WSJ (paid subscription required)
Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal says the newly remade Ask.com sports comparable search results to Google with a far better presentation. He says the new site is easy to use, and has several interesting features Google lacks, like previews of the sites it finds, top-of-the-screen answers to core information, and an easy way to broaden or narrow search results. Could Ask.com unseat Google at the top of the search heap? Mossberg says yes, citing the unlikely run of George Mason past No. 1 seed Connecticut to the Final Four of the NCAA basketball tournament. He says the new …
Search Engine Watch
At the most recent Search Engine Strategies conference in New York, legal experts gathered to discuss trademark infringement and search, specifically the controversial practice of purchasing competitors' trademarks, which marketers can still do with Google, but no longer with Yahoo. The age-old discussion point has come to the fore once again following recent activity by Mazda, which has been purchasing " Pontiac" en masse ever since the competing auto company told consumers to Google "Pontiac" at the end of its TV commercials. Experts at the search show seemed to agree that use of trademarks in search is okay, as long …
InfoWorld
The Motion Picture Association of America is still suing its way through America's courts, hoping to shut down any and all companies whose software programs abet piracy and copyright violation. Most recently, the film industry group has targeted seven small search companies, including TorrentSpy, for helping visitors find content and instructing them how to download it. TorrentSpy, seeking a dismissal, reacted by saying the MPAA might as well have sued Google, since Google and TorrentSpy do essentially the same thing. Well, sort of. Google tries to turn the whole Web into a searchable index, while TorrentSpy just focuses on helping …
Cnet News.com
Google has now launched a widely expected feature for local businesses who want to target consumers by their geographic location, by letting them place photos and logos inside balloons that pop up on Google Maps exactly where their business is located. The new Local Business Ad system lets advertisers buy keyword phrases that include zip codes or other location information. Bookseller Barnes & Noble and retailer Ralph Lauren have been testing the product over the last several weeks. Users will also notice that certain searches on Google Local will display icons representing different types of businesses, such as a coffee …
TechWeb News
Would digital rights management be such a hassle for content owners if the DRM correlated with each user rather than a piece of content distributed by a different provider? Consulting firm Accenture LLC is hoping the answer to that is no, as it works to develop a cross-platform digital rights system that would allow consumers to access content through an unlimited number of devices after paying once. Accenture marketed its idea at the Digital Hollywood conference in Santa Monica, Calif. on Wednesday, saying that if companies don't adopt a similar method then "the consumer will make the decision for them." …
Fortune
When News Corp bought MySpace in July last year for $580 million, few would have thought eight months later we'd now be talking about how that was a bargain. The social networking site has simply exploded, having recently become the second-most popular Internet site after Yahoo, but ahead of MSN, AOL, and Google--all in less than three years of existence. The clearest indicator that MySpace was a reasonable deal for News Corp is the $2 billion asking price of Facebook.com, an online student networking site and MySpace rival, which recently turned down a $750 million bid from Viacom. Social networking …
CNETnews.com
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton, a Republican from Texas, defended his decision to include limited checks on Net Neutrality in the newest version of the much-anticipated bill. Barton said he wasn't convinced of the necessity of a Net Neutrality law, believing that the market should sort itself out. Today, the House Committee plans to hold a hearing on the bill, with a 14-member witness list that includes representatives from cable and telecommunications trade associations, consumer advocacy groups, and Internet firms like Amazon and Vonage. Telco companies believe they should have the right to create a tiered Internet …
Cnet News.com
Google is planning to sell up to 5.3 million shares of Class A common stock, the company reported Wednesday to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which could raise nearly $2 billion, based on Wednesday's closing price. Google says it will use the proceeds for "general corporate purposes," including capital expenditures--which of late have become more and more significant for the Internet firm--and possible acquisitions of smaller Web firms, technology vendors or other assets. The company didn't say when the stock offering would occur, suggesting only that it could happen periodically. Google shares closed at $394.98 on Wednesday; the company had …
DM News
AOL hasn't yet implemented Goodmail's CertifiedEmail delivery system, which was announced several months ago, and apparently the delay has nothing to do with California state Sen. Dean Flroez urging the company to hold back until "a very concerned public can get their questions answered." Florez asked that Google not implement the program before April 10 to ensure there would be adequate time for the public to understand the changes. Florez is concerned that even though AOL's two-tier e-mail system offers to pay third-party e-mail accreditation costs for nonprofits, some groups, like churches, might not qualify. An AOL spokesperson says the …
Mediaweek
Jupitermedia has sold its Internet research unit JupiterResearch to Kagan, a media research firm, for $10.1 million. The new company, JupiterKagan, will cover new media, including Internet advertising, media convergence, and telecommunications. Time Baskerville, the new company's CEO, said the merger brings "greater scale, richer combined data resources and a highly continuous information services business model," to Kagan. Darien-Conn. based Jupitermedia owns Internet.com, EarthWeb.com and JupiterImages, which provides business to business photography services. Last year, the company sold off its trade advertising sites ClickZ and SearchEngineWatch.com , along with the Search Engine Strategies trade show.