search engine
SearchWiki, a new search tool launched by Google
Google has launched a search feature that provided an opportunity for net users to re-rank, delete and add comments on search results.SearchWiki, is an example of how search is becoming increasingly dynamic,providing people tools that make search even more useful.
Suppose a user does the same search, frequently.Later,the user can remove a site from the results that isn’t of interest.Users are also given the option to add comments to a site, which pops up every time that site is in the results.Users can further personalize search results by typing in the URL of a site they want to add to their search results for a particular search,or even move a site to the top of the search results.To enable SearchWiki,the user need to be signed in to a Google account and English must be the chosen language.
Additional feature is that users can keep track of all the changes that has been made with the option “see all my SearchWiki notes”.One can also remove any changes that have been made to the search results and can revert back to the usual search results.
Pubcon
Source:Pubcon definition-Wikipedia
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Google’s major update-introduces Video and Voice Chat for Gmail
Video and Voice Chat has been added to Google,creating a major update for Gmail.In order to make this functionality work, we need to install a small browser plugin,available at the location http://mail.google.com/videochat .This update can function on all browsers and will work on PC’s with Windows XP or Vista, including Macs with OS X 10.4 or later.
We need to intially enable this new functionality from the ‘Options’ menu which is at the bottom of a Gmail chat window.Then we need to select the contact you want to speak with and click on ‘Video & more’ located in the lower-left part of the chat window.From here on,you can then start a voice or video chat.
Point to note that Google’s Gmail desktop chat program has not yet incorporated any video functionality yet, although voice chat is available for Google Talk long time ago.However Google has become a major competitor for skype for which video chat has been one of the major functionalities.
Microsoft CEO rules out option to buyout Yahoo
Microsoft Corporation Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer said that his company has no plans to make another bid to buyout yahoo.
“We made an offer, we made another offer, and it was clear that Yahoo didn’t want to sell the business to us and we moved on .We are not interested in going back and re-looking at an acquisition. I don’t know why they would be either, frankly. They turned us down at 33 dollars a share, said Ballmer as published in a blog.
On the contrary,Yahoo Chief Executive, Jerry Yang said that Yahoo would welcome Microsoft if it was ever willing to offer another bid with the former.Yahoo made these remarks after Google stayed out of the ad deal with Yahoo after the Justice Department notified the two companies of an antitrust suit.
Google and Yahoo Ad Deal Discontinued
After Microsoft opted for a bid for Yahoo in February, Google and Yahoo began several conversations to see if Google could help Yahoo to remain independent. Thus came the advertising agreement which the two companies signed in June. This deal was supposed to deliver Yahoo $250 million to $450 million in additional operating cash flow in the first year.
However,Google chose to abandon this controversial deal after the Justice Department notified the companies that it would file an antitrust suit to block it.
Google’s Chief Executive Eric Shmidt said in an interview which was posted in a blog,”We canceled the deal with about one hour to go before a lawsuit was going to be filed against our deal. We concluded after a lot of soul-searching that it was not in our best interest to go through a lengthy and costly trial which we believe we ultimately would have won.”
On the contrary,Yahoo said it would have preferred to defend the deal in court. “Yahoo strongly believes we would have prevailed in court if the Department of Justice had filed a lawsuit, but unlike Google, we were prepared to defend our agreement,”said Tracy Schmaler, a Yahoo spokeswoman in a blog.Yahoo’s Chief Executive Jerry Yang said that he was upset that Google had chosen to walk away.
Cuil, A Boon or a Fiasco?
When a user enters a keyword to be searched, Cuil lists additional keyword suggestions to choose from. The search engine result page (SERP) displays the output in a 3 column tabular format with an image next to every result and an elaborate content for every display. The most appealing feature is the “Explore by Category” in the result page, containing several categories, which on further clicks, expands to subcategories.
However, a user ponders how Cuil missed out on the spell checking feature of Google, if they are striving for a neck-to-neck competition with Google. Try searching for the same keyword in Google and Cuil, the net user is still drawn to the aptness of SERP of our favourite Google. The seldom change of logo in Google, gave a refreshing feel to the user, which one could only hope to see in Cuil in future.
Though Cuil has tried to emulate Google in some ways, one cannot write off Cuil as prosaic either. It’s too early to conclude if Cuil has sailed through in making an impact to the net savvy people of today. And if your wondering if there is any relevance between the name Cuil and search engine, the answer is yes. After all, Cuil means knowledge in Irish.
Will the Cuil search result take over major search engines?
Cuil was actually founded by many lead Google engineers, comprising Anna Patterson, chief architect of the company’s TeraGoogle search index and wife of Tom Costello. Cuil further states that its search result algorithm scans through 120 billion web pages, which is actually three times the number that the giant sifts through. Additionally, www.cuil.com offers reminiscent page and Google’s has minimalist one. Cuil further offers no ads on its pages, and also claims that it would not monitor a user’s search habits so as to target advertising the method the entire major search engine like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft do and name it their goal. However, the major advantage Google has over Cuil is that it has the capability to offer better search result as it remains massive advertising platform backup.
This search engine says it would stand out due to its excellence of offering results with images in three columns and it would search the web more insistently than other search giants.
Microsoft’s Final Offer to Yahoo
Yahoo decided its search business was very strategic, even though later it agreed to allow Google to serve up a good chunk of the company’s search related advertising. “With respect to an acquisition of Yahoo’s search business alone that Microsoft had proposed, Yahoo’s board of directors has determined, after careful evaluation, that such a transaction would not be consistent with the company’s view of the converging search and display marketplaces, would leave the company without an independent search business that it views as critical to its strategic future, and would not be in the best interests of Yahoo stockholders,” Yahoo said in its statement saying talks with Microsoft has come to an end.