Here's a riddle of sorts: When is a patent application like a press release? Answer: When you're Google and you've literally got hundreds of bloggers poring over your patent filings and other public records for any hint of strategy or…
Google is apparently testing travel. Here's Reuters' write-up. I'm on a break from a private equity conference and on a PAINFULLY slow connection, so I can't check it out right now. Per Search Engine Watch, here's an example of a…
Here's an interesting post from Om Malik on a Windows Live/Messenger demo (yesterday) that integrates VoIP click-to-call into MSN mapping so users can see, select and then contact a local merchant. I haven't been briefed on this, but my head…
Citing the performance of the stock and the generally poor outlook for traditional newspaper publishing, Knight Ridder's largest single shareholder, Private Capital Management, a Florida investment firm that owns 19 percent of the company, has asked the board to put…
We conducted another focus group tonight -- this time with twentysomethings in a Bay Area suburb. The idea was to gather 22-to-27-year-olds as the next generation of "life events buyers." Lots of interesting stuff came out of the session (to…
Here's the new Yahoo! Maps upgrade: It's nicer to look at and easier to manipulate. There are a great many features here. There's no more need to enter an address first to get a map. Now you can do a…
Deutsche Bank conducted a survey of 87 media executives in conjunction with MediaPost about their clients' third-quarter media spending. The survey indicated that some display ad budgets are shifting more dollars to locally targeted online media: Media buyers and planners…
Not unlike PocketThis (voice/DA in, SMS/Wap out) AskMeNow is a new, more useful version of current directory assistance. The fully automated service is free (like 1-800-Free411), and the "AskMeAnything" service costs US$.49 per call: Within seconds you can get 411…
I had a dizzying series of meetings with people yesterday at AD:TECH on everything from the future of newspapers (Quigo) to mobile local search (Nokia). All very interesting stuff that I'd love to elaborate on if I didn't have to…
Ingenio added another distribution partner in Interchange's Local.com destination. Local.com is impressively fast and clean but needs to beef up its content to really be competitive over the long term. However, Interchange recognizes this and says it is working on…
I received a call from a Bloomberg reporter tonight (cellphone reception in an elevator no less) who said that Yahoo! had acknowledged to him that the company was in fact doing a test of PPCall with Ingenio's product (kind of…
The short answer is "probably." Ka-Ching: El Greedo is rearing its head at MySpace and while the site is hot hot hot now, it may lose its mojo if users no longer perceive it as a cool community but rather…
The Kelsey Group is conducting an informal survey of industry professionals and those coming to ILM:05 to get a sense of how good you think "local search" (broadly defined) is today and what you believe the ideal local search product…
I'm probably the last one to write about this, but news aggregator Topix.net (majority owned by the newspapers) added 15,000 blogs to its crawl. The company also organizes that information by ZIP, so you can get blogs in your local…
Yelp, a San Francisco Bay Area local community site with directory listings -- or local directory site with community and social networking -- got some VC money last week. The site, which has national aspirations, exists in an already crowded…
Here's an interesting article from Sunday's N.Y. Times about Yahoo! and its long-term search strategy. I was at Yahoo! on Friday talking to Local GM Paul Levine about his just-added keynote at ILM:05. He and I discussed a range of…
Here are a few, somewhat related thoughts for Sunday: Festoon will video-enable your VoIP conversations on Google Talk or Skype. (Catch: You've got to go out and buy the camera, and so does everyone else.) While this capability is interesting…
The N.Y. Times reports on a pending announcement between Yahoo! and TiVo. Yahoo! moves off the desktop and into the living room. It's mostly about using Yahoo's TV listings to schedule TiVo, but there is a range of other Yahoo!…
Here's a fairly comprehensive piece from The N.Y. Times' Saul Hansell, reviewing Google's model and history and speculating about its future: Google, the one-stop shop for all forms of advertising (TV, print, online, etc.). Traditional ad agencies don't generally like…
The advent of Windows Live (a version of the pre-existing beta Start.com) confirms what we already know: the Larry Ellison vision of a "network computer" is here. (Further proof: the coming Wal-Mart US$398 laptop.) Whatever the relationship, ultimately, of these…
