eBrandz Blog

Search Engine News Updates: February 21-28-2011

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 Woos Yahoo Users With New Delicious Bookmarks Importer Tool

The Delicious saga continues… Recently, when Yahoo revealed that it was ready to wash its hands of Delicious, panicked users began looking for alternative places to send their cloud bookmarks. Seizing the opportunity, global search engine leader Google over the weekend debuted a new Delicious migration tool for Google Bookmarks, as it aims… Read More

Google Debuts Docs Viewer With Microsoft Excel, Adobe Photoshop And Ten Other File Formats

Online document viewing via Google Docs just became a whole lot more useful. Search and Advertising giant Google over the weekend announced that from now on, Gmail and Google Docs users should run into fewer problems when it comes to opening different types of … Read More

Google Street View Ignites Israeli Security Concerns

Ever since the popular Google’s 3D mapping technology has come into effect, the company has relentlessly fought claims its mapping and photography services infringed on personal privacy. Now plans to photograph Israeli cities for Google’s Street View platform has sparked… Read More

Dell, Microsoft Focuses On Providing Cloud-Based Services For Healthcare Providers

Dell Inc., The Round Rock, Texas-based company on Monday announced that it is collaborating with Microsoft to deliver a new cloud-based services that will make it easier for healthcare providers to access and share patient information stored in electronic health records and picture… Read More

Facebook Chat Integration In Hotmail Now Goes Live Worldwide

Social networking aficionados on Facebook will now be able to talk their hearts out with family and friends, as only a few days after announcing social media functionality in the newest version of the Bing toolbar, Microsoft announced that the ability to access Facebook chat within Hotmail is now available in every part of the world that the social network reaches… Read More

Facebook Continues To Enhance Search Results On Site With Categories

Many leading search engines are increasingly focusing on social enhancements — Recently, Microsoft’s Bing and Google have crowned their search engines with social media of their choice, but now, the leading social networking giant Facebook appears to have upgraded its own search: the site now groups query results under category headings… Read More

Google Slammed With Fresh Antitrust Charges In Europe

Global search and advertising behemoth Google Inc., is slammed with new accusations, on Tuesday a French company has filed a fresh antitrust complaint against Google, accusing the search giant of blocking smaller competitors from using its powerful Adsense advertising platform for attracting advertisers… Read More

Facebook Poaches Google’s Head Of Latin America Sales

Digital marketing vets nowadays have an amorous eye for Facebook. In an attempt to make its foothold stronger, the social media powerhouse has achieved a major success in the fight for top talent by recruiting Google’s top executive in Latin America, “Alexandre Hohagen,” who helped establish Google’s presence in Latin America, to be its vice president for… Read More

Twitter For BlackBerry Launches Updated With Version 1.1 Beta

If you own a BlackBerry and constantly hooked to Twitter we have good news for wielding social networking addicts, as RIM has announced the beta release of Twitter for BlackBerry 1.1 on Feb. 22 with a host of novel features including geotagging, deeper integration with social feeds… Read More

Google Simplifies Bidding System On The Display Network

In the world of online advertising, search-based ads rule the roost, and Google’s display network is a great way for small business advertisers to dabble in the banner advertising space, but one part of the process was a bit more complicated than it should have been–the bidding on managed placements. Hence, Google is eliminating the way bidding… Read More

Google Nukes Facebook Contact Integration In Latest Gingerbread Update On Nexus S

Google and Facebook have never been all-out rivals, but with the new turn of events is the latest chapter in the baffling spat between the Silicon Valley biggies, apparently appears as though Google is starting to feel the pressure mounting from Facebook, and this time Google has set the ball rolling over user contact data… Read More

Bing Expands Facebook “Liked Results” With Search

People who are connected with both Bing and Facebook should soon become more familiar than ever with the concept of “social search,” as Bing truly admires Facebook Likes: The Microsoft-owned Google competitor on Thursday expanded the partnership between its Bing search engine and Facebook by adding its “Liked Results” to include any URLs… Read More

Yahoo Officially Pulls Down Another Service “MyBlogLog”

More than a year after announcing what they called the sunset of various properties, Yahoo, the struggling portal for a while now trying to figure out exactly what it is they are offering and how they fit into the new world order taken over by Google. Finally, the company today announced the end date of “MyBlogLog” is May 24, 2011 and recommended users move to Yahoo Pulse… Read More

Payvment Unveils A Virtual Shopping Mall On Facebook

Payvment, a popular social e-commerce platform, that enables anyone to create and operate a retail storefront on Facebook, on Thursday announced the launch of its latest endeavor: first virtual Facebook Shopping Mall on the social media network for over one million searchable… Read More

Google Unfurls Cloud Connect For Microsoft Office Worldwide

In an attempt to gain further stronghold in the clouds computing, global search engine Goliath Google on Thursday unabashedly announced the worldwide availability of Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office, a tool that allows Microsoft Office users to sync Word and other documents with Google Docs… Read More

Google Tweaks Search Formula To Weed Out Garbage

Slammed with stinging criticism to enhance the quality of its search results from smaller rivals, and tacitly admitting that Web publishers are flooding its search engine with low-quality pages, Google over the weekend made a significant change to its formula to combat the growing number of websites that exist primarily to land high on its rankings… Read More

Bing Launches New “Price Predictors” Travel Feature In The Search Box

Microsoft’s search engine Bing over the weekend rolled out a way to sift among billions of airfares much faster that it is now auto-suggesting flight prices directly from the Bing search box. A new feature called “Price Predictor” auto-suggests flights and prices right from the… Read More

Google Glitch Wipes Out 150,000 Gmail Accounts And Messages

The unthinkable has happened… In what could be a major setback for those advocating cloud storage, Google’s Gmail users today experienced something bizarre — Several Gmail help forums were cramped with users who complained today of suddenly and mysteriously having lost their old e-mail, folders, and contacts data that was stored on their account, along with chat logs and the like… Read More