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may 2008 search engine news
What's New in Search - May 2008
Possible Blinkx Acquisition
There have been rumors recently that UK-based video search website Blinkx could soon be taken over by News Corp. Although the company itself denies any knowledge of a possible takeover, the site's shares have increased dramatically since the rumors began, increasing by as much as 50 percent. Blinkx, similar to Google's video search, grew to outperform Google late last year with clients such as Guardian Media Group and Channel 5. The site has also just introduced a new indexing technology, making it an attractive purchase for News Corp.
Ask.com to Increase Traffic with Popular Reference Websites
Ask.com, one of the world's top five Internet search engines, has just announced its acquisition of Lexico Publishing Group LLC. Lexico is the company that owns Dictionary.com, Thesauras.com, and Reference.com. Because there are more than 500 million visits to these sites every month, Ask.com will have a significant increase in its own monthly users. Also, by adding Lexico's proven growth strategy to Ask's already expansive empire, the engine will extend its reach to a greater user audience and will cement itself as a legitimate reference search engine.
Microsoft Has a Change of Heart about Yahoo!
Microsoft issued a statement last week saying that the company is no longer interested in a full acquisition of Yahoo. Although no specific reason was given for the change of heart, the company's spokesperson did say that Microsoft is still interested in some value-add transaction with Yahoo but will continue to look elsewhere for alternatives. Yahoo then issued a similar statement saying that it too will search for alternative solutions but that the company is still open to negotiations with Microsoft as long as it benefits its shareholders.
Google's New Developments
At an "informational meeting" last week, Google executives shared their thoughts about the search engine and also new innovations we can expect in the near future. Among these new developments are face recognition software for image searches, search technology based on "user intent" to further improve universal search and to eliminate current language barriers, and Google Health, which was recently made public. Google Health, the company's newest product, provides Internet users with a way to store and access their own medical records online. The service is aimed to help people gain more control over information concerning their health and to make it simpler for those switching doctors or moving to new cities to provide a medical history. Besides these newer innovations and ideas, Google executives said they are also focusing on improving the user experience for existing programs and services.
Yahoo! SearchMonkey Platform Capabilities
Yahoo announced recently that its new search platform, SearchMonkey, will allow users to customize their own search results. This means that Internet searchers will have the option of seeing links, phone numbers and addresses, locations or even reviews in their search results when using SearchMonkey. This new platform, say Yahoo executives, is dependent upon site owners sharing structured data with Yahoo, developers voluntarily building SearchMonkey applications and users taking the initiative to customize their own search results. Yahoo has extended an open invitation to all developers to experiment with building applications for both enhanced results, which include customized displays that all point to the site in the result, and Infobars, which display related content, results, or links.
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