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My 2 featured articles for the week ending March 11:

Archived blogs for the week of March 14, 2005

789 - Mar. 18, 2005 - 10.48 AM EST

Google creates a repository for open source code

Google has created a resource for open source code to help developers working on search-related applications that need to interface with Google.

The new Google Code will be a repository for source code, application programming interfaces, or APIs, and other tools to assist developers working on Google-related projects, according to a welcome note on Thursday from Chris DiBona, Google's open-source program manager and former editor of "News for Nerds" site Slashdot.

The site also will profile current and ongoing projects, DiBona said, to give developers a better sense of what's happening in the Google universe.

"One thing we really wanted to put up on Google Code was a way of bringing recognition to those people and groups who have created programs that use our APIs or the code we have released," he said.

Posted on Businessblog™

788 - Mar. 17, 2005 - 10.11 AM EST

Google lost its appeal against a French court

As some already had expected, Google just lost its appeal against a French court, over trademark infringements brought about by two French travel agencies.

Google must pay 75,000 euros in damages and costs to Luteciel and Viaticum.

A lawsuit was filed after Google users searching for the two French companies found themselves directed instead to rival sponsored links. Google's failure to follow an order quickly enough triggered the fine.

Posted on Businessblog™

787 - Mar. 17, 2005 - 8.17 AM EST

Yahoo 360 combines a new blogging tool

Yahoo wishes to enter the social networking and blogging field, with a new offering that it promises to be a simpler and faster way to keep contact with people.

Called Yahoo 360, the new service is accepting invitation-only beta testers for now, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Web giant said Wednesday. The test will be opened to a broader audience on March 29.

Yahoo 360 combines a new blogging tool along with several longtime Yahoo products, including instant messaging, photo storage and sharing, and Internet radio. It also offers tools for sharing recommendations about places to eat, favorite movies, music and so on.

"It's really about keeping connected to people you know," said Julie Herendeen, vice president for network services at Yahoo. "Yahoo 360 allows consumers to conveniently connect with the people they care about by creating and sharing blogs, photos and other content across Yahoo."

Posted on Businessblog™

786 - Mar. 16, 2005 - 9.02 PM EST

Amazon lets publishers syndicate search results

Search engine A9, an Amazon property, now features a set of technologies that enables Internet publishers to syndicate search results.

A9.com, the search unit of online retailer Amazon, on Wednesday unveiled OpenSearch, a protocol for content publishers to repurpose search listings for their own design.

The system would allow a legal Web site to display a top list of legal resources, for example. Or a chess aficionado Web site could show search results for new chess games online.

"OpenSearch (is) an open format that will enable search results to be displayed anywhere, any time," according to A9's Web site.

The technology comes amid widespread experimentation in Web search and with the content syndication format Really Simple Syndication, or RSS.

Yahoo, Google, Microsoft's MSN, Kanoodle and a host of others are testing new content-publishing tools that better connect people; yet they're simultaneously developing technology to help people find specialized materials online.

Posted on Businessblog™

785 - Mar. 16, 2005 - 10.35 AM EST

More on MSN entering the search-ad market

Increasing its efforts to compete with Yahoo and Google, Microsoft's Internet division (MSN) said yesterday that it plans to enter the very lucrative search-engine-advertising market.

Microsoft is building its own advertising network to display ads alongside its search-engine results.

The company's entrance into the fast-growing search-engine-advertising business -- worth $2.6 billion last year, by one estimate -- was widely expected.

MSN introduced its own search-engine technology in November, after years of using technology supplied by Inktomi. A system designed to couple ads with its search results was the next logical step.

The bulk of MSN's search advertising is currently supplied by another company -- Yahoo's search advertising division, formerly known as Overture Services, with the two companies splitting the revenues. Advertisers buy their text ads through Yahoo, and MSN distributes them on its site.

That partnership, which expires in 2006, will continue as MSN gradually phases in its own ad network.

Posted on Businessblog™

784 - Mar. 16, 2005 - 9.12 AM EST

Google adds a new feature to its AdSense program

Google is expanding its AdSense network offerings to include Ad Links, a text box which can be included on sites which lists relevant Google searches to site content.

What is this? Relevant Google searches. How will links to searches on Google help publishers generate more revenue? Well, those links which Google is generating to deliver a site’s visitor to relevant search results provided by Google are not links to Google’s organic search index.

Instead, the links lead to relevant results of paid sponsored links in the Google AdWords index.

We have not spoken with Google yet. But this seems to be some hybrid of AdSense and AdWords, using AdSense technology to deliver users to AdWords results.

This, in turn will deliver a higher revenue payout for Google and publishers since these listings are in fact, search results, and not contextual advertising.

Posted on Businessblog™

783 - Mar. 15, 2005 - 10.41 AM EST

Search technology on mobile devices

Fast Search and Transfer ASA has unveiled what it considers to be a first in the market, namely search technology designed specifically to work on mobile devices.

The company reckons FAST mSearch is a first in the sector and certainly a spokesperson for rival enterprise search developer Autonomy admitted that that company has no such technology in its arsenal right now.

The other big name in enterprise search, Verity, was unavailable for comment yesterday.

David Isaacson, senior product marketing manager at Oslo, Norway-based FAST said its core product, Enterprise Search Platform (ESP), was itself initially developed for deployment on mobile networks, with Finnish handset manufacture Nokia as a partner in the early stages of R&D.

Nokia dropped out a year into the project, however, and ESP was repositioned as a generic search technology, he explained.

Posted on Businessblog™

782 - March 15, 2005 - 9.04 AM EST

MSN to offer paid ads similar to Google

Microsoft plans to offer a service where advertisers will pay to be have their sites listed alongside its MSN search results, people familiar with the plans said.

The service will be similar to competing programs from Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. Microsoft will announce a pilot program March 16, said the people, who asked not to be identified. These paid searches auction off placement next to Web search results to companies with related products.

The program may help Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft, the world's biggest software maker, boost advertising revenue at its MSN Internet unit and revive sales growth.

Microsoft's revenue will rise 8 percent this fiscal year, the lowest pace ever, after an average of 38 percent in the 1990s. The U.S. market for paid search will more than triple to $12.6 billion by 2010, according to Minneapolis-based Piper Jaffray Cos.

Posted on Businessblog™

781 - March 14, 2005 - 11.16 AM EST

Companies dealing with insecure SEM's

Search engine marketing firms have prospered by selling clients on their expertise, while saving online media players from the complicated technical aspects of managing search campaigns.

Some companies have expressed frustration over dealing with insecure SEM agencies, while also admitting to fears of getting wiped out by Madison Avenue bullies.

“The search agency space right now is in the same place that the online agency space was five to seven years ago,” said Stuart Bogaty, CEO of mSearch North America, which was recently launched as a sister agency to mOne.

Posted on Businessblog™

Copyright © Serge Thibodeau 2005. All rights reserved.

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