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Graph Search: Facebook Rolls Out Radical New Social Tool

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July 9, 2013

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Graph Search earlier this year, a new way for users of the social network to access information. Considered the network’s third pillar, along with its News Feed and Timeline, Graph Search is based on Facebook’s social graph, which is essentially a map of more than a trillion connections between users. After six months of beta testing, the product is now available to those who use the American English version of the site. Continue reading Graph Search: Facebook Rolls Out Radical New Social Tool

Trends in Mobile Are Changing the Online Search Model

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April 5, 2013

Google still remains in firm control of the online search market, with roughly two-thirds of the market in its grasp. But as mobile devices grow in number, the way people are searching for information and services is changing. This puts the $22 billion online search industry at a crossroads, as it tries to figure out how mobile and online search can work together — and for a profit. Continue reading Trends in Mobile Are Changing the Online Search Model

Bing Now Turns to Live Crowdsourcing for Advanced Search

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March 13, 2013

Bing Now, a new research project demonstrated at Microsoft’s headquarters last week, could give Web searchers a way to gauge the ongoing atmosphere of a bar or restaurant before they decide to visit or make a reservation. Researchers are looking to smartphone owners who are already at the location to provide updated information when checking in. The crowdsourcing tool measures sound with the smartphone’s microphone. Continue reading Bing Now Turns to Live Crowdsourcing for Advanced Search

Mobile Revolution: Google Dominates Mobile Search…For Now

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January 15, 2013

According to Google, which underwent an antitrust investigation by the Federal Trade Commission recently, the speed of change in the tech industry makes it impossible for regulators to impose restrictions without holding up the progress of future innovations. And the commission agreed, dropping all charges against the search giant. Continue reading Mobile Revolution: Google Dominates Mobile Search…For Now

Siri: Imagining the Untapped Potential of Artificial Intelligence

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October 17, 2011
  • Geek.com writer Will Shanklin believes Siri’s capabilities would be enormously expanded with access to third party apps. Currently, “Yelp and Wolfram Alpha appear to be the only ones in that elite group.”
  • Third party apps could enable users to play music among different streaming services, quickly use music ID, combine data from multiple services (“How about a combination of Netflix and IMDb data?”), get real-time navigation and a range of other convenient possibilities.
  • Siri access to Facebook could expedite posts, messages and notifications and quickly get information from friends’ profiles.
  • “As much as you might be blown away by Siri’s capabilities now, we will likely look back at this as ‘Siri 1.0’ five years from now,” writes Shanklin. “In much the same way that the first iPhone’s single-paged homescreen – with no third-party apps – looks primitive now, this introductory version of Siri will pale in comparison to where ‘she’ will be then.”

Yelp CEO Speaks Out on Google Monopoly: We Had No Choice

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September 23, 2011
  • This week’s Senate hearings on “The Power of Google: Serving Customers or Threatening Competition?” barely scratched the surface, suggests CNNMoney.
  • “What Google did to Apple — copying Apple’s touchscreen operating system and offering it to Apple’s competitors for free — never came up,” indicates the article. “Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) used much of their time to suck up to Google chairman Eric Schmidt, practically begging him to bring Google’s fiber-to-the-home experiment to their states.”
  • However, testimony from Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO of Yelp, was compelling, especially in regards to his take on the search giant’s apparent new mission.
  • “Let’s be clear. Google is no longer in the business of sending users to the best sources of information on the Web,” explained Stoppelman. “It now hopes to become a destination site itself for one vertical market after another, including news, shopping, travel, and now, local business reviews. It would be one thing if these efforts were conducted on a level playing field, but the reality is they’re not.”
  • “The experience in my industry is telling,” he added. “Google forces review websites to provide their content for free to benefit Google’s own competing product, not consumers. Google then gives its own product preferential treatment in Google search results.”
  • Stoppelman suggested the company’s actions were essentially part of an ultimatum: “Google first began taking our content without permission a year ago. Despite public and private protests, Google gave the ultimatum that only a monopolist can give: In order to appear in Web search, you must allow us to use your content to compete against you. As everyone in this room knows, not being in Google is equivalent to not existing on the Internet. We had no choice.”

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