From scores.org comes a very well explained infographic about the raise and fall of Yahoo! From good all times where each Yahoo! share cost was U$S125 to the GeoCities deal which had a cost of U$S4 billion and then closed down.
If you’ve not heard of Bing, then you’re not following Microsoft. Bing has come into the search market with a bang offering users a unique way of surfing the internet. Recent rumors shared on the AppleInsider website state that Apple might be interested in offering another option other than Google when searching on their iPhone OS.
Currently the iPhone OS defaults to Google when you open Safari. Apparently Apple seeks to offer other alternatives to searching, perhaps looking to take away dependency on Google. According to the article, Apple is not dropping Google entirely, they seem to only want to make other options more visible. Also stated in the article, “Apple already provides an option to use Yahoo for web search in Safari, although that option is not obvious and requires visiting system settings to make the switch.”
Have Apple and Microsoft struck an alliance? It would appear so initially, but because Apple is already offering Yahoo, perhaps they will make Yahoo another prominent option. There’s a very long standing history in how the companies involved have been mixed into all this. Microsoft has been asking for Bing to be more prominent, Apple has integrated some of Microsoft’s mapping technology into their services, and Apple is not entirely happy with the dependency of some of their core apps on Google’s presence. It’s a long and drawn out history that the article does a great job detailing.
Personally I’m not a fan of Bing, I don’t see it becoming a huge factor on the OS as a search option, but we’d love to hear your thoughts. Are you happy just using Google on Safari when you go online, or do options like Yahoo and Bing make a better offering?
It was not that long ago that Crenk reported some big announcements coming from Microsoft, including some
changes coming for Hotmail. A week ago those changes came to life when Hotmail users were introduced to a new look and feel for the long running email client. In an attempt to take on rivals Yahoo and Google the change was perhaps a long time coming, and many long time Hotmail users might appreciate the new additions and features.
The idea to remove some of the clutter and allow users to integrate social platforms and interact with other sites was vital, especially in an era when so many are looking for the one stop shop of utilities that will serve their needs. Some of the features added include:
These changes are big when you consider how long the service has remained stagnant while its competitors made big strides to attract users. Still Hotmail is still considered one of the most widely used email services with over 350 million active users.
While Hotmail has added these new additions is it really enough to sway people away from Gmail for example? Or will Hotmail still prevail due to its simplicity and lack of “bloat”, as it’s called, that Gmail users might experience.
What are your thoughts? A winner for Microsoft? I used to be a Hotmail user but went to Gmail because of the wide offerings available. Hotmail became boring and dull even in the UI experience. Perhaps now it’s got some life breathed into it. We’d like to hear your thoughts.
Twitter is steadily climbing to reach the 50 million tweets per day mark. This huge social network now represents a large proportion of the information shared on the web. More and more people are discovering breaking news through its trending topics (millions found out about the Haitian earthquake via Twitter).
Now Yahoo! have just signed a deal to be put on what Twitter calls it’s Firehose. This means Tweets will now be continually indexed by Yahoo!.
“Similar to the partnerships we have made with other large internet companies, Yahoo! will receive what has been dubbed “Firehose”—a full feed of public tweets sent to Twitter and our partners every second of every day from all around the world.”
Through this arrangement, you’ll be able to find tweets through Yahoo! Search amongst other Yahoo! services Mail and Sport. It is also said that Yahoo! will be building unique Twitter clients to enable people to tweet from inside the Yahoo! network.
Twitter hit the nail on the head when they discussed how Tweets are vital to the social news scene and their inclusion in other big Internet services is vital:
“Tweets may be short, but they have proven over and over again to contain valuable information. As the Twitter information network grows and expands, it becomes more valuable for everyone who participates. Our open approach helps us get closer to providing universal connectivity to a global network of immediate information.”
Back in 2006 before the average Joe on the street had a smart phone – we all used our cell phones to check our e-mails, Flickr, news, weather and other such services. The main port of call for this was Yahoo Go – a mobile client released by Yahoo!
However, Yahoo! have just announced that Go is to suffer the same fate as GeoCities did last month – it’ll be leaving us. Come January 12th next year, when you turn on Yahoo! Go on your mobile you’ll get an error message.
Undoubtedly this is because of the competition from more powerful apps and platforms such as those on the iPhone.
However I think this might be slightly pre-mature because the app is still being sold on phones as you read this. Perhaps Yahoo! are trying to push us into the smart phone market?
Search has become a hot topic for the past year. Bing, Google, Yahoo, and others have fought for dominance and in this battle, users have been introduced to a bevy of innovations in their searches. The concept of search is nice, type in a few words, or phrases and find content directly related to your query. Some searches are more successful than others all the while introducing users to content across hundreds of thousands of pages. Still, most users will not go past the first two or three pages at most.
SurfCanyon strives to change the user’s search experience and focus not just on getting content, but becoming a tool for discovery. Much like a tool we spoke about some time ago, Worio, SurfCanyon attaches itself to your browser of choice and adds a target tab that allows for further discover of related content right from your normal search. The reason behind such an app is the fact that sometimes your content is not where you expect it. I with users not typically going past page 3, SurfCanyon will pull related content together for you and place it right under all the links you see on the first page.
When Bing and Yahoo! decided recently that they would work together in an effort to stage an offensive against the internet giant that is Google, I though competition between the two had come to an untimely end. I was wrong.
As it happens, although the two search engines will work together to defeat Google they will still compete for glory. Perhaps we will see a kind of WW2 cooperation just like the bitter Allies united to defeat the Nazis…not that Google is a Nazi.
A senior vice president of Yahoo! said “We are Yahoo and that will continue…We collaborate on the back-end but we are competitors on the front-end,”
I guess this makes sense. I mean, what were we all expecting? Yahoo! and Bing to come together like two lost lovers? Nonsense. This is a recession and both companies will by going full steam ahead to stay afloat. They will share advertising revenue with both search engines using the Bing ad model. The deal is due to come into affect next year and will last for ten years. By the end of that time will Google have been defeated? And will Yahoo! be left needing Bing more than Bing needs Yahoo?
It appears as though Yahoo! may be the first real competitor to Twitter. Other companies such as Facebook have tried to draw people away from micro-blogging back to social networking. But there has been no real competition on the actual micro-blogging front.
A while back, Yahoo! stealthily rolled out Yahoo! Meme in the Portuguese language only. Nobody was all too sure why they did this because as business goes, you’re supposed to promote, promote, promote! Now their reasoning is clear.
It was a test. To see if it stood a chance without causing the company any embarrassment if it failed. They are now tackling Twitter on the global front by launching the micro-blogging platform in the second biggest language in the world; Spanish.
While people all over the world do use Twitter, studies have shown that services are received better by the public when they are tailored specifically to their needs – in this case their language.
While I can’t see Meme over running Twitter on the English servers I can see the new Yahoo! service picking up steam in South America, Mexico, West Africa and of course Spain.
Last week, here at Crenk we reported that Microsoft and Yahoo! are entering into a deal to combine search technology and the revenue from their engines in a bid to strike Google who has a share of around 65% of the global market. Yahoo! and Microsoft barely have 28% – combined.
It has emerged that the companies’ lack of market holding has led to Yahoo! putting a clause in the agreement which states that Yahoo! can back out of the deal at any time before the scheduled five year renewal if their revenue share falls too low.
Yahoo! and Microsoft failed to specify what exactly the number was that would entitle Yahoo! to pull out should revenue fall below it however it is expected that the danger zone will be in the first eighteen months.
This is because any new service, whether continuing on from an old one or starting from scratch will experience growing pains. A few other details have emerged since the deal was officially filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
For example, Microsoft must hire 400 Yahoo! engineers and pay them “market-competitive” wages. Furthermore, a full deal must be struck by October 27th otherwise the debates will be brought to a arbitration panel. Time is money.
I guess now we all have to play the waiting game. I wonder in two years time will be caught saying “I Binged myself and I’m 5th in the search results!”.
A whopping 67% of us ‘Google’ things. If we want to know something we simply ’Google it’, as it has become known. Like any good online company, their name is also a verb. Just like Twitter with Tweet. They have a hug share of the market – undoubtedly. Now however, they may have their first real competitor in years.
Anyone remember last year when Microsoft was trying to buy Yahoo! for almost 50 Billion dollars? It went down in flames. But the inter-company relationship didn’t end. Now, they’re discussing a possible collaboration between the two search engines –Bing (Microsoft) and Yahoo!.
If this were to go ahead then it would offer a chunk of healthy competition to the dominant Google. The news storyalone would send thousands flocking, to give it a whirl – but Yahoo and Microsoft better be careful.
People like their search engine. For me, its been Yahoo! imply because I like a bit of news before I search and also because it was the first search engine I ever used so I just kind of stuck with it. People don’t like change – and when they do change they don’t want to be insulted by too many sponsored results like over at Ask.com or search results that make them want to ‘Google’ .
It’s impossible to tell what the end result would be from this mutation of search engines. Would it be Yahoo!, powered by Bing or the other way around? They do have a plan to split the revenue between them but what about the work load such as PR, development and staffing the site. Now might not be a good time to invest in any search engine as there’s going to be a war, with casualties. I’ll wait until the final few blows before I put my money on one of them.
