There are 12 official Android phones in production now, and the pace of Android handset releases is rapidly increasing. Additionally, mobile searches are up over 30 percent over last quarter.

The Android platform is aimed at getting these mobile search numbers up. By producing a free and open-source OS for manufacturers to use, they’ve almost guaranteed wide adoption. Google hasn’t mentioned how much of their overall revenue comes from mobile, but they have said they expect it to be a big source of growth in the coming years.

While Google may be acting coy, analysts have estimated that 70% of mobile advertizing will be based on search. Clearly, it is in Google’s best interest that we all get an Android powered phone in our hands so they can sell us stuff. You may have already bought the phone, but they want to sell you other stuff.

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Posted 10/16/09 at 03:23:20 PM by Bart Salisbury

For some unknown reason YouTube has decided to make possible real-time searches of comments. Seriously? Comments are the thing you avoid on YouTube, expressing either gross immaturity or venting some real, and ofttimes inappropriately placed, anger. If there is a good thing about YouTube comments is we’re subjected only to a few of them--and they are easily ignored.

So why do this? Marshall Kirkpatrick, of ReadWriteWeb, suggests that companies might find it useful--to track the things that people are saying about them or their products.

After reading some of searched comments I’m not so sure companies would want to know what people are saying. Not the people posting on YouTube anyway. Give it a try. Type in any innocuous term. Count down how many entries until you read something obscene or vulgar (or worse). In my few searches I didn’t get past the top five.

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Posted 10/05/09 at 08:08:07 AM by Paul Lilly

As part of its mega-million ad campaign, Yahoo has tapped into India's largest English-language newspaper, The Times of India, with a giant yellow ad on the front page pushing the company's 'It's Y!ou' slogan.

Citing circulation statistics from 2008, TechCrunch says the newspaper reaches 3.14 million readers, which is more than any other English-language newspaper on the planet. But whether or not a full-page spread spread makes sense is questionable, as Yahoo's presence in India is already pretty strong, reaching 26 million of the 35 million online users, according to data from comScore.

Yahoo plans to spend $100 million or more on its new marketing campaign, which will also include TV ads on AMC, ESPN, USA, Comedy Central, Bravo, and a bunch of other broadcast networks in the U.S.

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Posted 10/01/09 at 08:48:55 AM by Paul Lilly

Sometimes the best answer to your question can be found in a forum, so why doesn't Google integrate forum results into its search by default? As of Wednesday, it does.

In a blog post, Google said the new addition to its search results applies to sites that tend to have a large number of posts on a specific topic. For queries that qualify, you'll see indented discussions Google deems relevant somewhere on the search page. Type in 'How to overclock,' for example, and Google spits out three forum posts on the subject halfway down the page and sorted by date. You can then click to expand more results from whichever forum Google linked to (in this case, TomsHardware).

"We hope this features gives you a deeper view into the relevant content available on sites throughout the web -- even when that content spans multiple pages or discussions," Google wrote.

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