posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, August 29, 2008
Last week, during the SES conference in San Jose, Erik Collier, the VP of Product Management over at Ask.com, spoke about his company's newest application of semantic search technology, searchable TV listings. While I didn't have the opportunity to attend the conference and catch Erik's presentation in person, I did however read about it in his post over on the Ask.com Blog. The following are a few quotes from his post, and about this new search feature:
"Navigating TV listings in search of things like Olympic coverage can be a frustrating task. Not any more. With Ask.com it is now a real part of search. Straight from the Ask searchbox."
"Our Ask TV listings uses our patent-pending technology DADS (Direct Answers from Databases) to answer queries and questions from structured data feeds and databases. DADS provides highly accurate answers to queries which are relevant to a given topic. Instead of using traditional keyword search algorithms, our technology can deliver much deeper, more precise search results based on understanding of a query meaning rather than syntactical text matching."
"Ask TV answers queries ranging from "when is sports on tv this weekend" or "horror movies tonight" to "lindsay lohan on tv". Covering nearly 10,000 distinct stations and over 100,000 shows, our information is updated daily - and it can be personalized and customized to any location and cable provider in the USA."
I'm a big fan of Ask.com and of their search technology. While they're currently fourth in the overall scheme of things - behind search giants Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft - I personally believe they have what it will take - talent, ideas, technology, and fortitude - to eventually surpass their competition. I enjoy keeping up-to-date on Ask.com's advances in the search space, and so after reading Erik's post on "searchable TV listings" I quickly headed on over to their search engine to give it a shot.
My experience was exactly as I had expected it would be... perfect! I started by placing a search for something that is near and dear to my heart: "Chicago Cubs on TV". As a fan, I certainly do my part to cheer on my team whenever they play... especially because they're doing so well this year. Go Cubs, Go! I won't jinx their season with talks of the post-season or (cough) a World Series ring, but I will say that I am very excited for their chances at making something happen. Anyway, Ask.com delivered the following listings:
Nice! Right? I can see that the cubbies are going to be finishing off their current series with the Phillies today and tomorrow, and that coverage starts at 1:00pm and 2:30pm respectively. I can even see which television station I'll need to turn-in to.
One other feature that I like is the "More TV Results" option which sits as a text-link just under those two listings. Did you see that in the image above? Clicking on that link provided me with roughly a 2-week glance at the team's upcoming television schedule.
Awesome.
I can see that we (the cubs) will be playing the Cardinals in St. Louis in September - that's a game that I will definitely want to play close attention to... especially so close to the end of the season.
Just for kicks, I did a couple of other searches: "Seinfeld on TV" and "Nicolas Cage on TV" and had a very similar experience. With the Seinfeld search I was able to see which specific episodes would be showing and on which TV stations, and with my Nicolas Cage search I was able to see which of his million great movies would be playing tonight and tomorrow.
While it's obvious that "searchable TV listings" isn't the golden ticket that is going to catapult Ask.com to the top of the list - as far as search engines go - it is however a really cool and relevant idea. Overall I thought that the new search feature functioned well, and that it was both easy-to-use and understand. Congrats Ask.com for releasing a great new search feature.
Labels: ask, industry-news
posted by Karl Ribas on Tuesday, October 10, 2006
This wouldn't be a Search Engine Marketing Blog if I didn't at least make mention of Google's recent acquisition (within the last 24hrs) of the online video phenomenon known as YouTube. That's right! In the case you've been living under your desk for the last week, Google has agreed to purchase YouTube for a WHOPPING $1.65 Million Billion. A billion and a half dollars... that's freakin' crazy!
For those of you who are unaware... YouTube was founded in February of 2005 by 3 former PayPal employees. The company has since grown to over 60 employees, and has since vastly become a very popular video sharing website which lets it's users upload, view, and share video clips. Utilizing Adobe Flash technology to display video, YouTube hosts a wide variety of site content including movie and TV clips and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video-blogging and personal home videos.
Just to give you all an idea of the kind of content you can find at YouTube... here is a link to one of my videos: http://youtube.com/watch?v=aM9wjqYHG6Y. You know the one... this video is infamous within our office!
Reviewing this whole situation... there is really only one factor that has me bothered, and that is simply the amount of the transaction. I don't know about you, but a million dollars is a lot of money... in this acquisition we're talking $1.65 Billion. What in the world was Google thinking when they agreed to pay so much for YouTube? Do they know something that no one else in the world knows? What could they possibly have up their sleeve?
After pondering these questions almost all night... well not all night, I did play about 4 hours of Super Mario Strikers (a really cool game for you gamers out there); I have come to 3 possible conclusions:
- Google, in attempt to become a major player in online video, probably felt that their current Google Video platform, released earlier this year, is not at all comparable to those of its immediate competition. Therefore, their only hope for becoming a true leader in the online video market was to buy one that is.
- Google really wants to be in control of YouTube's 1 million plus users, and solicit future users to sign-up via a Google account... similar to what Yahoo! has done with Flickr. Having more Google accounts under the company's belt will allow them more ways to solicit future products, not to mention track more individual user-behavior... no, Google wouldn't do that... would they?
- Anyone who is a frequent visitor of YouTube knows that Google is serving up advertisements on what seems like every page of the video giant's website. It is through this partnership that Google gets to monitor just how much web-traffic YouTube receives. I wouldn't be surprised if Google realized just how much money it stands to make now owning 100% of the money coming in through that ad distribution deal, rather than just the 20% or so it owned before.
I happened to check out YouTube this morning looking to see what immediate interface or logo changes had taken place overnight, and to my surprise there were none. I was certain "YouTube" would have been changed to "GooTube" or at least feature the Google logo somewhere on the homepage... but I was wrong. I did happen to find this video though:
Seriously... after actually seeing these guys (the creators of YouTube)... if they can create something worthy of $1.65 Billion... whom among us can't?
Labels: google, industry-news
posted by Karl Ribas on Thursday, October 05, 2006
It seems as of late that all the major search engines are eyeballing the mobile advertising market, and who can really blame them... it promises to be a very worthwhile and rewarding market. Yahoo!, on Wednesday, launched a beta version of their sponsored search program for mobile phones in the United States and United Kingdom. Of course, being in beta means that only a "select group" of advertisers will be able to test/use it. Bummer!
Similar to their current sponsored search platform, advertisers will have an opportunity to bid (in auction format) on keywords that will display their ads on the search results page. As of now, this service will work on most mobile phones and handhelds that have web-browsing capabilities.
With more and more consumers using their mobile phones to perform searches on the web, most of which are local-related, it's a great idea for companies like Yahoo! and Google to offer some sort of mobile advertising platform. There are several times when I've personally performed searches on my cell phone, typically looking for restaurant information or specialty shops, and wished for better results.
Paid ads are definitely the way to go with mobile search! Putting the information that is desired in front of those that desire it is what a search engine is all about. Adding advertisements to mobile search results is a great way for search engines to see that it continues to happen, while making a little something-something on the side.
Do you or your clients own a brick and mortar business? If so, consider tapping into mobile search advertising via Yahoo!. I imagine that local businesses, such as restaurants, bakeries, taxi services, day spas, bowling alleys, or other shopping centers and venues, are the perfect fit for such a service.
Labels: industry-news, mobile-marketing, paid-search, yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Wednesday, August 16, 2006
I came across another interesting tid-bit of information in my efforts to catch up after missing an entire week of work to attend the SES Conference (quick thanks to Michael for IMing me the details), and it too is Blogworthy. Apparently Google Maps is going to be offering printable coupons for everything from pizza to car washes as they make a move designed to appeal to peoples' appetites for a bargain.
Also, and in addition to offering a service to Google Map users, Google is also providing an easier way for merchants to understand the impact of their online presence by allowing them to better track online leads that convert offline... which is one of the major purposes of Google's Maps and Local Search divisions.
Under the conditions of this new service, a search for "Day Spas in New York" will display business listings that match those terms alongside a map. If any Day Spas are offering coupons, a link accompanying the listing will take people to a separate web page where the coupon can be printed. The coupon can then be redeemed in person at the business location... which to sum up my point will assist merchants, in addition to the customers, by providing them some basis of how their local search campaigns are doing.
Here are a few snap-shots of this new service:
Example of a Google Maps Coupon Listing
Example of Google Maps Coupon
Beginning as early as this morning, Google Maps users will see coupons from the more than 12,000 advertisers who offer printable online coupons. As of right now, it appears that any and all merchants are eligible to sign up to offer coupons, at no charge, on Google Maps at Google's Local Business Center. Google will also begin offering in coming months the ability for businesses that purchase AdWords search-related keywords to send people who click on the ads to a page containing a coupon hosted by Google Maps.
Ok... with all of that said, here's my take on this. In the traditional offline world, coupons drive a lot of business, and they haven't been well-explored online. What Google has done here is provided a very valuable marketing tool for local businesses and it doesn't cost anything beyond the discount given to customers.
For the longest time, online maps from Google and rivals Yahoo!, Microsoft, and AOL have been racing to offer the most bells and whistles to attract more user-eyeballs that can then be fed advertisements. With that in mind, "Bravo" goes to you Google for being the first major map provider to offer coupons, which will not only appeal to cost-conscious consumers but also offer advertisers a reliable way to gauge the success of an ad campaign.
Labels: google, industry-news, local-search
posted by Karl Ribas on Wednesday, August 16, 2006
There is only one major downfall to being gone an entire week attending any kind of conference or trade show, and that is dealing with the amount of work that awaits your return. And not only that, but after attending a show like SES, I've got a few ideas that I'd like to test, try, and work on but am unable to do so until I address the mountain of emails and tasks that reside within my inbox. I guess these "grand" ideas will just have to remain scribbled out in my notebook until I can find the time to check into them.
So I'm going though the hundreds of Blog posts (no lie) and news emails that currently have my attention, and I found an interesting, Blog-worthy announcement that took place last week and figured now is a good time to share it with you.
Apparently on that Monday (7th) Google inked a deal with MySpace.com, outbidding Yahoo! in the process, in which it will serve its web search and advertising listings to MySpace's nearly 100 million members. That's right... for those of you who are among the millions of MySpace users you can expect a change in scenery, as far as your search box is concerned, because Google will be implementing itself into your sites very shortly.
Under the terms of the agreement, which will begin in the fourth quarter, Google must guarantee Fox Interactive, MySpace's parent company, minimum payments of $900 million over a 3 year period of time. This is of course if MySpace can meet certain traffic expectations set forth by Google.
MySpace, for those unaware of it, is a social networking website which offers an interactive, user-submitted network of Blogs, profiles, groups, photos, MP3s, videos, and an internal e-mail system. In fact, in July of this year MySpace became the #1 ranked website in the United States (according to research performed by Hitwise)... which is probably what led Google to bid in the first place.
With this deal, Google is simply doing what they've always done... and that's move Google to where users are, as well as user-generated content. Great job Google, you've secured an important source of traffic and ad revenue by exposing it to a thriving young audience of millions on MySpace.
Labels: google, industry-news, paid-search
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, July 21, 2006
Yahoo!, the world's largest Internet media company, announced this past Wednesday that it has inked a deal with Motorola, the second-largest maker of mobile phones. The new multiyear deal calls for tens of millions of new mid-priced and high-end Motorola phones to run an integrated set of services known as Yahoo! Go for Mobile.
Yahoo! Go, a software system designed to make Yahoo! services as easy to use on mobile phones and TVs as they have become on computers, will feature mobile versions of many of its premiere services including Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger, photos, calendar, address book, web and image search, news, sports, and finance.
I had first Blogged about "Yahoo! Go" back in January of this year, but only then Yahoo! was striking a deal with Nokia, the world's largest mobile handset maker. Here's an excerpt from that post:
"Dubbed Yahoo! Go Mobile, these communications and media applications are expected to be preloaded on Nokia Series 60 mobile phones and available in 10 countries worldwide, including Cingular and AT&T customers in the United States. Additions and updates to the information in the applications are said to be automatically synched between the mobile phone and the user's account on Yahoo! servers."
These new ties between Internet companies, such as Yahoo!, and hardware makers, such as Nokia and now Motorola, promise to provide consumers with easier and quicker access to personal Internet information. As mentioned in my January post... Yahoo! Go is a monster of an idea. Yahoo! has near 500 million users or more accessing their website (services) each and every month, and until now their lives have been literally locked into a PC browser. Yahoo! Go is the first step, of what I believe are many to come, in the direction of a more-mobile Internet.
With both Nokia and Motorola, the #1 and #2 companies in mobile phones, under Yahoo!'s belt I can't help but wonder what the company has in stored for future distribution of their mobile services. I also can't help but wonder how their closest competitors, mainly Google and MSN, could allow Yahoo! to get 2-up on them.
Labels: industry-news, mobile-marketing, yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Thursday, June 01, 2006
Last night Ask.com staked its claim in Blog search atmosphere as it launched its new, long awaited Blog search service. Like with most Blog search services, Ask is trying to capitalize on the keen interest in the topics and debates covered by blogs that aren't easy to find on traditional online news sites. Both Google, which acquired Blogger in 2003, and Yahoo! launched their blog search sites last year, and personally speaking... its nice to see that Ask decided to finally join the party.
The question remains though... what does Ask bring to the table of Blog search that its competitors don't? Well I had a chance to play around with this new service and in addition to the many small features we've come to expect from Ask, 4 features clearly stand out to me.
1) Unique Indexing and Ranking Methods
Instead of crawling the Web for blog postings to build an index to search like others do, Ask is using the index already created and updated by subscribers to its popular Bloglines site for searching, subscribing to, creating and sharing blogs and news feeds. This feature will significantly reduce the amount of blog spam that appears within most Blog search engines, as well as enable Ask to offer fresher blog search results than those offered by its competitors.
2) A "Sort By" Feature
Users can sort search listings according to relevance, most recent, and even popularity (according to Bloglines).
3) Binoculars Feature
This Feature allows users the ability to preview most of the site/blog post without having to leave the search results page. Simply roll your mouse over the "binoculars" image and a pop-up appears.
4) "Subscribe" and "Post To" Options
Bloglines users, as well as those who use rival Blog and RSS feed readers (like Google's and Yahoo's), can subscribe to the blogs that show up in the search results, and without having to leave the page. Users can also post their search listings to Bloglines or Yahoo's Delicious or Digg.
The following image highlights the Binoculars feature as well as the preview pop-up, and the "Subscribe" and "Post To" options.
The new blog search service is expected to be integrated into Ask's Bloglines site, which is similar to what Google has done with Blogger.
Thus far, I find myself really enjoying Ask's Blog search. I find the search results far more relevant (with less spam occurrences) than what Google and Yahoo! currently offer. It will be interesting to see how things progress from here.
Labels: ask, industry-news
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, March 31, 2006
Earlier this week Google and Verizon SuperPages.com came together and signed a deal under which Verizon (aka the classified ad provider) will help its tens of thousands of marketers get ads onto the Google search result pages. Verizon SuperPages.com is now an authorized Google Adwords reseller and will now be helping small businesses take advantage of the many opportunities that Google provides.
This is actually a great thing for search... specifically local search. Verizon SuperPages.com sends sales representatives out to businesses to sell them advertising that will appear in print and online, something Google and other big Internet companies don't have the resources to do. This new arrangement "marries" Verizon's sales channel opportunities with Google's vast advertising network allowing Verizon an opportunity to play a key role with getting small merchants online.
Search engines have plenty to offer the small-business market and deals such as this are critical to move the local search market forward. I don't see small businesses going on their own to Google or Yahoo! anytime soon, so it's nice to see an authoritative source bring Search Engine Marketing services and resources to small businesses.
The Google deal also gives Verizon SuperPages.com advertisers an opportunity to appear in AOL's, Ask's (formerly Ask Jeeves), and other partner search engine's search results through their deals with Google. Not a bad arrangement for small-business marketing if you ask me!
Labels: google, industry-news, local-search
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, January 27, 2006
This past week Ask Jeeves launched its first proprietary image search technology, a service which features major improvements to its image search ranking algorithms and its new "related search suggestions" feature. Jeeves has been involved with picture search since 2003 and until now the service was powered by Picsearch, a third-party provider of image search capabilities.
Jeeves' new image search technology was developed internally and uses many of the same elements that have made its main web search unique and popular. For instance, the two search types share the same algorithmic search ranking feature which clusters the web into topic areas and determines the ranking of pages within that area.
In addition, the Ask Jeeves brings new imaging search technology and know-how to the table which will assist in the measuring of specific imagery attributes such as image type, shape, brightness, and contrast level to determine picture quality.
Image search is offered by all of the major search engines, and people tend to think it's a fairly generic service, with little difference in results between any of the engines. When in fact, Image search is tricky because images lack most of the clues search engines use to find relevant text documents that match our queries. Because images are made up of patterns of bits rather than words, search engines can't directly "look" at an image and figure out what it represents.Instead, search engines look for other clues, such as filenames, text immediately above or below an image (potential captions), the overall context of a page an image appears on, and so on.
So what separates Ask Jeeves from the likes of Google or Yahoo!? Well, Jeeves image search is doing all this, but it's also applying its Teoma ranking system to find sites that have a broad representation of images and topics. This will help to identify those sources that have the greatest degree of "authority" for a particular topic to help determine image relevance. This is truly great feature and one that should help good ol' Jeeves to stand out amongst the other image search engines.
All in all this was a great step forward for the Internet's favorite Butler. Ask Jeeves has definitely taken image search to a whole new level.Labels: ask, industry-news
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, December 16, 2005
I always find it hard to get back into the swing of things after a conference like last week's Search Engine Strategies show. There's something about returning to the office to find my "inbox" full (which is a funny thing too seeing how I make an effort to attend to emails during the show) and my project work-load doubled that makes me not want to show up on Monday. Does this happen to you?
Don't get me wrong... I love what I do and I enjoy working with those I work with, but the last thing I want to do after returning from a conference is to attend to clients, leads, or company email. In fact, my desires lie within reviewing my conference notes, exploring the latest SEO techniques and strategies, and playing around with all the new tools and resources I learned about the previous week. Oh well... there's always next week.
By the way, I did find time to publish my SES conference pics the other day if anyone's interested. Check them out: Search Engine Strategies, December 2005 Pictures.
Alright, seeing how my headline refers to "Google Whistling a New Tune" I should probably begin discussing the main topic of this entry, which is Google's new Music Search. That's right, Google this past week launched a new service which is intended to give searchers fast links to song lyrics, musical artists and CD titles on the main search results page.
Google Music will allow a person to type in the name of a band, artist, album or song in the main Google search bar special, and results will appear at the top, accompanied by icons of music notes. Results will also include links to supplemental Google Web pages with more information about the music, including names of tracks on a CD and other CDs a band or artist has released. Google also will provide snippets of reviews from sites on the Web and links to those sites.
It's great to see that Google is committed to adding and providing valuable search services to its users, but in my opinion they are a bit late to the game as competitors Ask Jeeves, MSN, and Yahoo! have all offered similar features for some time now. Personally, I find myself searching music and entertainment related topics on the Ask Jeeves search engine. Ask Jeeves has offered a Smart Search box for many pop artists for some time. Here's an example for U2. Here you'll find a short bio and picture (via AllMusic.com, an amazing reference resource all by itself) along with a links to read the full bio on AllMusic.com. The same happens when searching popular actors and so forth.
Google has a lot of catching up to do if they are going to start competing with the other search giants on a "Music Search" level, but if anyone can... Google can.Labels: google, industry-news
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, November 04, 2005
While Microsoft's new "live" software push is mainly seen as an effort to compete with rivals such as Google and Yahoo!, there are a number of smaller companies that suddenly find themselves in Redmond's competitive crosshairs.
As part of its broad announcement on Tuesday, Microsoft revealed plans to offer for free a number of things that its rivals charge for, including services such as virus scanning and Internet-to-telephone calling and Web hosting.
On the telephone side, Microsoft showed off the ability to call any traditional phone number from within the new Windows Live messenger client. While instant messaging programs have had voice chat for some time, Microsoft's move would be broader by allowing free calling to traditional phone numbers as well.
On the security front, Microsoft went beyond its already announced plans for the subscription OneCare service. In addition to that paid program, Microsoft plans a new Windows Live Safety Center--a free Web-based program that allows on-demand scanning and removal of viruses. This addition is a great idea and one that will no doubt prove to be beneficial for many.
On a side note, is it just me or does it seem as if Microsoft is trying to take over the world? They are competing on so many fronts that taking over the world seems like a logical explanation. Let's review:
- Microsoft's Windows runs on like 98% of the worlds PCs.
- Microsoft's Office is no doubt used in every office in the world.
- Microsoft's Internet Explorer is the #1 Internet browser.
- Microsoft's IM is one of the most popular messaging programs.
- Microsoft's MSN is one of the top search engines on the net.
- Microsoft's Xbox is one of the top videogame consoles.
Let's face it; they should probably rename earth to Microsoft. What other company could stand to go toe-to-toe with such competition as Apple Macintosh, Netscape, Mozilla (FireFox), Norton, MacAfee, American Online, Yahoo!, Google, Ask Jeeves, Sony, and finally Nintendo all at the same time. These are all leaders in their own respective markets and yet Microsoft makes headway in each. It's truly a scary thing. Kudos to you... Microsoft.Labels: bing, industry-news
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, October 28, 2005
Google released yet another search feature to their very popular and beloved search engine and this time it's geared towards airline travelers. That's right... airline travelers.Google's new search function will allow its users to quickly access airline flight information when they type in two different cities, or airport codes, into the Google search box. Doing so will bring up two additional boxes for entering departing and returning flight dates.
In addition to that, Google is also listing links to the travel websites Expedia, Hotwire, and Orbitz. By clicking through on any one of those links, users will be directed to flight options for their selected itineraries on that site.I spent a little bit of time this morning messing around with this new search feature and found it to be very user-friendly and easily accessible. I simply typed "Chicago to New York City" into the Google Search box and the new flight option came up, among the other Google listings. You can check out my search by clicking here: Chicago to New York City.Google's move to release this search function comes one day after Yahoo! debuted its new Trip Planner (currently in BETA), which allows people to create, share and print personalized trip itineraries. This goes to show that Google will not be "Trumped" so easy, especially by Yahoo!, in their efforts to create the best search engine on the Internet.Labels: google, industry-news
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, October 21, 2005
A month ago, September 23rd to be exact, I wrote an entry regarding AOL and how Microsoft and Google were competing (most likely bidding) against one another in their attempts to partner-up with the popular web portal. Now, this week, Yahoo! has reportedly left the sidelines and entered itself in this ongoing struggle for a piece of American Online.
That's right, Yahoo! is in talks with AOL, a unit of Time Warner, and is looking to attain AOL's millions of search and portal users, not to mention the near $400 million in ad revenue that currently goes Google's way. In fact, I bet that the only reason why Yahoo! is now even interested in AOL is to ensure that the "kool-aid" that is generated from AOL's / Google's paid-search agreement does not go back into Google's refrigerator... or Microsoft's for that matter.
Time Warner has yet to comment on whether or not they have received offers from Internet search giants Google, MSN, or Yahoo! or if they are even interesting in partnering up or potentially selling AOL. It seems for Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft, a bid for AOL is merely a defensive move against the others.
One thing is for sure and that is if Yahoo! is in the running, the stakes could get high. In general, when you've got multiple players going after a property, like anything, you get increased competition and companies tend to bid higher. Well when we're talking Yahoo!, Google, and especially MSN, who as we all know is a division of Microsoft and has seemingly bottomless pockets, we're talking a huge increase in competition and bids.Labels: industry-news, yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, October 14, 2005
Do any of you remember my posting about a month ago regarding Google's new blog search tool? Well guess what? Yahoo!, one of Google's primary competitors, has made the next stride in this market by revamping its basic news search tool to grab material from the millions of blogs out there, in addition to just the regular headlines from 6,500 newspapers and magazines. Yahoo! launched a test version of the new tool on Monday, saying it aims to give consumers a more complete view of the news. Obviously this addition will increase the consumer's ability to find events that matter to them, from major news stories, citizen reporting, commentary and pictures that might not be covered by the mainstream media... and that in itself creates a more user focused experience. The new search feature separates blog headlines from other headlines, displaying them in different columns. By clicking on "all blog results," users can find photos related to their search from Flickr, Yahoo!'s photo sharing service. They may also find relevant material from websites they've marked as favorites via user-generated tagging, which again is a plus in the user-ability department. It's quite obvious that Yahoo! and Google are facing off in the blog arena, as they do with everything else related to search. Such competition is a great thing because it not only makes the top dogs reconfigure and revive old tools but it also breeds the development of new tools for finding the content that we are wanting. I give Yahoo! and their new blog search feature TWO thumbs up!Labels: industry-news, yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, September 23, 2005
I have some interesting news to blog about this week, which I am sure you all have already heard about on some level or another. It appears that on Thursday of last week Microsoft began talks with Time Warner regarding a possible merger between AOL and MSN. This suggestive merger is speculated to be a counter to the very serious threat that Google poses in the portal and search market. This week, in an attempt to stop a Microsoft takeover and to protect the almost $400 million in revenue that Google gets from its biggest partner, Google is speculated to try and counter Microsoft with a bid for American Online.Google began providing search services for AOL in 2002, replacing Overture, which was later acquired by Yahoo! and just recently renamed Yahoo! Search Marketing. In 2003, Google and AOL broadened their agreement, as Google had agreed to pay AOL for every time someone clicks on one of its sponsored links. In 2004, AOL generated about 12 percent of Google's revenues, which as I stated above is somewhere in the neighborhood of $375 - $400 million.
With that, it only makes sense for Google to counter any offer that Microsoft may through at AOL. An offer may not only protect Google's revenues for a few years, but may also deny Microsoft's MSN the support it needs to become a bigger competitive threat in the search engine market.Labels: industry-news
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, September 16, 2005
Everything as of late has been Google, Google, and Google, and this week on the Karl Ribas.com Blog will be no different. Google, a few days back, launched (in Beta of course) their long awaited blog search feature. This feature, deemed to go head-to-head with Yahoo!'s search technology, will give Google a little bit of an advantage as both compete in the booming blog market.Google's new blog search feature is designed to not only find and index listings within it's own Blogger.com network, but actually go one step further and search blogs that publish feeds via RSS or Atom. As with all other Google's search properties, their spiders will no doubt be checking these feeds frequently for new content, which is definitely a great thing for blog readers like me.What is it with blogs that attract people like us? Well, for me personally it's the straight to the point, no-room for bullshit commentary. Simply put, we have numerous options on how we can get the information we want or need. I, for one, prefer to read blogs, as opposed to online-newspapers, forums, message boards, or even email-newsletters, to get my dose of search engine marketing related information. Blogs, pending on the author, are written in a casual, conversation-like way and deliver news and updates, but at the same can offer you the author's personal opinion. Where as online-newspapers or forums have to uphold a certain professional image and can only offer news and positive feedback. If something sucks... I want to know it sucks.Anyway, going back to Google's blog search, the feature can be accessed at a couple of different places. If you interested in finding more blogs like mine, or those not related to search engine marketing check out search.blogger.com. In addition, miniature versions of the blog search engine have been added to the main Blogger.com Dashboard. Enjoy!Labels: google, industry-news
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, August 26, 2005
This past Monday, Google rolled out a new beta version of its widely acknowledge desktop search software, offering features such as integration with Outlook, a sidebar with nifty widgets to display photos, headlines and much more. After taking a few moments to actually sit and play around with the product, I would have to say that Google has definitely out-done its rival Microsoft in the desktop search battle.For more information Microsoft's desktop search tool, please review my past entry titled "MSN Release Desktop Search."The Google software contains three major components:
Outlook Toolbar: This is an embedded toolbar and allows users to search through their email without actually leaving Outlook.Sidebar: This is a window page that is designed to automatically update itself based on users' interests, as expressed by the Web sites they visit, with little or no manual configuration. Among its many windows, Sidebar offers the scratch pad tool, weather data, news, RSS and Atom feeds from the Web, links to open browser windows and an e-mail preview.Quick Find: A search feature which is designed to let users search the web, search and find files on their hard drives, and even launch applications.One customizable option that I found truly enjoyable is the option that is given to the user as to where they would like to display main Deskbar. Users can either opt for a compact view, where the Deskbar sits in the Window's taskbar, or they can choose a "Floating Deskbar" option which will allow the tool to be dragged anywhere on the desktop. This is truly a feature that all can appreciate.Overall, the Google Desktop is a new and easier way for users to gather the information they desire. With this move, Google no doubt has the folks over at Microsoft and Yahoo! very nervous as they continue to step deeper and deeper into territory currently held by Microsoft--which has its own notepad and search features--and Yahoo, with its My Yahoo personalization efforts.Download Googles New Desktop (Beta) ToolLabels: google, industry-news
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, July 01, 2005
"Lights... camera... action" seems to be the general theme these days for Internet search engines as just this past week Google launched its newest search feature, a premiere web-based video search service.
Following the steps of its arch nemesis, Yahoo!, Google has given its users the option of searching video content directly from the company's indexed video database and while using the same keywords used for other types of search. This new search function will complement Google's existing beta version, which currently people search, but not yet play back, the closed-caption text of television shows from PBS, CNN and others that Google has hosted.
Google Video is currently only available in English (IE ver. 5 and higher and Firefox) and will require that users download the "Google Video Viewer," a tool needed in order to watch an entire video piece or a section of a movie relating to their search keywords.
Obvious this is another step in the search giant's expansion into more comprehensive media services. As it stands now, Google is the only search provider that has all the pieces to bring movies on demand via Internet to the masses. Bet your bottom dollar that some time real soon Google will discover a system where they will be able to charge per-view or subscription fees, as well as insert ads into the video stream... I am!Labels: google, industry-news
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, July 01, 2005
Internet giant Yahoo! is testing a new service that extends its search functionality, as part of an effort to provide its users with new, quality searching solutions and to narrow the gap with rival Google.
Dubbed "My Web 2.0," the service builds on personalized search features introduced this past April. Those features allowed Yahoo! users to archive their search results and share them with other people using the service, but the next iteration will go a bit further.
Internet searchers with a Yahoo! login will be able to bookmark and cache copies of their favorite websites, label them in certain categories and attach comments in a structured way. Users will then be able to search among their contacts' knowledge base with what Yahoo! is calling its "MyRank" search technology.
In many ways, the service bears a resemblance to the recently popular Delicious Web bookmarks manager. Like Delicious, Yahoo! has opened user's My Web application, allowing extensions to its service to be easily created. I predict that overtime we may see Yahoo! integrate personalization technology across other applications and services, proving a whole new level of user experience.Labels: industry-news, yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, June 03, 2005
After five months in beta, Microsoft's MSN has released the final version of its desktop search application, which is said to incorporate many new features based on extensive user feedback.
I first came across this great searching tool at the Chicago Search Engine Strategies conference back in mid December. Since then I see that MSN has significantly beefed up the degree of control you have over desktop search, both in the initial set up process and in the desktop search options. Among these improvements is the ability to specify which items should be indexed. Users can use a simple dialog box to select "emails" and "all hard disks," "email" and the contents of the "My Documents" folder, or select specific files and locations to be indexed using an explorer-like panel.
Other Advanced indexing options have been added which allow users to option of specifying file types to be indexed as text, and list a set of file types that should not be indexed. With both of these options, the program comes preconfigured with a number of appropriate file types. MSN Desktop Search is said to have the ability to index more than 200 file types, but users will also be able to add filters to index additional file types.Overall, I feel that the final release of the MSN Toolbar Suite is a significant improvement over the beta versions I first played around with. The product remains heavily Microsoft-centered, however, and is best suited to those who are regular users of Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer.
Download MSN Toolbar and Desktop Search SuiteLabels: bing, industry-news
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, June 03, 2005
In what appears to be another attempt to outshine rivals Yahoo! and Google in the search market, Ask Jeeves has added a couple of new features to its ever-growing search engine capabilities. The company has long operated in the shadows of the larger search providers, despite financial success of its own.
Of these new features, one, called Zoom, builds on Jeeves' long-standing clustering technology, which analyzes search results into concepts or ideas related to any given query. Zoom lets searchers narrow or broaden the field of search results, as well as view results for related concepts. For example, for a search on the term "cancer," visitors can narrow it to types of the disease, or they could expand it to related illnesses.
A second new feature centers on delivering better answers to direct questions -- for instance "Who shot John Lennon?" - - by "cleaning up" the unstructured data on the Web for accurate information.
There's no question to the fact that Ask Jeeves has kept pace in the feature wars of its rivals, but it has yet to win the trend that is the personality of Google or the enormous audience that Yahoo! packs. The thing that I like most about Ask Jeeves (besides the Butler Image), as I am sure most of you do as well, is that they truly understand how the Internet is related through social networks. With this understanding they continue to refine their searching and indexing techniques to better fit the needs of these social networks. This alone is what makes their search engine results editorially different and easier to navigate through than say those of Google's or Yahoo!'s.
Needless to say, I believe that this is the year of the butler. As long as Ask Jeeves continues to improve on their core search technology and produce the advanced features, like those discussed above, than I have no doubt that they will receive the true recognition they deserve. Its just about that time for good o;' Jeeves to leap out of the shadows and into the mist of what is turning out to be a true search engine war.Labels: ask, industry-news
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, June 03, 2005
Auction king eBay has announced it's plans to acquire one of the Internet's largest and more popular shopping engines, Shopping.com, in what is said to be a $620 million transaction. The acquisition, announced Wednesday, brings the Web's biggest comparison shopping engine under the hood of the largest auction website at a time when eBay has been struggling, to say the least, in its efforts to maintain its growth.
Similar to Yahoo! and Google, Shopping.com makes its money from advertisements that appear adjacent to related search results. But unlike rivals, its sole specialty is in listing prices of commercial goods sold across the web. The acquisition puts eBay in close competition with the commercial engines of search giants Yahoo! and Google and is also a sure sign of eBay's financial interest in the booming search-engine marketing business, which is expected to be worth more than $5 billion this year. With Shopping.com under its belt, eBay will own a major avenue to funnel traffic back to its online mall, along with the ability to strengthen its fee revenue with advertising dollars.
In my opinion, if this acquisition were to go through and eBay indeed purchases Shopping.com than we could easily be seeing the next competitor to enter the on going battle for search. Don't get me wrong, its not like Shopping.com isn't currently a threat for the major search engines, but adding eBay into the equation as a tag-team partner... now you've truly got a force to be reckoned with.Labels: industry-news
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, May 20, 2005
This week my attention has been drawn towards the meta-search king Dogpile... yes, Dogpile. For those of you not familiar with Dogpile, it is a meta-search engine currently owned and operated by Infospace. Just this past week, Dogpile released a newly redesigned website and with that has introduced a nifty new utility that visually displays the overlap (or lack thereof) of results from multiple search engines... a utility truly worth blogging about.
The major focus of the redesign took place on their result pages, which now present twenty of the best results from the top Internet search engines. Dogpile results are configured by combining the individual results from a number of search engines, including Google, Yahoo! and Ask Jeeves, sponsored listings from Google, Yahoo! Search Marketing and LookSmart, using Dogpile's own relevance algorithms. While this isn't too different from the way Dogpile used to display results, a cool new feature lets you simultaneously display blended results side-by-side with results from one or more individual search sources by clicking a button at the top of the result page. Results from an individual source open in a window to the right of the blended results, and you can open up results from every source other than Dogpile's web search picks simultaneously.
This makes it easy for us, search engine marketing consultants and firms, to directly compare the top results from these different engines. Dogpile has taken this a step further by highlighting results that are unique to the first result page for each engine. For example, if a result shows up in the first page of a Yahoo! search but not in any other search source, it is shaded with a pale yellow background. You can turn this highlighting on or off using a check box at the top of the result list.
The intent is to visually demonstrate the value of Meta search by showing the lack of overlap in the top results of the major search engines. By comparing results side-by-side, it quickly becomes apparent that each search engine has its own unique view of the web, and therefore, if you are currently optimizing for a single source of search results, you' are no doubt missing a significant chunk of the Internet search community.Labels: industry-news
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, May 06, 2005
Web giant Yahoo! announced, well sort of announced, this week its plans for developing a search engine for finding downloadable songs and music data from across the Internet.
The Sunnyvale, California-based company is expected to introduce the music search engine sometime within the next couple of months. Yahoo!'s new technology will let people search on an artist's name, for example, and retrieve all the available songs from other music services, as well as album reviews and band information from Yahoo! Music.
Yahoo! has invested heavily on music services, and considers audio and video cornerstones of the company's future. In addition to buying song outlet MusicMatch for $160 million, Yahoo! is working on another music service in conjunction with rival MusicNet. The company has also started to streamline its music and multimedia properties over the past several months, changing the name of its Launch site to Yahoo Music and consolidating its entertainment businesses.
Search technology is considered the key to navigating the Internet's growing music and video collections, as well as the Web itself. Yahoo! is not only developing media and online communities to lure visitors, but it is attempting to use its media-search engines to connect with Web surfers outside its network. That way, Yahoo! can build its audience and likely expand its multibillion-dollar search-advertising business.
It makes sense in my book because Yahoo! has access to all of this music information to begin with and in my opinion music needs better search. By looking and focusing at the structured data of music--title, genre, etc., they could easily begin to provide a better user experience than what is currently being provided... and that will no doubt mean "Dolla, Dolla Bills" for Yahoo!.Labels: industry-news, yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Sunday, April 24, 2005
Infospace announced this past week its plans to add Microsoft's MSN Search results to its search engine and directory. With this deal, Infospace Search will now have direct distribution agreements with the four leading Web search services, including Google, Yahoo! and Ask Jeeves.
Infospace will feature MSN Search results on its private-label partner sites, Dogpile and WebCrawler, along with its other branded search properties. It, along with its other web search properties, products, and network, reaches about 14 million user... a pretty sweat deal for both parties if you ask me.Labels: bing, industry-news
posted by Karl Ribas on Sunday, April 10, 2005
In a move to outdo competitors, Google "took it up a notch" this past week when they added satellite technology to its already very popular mapping service. The new satellite feature allows users an option to view an aerial photo snapshot of the location for which they are searching... this is of course is in addition to the "general" street maps that we've come to expect (those that every mapping service provides).
Satellite imaging company Keyhole, which Google acquired last October, provided the technology that allowed the search giant to launch the new mapping feature. As with most mapping services, users can enter an address and then be able to view the area surrounding their query. Google, a company that is always looking for ways to improve the overall search and Internet experience, has given it's users the option of viewing an aerial photo of their query by simply clicking on a "Satellite" link.
I've personally spent some time playing around with this new feature of Google maps and I have enjoyed it very much. In my opinion, it brings much more to the table than what other popular mapping services, such as MapQuest and Yahoo! Maps, are currently offering. Google's satellite imaging offers several levels of "zoom", one so close that you can actually see inside open-roof ball parks and stadiums, and has an easy "drag and move" type navigation. In fact, Its only down-fall (yes every tool and service must have a down-fall) is that you aren't really able to view small towns or residential areas with the same levels of zoom that you could when viewing cities and such. When viewing these areas, either the imaging gets a little distorted or Google replaces it with section all-together with a square block that states "You are unable to view this section at the selected level of zoom".
Another aspect of this feature that Google is currently toying around with is to integrate it with their new beta Google Local Search service. Imagine the possibilities of searching for a business or a type of business, finding it on the web, and then with a click be able to see accurate aerial photos of what the business and its surrounds look like. Truly amazing in my book. Don't get me wrong. Obviously, we knew that this type of aerial-mapping existed and is currently being offered on the net already. What makes this feature so special and worth Blogging about is first it is Google that is now offering this service and second, unlike the other aerial mapping services, Google is offering their version for free.Labels: google, industry-news
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, April 01, 2005
Blogs, as we know them today, are a great way to share and relate information of the personal sense to online friends or family members, but what's stopping everyone else in the world from reading. Well nothing... until now.
Time Warner's AOL took Blogging to a whole new level when just last week they unveiled their newest service, Red Blogs, a blogging system that promises its users additional privacy-level settings for their online diaries. Bloggers will have the following 3 choices for when selecting who is able to read their inner-most thoughts and feelings:
Private Blog - A private blog will be kept 100% locked and only made available to its primary user.
Semi-Private Blog - A semi-private blog will be locked to all but those who are invited to read it.
Public Blog - A public blog will be given access to anybody on the net.
However, blogs of younger teenagers, those between 13 and 15, will be locked from general public viewing. Similarly, with semi-private blogs, parents must approve the list of people invited to read the journals of younger teenagers... a great feature in my mind.
AOL obviously did their homework before launching Red Blogs as they have implemented many usability factors, factors that its users will no-doubt love and appreciate... and their parents too. With this new venture and their new local search program, announced earlier this month, AOL has put itself in line, after Ask Jeeves of course, to join search giants Google, Yahoo!, and MSN in what is being publicized as the "Search Engine Wars."Labels: blogging, industry-news
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, March 18, 2005
The time has finally come when Microsoft's MSN will tighten up it's boots, re-lace it's gloves, and step back into the ring to go toe-to-toe with search engine rivals Google and Yahoo!. Microsoft, who a little over a month ago released its own search technology, has signaled a direct assault on one of the main profit-generators of Google and Yahoo when it unveiled its plans for MSN AdCenter, a paid for search engine placement program (Pay Per Click), a program that will easily dip into the pockets of its search competitors.
With this type of paid-placement product, Microsoft will move into the mother lode of a multibillion dollar ad business dominated by Google and Yahoo. Search-engine marketing is expected to be worth as much as $5 billion this year, and nearly $9 billion annually within four years, according to Jupiter Research. Microsoft's piece of this multibillion dollar pie has been smaller than the shares enjoyed by market leaders Yahoo and Google, and now the software giant is hungry for more.
So what does this mean for us Pay Per Click managers... well everything! For the last several years, Overture has supplied the sponsored search listings adjacent to and above MSN search results, a partnership that has helped buoy profits of the Internet property. As we all know, attaining a top listing MSN was as easy as outbidding your competitors in Overture and even though MSN has no plans to immediately discontinue this partnership, rest assure that it is going to happen. The Overture and MSN partnership is inked up to the end of June 2006, which gives MSN plenty of time to further develop and test their new ad network. MSN already has plans to roll out AdCenter in Singapore and France in coming months in which will permanently bump Overture ads in the long run and let MSN own a major source of its advertising revenue.
MSN AdCenter can only mean one thing to the eyes of all that are involved... an opportunity to profit. Microsoft will develop the third major paid online search advertising platform and at the same time take the search engine fight to the next round, by ultimately providing an alternative to costly Google and Overture campaigns.
Visit your neighborhood bookie, place your bets, and stand back because round 3, of the search engine wars, has just begun! Ding, Ding!Labels: bing, industry-news, paid-search
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, March 11, 2005
While Yahoo! and Google already go head-to-head for major search advertising partners such as AOL and MSN, Google has largely enjoyed a monopoly serving its signature text-only ads, also known and Adsense ads, to smaller websites... until now that is. Yahoo! has announced plans to launch its own ad network option for small publishers.
Much like Google's Adsense service, Yahoo's product will display text ads deemed relevant to the content of specific web pages in which advertisers will pay only when a reader clicks on their ad. As opposed to regular search-related ads, which are triggered by keywords entered into a search engine query bar, this new Yahoo! product will feature ads that are targeted to the content of a page and its meaning. For example, a news story about a soccer match might display a sponsored link for soccer gear.
Yahoo's on-going push to expand its advertising reach comes as the market for search advertising is taking off, fueling record revenue and profits. At the same time, Yahoo! is busy looking for new revenue sources as it seeks to transform itself into an online media conglomerate and beat Google in the Web search game.
In my opinion, Yahoo's plan for relying on small publishers to show its Overture ads offers a promising growth path for both Yahoo! and its Overture advertisers, given Google's earlier efforts in this niche.Labels: google, industry-news, paid-search, yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, March 04, 2005
Announced this past Wednesday, the web portal Lycos has decided to end its long term relationship with Yahoo! and its Inktomi unit and has further selected to use the search technology of the Internet's favorite butler, Jeeves. As explained by Adam Sciroco of Lycos, a search-relationship with Ask Jeeves would provide Lycos with broader searching solutions than what Yahoo! was currently providing. The decision to switch from Yahoo! to Ask Jeeves came as no shock to me as Jeeves technology is already being used on other Lycos web properties, but I am unsure if I actually agree with it.
It has been reported as to what "searching solutions" Yahoo! was unable to provide, but in my opinion, Lycos just pulled their starting pitcher out of the ninth inning of game 7 of the World Series with 1 out away from a no-hitter. Ok maybe that's a bit extreme, but my point is that Lycos replaced a perfectly good search-relationship for one that remains to be taken seriously and for what?
Don't get me wrong Ask Jeeves has great search tools and resources and currently does a fine job of syndicating its search technologies and advertising products to other websites, including, InfoSpace, BellSouth, Mamma.com and CNET Networks--the parent company of News.com, but in my opinion, and being as though it is the only one that matters on this blog, Jeeves is not on the same playing level as Yahoo! Search is.
Either way, it will be interesting to see what Lycos has in store for their portal, but for now only time will tell on this matter.
Labels: ask, industry-news, yahoo
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, February 25, 2005
The search market is witnessing intense competition as of late, with leading players unveiling new, specialized search products in an effort to win the market share. This past week, Google announced the release of its newest searching component "Google Movie Search" which will allow users the opportunity to use local data, such as a zip code, city or state, to find show times within local theaters.
The new search function will also help users to find other film-related information, such as film titles, actors, directors, and reviews. So if you ever get stuck to the point where you can not remember the name of a film, let's say the one where Tom Hanks made friends with a volleyball, simple search Google for "movie: Tom Hanks talking to a volleyball" and Google will tell you that the movie your referring to is Cast Away.
Also, if you're looking for some rental recommendations try searching Google with the types of movies that interest you. For instance, try "movie: awesome car chase" or "movie: good chick flick" and Google will not only provide you options matching your query, but also rate them according to written reviews they've received.
All in all, this is a pretty cool tool and a great resource for Googlers (loyal Google users) and movie lovers alike. I will rate it 4 out of 5 stars and I am sure that Sisco and Ebert (or Roper if you will) would have given it 2 thumbs way up!Labels: google, industry-news
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, February 18, 2005
This past Wednesday, Google announced and released its newest version of the Google Toolbar, a web-searching toolbar with a trio of new utilities. Earlier versions of the toolbar allowed Internet users to search the Web from a static box on their Internet Explorer Web browser and helped to block annoying pop-up ads.
This new version includes features that will allow users to automatically check their spelling in Web forms, translate words from English into several languages, and add Web links to certain plain text. For example, an address could be enhanced with a hypertext link to its location on a map, with the click of a button on the toolbar.
I haven't had too much time to play around with these new features, but I did find the look and feel to be much like the older versions. Besides... anything stamped with a Google logo can't be too far from greatness. Check it out!Labels: google, industry-news
posted by Karl Ribas on Friday, February 18, 2005
Ask Jeeves reported on Tuesday of last week that they have bought the privately held and popular Bloglines, a site developed for searching millions of personal web pages and aggregating news headlines. In an effort to keep pace with its rivals Google, Yahoo!, and MSN, Ask Jeeves plans to build a specialized blog search engine and fold the service into its various properties, including personalization product MyJeeves and the portal Excite.com.
As we all know weblogs (blogs) can be used in a number of ways, but ultimately they are used by those Internet users who feel the need to express themselves and share with the world their thoughts and opinions on the many subjects that make up their everyday lives. I for one enjoy reading the publishings of many other "bloggers" who share my interests and I applaud Mr. Jeeves for jumping on the "blog band-wagon" and getting a piece of the action.
Just this past week, I caught an Ask Jeeves commercial featuring the very funny American Idol reject William Hung, you know... "she bangs, she bangs", which I found to be pretty hilarious. Apparently this is one of several TV advertisements to be released in the near future where each ad will feature a regular person seeking everyday information from an expert or icon of some kind. Of course, they don't get the answer they need because they should've gone to the icon with world-class search technology: Jeeves.
It's not too often that you will see the funny, lighter-side of many corporations and a television plug like the one I saw is a great way to say "you have questions, Jeeves has answers."
All in all, I believe good ol' Jeeves is truly shaping himself into a powerful search engine, a great resource for its users, and a true contender in the search engine wars.Labels: ask, blogging, industry-news
