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My 2 featured articles for the week ending March 11:

Archived blogs for the week of March 21, 2005

798 - Mar. 25, 2005 - 8.41 AM EST

Yahoo adds features to its desktop search

Yahoo releases a new version of its desktop-search application, adding the capability in searching instant messages (IM) and contacts within Yahoo services.

The software, available in beta, was launched in January, as the Sunnyvale, Calif., portal joined rivals Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. in trying to embed themselves in consumers' PCs via a desktop-search engine.

Yahoo's latest desktop version searches instant messages sent and received from Yahoo Messenger and contacts contained in the online Yahoo Address Book.

Posted on Businessblog™

797 - Mar. 25, 2005 - 8.17 AM EST

Some new data about blog readership

A recent survey conducted by CNN, Gallup and USA Today reveals some surprising and new data about blog readership in the US. Fewer adults are aware of blogs, just 7 percent said they are very familiar with them, compared to 56 percent who said they are not at all familiar with blogs. Similarly, fewer read blogs regularly.

What's notable is that, in all age groups, most users polled said they never read blogs, although readership is quite higher among younger people.

As the survey's authors point out, news consumption is usually higher among older people than among younger people, suggesting that older people might be a receptive blog audience.

And indeed, when the numbers are broken down by Internet usage, a different picture emerges. Just 33% of those age 65 and over use the Net, but of that online population, 28% read blogs. That figure is more in line with younger groups. For example, 91% of adults 18 to 29 years-old use the Net, and of those, 44% read blogs.

Posted on Businessblog™

796 - Mar. 24, 2005 - 10.31 AM EST

Almost 74% of females are online health searchers

A new survey conducted by Burst Media found that approximately 66 percent of Internet users have searched for health information using the Web. In viewing some of the results of the study, women were more likely to search for health information using the Internet.

In fact, 73.9 percent of females were online health searchers, versus only 62.1 percent for men. This gender gap was consistent through all age groups, and females generally exhibited a high likelihood of using the Net to find health information.

Just over 50% of female respondents in the 18 and over group used the Net to search for health topics, and among female Internet users between the ages of 25 and 64 over 80% had searched the Web for health information.

Older surfers were more likely to respond to online drug advertising. Roughly 20% of males and females of all age groups said they had clicked on an ad. But among those 65 and over, 32.3% of males and 25.2% of females said they had done so.

Other studies have found that seniors are leery about health information on the Net. A Kaiser Family Foundation survey in January 2005 found that adults over 65 are much less likely to trust online health information than those between 50 and 64 years old.

Posted on Businessblog™

795 - Mar. 23, 2005 - 10.40 AM EST

News publishers acquire 75 percent of Topix.net

Gannett Co., Knight-Ridder, and Tribune Co. have acquired a joint 75 percent interest in Topix.net.

Ownership is split evenly, with each media company owning 25 percent and the Topix.net founders retaining a 25 percent stake.

Topix.net monitors news from over 10,000 online sources and categorizes daily news content into over 300,000 topics, 24 hours a day. Keeping its sovernity, Topix.net will operate as an editorially independent, stand-alone company managed by Topix.net’s executive team.

The news aggregation site features links to news and information from more than 10,000 news sources including newspapers, magazines, radio, television stations and blogs.

Posted on Businessblog™

794 - Mar. 22, 2005 - 7.55 PM EST

Google deleting AFP content from its index

AFP just sued Google for including AFP’s pictures, news stories and certain news headlines on Google News without their permission.

AFP is seeking damages of around $17.5 million and an order barring Google News from displaying its copyrighted material.

Agence France Presse then informed Google that it isn't authorized to use AFP’s copyrighted material as it does and had requested Google to cease and desist from infringing its copyrighted work.

Now Google News is doing some house cleaning by wiping its news syndication service clean of Agence France Presse.

Posted on Businessblog™

793 - Mar. 22, 2005 - 1.05 PM EST

AOL launches Pinpoint Travel

Time Warner's AOL division just launched a new Internet travel site called Pinpoint Travel.

At its core, PinpointTravel.com is a search engine for travel, querying multiple airlines and travel providers. After returning the search results users are directed to book directly from the travel supplier or agent listed on the PinpointTravel.com site.

Kayak Software, a company AOL invested in last November, powers the site and is currently beta testing the platform.

Kayak's founders helped to create some of the most enduring online travel destinations including Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity. AOL signed a multi-year deal with Kayak back in November 2004 to develop and market the technology as well as making a minority investment in the company.

Posted on Businessblog™

792 - Mar. 22, 2005 - 10.26 AM EST

Google more popular in England than in the US

According to new data, search giant Google is more popular in the UK, accounting for a larger market share than its US counterpart.

The report, from Web monitoring firm Hitwise, found google.co.uk topping the list in the UK in terms of both market share of visits (48%) and volume of searches (63.7%).

The figures put Google UK ahead of its US parent, which Hitwise said represents 36.6% of all visits and 56.7% of all searches by US Internet users.

Meanwhile, Yahoo UK & Ireland Search and MSN.co.uk Search benefited from their portal parents. For each, the portal parent is the top referring website (65% and 16% respectively), meaning that the largest source of visits comes from the portal.

Posted on Businessblog™

791 - Mar. 21, 2005 - 1.22 PM EST

Yahoo acquires picture-sharing website Flickr

Yahoo acquires Flickr, less than a week after the it launched a beta test of a new blogging tool.

Vancouver, British Columbia-based Flickr lets users upload digital photos from computers and camera phones, put together photo albums, and post photos to blogs, among other things.

Joanna Stevens, a spokeswoman for Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo, confirmed the deal Sunday but did not disclose the terms. "We look forward to working with them for their innovation and product development across the Yahoo Network in the coming months," she said.

Posted on Businessblog™

790 - Mar. 21, 2005 - 10.33 AM EST

IAC InterActive acquires Ask Jeeves

IAC InterActive has acquired search engine Ask Jeeves in a deal valued at $1.85 billion.

IAC (Research) will issue 1.2668 shares of its stock for each share of Ask Jeeves (Research). That would represent a premium of about 16 percent for Ask Jeeves shareholders, based on Friday's closing prices.

Shares of Ask Jeeves gained $3.41, or 14 percent, to $27.65 in pre-market trading on Inet following Monday's announcement, while shares of IAC lost 60 cents, or about 2.5 percent, to $21.69.

Through its previously authorized share repurchase programs, IAC intends to buy back at least 60 percent of the roughly 75 million shares it will issue for this acquisition, in order to limit the dilution the deal will cause for its current shareholders.

Posted on Businessblog™

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