AOL to Offer Free Content
AOL has decided to shake things up. The old school
Internet giant has seen 30 percent of its subscribers
leave since 2002. The company is planning on turning
things around by making some of its services free
in an effort to increase its membership level. New
memberships will be available to those that register
for an AOL email address, but the sign-up process
will not be as simple as that of other online email
accounts, as it will require a lot of the user's personal
information. AOL plans to make its money back by offering
free services, including email, access to videos,
and spyware protection, that will be supported by
ads. It will be intriguing to see how the millions
of users that still pay a monthly fee to AOL react
to this new approach.
Google Wins Lawsuit, But Ultimately Users May Lose Functionality
Kinderstart sued Google several months ago for lost
income due to a ranking penalty Google applied to
the site. Kinderstart's lawsuit against Google was
thrown out of court, but the judge gave Kinderstart
the option to file defamation charges at a later date.
The defamation is related to Google assigning the
site a PageRank of 0. If Kinderstart is able to prove
that Google manually removed its PageRank, rather
than the PageRank changing as a result of an automated
drop from algorithms, the company might have a case.
This has led to speculation that the Google toolbar
will stop displaying PageRank altogether. Many Internet
users rely on PageRank to determine the popularity
of a web page, and it provides useful information
when evaluating link partners. PageRank is not an
absolute measure and should not be used as the sole
criteria for judging a web page, but it does provide
a helpful quick reference. It would be a shame to
see it disappear because a spammy website does not
want to play by the rules.
Google Launches Search for the Visually Impaired
T.V. Raman, a blind research scientist at Google,
has developed a search tool that will help provide
better results for the visually impaired. The tool
evaluates accessibility as an important factor in
ranking web pages. There is an interesting parallel
between what a search engine likes and what a visually
impaired person is looking for in a webpage. Both
prefer pages that are heavy on content, lean on graphics,
and have clean code. Google's constant innovation
and new product launches help keep positive attention
on the company, even if some of its products are designed
for niche markets or leave a minimal lasting impression.
Yahoo!'s New Look
Yahoo! has finally made its new home page design permanent.
After months of testing, the new look website was
finally released to all. Internet users have most
likely seen the new homepage (or some version of it)
before because Yahoo! has not been shy with it. The
new site has a more graphical interface and includes,
in the words of Yahoo!, a "newly designed and positioned
Yahoo! Search box that offers consumers a more prominent
gateway to the Web, news, multimedia content, local
information, shopping and Yahoo!'s directory." It
will be interesting to see if this has any effect
on Google's majority and still rising market share.