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My 2 featured articles for the week ending Feb. 10, 2006:

Archived blogs for the week of February 6, 2006

1101 - February 9, 2006 - 9.14 AM EST

Google hires Udi Manber from A9

Udi Manber, who has been chief executive of Amazon's A9 subsidiary, will be a vice president of engineering at Google.

Effective immediately, Manber is being replaced at A9 by David Tennenhouse, previously a vice president and director of research at Intel.

Amazon spokesman Craig Berman said Manber would stay at A9 until Friday.

"It could set back their efforts, but A9 was more of a trial to hedge their bets and have a presence in there," said Safa Rashtchy, a senior Internet analyst for Piper Jaffray & Co. who estimates that 10 percent of Amazon's tech spending centers on search.

"I don't think they will give up on it that easily, but it hasn't produced any major advantages for Amazon and it is still experimental."

Google is by far the leader in the search-engine field, commanding 46.3 percent of the U.S. market according to the latest November data from Nielsen/NetRatings. By comparison, Amazon's A9 ranked 29th, with 0.1 percent of the market.

The effect that Google's feat will have upon Amazon's future success in search is unknown. So far, the success of the Mountain View, Calif.-based Google has already pressured many e-commerce companies to expand their technology investments, and Amazon is no exception.

Amazon's main tech investments are on platform, search, Web services and digital, but it is especially hard to discern where the secretive Seattle company's tech spending is focused: on playing catch-up or innovation.

Posted on Businessblog™

1100 - February 9, 2006 - 9.06 AM EST

Amazon to enter contextual ad segment

Amazon wants to offer contextual ads on an initial beta test. Some had expected it and others didn't, but Amazon is to begin the beta testing where it will place contextual text ads on third-party published sites, very similar to those already delivered by Google and Yahoo on their Internet networks.

Some observers believed MSN Search would be the next major Internet power to deliver contextual text ads and share revenue in a network of many sites. Those people were wrong.

Amazon.com has jumped on the bandwagon well before MSN's forthcoming breakup with Overture, all in favor of its AdCenter service.

News about Amazon's contextual ad project broke when Website Publisher founder Chris Beasley blogged about being chatted up by the massive online retailer to take part in their test:

"They've been contacting select members of their associates programs, including myself, asking if we'd like to be beta testers.

The way they want the beta test to work is to give you a special code for Amazon's Keywords Recommends banners (the banners that you feed a keyword to and they show related products).

And they want to have this special code then show these new ads 50% of the time".

Posted on Businessblog™

1099 - February 8, 2006 - 4.58 PM EST

Is Amazon's A9 search engine sick?

There was a lot of noise around Amazon's A9 search engine launched last year and it was (almost) one of the first search engines to venture into mass personalization.

A9 was also an innovator in local search and pay-per-call advertising. A9 however seems to have the Amazon spin-off curse of side projects by the mega ecommerce entity which launch to a hail of fanfare, only to be put on the backburner or pushed to the side later down the line, never accomplishing the task of gathering public interest.

One problem I’ve had as an outsider with Amazon’s search efforts is that they have a strong group of players under their belt, and have for a long time.

* Alexa: The most popular web site traffic measurement and recommended linking tool was acquired by Amazon years ago and more or less laid to rest until the blog and site publishing explosion brought back demand for the service in 2004.

* Amazon Web Services: One of the most complex and customizeable affiliate programs on the Internet.

* Amazon Book Search: The ability to search book content and preview books before purchasing them.

Posted on Businessblog™

1098 - February 8, 2006 - 10.11 AM EST

Ask Jeeves invests its money in Italy

Ask Jeeves opens its research center in Pisa, Italy. The facility will serve as Ask Jeeves' European hub for search technology research.

Ask Jeeves new research and development center will be working directly with the company's U.S.-based research centers in Campbell, CA. and Piscataway, NJ.

The creation of the research center furthers Ask Jeeves' presence in Europe.

The company recently launched two European Web search sites, Ask Espana and Ask Deutschland, with additional European launches planned later in 2006.

"Ask Jeeves' research and development team is continually striving to develop the most innovative and useful technologies for our users," said Apostolos Gerasoulis, executive vice president of search technology at Ask Jeeves.

Posted on Businessblog™

1097 - February 7, 2006 - 10.15 AM EST

BMW's website banned by Google

As further proof that site owners or their webmasters take huge risks when they implement the use of doorway or gateway pages, after Google has accused German car maker BMW of manipulating its search results, Google now prevents access to the BMW website.

BMW was banned for using doorway pages, using search terms such as "new cars" and "used cars" to boost its ranking in search results pages.

Doorway pages can be used to trick search engines into sending users to Web sites that are not directly related to the search terms they are searching for.

Google says it will temporarily or permanently suspend any site that breaks its rules. BMW denies any wrongdoing.

A Google spokeswoman said: "We can confirm that BMW.de has been removed from our search results. We never comment on the specifics of individual cases but we would stress that the quality of our index and search results is of the utmost importance to Google".

"We cannot tolerate Web sites trying to manipulate search results as we aim to provide users with the relevant and objective search results".

Posted on Businessblog™

1096 - February 6, 2006 - 2.02 PM EST

Google and Skype in new partnership

Google and Skype have invested $21 million into a company called FON. The project is to build a global WiFi community.

The joint project will allow members in sharing WiFi hotspots so they can access the Internet while traveling abroard.

Based in Madrid, the start-up has received the first round of venture capital from Google, Internet telephone provider Skype and two venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures.

FON will enable its users to synchronize their home WiFi hotspots so that, if they have paid for a broadband connection at home, they will enjoy instant access to all the other hotspots on the FON network.

For Google and Skype, the incentive is clear: It allows people to more frequently use applications like the Skype phone service or Google Maps and Google Talk, because they will be able to access them on the go, on a variety of devices.

FON hopes to partner with Internet service providers to allow users to have access to the service.

Posted on Businessblog™

Copyright © Serge Thibodeau 2006. All rights reserved.

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