Tag: search engine
Google shows off 2008's top searches
When you’re the world’s biggest Internet search engine, you can be pretty confident that you’re getting a pretty representative sample of what people are searching for online.
Google’s annual Zeitgeist covers a number of topics, showing what the top global searches are. Here’s a few highlights.
Unsurprisingly, US politics played a major role in searches, with Barack Obama, John McCain and Sarah Palin all being searched for, either by name or with “who is” preceding their surname…
Microsoft to re-brand Live Search as 'Kumo'?
There’s some rumblings going around that Microsoft’s intending to re-brand its unpopular search engine as ‘Kumo’. There’s no question that Microsoft wants to claw back some of Google’s insane market share, but is this really the best way to do it?
‘Kumo’ means cloud, or spider, in Japanese. Both of those words have direct relevance to search engines. The rumours have come about because control of the Kumo.com domain has just passed to Microsoft, and the word was one of several (also including ‘Bing’ and ‘Hook’) that Microsoft was considering a few weeks back for a rebrand.
Microsoft needs to do something to reinvigorate its search offering, but I really can’t see someone picking to use “Kumo” over “Windows Live Search” simply because the former has a (questionably) better name.
Live Search (via LiveSide)
Related posts: Microsoft pushing Live Search through bribery: win prizes at John Lewis | Microsoft to use Facebook to extend Live Search reach
Microsoft pushing Live Search through bribery: win prizes at John Lewis
Live Search must really be suffering at the moment, as Microsoft is teaming up with John Lewis to give away thousands of pounds worth of prizes over Christmas just for using the search engine.
BigSnapSearch.com launched today, and Microsoft will be hoping that this marketing push will be as successful as the first one it ran, that allegedly saw search queries increase by a third during the eight-week promotion. No stats on how many people defected back to Google afterwards, though.
Each time someone searches for something, two virtual cards are turned over. If they match, it’s “Snap!”, and a prize is won. Bearing in mind that there are only 24 prizes each day, don’t expect to win a flurry of prizes…
Google working on improved image searching for a trillion online pictures
According to Google, almost one trillion images now exist online, thanks to the explosion in popularity of digital cameras and camera phones. and the company is looking at ways to improve how users can search for the pictures they want.
Currently, Google’s image search relies on textual information stored in and around images on web pages. This is fine to a point, but not only does it have the potential to be abused by people trying to make their web pages more popular, but it relies on a human to correctly categorise a picture and what it contains…
Adobe ushers search in for Flash sites
From this week, Flash-based sites will be accessible to search engines including Yahoo! and Google.
Yahoo! investor urges Microsoft to take its partial investment offer directly to shareholders
Even though Yahoo!’s board opted to side with Google in its eagerness to shrug of Microsoft’s advances, the company may not be out of the woods quite yet. Mark Nelson, a partner in Mithras Capital, which owns 1.7 million Yahoo shares has written to Microsoft urging the company to reconsider its partial deal for Yahoo!’s search engine business.
Google showcases new experimental search views: map, timeline, info
Google has announced a trio of new views for search results, currently in an experimental stage. They provide some useful alternatives to the bog standard “ten results per page” text links many Google users are most familiar with.
Combining Google Search with Google Maps unsurprisingly gives rise to the Map view, which will plot the key locations contained within a batch of search results on a map.
Great for a school project — a slapdash one at least — is the Timeline view, though this potentially needs to be taken as carefully as one would, or should, treat Wikipedia. It lists search results as usual, but plots a timeline graph along the top of the page, showing when things happened (according to the search results). Looks good for an overview of a person, a historical event, or a concept, which can lead to further study.
Mobile phone search engine Taptu now officially official, officer.
Music-lovers and know-it-alls, rejoice! Taptu has finally launched, meaning you’ll never be stuck whilst on the go anymore.
It’s basically a search-engine for your mobile, perfectly formatted for your screen which uses new technology called social-assisted search. This is all good news for people who simply must prove their friends wrong whilst in the pub, and feel the need to use their mobiles to get the…
Microsoft continues to play Google catch up in latest Live Search updates
Microsoft has announced that a number of enhancements and improvements are coming to its Live Search engine. The trouble is, most of them sound like things which Google has been doing pretty well for quite some time. Features include important…
Hippyshopper's eco verdict on Blackle.com
The whole of the internet has been banging on about Blackle the past few weeks and its supposed energy-saving ways. But for those of us who remember www.black-google.blogspot.com from years back, they’ll also remember the controversy surrounding whether it is actually eco-friendly or not…
