eBrandz Blog

Search Engine News Updates: March 21-31-2011

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…
Facebook For BlackBerry 2.0 Beta Gets A Makeover, Adds More Features

For the Facebook enthusiasts, BlackBerry-maker (RIM) has just rolled out the first beta release for the next major version 2.0 of Facebook for BlackBerry, which is bundled with a refreshed user interface and incorporates a host of new features, including deeper Facebook Chat integration… Read More

Google Street View Gets A Massive Facelift

Global search engine leader Google over the weekend announced via micro-blogging site Twitter that it has revamped its panoramic Street View website, a nifty little place on the Web that allows viewers to take a peek at what is going on in the world through 360-degree street-level imagery… Read More

Facebook Snaffles Mobile Start-Up “Snaptu” To Expand Into Mobile Arena

World’s most popular social media network Facebook, with more than 500 million members, on Monday made yet another dive into mobile platform seeking to deepen its penetration in the emerging 5 billion-plus global mobile phone market with the acquisition of the UK/Israeli company… Read More

Google Latitude Activates Check-Ins On The iPhone App

Barely two months after extending Latitude check-ins for Android devices, search engine giant Google has now launched an updated version of Latitude for iOS that complements support for check-ins feature to the iPhone on Monday… Read More

Zynga Lures Obsessed Online Social Gamers With New RewardVille

For gamers who are engrossed with smash hit games like FarmVille and CityVille, hold your breath as the online social gaming phenomenon has reached a new level. Zynga, the company that created those addictive online game, is introducing the gaming world to yet another obsessive series of games to keep on playing called “RewardVille”… Read More

US Judge Pronounces Unhappy Ending For Google’s Deal To Digitize Books

In an unfortunate blow to Google’s controversial plans to create the world’s biggest digital library, a bookstore and expand its Internet dominance, has run into the reality of a 300-year-old legal predicament: copyright, which has now been shelved by a federal judge in New York on… Read More

Facebook Attaches Check-Ins To Events

Internet’s popular social media network Facebook is reportedly stitching another layer to its location-based features by adding check-ins… Read More

Microsoft’s Bing Mobile Browsing Receives Updates On iOS And Android

Software producer Microsoft on Wednesday introduced some nifty features to its mobile browsing for image search, real-time transit and directions, and thanks to enhanced HTML5 support and some other refinements… Read More

Yahoo Unfurls Search Direct For Instant Results

Struggling internet pioneer Yahoo, which has relinquished its search engine to Microsoft two years ago as part of a major overhaul of its business, on Wednesday began a US rollout of a feature called… Read More

Facebook Boots Out 20,000 Underage User Accounts Every Day

It is shocking to learn that, according to a study conducted by the Pew, nearly half of all 12 year olds in the U.S. are using social networking sites. But, Facebook’s privacy policy, which describes that users must… Read More

Google AdWords Unveils More Location Targeting Improvements

In a crowded world, many businesses that only offer a service or product in a localize area, it can be a very good idea to use location-targeting in AdWords. The search engine giant Google has just announced some… Read More

Facebook Tweaks Its Questions Service

With competition reaching a flash-point in the Q&A space from Quora and LinkedIn Answers, social media site Facebook on Thursday said that it has refurbished its Questions service and transformed it into a succinct, sleek, poll-taking machine, making brevity the soul of wisdom… Read More

Bing Expands Twitter, Facebook Integration To Its News Page

Software monopolist Microsoft’s Bing has just expanded its social search capabilities, displaying real-time Twitter messages on Bing’s News pages, empowering its readers the ability to quickly scan the latest buzz about the biggest events, and simplifying the sharing of Bing… Read More

Google Chases Big Media Ad Dollars For AdWords With New Video Player

Adding some innovative Video Marketing thrust to capture more advertising dollars, search engine behemoth Google on Friday launched a new video player option for AdWords, dubbed “Media Ads,” leveraging Google’s new Lightbox video player… Read More

Facebook Experiments With Real-Time Instant Advertisements

Advertising agencies already have an abundant of criterion they can apply to target their ads to relevant consumers on social media sites, yet the social networking phenomenon Facebook is experimenting with a new… Read More

Google Rolls Out “Think Quarterly” — A Resourceful Online Magazine

Speed-maniac Google has just unveiled its own full-length impressively designed 68-page collection of interviews and articles magazine in the UK, called Think Quarterly, as an extension of the communications for Google U.K. advertisers and partners and online to everybody else… Read More

Warner Bros. Adds Harry Potter, Inception And More Movies To Facebook Offering

Warner Bros., the major US film producer that earlier this month introduced a video renting service straight from a movie’s Facebook fanpage, which obviously turned out to be very promising enough to prompt the movie mogul to expand its trial of offering with digital movie… Read More

Google Preps Mobile Payment Technology — Teams Up With MasterCard And Citigroup

Making payments for your shopping binges with your mobile phone is one of the great dreams of technophiles, which may have just got hassle-free, with search engine titan Google apparently teaming up with Citigroup and Mastercard to set up a mobile payment system that will turn… Read More

MTV To Broadcast “Diary Of Facebook” Wednesday

Unlike many other Facebook TV specials, which has mainly focused on some aspect of Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg’s meteoric rise to world domination — Now, MTV is giving viewers a front row seat as they enter the social media empire Facebook, with “Diary of Facebook,”… Read More

Google Appoints Java Guru “James Gosling” Amid Lawsuit With Oracle

Score one for search engine leader in the Silicon Valley recruiting wars: Google Inc., which is squaring off in court over how Oracle’s technology is used in Android, has hired James Gosling, the notable father of the Java programming language at Sun Microsystems, has announced that he will be taking up a new, undisclosed position at Google… Read More

Google Talk Guru Answers Simples Question Via Chat And Mobile In Realtime

Striving to keep its Labs application alive in the minds of its audience, search engine behemoth Google has quietly integrated an experimental Q&A service into Gmail chatbot, dubbed as “Talk Guru,” a service that enables you to obtain basic information such as the weather and sport scores by sending queries via instant message… Read More

Microsoft Expands “Active View” For LinkedIn, Netflix, Posterous And LivingSocial

Even though Hotmail faring turbulently for holding its ground as an e-mail client to the likes of growing Gmail and ring leader Yahoo, the software monopolist Microsoft product has recently been striving to reinvent its email by placing some formidable new features dubbed as… Read More

Google Makes Privacy Settlement With FTC Over Buzz Violations

In an attempt to avoid lengthy legal procedure, search engine giant Google on Wednesday agreed to a historic settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over charges that its Google Buzz social-networking service employed “deceptive tactics” and violated user privacy… Read More

Gmail To Showcase Better Ads That Learn From Your Inbox

Google is in the process of showcasing a new ad system for Gmail that it dubbed as “better ads” for its users, which will guess what you are interested in, based on the emails you have read & sent in the past… Read More