Microsoft has announced that it plans to enter the search advertising market, creating their own advertising system to rival Google and Yahoo. Microsoft's "improvement" is to by allow advertisers to aim ads on its search pages to users based on…
Read More Microsoft Plans to Sell Search Ads – Privacy Concerns?
Google's company blog has a post explaining Googlebombing: If you do a Google search on the word [failure] or the phrase [miserable failure], the top result is currently the White House’s official biographical page for President Bush. We've received some…
Bill Gates gave an interview to CNET about a variety of topics including web search and Google. An interesting passage is Gates' perspective on Google's mission to "organize the world's information" and whether that should be the goal vs. his…
Read More Bill Gates on Google & “Organizing the World’s Information”
Don Norman has a great post criticizing the oft-lauded "simplicity" of Google's interface. It's worth quoting in its entirety:The Truth About Google's so-called 'simplicity'The truth? It isn't simple.Look, I like Google. It's a great search engine. But I am sick…
"Google hacking", using the power & reach of Google's web index to access sensitive information and hack into networks, is becoming more pervasive, organized and powerful. This article features Johnny Long, whose web site seems to be the starting point…
John Battelle reports on a recent new feature within Google search results where "related queries" get inserted within your original search results. For example, when you search for "on demand," you also get search results for "Comcast on demand." (see…
Read More Google inserting alternate queries – paid placement?
CNET reports that the University of California at Berkeley is creating an interdisciplinary center for advanced search technologies in search of creating the "ultimate search tool" and to "address the explosive growth of Internet search and the complex issues that…
More blurring of search engine results and advertising: A paper presented at the Sixth ACM Conference on E-commerce by Penn State School of Information Sciences and Technology professor Jim Jansen indicates that consumers exhibit a substantial measure of bias against…
Read More More Blurring: Consumers Suspicious of Sponsored Links
The blurring of search engine results and advertising is a major concern given how search engines have become the "center of gravity" for the distribution of information and the acquisition of knowledge. ClickZ reports on a Consumer Reports WebWatch study…
Siva Vaidhyanathan (a professor in my department, btw) has posted reader comments from his original request for feedback as to some of the concerns with of Google's plan to digitize library books. He was kind enough to include my repsonse,…
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