Search Engine News Updates: December 01-10-2010

December 20, 2010

Welcome to another weekly edition of Search and Social updates — packed with announcement, alliance, disputes and axing down services or products, from Silicon Valley’s tech leaders like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, Bing and others, as well as many more interesting Search Engine Optimization news from across the web…
	Google Editions Ebook Store Ready For Launch By Year-End According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, search engine titan Google’s long awaited invasion into the world of impending e-books store now has an official launch date: The end of the year. Google Editions, is finally nearing launch with a release coming at some point during the… Read More

	MySpace Debuts New Mobile Website, App MySpace, in their struggle to stay relevant is bulging up in its mobile push, on Tuesday announced a new mobile optimized website and iPhone app… Read More

	Google Faces EU Antitrust Probe Sparked By Complaint From British Site Global search and advertising giant Google’s undaunted ascension to the Internet search engine throne has caused some to doubt the sincerity of its “Don’t Be Evil” motto and made it a prime target for market watchdogs. A tiny British shopping comparison site has triggered an investigation by the European Commission into whether Google is abusing its… Read More

	AOL Tries To Boost Project Phoenix With Unblab Acquisition Internet pioneer AOL not only outsmarted Facebook in unveiling its upgraded email/messaging service, it also seemed to win the style battle. AOL has just acquired email prioritization app Unblab, according to an email sent from Unblab’s founder Eli Holder… Read More

	Bing Unveils Facebook Integration To Shopping Search Results Just as the holiday season begins, shoppers are expected to spend $38.5 billion online this year, and there is a good chance they will want to consult with friends and family before making purchases. Microsoft has just updated its Bing Shopping Search with the ability to create shopping lists and share them with your family and friends on Facebook… Read More

	Google Rolls Out New “Click Type” Reports For AdWords To Quantify Ad Interaction Online ads are continuously evolving, offering marketers ad units with links to various relevant site pages. If you are enjoying some of the relatively new AdWords features like click-to-call, Sitelinks, and Product Ads, and now the search engine giant Google has added a new kind of report to AdWords called “Click Type”… Read More

	Google Cracks Down On Sites With Pirated Content From AdSense As the battle over intellectual property and online piracy escalates, search engine titan Google, in response to pressure from music and film companies and other copyright holders, announced a number of measures on Thursday intended to the way it deals with copyright infringement on its ubiquitous search engine, including a promise to work with… Read More

	YouTube Unveils Skippable Ad Format Online video viewers can rejoice now — Google-owned video-sharing website YouTube on Thursday unveiled a new ad format dubbed “TrueView,” which allows users to select an ad-skipping button in the first 5 seconds and only charges advertisers for viewed ads. TrueView ad format should please users, advertisers alike… Read More

	eBay Infiltrates Local Commerce With Latest “Milo” Acquisition eBay Inc. on Thursday announced that it has acquired local shopping search engine Milo, a website that lists real-time inventory for more than 50,000 U.S. retail stores across the nation in a move that will help the struggling e-commerce giant bridge the gap between online and in-store shopping, a market that others — including notably Google — are eyeing as well… Read More

	Google Snaps Up Synthetic Speech Technology Firm Phonetic Arts For years, Google has been at the forefront of the speech recognition technology movement. Furthering its investment in voice interaction, the search engine behemoth Google on Friday said that it is beefing up its voice services with a fresh acquisition of Cambridge, U.K.-based… Read More

	MSN Unveils “Fitbie” An Interactive Health And Fitness Site With Rodale Software monopolist Microsoft’s MSN, which has unleashed a series of very successful sites with major magazine publishers over the last two years, is now joining hands with health and fitness publisher Rodale to launch a new interactive, multimedia online channel, Fitbie, devoted to fitness, nutrition and weight loss… Read More

	Google Acquires “Widevine” To Deliver Full YouTube Movie Service The acquisition spree continues, as global search engine leader Google on Friday virtually announced on The Official Google Blog that it has agreed to acquire Seattle, Washington-based digital media solutions provider Widevine Technologies Inc., which is extensively used by broadcasters to safely transmit video content online… Read More

	Yahoo Japan-Google Accord Wins Regulatory Approval–Ignores Rakuten’s Concerns An association between Yahoo Japan and Google may sound unlikely for all sorts of reasons, but Japan’s Fair Trade Commission on Thursday sanctioned a local web-search alliance between Yahoo Japan Corp. and Google Inc., disregarding concerns raised by Japanese lawmakers and Rakuten Inc. that the deal could hurt competition… Read More

	Facebook Unveiled Redesigned User Profile Pages Social networking website Facebook, which has never been shy about tweaking its design, on Sunday unveiled a new set-up for profile pages that complements photos center stage, allow users to highlight important friends and go into far more detail on their jobs… Read More

	Google Elevates PDF Reading In Chrome 8 Global search engine titan Google on Thursday fixed 13 vulnerabilities in Chrome, and took the wraps off its full version of Chrome 8 with a number of enhancements under the bonnet including a built-in PDF viewer to the desktop browser… Read More

	Amazon Developing Subscription Streaming Services To Rival Netflix Netflix is currently the big monster of the movie streaming game but offerings from several established companies might put up a bit of fight. The WSJ is reporting that Amazon, the online shopping site is working on another streaming service with subscription feature similar to Netflix, which will somehow be bundled with the Amazon Prime service that is currently priced at $79 a year… Read More

	Skype Gearing To Move Beyond The Desktop, Heads For The Web Over the weekend, rumors are swirling around as to what might be taken as a reaction to Google integrating their competing Google Voice VoIP service directly into GMail, popular VoIP provider Skype is becoming more user friendly and could be gearing up to come up with a web-based voice service in the near future, possibly one that integrates video and… Read More

	Google Launches World’s Largest e-Bookstore In U.S. Contends With Amazon And Apple After months of planning, global search engine leader Google on Monday unveiled its much anticipated e-book-only bookstore, Google eBooks, a new service for buying and reading digital books, puts the firm in competition with Amazon, Apple and Borders for the ballooning electronic-book market… Read More

	Amazon Responds To Google eBookstore With Kindle Web App Amazon is not conceding defeat with the recently launched Google’s eBookstore without a fight: Amazon executives on Tuesday demonstrated a new version of “Kindle for the Web” as it tries to play catch-up with search engine leader’s new e-book effort, at a Google press event, which introduced a new, swifter version of the California technology giant’s Chrome software for navigating the Internet… Read More

	Microsoft Unveils “Do-Not-Track” Options In Next IE Browser Attempting to safeguard itself in advance, software monopolists Microsoft on Tuesday announced that its next version of its popular Internet Explorer browser will include a novel technology that can block third-party firms from tracking a user’s activity on the Web… Read More

	Google Updates Gmail Priority Inbox Feature Several months ago, creators of Google’s Gmail service have launched Gmail Priority Inbox. It was very well received and today, the search engine titan Google has upgraded its Priority Inbox, which automatically places important mail on top of your inbox, with a couple of enhancements based on user feedback… Read More

	Bing Introduces Shopping Mall Maps To Local Results Malls are, by their very nature, quite large and gives an irresistible feeling, and while that lends itself well to a diversified retail experience, it can also be overwhelming, if you are visiting one for the first time and are unaware of the layout. Well to that end and just in time for the shopping season: Bing now maps out which stores are inside of malls instead of just placing a map marker on the building itself… Read More

	Yahoo Launches New Local Site With News And Deals For Mobile Users Yahoo! is venturing to go beyond basic city guides, and the Sunnyvale, Calif., company on Wednesday added local news articles, deals from neighborhood merchants and event listings, currently being tested in beta mode in over 30 locations in United States… Read More

	Google Unfurls New Features To AdWords Keyword Tool Acting upon users feedback from the AdWords community search and advertising giant Google has announced a number of modifications and a few new features lately added to the new keyword tool released in September 2009, including three new ways to filter and refine your keyword list… Read More

	YouTube Discards Video Time Limit For Some Users, Eyes TV Moving closer to the world of Hulu and other premium TV sites, and as the copyright concerns fading thanks to Content ID advances, Google owned video-sharing site, YouTube on Thursday said that it was discarding the 15-minute limit on uploaded videos, beginning with a subset of users… Read More

	Google Squeezes Microsoft With Chrome Operating System Addressing a crowd of reporters and guests, search engine titan Google provided an update on its forthcoming browser-based operating system, Chrome OS, a fresh challenge to Microsoft’s dominant Windows OS and emerging Linux, and invited attendees and select early adopters to try Chrome OS running on an unbranded netbook through a pilot program… Read More

	Skype Gearing To Move Beyond The Desktop, Heads For The Web Over the weekend, rumors are swirling around as to what might be taken as a reaction to Google integrating their competing Google Voice VoIP service directly into GMail, popular VoIP provider Skype is becoming more user friendly and could be gearing up to come up with a web-based voice service in the near future, possibly one that integrates video and… Read More

	Skype Gearing To Move Beyond The Desktop, Heads For The Web Over the weekend, rumors are swirling around as to what might be taken as a reaction to Google integrating their competing Google Voice VoIP service directly into GMail, popular VoIP provider Skype is becoming more user friendly and could be gearing up to come up with a web-based voice service in the near future, possibly one that integrates video and… Read More