[DANNY WOOL, SV411]
After months of uncertainty, Google has announced that China has renewed its license to operate in China. The statement came after the search engine company stopped redirecting its Google China URL to a Hong Kong-based page. Hong Kong, while officially part of China, is much more lenient about censorship than the People’s Republic.
The news about the license was kept low key, with Google’s Chief Legal Officer David Drummond making the announcement in a [url=http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/update-on-china.html]single sentence blog post[/url]: “We are very pleased that the government has renewed our ICP license and we look forward to continuing to provide web
Continue reading Google Goes Back to China
 [JOHN BATTELLE]
Last weekend the news was conjecture about Facebook doing web search, today, the news is conjecture about Google doing social networks. All of this has been sparked by two well known Valley guys opining on samesaid…Kevin Rose, CEO of Digg, tweeted that Google was working on a “Google Me” social network (he since was “asked to take down his tweet” by someone…) and then a former Facebook employee answered a related question on his own Q&A service, Quora.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, folks. I certainly don’t find it the least bit surprising that Google is continuing its
Continue reading Will Google Compete With Facebook? Er…It Already Is
 [ZDNET]
I’ve known about Google’s plans to host a background image on its home page for quite some time. I generally ignored it, because one of my favorite things about Google is how simple the page is, and how quickly it loads.
I know, of course, that lots of people like to decorate and, so, lots of users are undoubtedly going to add pictures to their Google search page.
But a lot of us, given the option, won’t. Unfortunately, it’s not clear we’ll be given the option. Right now, you can’t turn off the butt-ugly background image Google is providing.
Separate from aesthetic preferences,
Continue reading Bing-Envy: The Death of Google?
[TECHCRUNCH]
Yahoo has just released some statistics for what they’re seeing from people doing searches with Yahoo on the iPad. The results are a little humorous.
According to this post, “the top searches over the last few weeks tended toward the thrifty and economical.” That seems a bit odd considering that the iPad is a $500 to $800+ device that, while possibly the future of computing, is hardly a must-have right now in tough economic times. eBay and Craigslist were at the top of shopping-related iPad searches followed by big discount retailers Walmart and Target, according to Yahoo’s data.
Other popular searches on
Continue reading Using iPads To Search For Bargains
[DANNY WOOL, SV411]
Lauren Rosenberg seems to be the kind of woman who follows instructions to the letter, common sense be damned. While in Utah recently, the Southern California woman attempted to walk from 96 Daly Street in Park City, to 1710 Prospector Avenue, also in Park City. To find her way, she turned to Google Maps. She did not note the site’s warning that walking directions are in beta mode, or more specifically, the warning to “Use caution—This route may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths.” True indeed. The highway that Google Maps suggested she walk along lacked both sidewalks
Continue reading Following Directions
 [TechCrunch]
“Hey Foursquare and MyTown, suck it.”
Okay, Google’s Steve Lee didn’t actually say that during the location panel at the Web 2.0 Expo today, but he may as well have. While Foursquare may have just crossed 1 million users, and MyTown now has 2 million, Lee revealed today that Latitude, Google’s location-based service, has 3 million active users — and some 8 million have signed up since the service launched.
“Latitude is not dead,” Lee said in a half-joking manner, presumably refering to the fact that no one really talks about it despite all the talk of the location space right now.
Continue reading Google Latitude Has 3 Million Active Users, Check-Ins Likely On The Way
[Danny Wool, SV411]
Google has confirmed that it has just acquired Agnilux, Inc., a San Jose-based startup founded by former employees of PA Semiconductor. The question is why? After all, very little is known about the company or what it does … until now.
Continue reading Google Acquires Agnilux, but Why?
[DAN PULCRANO, SV411]
Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer embedded himself in Google’s physical and virtual ecosystem Tuesday to evangelize the Bing search engine to attendees of the search engine conference SMX West. Mounting the stage at the Santa Clara Convention Center Tuesday morning with a raise of his eyebrows, a head nod to the audience and a bounce in his step, the animated CEO wore a cherry V-neck sweater and tan balmoral shoes for the armchair sitdown with search industry icon Danny Sullivan.
The visit underscored the technology giant’s seriousness about reinventing at least one major tentacle as a media company, despite previous failures
Continue reading Microsoft CEO Details Search Ambitions
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