Yahoo! has finally lost the search battle. It gave up its own search and now a month old Bing will power Yahoo!’s search. But before we write obituary of Yahoo! Search, there are a few immediate questions that come to my mind:

• Flickr and Image Search: Yahoo! had a fantastic integration of Flickr in Image Search which made it comparable to Google in terms of relevancy. Will Yahoo! open Flickr to Bing as well? Image search on Bing sucks big time
• Mobile Search and oneSearch: How about ‘oneSearch’? Yahoo! has a good mobile search product in oneSearch and its federated search result pages were a big hit, and had higher market share than Google in many local markets
• Local Search: What happens to Yahoo! Local Search? Or for that matter other search verticals like Jobs, News, Maps? Of all these, Yahoo! had poured a lot of money in Local Search, and I guess Bing is nowhere close to Yahoo! in these verticals. The minority of loyal Yahoo! search users is only going to shrink further if Bing powers these search verticals. A huge opportunity to compete with Google in these verticals (where actually Yahoo! was not lagging way behind of Google and was doing comparably well) goes down the drain
• Social Search: There was a lot of talk of integrating Del.icio.us with Yahoo! Search, which I thought had great promise. Search needs to be more social, and success of Twitter as search engine is for everyone to see. With a strong social bookmarking product like Del.icio.us with it, Yahoo! could have done a lot in search. Wonder what happens now with search technology getting outsourced to Bing?
• Glue: What happens to Glue? Yahoo! launched it last year as a new search product and Yahoo! India Search have Glue pages for a large chunk of popular queries

These questions may be of no relevance once Yahoo! says that its technology is not the one which can provide the best search experience to its user. With that, Yahoo! writes-off all the investment and effort it had put over years in improving its search engine and adding those awesome search features like ‘Search Assist’ to latest one of ‘Search Pad’. With this, it also writes-off all the effort engineers there had put in building the search and its various features. Carol Bartz announced that there will be lay-offs in search team, and am sure elsewhere also in Yahoo! there will be a huge attrition now.

May be Yahoo! should have just spun-off Yahoo! Search as separate company. That would have unlocked the real value of rest of Yahoo!’s businesses in which it is doing quite well (It is still the most trafficked portal in world. Display advertisement remains Yahoo!’s forte altogether). Market would have determined the right value for this separate search company, and am sure Yahoo! would have got a better price for it than what it has got in this deal.

Related Posts

1. Yahoo! strengthens it’s mobile offering in Asia –voice search in local accent, partners with MTNL, Idea, CSL
2. The Yahoo – Microsoft Search Deal, Yahoo Loses Another Battle| And War! And Everything Else!
3. Yahoo India Launches local search
4. Yahoo’s Search Experience is Great, But ‘Powered by Bing’ will be an Awesome one – Carol Bartz
5. Why Microsoft Calls it’s new search engine Bing?

We earlier wrote about the Arunachal Pradesh controversy on Google maps, and here is the response from Google PR

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Earlier this week, as part of a routine update to Google Earth, we published new data for the Arunachal Pradesh region that changed the depiction of certain place names in the product. The change was a result of a mistake in our processing of new map data .We are in the process of reverting the data to its previous state, and expect the change to be visible in the product shortly. We would like to clarify that this issue did not impact our depiction of international borders.

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Another interesting comment on the controversy

Google Ditu (“Google Maps”) was released to the public on February 9, 2007, and replaced the old Google Bendi (“Google Local”). This is the Chinese localized version of Google Maps and Google Local services.
There are some differences in frontier alignments between Google Ditu and Google Maps. On Google Maps, sections of the Chinese border with India and Pakistan are shown with dotted lines, indicating areas or frontiers in dispute. However, Google Ditu shows the Chinese frontier strictly according to Chinese claims with no dotted lines indicating the border with India and Pakistan. For example, the area now administered by India called Arunachal Pradesh (referred to as “South Tibet” by China) is shown inside the Chinese frontier by Google Ditu, with Indian highways ending abruptly at the Chinese claim line. Google Ditu also shows Taiwan and the South China Sea Islands as part of China. As of May 2009, Google Ditu’s street map coverage of Taiwan also omits major state organs, such as the Presidential Palace, the five Yuans, and the Supreme Court.
There are some differences between ditu.google.cn and ditu.google.com. For example, the former does not feature My Maps. On the other hand, while the former displays virtually all text in Chinese, the latter displays most text (user-selectable real text as well as those on map) in English. Worthy of note is the oddity that this behavior of displaying English text is not consistent but intermittent – sometimes it is in English, sometimes it is in Chinese. The criteria for choosing which language is displayed is not known.

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Related Posts

1. Whoa! Google shows parts of Arunachal Pradesh in Chinese Language
2. Google Maps (India) softly launches Driving Directions
3. Andhra Pradesh budget crosses Rs 1 trillion
4. PIL asking Google to remove India from Google Earth
5. Google Expands Local Search (Voice) to Delhi

Google India maps shows parts of Arunachal Pradesh in Chinese language and the map shows Arunachal’s southern boundary with Assam and northern boundary with China in broken lines, while the state’s eastern and western boundaries with Bhutan and Myanmar are shown in continuous white lines.

Google India Map Controversy - Arunachal Pradesh in Chinese Language

While the political circuit has started their speculative game, what’s really surprising in that Google has not yet rectified/apologized for the change.

‘The Chinese know how to time their statements ahead of a bilateral meeting. This map surfaced just when the two countries were to discuss the border dispute. Had Google changed the names of Chinese locations, Beijing would have summoned Google officials. India, too, should deal with it firmly,’ – BJP MP

What’s your take on this issue? Time India goes strict with such mistakes (Imagine what China would have done to Google!)? Every time something like this happens, Google organizes ‘Internet awareness’ campaigns (with govt. officials) in order to appease them and the matter is resolved ‘amicably’.

What’s your opinion?

Earlier Google controversies:

• Google India says it is not liable for Blogger content..
• Orkut user faces legal case over anti Shiv Sena community
• PIL asking Google to remove India from Google Earth
• Google India in a legal case over a blogger’s post
• Maharashtra Government wants to censor Google Earth
• Techie held for posting derogatory messages against Sonia Gandhi on Orkut

Related Posts

1. Google India clarifies on Arunachal Pradesh Controversy
2. Chinese Cyberlaws and the Business Conundrum
3. PIL asking Google to remove India from Google Earth
4. Google Launches Translator Toolkit – Convert any Document/Website to language of your choice
5. Google India in a legal case over a blogger’s post

Global deal creates better choice for consumers and advertisers.

By Jessica Vascellaro, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

As Facebook, Twitter and other popular Internet services investigated the cause of this week’s massive computer attacks, attention turned to a blogger whose writings blasting Russian officials may have been the target.

There were also signs the attacks continued Friday after knocking Twitter offline for about two hours and disrupting Facebook’s service Thursday. Twitter Inc. co-founder Biz Stone wrote in a blog post Friday that attacks against Twitter were “ongoing” and “appear to have been geopolitical in motivation.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site

The developer of the market-leading browser has become more actively engaged in hashing out many details of a proposed revamp of the Web page standard.

Who owns The Pirate Bay? It sounds like a simple question, but it turns out to have a surprisingly complicated answer. As Swedish company Global Gaming Factory X tries to round up the money to purchase the site’s domain name by the end of August, we were curious to figure out exactly who GGF will be paying if the deal goes through. When the answer involves “a mysterious company registered in the Seychelles,” it’s clear that “transparency” won’t be the deal’s hallmark.

The three young men who were sued in Sweden this spring might run The Pirate Bay, but they have long said that they no longer own the site. A whois search on thepiratebay.org shows that the domain is registered to a firm called Reservella, though the contact information points to Pirate Bay defendant Fredrik Neij and lists a Stockholm address.

Filed under: Microsoft, Browsers

Like sand through the hourglass, the browser ballot soap opera continues with a a whole new set of interesting developments.

Yesterday, ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley poked around the small print of the Microsoft proposal and noticed existing Windows XP and Vista users are slated to receive the ballot screen via Windows update. From the release:

“Microsoft will distribute a Ballot Screen software update to users within the EEA of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Client PC Operating Systems, by means of Windows Update as described hereafter: A software update enabling the Ballot Screen to be displayed will be made available to all current and future users of Windows XP and Windows Vista who receive updates from Windows Update.”

So in addition to Windows 7E customers getting the screen, users who already own Windows will be shown the ballot at some point in the future when an Update runs.

Here’s where the plot thickens. We know that the EC likes the idea of the ballot screen. We know Opera CEO Hakon Wium Lie said “We’re very happy with Microsoft’s proposal.” That doesn’t mean they’re done complaining yet.

Continue reading Ballot scren headed to XP, Vista, Opera worries about IE logo recognition

Ballot scren headed to XP, Vista, Opera worries about IE logo recognition originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 28 Jul 2009 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: News, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Search

After years of back and forth negotiations, Microsoft and Yahoo! have announced a 10-year deal to work together on internet search and advertising.

Under the agreement, Microsoft will get exclusive access to Yahoo!’s search technologies, which may then be integrated into the company’s Bing search engine. What’s more intriguing is that Bing will then “be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites.”

In other words, while I (and probably many other people) tend to think of Yahoo! as a search engine first, and a web portal second, the partnership basically hands the keys of Yahoo! search over to Microsoft, leaving Yahoo! to focus on other aspects of its web portal and other properties including Flickr.

Yahoo! will also take over as the primary sales force for search ads on both Microsoft and Yahoo! properties, while each company will maintain its own display ad division.

According to the press release, it could take as long as 2 years for the whole deal to go through once it’s approved by regulators.

Despite early reports that Microsoft was looking to purchase Yahoo!, today’s announcement outlines the details of a partnership, not a merger. Yahoo! and Microsoft will continue to operate their own web portals, video sites, email, IM, and other properties, many of which will be in direct competition with one another.

The companies have launched a new website at ChoiceValueInnovation.com to provide additional details as things develop. Try not to laugh too hard at the name.

Microsoft, Yahoo! announce a search deal originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 29 Jul 2009 08:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Business, News, P2P

The Pirate Bay’s recent surprise decision to sell to gaming company Global Gaming Factory and become a legal operation shocked fans of the popular torrent site. Now, it looks like the arrangement may fall through, after all.

Torrentfreak is reporting that Wayne Rosso, the former CEO of Grokster who spent two weeks working with GGF to close the deal, has walked away from GGF and is not optimistic that they can raise the money to buy the Pirate Bay. The Pirate Bay crew are reportedly giving GGF a week to show them the money.

Rosso reported that GGF’s plan isn’t in good enough shape to attract the necessarily investors. Apparently, GGF didn’t even pay Rosso what he was owed for his services. With only a week left for GGF to confirm the necessary investors, the Pirate Bay’s future is in flux again. According to Peter Sunde of the Pirate Bay, though, there are no definite plans for the Pirate Bay if this acquisition doesn’t work out.

Nevertheless, GGF boss Hans Pandeya remains steadfastly optimistic. Metro.se (translated) reports him as saying “a group of investors are prepared to inject 30 million SEK” to make the purchase happen. He’s also pegged August 27th as the date the deal will go down.

Pandeya also mentioned ongoing negotiations with four major content providers - Universal Music, Sony Music, EMI, and Warner Music - and claimed discussions with one have reached the “final phase.” Of course, that final phase could be one label telling him to shove off once and for all.

Based on Rosso’s feedback, we’ll just have to wait and see if Pandeya is telling the truth or talking out his…aft?

Lack of investors takes wind out of Pirate Bay sale - or does it? originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 30 Jul 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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