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LookSmart's 1st quarter loss not as bad as anticipated

LookSmart (LOOK) reported a net loss of $7.1 million, or 7 cents a share, for the quarter ended March 31, 2004.

A year ago, the company reported net income of $1.1 million, or a penny a share. Revenue for the San Francisco-based Web search company was $27.6 million vs. $29.4 million for the year-ago period.

The company's results beat the consensus estimate of a loss of 9 cents per share for the period, according to analysts polled by Thomson First Call.

LookSmart announced earlier Thursday that it had acquired Net Nanny, an online filter, for $5 million. The company also raised its expectations on revenue and earnings for the year.

LookSmart officials said they expect to report revenue for the year of $76 million to $81 million, up from $45 million to $50 million.

Its net loss, previously forecast to be in the $26 million to $30 million range, was narrowed to $20 million to $22 million.

The company's shares closed Thursday at $2.44, up 8 cents.

Source: CBS Marketwatch

Try the Viewpoint Toolbar for IE

The Viewpoint Toolbar shows the usual search result as a web page but in addition to it, it fetches thumbnails of the shown search results.

There are search toolbars and then there is Viewpoint Toolbar. It does what an average search toolbar does and takes it one step ahead. It uses Yahoo! search engine technology to display results but the difference is the visual representation of the search results.

The good thing about the thumbnails is that you can make out if it’s a content rich site or just another keyword spammed site filled with advertisements. Since the generation of thumbnails is done in real time, the process can be quiet painful on a normal dial up connection so they do let you disable the thumbnail display and use the toolbar as a regular search toolbar.

And it does the other functions of a search toolbar pretty well too. There is the usual popup blocker with one interesting extra option (allow non ads popups) which sounds pretty ambitious. I would need some more tests before I can actually fall for that claim. Then there is a search save feature that functions as a visual bookmark, where your searches are saved as clickable thumbnails.

Shortcomings? Pretty apparent. It is supported only on Internet Explorer. Not surprising considering all the popular ones out there are IE only. It needs a good fast connection to properly exploit the features. Should not be a big problem now considering broadband is cheap. And it eats a big chunk of your browser window while displaying the thumbnails. Though it offers you three sizes to choose from.

Is the technology revolutionary? I beg to differ. I don’t know how old this toolbar originally is, but I remember using an Internet Explorer utility way back in 1999 called girafa. It showed you the thumbnails in the sidebar.

The website still exists so does the tool and the technology is apparently used by MSN to show search previews. So, it’s a good idea implemented well which works fine for people like you and me who want more than just results as links!

Download the Viewpoint Toolbar for free at http://search.viewpoint.com/

Source: Search Engine Journal

AOL delivers strong earnings with Google's partnership

Time Warner’s America Online turned in a better than expected performance in the first quarter of 2003 with a little help from paid search and broadband.

According to reports from analysts, paid search brought in revenues of $27 million in Q1 from an AOL partnership with Google.

Google powers the AOL search engine along with AOL search engine advertising - which is actually Google AdWords.

AOL reported total operating income of US$277 million, compared to $194 million in the year-ago period on revenue that remained essentially flat at $2.2 billion. Operating income before depreciation and amortization rose 21 percent, from $404 million in the first quarter of 2003 to $489 million in the most recent quarter.

On news of the earnings, Time Warner shares rose 4 percent, or 70 cents, to $17.21 in early trading on the New York Stock Exchange today.

The number of subscriber defections has slowed, especially with the new AOL Netscape low budget Internet service, and AOL says it has more than 3 million subscribers on its new broadband service.

Total subscription revenue was up 1 percent, or $21 million, due to favorable foreign currency exchange rates at AOL Europe and the expansion of AOL broadband services, Time Warner said, with AOL Europe reporting a growth this quarter of 38,000 which brings its total EU subscribers to 6.4 million users.

Focusing on Search and More Public Users
AOL also introduced the AOL toolbar for both subscribers and nonmembers which opens AOL more so to the public than ever before, giving toolbar users an open door to the Google powered AOL search and members can view incoming email messages.

Along with providing a search box for AOL search, the toolbar lets users add icons to popular AOL content areas such as Yellow Pages, white pages, maps, weather, stock quotes, movie times and AOL CityGuide.

Other features include the toolbar standard popup blocker and access to AOL Instant Messenger. While AOL provides a toolbar for Netscape, the latest toolbar is its first for the AOL-branded service, AOL officials said.

Google and AOL a Sound Partnership
After proven success in the US market with AOL serving Google and Google AdWords search results, AOL and Google will be working together in AOL’s global expansion.

Last week Google announced their partnership with AOL Latin America to display its paid listings on AOL sites in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Puerto Rico. Google already provided Web search technology to AOL Latin America and is currently the search and search advertising provider to the US’s AOL.

Source: Search Engine Journal.com

AXA taking Google to court

Google’s AdWords advertising sales for trademarked names and competitive business terms is being challenged again in the court room, this time in France.

AXA, the world’s No. 3 insurer, is taking Google to court next month in the latest trademark challenge to threaten the heart of Google’s business model advertising.

AXA, which posted $86 billion in revenue last year, is the largest company yet to take the keyword “hijacking” and trademark targeted advertising controversy into a legal court. A ruling may have a large effect on the way Google serves targeted AdWords ads in the EU.

According to AP wire: A preliminary hearing on AXA’s allegations of “brand counterfeiting” is scheduled for May 10 in Paris, a court official said. Both companies have confirmed that litigation is pending but declined to comment on the case or say how much AXA was seeking in damages.

Under French court procedures, details will not be made public until later in the hearings and court procedings. A source close to the insurer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the lawsuit was filed after Google sold AXA’s registered trademarks as advertising search terms.

Google searchers who typed “AXA” or “Direct Assurance” looking for search results were served AdWords text advertisements for other insurance companies which purchased such placement from Google.

Source: Search Engine Journal

Google files for $2.7 billion IPO

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Google, the popular search engine company, registered for a $2.7 billion initial public offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission Thursday.

Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse First Boston were named as the underwriters for the deal.

The company's IPO filing has been rumored for the better part of a year and recent speculation has created a buzz about Internet stocks not seen since online auctioneer eBay went public in September 1998.

Wall Street has been eagerly anticipating a filing from Google so investors could finally get a glimpse into the company's finances.

In the filing, Google said that it generated revenues of $961.9 million in 2003 and reported a net profit of $106.5 million. Sales rose 177 percent from a year ago although earnings increased by just 6 percent.

For the first quarter of 2004, Google reported sales of $389.6 million, an increase of 118 percent from a year ago. Net income was $64 million, up 148 percent from the first quarter of 2003.

Mark Mahaney, an Internet analyst with American Technology Research, said Google's numbers were incredibly strong, noting that its sales grew in the first quarter at a higher rate than Yahoo! and eBay.

Google's core business of selling search-based advertising, which allows companies to purchase ads tied to specific keyword searches, is one of the most lucrative and rapidly growing markets in the tech sector.

Google, founded in 1998 by former Stanford University students Sergey Brin and Larry Page, has quickly become one of the most successful Internet companies, thanks to search technology that many experts say is superior to offerings from rivals.

Click http://money.cnn.com/2004/04/29/technology/google/index.htm to read the whole story on CNNfn.

Overture signs deal with Mooter

Overture and Mooter have entered a two-year agreement which will see Mooter's fledgling search portal carry the Yahoo!-owned, pay-per-click advertising supplier's sponsored listings placed alongside its own.

Australian Web search start-up, MooterSearch, has moved to monetise its online search portal, mooter.com.au.

MooterSearch, which launched its search engine in October last year, has secured a deal with paid search listings provider Overture.

MooterSearch is one of a growing number of search minnows nipping at the heels of the Internet search heavy-hitters such as Google and Yahoo.

The company Mooter has drawn revenue from licensing fees for its patented personalised algorithmic search technology, but the agreement represents the company's first backyard test to see how well its theories on search behaviour convert to cash.

Mooter's search technology attempts to anticipate an individual's search aspirations by studying their behaviour patterns. The MooterSearch portal displays search results in diagrammatically in "clusters".

MooterSearch CEO, Leisl Capper, a trained psychologist, said that examining the behaviour patterns of Web users on the diagram gives clues as to what they need.

Capper believes that examining the "underlying patterns of personal search" rather than just keywords will result in more relevant advertising being served to the end-user.

She also pointed to the fact that small changes click-through rates can mean significant changes in revenue volumes.

In this sense Capper is critical of what she believes is the Web industry's current approach to search personalisation. She claims it's too reliant on theories regarding demographic behaviour.

"I know from my ten years of psychology research it's not really a safe assumption to say that age or where they live or gender is a good basis for deciding what they're interested in," she said.

Capper also bemoaned the gravitation of the market toward Google and the homogenisation of the search experience.

MooterSearch has avoided developing a business relationship with Google as the company doesn't allow its partners to mix its search results with those of other providers.

"We think our own algorithms are pretty good. We don't just want to be a Google portal which is what you end up being," she said.

Mooter's algorithmic search engine accesses the company's home-grown global listing index. It's a hybrid index comprised of its own listings and those drawn from meta-searches of Yahoo!'s Inktomi search engine.

But while she says Google as the 800-pound Gorilla today, it's clear she sees other threats on the horizon.

"I sincerely hope consumers still want choice and Microsoft doesn't slay us all."

Source: ZD Net

Espotting reports 1st quarter 2004 results

Espotting Media today reported preliminary results for the calendar quarter ended March 31, 2004.

'We are delighted that Espotting has reached profitability and that we have had the most successful quarter in the Company's history' commented Daniel Ishag, CEO & Founder, Espotting Media. 'As we approach our merger with FindWhat.com, Espotting's performance is stronger than ever.'

Net revenues were over $30 million in the first calendar quarter of 2004, compared to approximately $18 million in the same period of 2003.

This represents a 67% growth in revenue. Espotting's results for the first calendar quarter of 2004 are preliminary results, prepared by Espotting's finance department. Espotting continues to finalise the audit of its March 2004 fiscal year. Espotting's fiscal 2003 results have been audited by Ernst & Young.

Espotting reached profitability in the first calendar quarter of 2004, for the first time.

Espotting's advertiser base grew by 14%. The number of active advertisers receiving targeted traffic from the Espotting Network was 22,700 in the first quarter 2004. This compares to 20,000 in the third calendar quarter of 2003.

Espotting's volume base of queries grew by 26% in the first calendar quarter of 2004, to nearly 4.3 billion, up from 3.4 billion in the fourth calendar quarter of 2003. The volume base of queries is the number of impressions where Espotting's listings can appear and thus represents the opportunity to reach potential customers.

Daniel Ishag, Espotting's CEO & Founder, has been short-listed as a finalist for Ernst & Young's London Entrepreneur of the Year Award. The award celebrates entrepreneurs who are building and leading successful, growing and dynamic businesses. Ernst & Young run a global awards programme, covering over 35 countries.

On February 10th 2004, Espotting announced its amended merger agreement with NASDAQ listed FindWhat.com (NASDAQ: FWHT). It is currently anticipated that on 2nd June 2004, the shareholders of Espotting, and on the 4th June 2004, the shareholders of FindWhat.com, will be meeting, independently, to vote on the merger.

Source: Espotting Media

About.com network gets overhaul and new CEO

Media company Primedia Inc. on Tuesday plans to unveil an overhaul of its About.com Internet portal, a revamp that follows the appointment of a new chief executive of the unit late last year.

Primedia is giving About.com, a provider of consumer-focused information on topics such as travel, food and health, a make-over in an effort to draw in more readers and build brand identity, the company said.

The relaunch is part of a series of changes at Primedia, which hired new Chief Executive Kelly Conlin last October and has sold high-profile magazines such as New York in an effort to focus more on special interest and business-to-business publications. Primedia earlier this year reorganized into four new business units to try to bolster performance.

"Previously, the About branding wasn't as strong as it should be ... " Peter Horan, About.com's CEO, said in an interview. "We want folks to view more pages on the site, and spend more time every time they visit us."

About.com ranked as the 14th most visited brand online in March with 21.4 million unique visitors, according to Nielsen/Net Ratings. But many people discover its pages through Internet searches and do not know what Web site they are looking at, said David Card, an Internet analyst at Jupiter Research.

"One of the things they are trying to do is make it like a network so that they would have kind of a hub site where you would start off .. and then you might dive deep into the different categories," he said.

As part of the overhaul, the new site will offer more targeted advertising based on a user's profile, so that advertisers can in effect follow a user with specific ads wherever that person clicks on the site.

The stepped-up advertising comes after Primedia sold its online ad service Sprinks to search engine Google, the No. 1 Web search company in the United States. The October deal called for Google to become the exclusive provider of targeted and search advertising across About.com.

Primedia bought About.com for about $690 million, a much-hyped deal in late 2000 billed as a marriage of traditional publishing and new media. However, the company's Internet expansion came just as the Web and advertising markets suffered a steep downturn.

Source: Yahoo News

Consumer research influenced by search engines

The majority of North Americans use search engines for consumer research states a focus group research product undertaken by the search marketing firm Enquiro.

The results showed that 65% of North Americans use search engines to come to a purchasing decision.

Enquiro President Gord Hotchkiss commented on some of the more interesting findings of the study, “We were more than a little surprised by some of the things we found. For example, search engines are much more likely to be used to research a purchase than to make the actual purchase.

Yet the majority of search marketing campaigns are aimed squarely at the purchaser. We also found that there are distinct search behaviors out there. For example, we found that many of the women in the group had different search behaviors than many of the men.”

One other interesting finding of the study was that many search engine users are still drawn first to the traditional, free search listings, rather than the sponsored ones.

This tendency was most noticeable in Google users, where the sponsored listings have always been clearly labeled. The Federal Trade Commission has warned many search providers that sponsored listings have to be clearly marked on the search results page.

This move was spurred by complaints from a group led by consumer advocate Ralph Nader who filed a complaint in 2001 against misleading advertising practices used by some of the major search portals.

Source: Search Engine Journal and Enquiro.com

Yahoo launches Internet radio

People spend hours a day with instant messaging programs, sending text to friends and co-workers online.

These free products already go well beyond the typed word: People can swap files and chat with webcams and microphones.

Instant-messaging software has evolved into the latest weapon in a fierce battle among major Internet companies to reap revenues off whatever you do, wherever you go online.

Now there's even more. On Monday, Yahoo Inc. launched Internet radio and other new services around its messaging software. Microsoft Corp., meanwhile, is leveraging IM as a subscription gaming hub, while America Online Inc. is packaging weather.

"They are becoming much more of a destination as opposed to just a communications front-end," Rob Enderle, an independent analyst in San Jose, Calif., said of instant-messaging services. "They want to own the user experience."

Expanding IM gives Yahoo -- the No. 2 instant-messaging service, with 19 million U.S. users in March, according to comScore Media Metrix -- a way to introduce users to services they may not have known about.

"The more Yahoo services people use, the more loyal they are, the more likely they are to come back and the more likely they are to tell friends," said Lisa Mann, Yahoo's senior director for messaging products.

The new Yahoo! Messenger software, available in a "beta" test Monday with a final version due in late May, reconfigures the main window so your list of friends can remain on the screen as you visit other Yahoo services such as news, stocks and calendar.

The software adds several free features: You can invite friends to play chess or dominoes. The titles of songs you listen to appear on friends' "buddy lists" next to your name so they can listen in, too. You can perform searches with a co-worker and have results appear on both ends.

The integration of search, in particular, could give Yahoo an edge over current search leader Google, which unveiled a Web mail service this month to rival Yahoo's and Microsoft's. Google officials say they have no immediate plans for IM.

"Google would be smart to roll out an IM strategy and to do it fairly quickly," Yankee Group analyst Paul Ritter said.

But while IM can foster collaboration among co-workers, Ritter said, new features can also create distractions.

A February survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project finds that 29 percent of full-time workers use IM at work. A study conducted last year by Harris Interactive for the Internet filtering company Websense Inc. says one in five workplace IM users populated at least 70 percent of their IM lists with personal as opposed to business contacts.

Nonetheless, IM providers aren't shying from new features. Last week, AOL began bundling WeatherBug with the most popular IM software, AOL Instant Messenger. The company is working to integrate features -- for example, issuing localized weather alerts through IM.

AOL also lets you obtain movie times, stock quotes, recipes and phone listings for local businesses by sending IM queries to special "buddy" addresses. And paid subscribers can update their AOL Web journals by sending an instant message.

AOL's main messaging products -- it's the market leader with 44 million U.S. users -- have become key delivery platforms, said Edmund Fish, AOL's senior vice president for desktop messaging.

"We know that the application is open more than six hours a day per user on average," Fish said. "It's a lifeline."

ICQ, a separate service from AOL with 4 million users, last week added its ICQ Xtraz platform for automatically delivering new features such as games, some of which carry a fee.

Still missing, though, is a way for users of different services to reach one another directly, just as people can send e-mail to anyone with an Internet e-mail account regardless of service provider or software used.

Fish said users haven't clamored for such interoperability as much as other features.

Even Microsoft, which once joined Yahoo in a coalition to press AOL for interoperability, is happy to direct the 17 million U.S. users of MSN Messenger to the company's own offerings.

So one tab gets you traffic reports and gas prices from MSN Autos; another lets you sign up for news alerts through MSNBC.com, which Microsoft partly owns.

The company is testing a companion called Threedegrees, which lets IM users listen to music together or share photos. By early this week, Messenger users can also invite friends to play brand-name games like "Wheel of Fortune" for about $5 a month each.

"IM is such a social experience," said Brooke Richardson, an MSN product manager. "We think of these activities and doing things together as a natural extension of messaging."

Source: CTV News

Google chooses Morgan Stanley for its IPO

Internet search firm Google Inc. has moved one step closer to its eagerly awaited initial public offering, choosing Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse First Boston to be lead underwriters, according to a published report Monday.

Plans surrounding the IPO will probably be announced this week, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the situation.

The IPO, widely expected to value the six-year-old firm at about $20 billion, would enrich Google's founders and early venture investors and give it a valuable currency for acquisitions as it takes on rivals Yahoo Inc. (YHOO: Research, Estimates) and Microsoft Corp.

Google's IPO is the most hotly anticipated IPO since the tech bubble burst in 2000.

The brainchild of two Stanford University graduate students -- Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who together hold 30 percent or more of the company -- Google revolutionized Web searching in 1998 by offering a simple and powerful way to find information based on the number of links to a page.

Credit Suisse First Boston, a unit of Credit Suisse Group and Morgan Stanley (MWD: Research, Estimates), would share in a pool of investment banking fees of almost $100 million, the paper reported.

Source: CNNfn.com

Spanish search engine Terra Lycos for sale

The sale of Terra Lycos, which is based in Waltham, Mass., would unwind the $12.5 billion merger of Lycos and Terra Networks, struck in 2000 at the height of the dot-com bubble.

The company has retained investment bank Lehman Brothers to explore a possible sale of its U.S. Internet business, including its flagship Lycos.com Web site, according to a document obtained by CNET News.com.

Now, with a resurgence of online advertising spending, Terra is seeking a buyer for the Lycos division as it focuses on its Spanish- and Portuguese-language businesses, according to the document, prepared by Lehman Brothers and circulated to prospective buyers over the past several weeks.

"An acquisition of Lycos, one of the last available premier Internet search and content properties, represents an outstanding and unique value creation opportunity at a time when advertising budgets are increasing, paid online content is gaining broader acceptance and public markets are favorably rewarding consolidation in the rapidly growing search market," the document reads.

Terra Lycos is hoping to sell Lycos for cash or liquid shares. Although no purchase price was listed, one source familiar with the deal said Terra Lycos is looking to sell Lycos for $200 million, based on $98 million in pro-forma revenue that the site generated in 2003.

A Terra Lycos representative declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Lehman Brothers did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

The effort to sell Lycos offers the latest evidence of the reviving fortunes of Internet companies, thanks to improved financial earnings and growing confidence in online advertising. Hype for the sector is set to soar this week, when Web search engine giant Google is expected to announce plans for an initial public offering, an event that could inspire a new round of dot-com deal-making.

Few expect a return to the heady days of the late 1990s, when Internet companies with no profits were sold for stock worth billions of dollars on paper. But excitement is building once again for Internet companies--particularly those with an angle on Web search.

The success of the paid-search business has sent the stocks of Internet search companies surging.

Yahoo has led the way in deal-making to date, acquiring companies in the United States and abroad with stock and cash from a $2.79 billion war chest. In the past year, Yahoo has acquired paid-search company Overture Services for about $1.6 billion, French comparison shopping site Kelkoo for $579 million in cash and Chinese search company 3721 Network Software for $120 million.

The success of the paid-search business has sent the stocks of Internet search companies surging, including those of little-known players such as Mamma.com, whose shares jumped from about $2 in early March to more than $10. The company is backed by dot-com bubble investor extraordinaire Mark Cuban, who sold his Broadcast.com start-up to Yahoo in 1999 for stock worth more than $5 billion, and cashed out near the top.

The portal wars that marked the mid-1990s ended with Yahoo, America Online and Microsoft's MSN as the victors. Second-tier portals, such as Lycos, have remained popular according to online measurement firms, but their audiences are a fraction of the leaders'.

Walt Disney shut down Infoseek after spending billions of dollars trying to build out its own Go.com Web portal.

Excite.com, which was acquired by cable Internet service provider @Home for $6.7 billion in over-valued stock in 1999, was sold in 2001 in bankruptcy court for $10 million to online sweepstakes site iWon and Web directory InfoSpace.

Ask Jeeves in March said it is buying Interactive Search Holdings, owner of several destination sites including iWon, Excite and My Way, for about $343 million in cash and stock.

Terra Lycos is exploring a sale of its U.S. division following several rounds of layoffs and a recently announced restructuring that aims to refocus the company on search and its subscription businesses. According to the Lehman Bros. document, Lycos currently has about 170,000 paying subscribers for products including its Matchmaker online dating service.

Lycos lost $24 million in 2003, but broke even in the fourth quarter of that year, according to the Lehman document. The company expects to make a profit in 2004.

In February, Lycos laid off 20 percent of its U.S. staff and announced it would focus its business on the social-networking trend established by Friendster and Google's Orkut.com.

A year prior to that, Lycos had laid off 147 employees, 22 percent of the company, to refocus the company on a "global," rather than regional, scale. The company also said it would boost its collection of vertical sites.

Much of the trouble began in the fall of 2002 when German media giant Bertelsmann said it would renegotiate $675 million remaining from a $1 billion deal to buy in advertising as part of the Terra-Lycos merger. The renegotiation eventually lead to the departure of former U.S. head Stephen Killeen.

Things are beginning to look up for Web businesses, however, thanks to renewed confidence in online advertising, bolstered by Web search. Lycos uses Google to post commercial links throughout its Web search results and gets a cut of revenue every time one of its users clicks on the link, something the Lehman Bros. bankers are counting on to lure in potential buyers.

Google and Yahoo subsidiary Overture have helped contribute significant amounts of cash to companies that use their search links. AOL, for instance, received $200 million in 2003 from revenue generated through its Google relationship, up from $35 million in 2002.

Lycos may also have some other assets that would interest potential buyers, such as its collection of various Web sites for certain categories. The company operates businesses such as Matchmaker.com for online personals, Quote.com for finance, Angelfire and Tripod for Web publishing, and Wired News. These businesses could be attractive for some potential suitors.

"Is it worth buying a second-tier portal? To the right buyer it may make a lot of sense," said Charlene Li, an analyst at Forrester Research. "You can make a good living (even) if you're not the top player."

Source: C-Net News

Yahoo not afraid of Google's competition

"Yahoo is a company that has always had good competitors and Google will be a good competitor".

"There is plenty of room for Yahoo to thrive and for Google to thrive," Semel told reporters on the sidelines of a Milken Institute conference.

Chief Executive and Chairman Terry Semel on Tuesday shrugged off the possibility that a widely anticipated public offering by search engine operator Google Inc. would hurt the older Web company.

Yahoo has an estimated 5 percent stake in Google, which is expected this week to announce plans for an initial public stock offering that could value the company at around $20 billion.

But Yahoo also has expanded far beyond its core portal business. Last year, the Sunnyvale, California-based company invested more than $1 billion in acquisitions to challenge Google in the lucrative business of Web search and key-word advertising.

Google, meanwhile, recently announced plans to get into the free e-mail business now dominated by Yahoo and Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) MSN Internet unit.

Semel, a former Hollywood studio head credited with diversifying and reigniting revenues at Yahoo, told a panel at the conference that the nature of search was also changing as customers looked for search engines to allow comparison shopping across the Internet rather than approaching a host site as a place to buy.

"Search has become a lot more than we think of search," he said.

Source: Reuters

Earnings strong at Ask Jeeves, company raises guidance

Ask Jeeves Inc. on Tuesday posted earnings that topped Wall Street expectations and raised its guidance on its stock.

The company raised its quarterly and full-year forecasts, citing increased Internet traffic and a rise in Web-search ad revenue.

Ask Jeeves (ASKJ) shares gained almost 4 percent in extended trade after the company boosted its outlook on the heels of first-quarter results that handily beat Wall Street's profit and revenue forecasts.

Emeryville, California-based Ask Jeeves had a profit from continuing operations of $13.4 million, or 23 cents per diluted share, compared with its year-earlier income from continuing operations of $8.5 million, or 17 cents per diluted share. The year-earlier results included an acquisition-related gain of 10 cents per share.

Revenue was up almost 73 percent, to $39.2 million from $22.7 million last year. The company's advertising partnership with Google Inc., the No. 1 Web search provider, contributed 69 percent of overall revenue.

Analysts had expected Ask Jeeves to post a profit in the range of 16 cents to 19 cents a share on revenue of $35 million to $37.5 million, according to Reuters Research, a unit of Reuters Group Plc.

Ask Jeeves Chief Executive Steve Berkowitz told Reuters in a telephone interview that the company's growth had been fueled mainly by recent improvements to its Teoma search technology, coupled with existing Smart Search features that focus on such things as products, pictures and news.

With just 3 percent of the overall Web search market, Ask Jeeves is dwarfed by industry giants Google and Yahoo Inc. (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Nevertheless, it owns its own search engine and is seen by market experts as a strong alternative to the larger players.

"When we look at our technology, not only is it getting better, but it's different," said Berkowitz, who added that the company also is working to deliver more targeted ads.

"Advertisers are going to come where the users are," he said.

Ask Jeeves expects to close its cash and stock purchase of Interactive Search Holdings in mid-May, a move that is expected to nearly double its Web search market share.

ISH owns Web search sites iWon, Excite and others, which should help Ask Jeeves reach more users while providing a platform for delivering more personalized search results, executives said.

Excluding ISH, Ask Jeeves now sees second-quarter revenue of $38 million. It expects per-share earnings, excluding amortization, of 17 cents and net earnings of 16 cents.

Including ISH, the company expects quarterly revenue of $55 million and per-share earnings, excluding amortization, of 21 cents and net income of 15 cents.

For 2004, Ask Jeeves now sees revenue of about $255 million and earnings, excluding amortization, of $1.00 per share. It sees net income of 75 cents a share.

"The second quarter was a little conservative," said Fulcrum Global Partners analyst Imran Khan, who added that Ask Jeeves' 2004 outlook was in line with his own numbers.

Ask Jeeves shares rose to $38.49 in extended trade, after falling 6 percent to $36.90 on the Nasdaq ahead of the earnings report.

The stock has more than doubled since the start of the year.

Source: Ask Jeeves

InfoSpace extends agreement with Google

InfoSpace today announced it has extended its agreement to distribute Google search results through its network of Web search properties and partner Web sites until 2006.

The agreement includes distribution of Google's award-winning indexed Web search results, as well as targeted advertising from the Google AdWords™ Program.

"We're pleased to continue providing InfoSpace with targeted advertising and award-winning search technology, distributing Web search results and relevant advertising to the millions of users who visit InfoSpace's properties and partner Web sites each month," said Omid Kordestani, Google's senior vice president of Worldwide Sales and Field Operations.

"Our relationship with InfoSpace increases the value we provide to our advertising customers by extending their reach to InfoSpace Web search users at a variety of popular sites across the Internet."

"We have worked hard to build a valuable channel for our search provider partners by developing first-rate products and signing agreements to power Web search at some of the most popular sites on the Internet," said Brian McManus, executive vice president, Search and Directory, at InfoSpace, Inc.

"The extension of our agreement with Google reflects the success of these efforts and will help us to continue delivering top quality search results to our users."

InfoSpace's metasearch technology searches the Web's leading engines and delivers the best results from each. The company's Dogpile search engine has received favorable reviews recently in the search industry and technology press.

In a feature titled "Web Stars: Best of the Web" in the February 2004 issue of PC World, Dogpile was named first runner-up in the Search Engines category, behind category winner Google. In addition, the Dogpile Toolbar took top honors in the Browser Toolbar Plug-Ins category to win a "PC World Best Bet Award."

Also in February, influential search industry newsletter Search Engine Watch named Dogpile "Best Metasearch Engine." Dogpile won the category both in the popular vote and with Search Engine Watch editors Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman.

InfoSpace Web search is offered through the Company's three search properties, Dogpile (www.dogpile.com), WebCrawler (www.webcrawler.com) and MetaCrawler (www.metacrawler.com), as well as the sites of leading distribution partners.

Source: Infospace Inc.

Froogle.co.uk dispute won by Google

Google has been awarded ownership of the domain name froogle.co.uk, which was registered by a UK web hosting company the day after the world's most popular search engine launched Froogle as its product search service.

Google's apparent mistake was to launch its service on 11th December 2002 – and to seek to register the UK domain name two days later – which left a window of opportunity for LWD Internet to snap it up.

Although Google Inc. had froogle.com, froogle.org and other names, and is in the process of registering trade marks for the Froogle brand, it wanted control of the .co.uk name and got its lawyers involved.

For a while, it looked like the parties would settle: to avoid formal proceedings, a deal was struck comprising a payment by Google of £500 together with credit of £1,000 in a Google Adword account. But negotiations broke down, and no transfer was made.

So Google took its case to Nominet, the registry for all domain names ending .uk. Nominet operates a dispute resolution service similar to that provided by the World Intellectual Property Organisation for other disputes, particularly those involving .com, .net and .org domain names.

LWD argued that the registration had been in good faith, that the “timing of our domain registration and the launch of froogle.com was entirely coincidental.” But the panel didn't buy that argument, saying it stretched “credulity too far”.

Nominet panellist Keith Gymer agreed with LWD that Google had insufficient trade mark rights in the UK in the Froogle brand – which had only been launched in the US. However, he reasoned that, for the purposes of the dispute:

-- “It is not necessary that [Google] should have had sufficient Rights to pursue a trade mark infringement or a passing-off action, nor is it necessary that the Rights be in the UK".

He pointed out that the Nominet dispute Policy defines "Rights" as including, but not being limited to, rights enforceable under English law.

Concluding that LWD did register the name with some "speculative intent,” he ordered that it be transferred to Google.

David Woods, a dispute resolution specialist with Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM comments:

"The case provides a useful lesson for anyone launching a new brand. Bringing a case before Nominet costs the complainant a fee of £750 plus VAT. If lawyers are instructed, the complainant has their fees as well. These fees are not recoverable in the event of success in a Nominet or WIPO case. But disputes like this are often avoidable."

Woods points to another example, from 2000, when PDA-maker Palm announced its new MyPalm service before securing the corresponding domain name. It then had to buy mypalm.com from the owner, who had already been using it for e-mail.

"With domain names, the cost of registration is cheap. For a company with an international profile like Google's, it is advisable to obtain a range of defensive registrations before announcing any new brand. Google could have had the name for £10 if it had registered it before announcing the service."

Source: Out-Law.com

Expect Google to announce its new IPO any day now

Google's IPO announcement is linked to the fact that the company will soon be required to publicly disclose more information about its search engine business, under a certain SEC rule triggered after closely held companies surpass a certain size.

Internet-search pioneer Google Inc. plans to announce within days that it will push forward with an initial public offering, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.

Google is expected to have to make such disclosures as early as next week. Lawyers have said that the disclosure requirements can be a trigger for companies to list their shares.

Major elements of Google's expected offering remain unknown, including its size, which banks have been tapped to lead it, and the extent to which individual investors will be able to participate. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment.

Rumors around the Mountain View, Calif., company's IPO have swirled through markets since October. Based on early chatter among bankers, the offering could value Google at as much as $25 billion , and spread nearly $100 million in fees across Wall Street.

Last fall, some of Google's prospective advisers estimated the valuation of the company could be in line with other Internet leaders. Those include Yahoo Inc. (YHOO), valued at $38 billion , Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) at $20 billion and eBay Inc. ( EBAY ) at $54 billion .

Source: Dow Jones News

Google's Dave Girouard and enterprise search

With its release of the Google Search Appliance last year, the long-time leader of consumer Web search turned its attention to the needs of complex, data-intensive enterprises.

"People buy our product [because] our search results are better," Google Enterprise general manager Dave Girouard told the E-Commerce Times. "For the IT person, their customer is the employee. If it's an e-business, then their client is the visitor to the Web site. We really speak to the benefits of the end user, which is really how Google got started."

The search appliance -- which includes hardware, software and support -- interacts with an organization's datacenter to search either an intranet or a business' external Web site. Companies as diverse as Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Kansas, PBS, USA Today, the U.S. Army and Sun Microsystems already have adopted Google's offering.

Dave Girouard, general manager for Google Enterprise, chatted recently with the E-Commerce Times about the Google Search Appliance, its target market, the vast opportunity within the enterprise search industry, and the environment at the Mountain View, California-based company's headquarters.

E-Commerce Times: How would you describe the Google Search Appliance?

Dave Girouard: At a simple level, it's a Google search engine in a box -- a box that has the entire Google search engine built into it. You install [it] in your datacenter, turn it on and set a couple of configurations. Then it creates a Google search engine within your company for all the information, documents and Web pages throughout your corporate intranet. It's also used broadly on public-facing sites for doing what we refer to as a site search.

ECT: What was the genesis of the Google Search Appliance?

It came about a couple of years ago because we had a lot of customers who said, "We really like using Google on the Web, and, gosh, we wish we had that same capability -- that same kind of Google-quality search results on our intranet -- because we find it's harder to find things on our intranet than it is to find things on the entire Web, which seems kind of silly."

Click http://www.crmbuyer.com/perl/story/33539.html to read the whole interview on the CRM Buyer website.

Source: CRM Buyer

A family-friendly search engine by Juvio

Search engine users can now breathe easy. Previously, using a search engine could generate less than desirable content.

The Juvio search engine screens out adult content and offensive language making for a family friendly environment.

Juvio Corporation has added yet another service to its already expanding portfolio of technology-based products and services with the launch of a unique, family friendly search engine.

The Juvio search engine allows viewers to target search results in a safe and friendly environment, free from adult material and offensive language.

Each site listed on the Juvio search engine is screened by a staff member so as to ensure that the site meets a rigorous standard of quality. Currently over 2 million screened sites have already been approved and listed with the Juvio search engine with that number expected to increase profoundly in the near future.

“Search engines have become the most popular method for users looking to find targeted results on the web, that’s a given.” says Juvio President, Paul Burg.

“Almost all other engines have virtually no filtering process in place, meaning that a child could perform a search for a female pop star idol and be flooded with websites offering pornographic content. We believe that people who want to search without coming across these types of sites have that right, as do their children.”

Advertisers can also enjoy Premium Member status for a nominal fee. These special accounts will have their URL and description listed above non-member sites that share identical keywords thereby giving them preferred placement in the Juvio search engine.

Juvio Corporation, operating with over 10,000 sales associates in 86 countries, has already given the approval for its representatives to begin offering Premium Memberships to websites looking to gain much desired consumer traffic.

In addition to a firm commitment to filter out improper sites, the Juvio search engine also allows users to rank sites they have visited and submit their own reviews. This consumer-based ranking service can increase an advertiser’s overall rank status within the Juvio search engine through positive reviews.

“We have created the first content approved, consumer feedback fueled search engine,” says Burg. “Over time, it’s our belief that those with Internet access will no longer tolerate their innocent children becoming exposed to adult-only sites.

Where these users go, the legitimate advertisers and their websites will follow.”

Source: Juvio

Google's SafeSearch filter too sensitive?

The domain name of PartsExpress.com includes an unfortunate string of letters, "sex," which is enough to block the Web site from Google's 'Adult Content' filtered results.

PartsExpress.com proudly touts itself as the Net's No. 1 source for audio, video and speaker components--but online shoppers who rely on an optional feature in the Google search engine to block porn sites would never know it.

Ironically, PartsExpress.com is not alone. A CNET News.com investigation shows that Google's SafeSearch filter technology incorrectly blocks many innocuous Web sites based solely on strings of letters such as "sex," "girls" or "porn" embedded in their domain names.

Google's SafeSearch flaws are more than academic--they can have serious consequences for innocent Web site operators blocked out by them. Google is the most widely used search engine on the Web, and failure to appear in its listings can have a direct impact on sales for some companies, particularly smaller enterprises with limited marketing budgets.

Research company WebSideStory reported last month that Google claimed an all-time high in search referrals, 41 percent of the United States total, and the search giant's market share is steadily expanding.

"Traffic from Google can make or break a business," said Maria Medina, whose family-run clothing business at ALittleGirlsBoutique.com doesn't pass the SafeSearch censor. "Here I am, a mom of four children, creating an at-home business that sells little girl dresses and accessories, in order to spend more time with my children, and I have been filtered out as not being family friendly. Ridiculous."

Matt Cutts, the Google engineer who designed SafeSearch four years ago, said his algorithm looks for a "relatively small" number of trigger words in a Web page's address. If one of those words appears, the SafeSearch algorithm puts the address on a block list and does not take the next step of evaluating the content of the site. "We try to find the best trade-off of precision, recall and safety," Cutts said. "People who opt in to SafeSearch are mostly OK with us being on the conservative side."

Cutts would not disclose how many Web searches are done with SafeSearch enabled, saying only that it's a small percentage of the millions of queries handled by Google each day. But the sloppy filter stands out as a rare black eye for a company that prides itself on superior search technology and boasts on its payroll one of the world's highest concentrations of computer science doctoral degrees. Google claims SafeSearch "uses advanced proprietary technology that checks keywords and phrases" and filters out only Web pages "containing pornography and explicit sexual content."

"That's not very bright," said Karen Schneider, a librarian who runs the Librarians' Index to the Internet and has made a study of filtering software. SafeSearch is "certainly evocative of the very primitive CyberSitter-type tools of the mid-1990s--not a tool of fairly sophisticated development."

The Scunthorpe problem
For years, Web content filters have drawn criticism for inaccuracies. In a famously embarrassing incident in 1996, America Online's errant dirty-word filter prevented residents of the British town Scunthorpe from signing up as new customers. Google's SafeSearch makes the same mistake, blocking local news sites like ThisIsScunthorpe.co.uk and ScunthorpeDistrictCatsProtection.co.uk, a housecat-adoption site.

SafeSearch is "evocative of the very primitive CyberSitter-type tools of the mid-1990s--not a tool of fairly sophisticated development," says Karen Schneider, a librarian who runs the Librarians' Index to the Internet.

Other Web sites misidentified by SafeSearch because of "sex" in their domain names include ArkansasExtermination.com, which claims to offer the "best in termite and pest control." The owner of the business, who declined to give his name, said he was puzzled by Google's categorization: "My brother wrote the Web site. I don't know anything about that."

SafeSearch also marked as unsafe for children JewishSussex.com, a religious Web site; EssexCountyBeeKeepers.org of Topsfield, Mass.; BluesExcuse.SouthBurnett.com.au, an Australian blues band's site; BassExpert.com; and the Anglo-Saxon history site RomansInSussex.co.uk.

Gareth Roelofse, the Web designer of RomansInSussex.co.uk, said his filtering complaints are broader than just Google. "We also found many library Net stations, school networks and Internet cafes block sites with the word 'sex' in" the domain name, Roelofse said. "This was a challenge for RomansInSussex.co.uk because its target audience is school children."

"I think it would be nice if Google would have a 'white list' for sites like ours, but this would involve human man-hours, I guess," said Roelofse, who designed the site on behalf of the Sussex Archaeological Society and local museums.

Cutts, the Google software engineer, noted that the SafeSearch Web page permits visitors to contact the company with complaints. "In most cases it's a pretty unambiguous usage," Cutts said about the word "sex" in domain names and Web addresses. "No filter can be 100 percent accurate. We're always willing to take a fresh look at our filter and see how we can improve it."

Google is not alone in seeking to lure searchers worried about encountering online raunch and ribaldry: Yahoo offers a "mature Web content" search filter, and Ask Jeeves has set up a separate Web site for kid-friendly searches. But Yahoo's filter isn't as hypersensitive as Google's, and lists domains mentioning Sussex, Essex and Scunthorpe as acceptable.

The flaws in Google's filter have persisted despite research published about a year ago that highlighted overblocking in SafeSearch.

An April 2003 report from Harvard University's Berkman Center described similar but less extensive problems with SafeSearch. That report said some news articles and political Web sites were filtered.

David Drummond, Google's vice president for business development, said that at the time of its development, SafeSearch was designed to be overly cautious. "The thinking was that SafeSearch was an opt-in feature," Drummond said. "People who turn it on care a lot more about something sneaking through than they do about something getting filtered out."

"Plainly silly" blocking
CNET News.com evaluated SafeSearch by testing tens of thousands of random Web pages and identifying which ones were incorrectly listed as pornographic. The results showed that Google encountered many of the same problems that have plagued Internet filters for almost a decade. One 1996 analysis, for instance, showed that CyberPatrol blocked National Rifle Association and gay and lesbian Web sites, and CyberSitter cordoned off Usenet newsgroups such as alt.feminism and soc.support.fat-acceptance.

"People who opt in to SafeSearch are mostly OK with us being on the conservative side", says Matt Cutts, the Google engineer who designed SafeSearch.

"None of that surprises me," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) technology and liberty program. "The evidence that we put on in the library filtering case shows that it's very difficult to do filtering without being overinclusive, without blocking things that are just plainly silly. That's the reality of relying on blocking: You're going to block a lot of legitimate material."

The ACLU, which has warned against buggy filters since publishing a report on the topic in 1997, unsuccessfully sued to overturn a federal law compelling public libraries to install filtering products.

"In the end, the lists are proprietary," Steinhardt said. "Without access to the lists, you don't know precisely what's being blocked. You have to rely on the authors of the lists to have the right judgment."

The word "girls" also tends to lead SafeSearch astray. It incorrectly blocks the Web sites of the private school GirlsSchoolOfAustin.org; the bridesmaid dress shop DressyGirls.com; TatuGirls.com, a Russian band's site; and TheCalicoGirls.com, a Web site devoted to cat poetry.

"Porn" in a domain name can confuse SafeSearch just as thoroughly. It won't display Pornichet.org, devoted to improving tourism for the French seaside town of Pornichet; SpornGroup.com, a New York-based business consultancy; Sporn.com, which sells dog leashes; PornkRocks.com, a site devoted to the band Pornk; and Anti-Kinderporno.de, a German effort to oppose child pornography.

Aaron Wolfe, information systems director for SafeSearch-banned PartsExpress.com, said the company is planning to excise that unfortunate string of letters from its domain name.

"We are going to modify our domain name to Parts-Express.com," Wolfe said, adding that the renaming will also help "get around spam filters on e-mail servers."

Source: C-Net News

Google announces deal with RealNetworks

Google and RealNetworks announced today that the Google Toolbar is being distributed with RealPlayer 10 downloads.

By making the Google Toolbar available to the very large number of consumers who install the new RealPlayer 10 every day, Google Toolbar is sure to be popping up on the browsers of more everyday computer users and possibly the browsers of people who prefer Yahoo or other search engines.

With MSN, Yahoo, Amazon’s A9, UCMore, and other search related toolbars hitting the market left and right, this may start a “toolbar distribution war” among search engine companies.

RealPlayer 10 is the first free media player that enables consumers to play content in any of the major Internet media formats, including RealAudio, RealVideo, AAC, Windows Media, QuickTime MPEG-4 and MP3.

By including the Google Toolbar in the RealPlayer download options, consumers can choose to install the free web browser tool which enables them to quickly and easily search Google from any web page. Once Google opens its GMail email to the puplic, the Google Toolbar will be the ultimate place to promote the new GMail and access one’s inbox.

The downloading of the Google Toolbar will be opt-in, giving the RealPlayer audience the option to download Google onto their browser. If Google decided to sneak their toolbar on a browser, like many spyware and parasites currently do, they would be breaking some anti-spyware laws and form distrust among the Internet user community.

“By combining RealPlayer 10’s popularity with the Google Toolbar, we’re helping users worldwide improve and enhance their media playback and search experience on the web,” said Carla Stratfold, senior vice president, North America Sales, RealNetworks, Inc.

“Our relationship with Google demonstrates our commitment to partnering with best-of-breed products and services and leveraging our distribution power to reach consumers in all global markets.”

“RealPlayer 10 is a valuable distribution platform for the Google Toolbar,” said Omid Kordestani, senior vice president, Worldwide Sales and Field Operations, Google Inc.

“We are committed to connecting users worldwide to the information they need, and by offering a free pop-up blocker and autofill capability to RealPlayer 10 consumers, Google further enriches their experience on the web.”

Source: Search Engine News.ca

InfoSpace extends agreement with Google

InfoSpace today announced it has extended its agreement to distribute Google search results through its network of Web search properties and partner Web sites until 2006.

The agreement includes distribution of Google's award-winning indexed Web search results, as well as targeted advertising from the Google AdWords™ Program.

"We're pleased to continue providing InfoSpace with targeted advertising and award-winning search technology, distributing Web search results and relevant advertising to the millions of users who visit InfoSpace's properties and partner Web sites each month," said Omid Kordestani, Google's senior vice president of Worldwide Sales and Field Operations.

"Our relationship with InfoSpace increases the value we provide to our advertising customers by extending their reach to InfoSpace Web search users at a variety of popular sites across the Internet."

"We have worked hard to build a valuable channel for our search provider partners by developing first-rate products and signing agreements to power Web search at some of the most popular sites on the Internet," said Brian McManus, executive vice president, Search and Directory, at InfoSpace, Inc.

"The extension of our agreement with Google reflects the success of these efforts and will help us to continue delivering top quality search results to our users."

InfoSpace's metasearch technology searches the Web's leading engines and delivers the best results from each. The company's Dogpile search engine has received favorable reviews recently in the search industry and technology press.

In a feature titled "Web Stars: Best of the Web" in the February 2004 issue of PC World, Dogpile was named first runner-up in the Search Engines category, behind category winner Google. In addition, the Dogpile Toolbar took top honors in the Browser Toolbar Plug-Ins category to win a "PC World Best Bet Award."

Also in February, influential search industry newsletter Search Engine Watch named Dogpile "Best Metasearch Engine." Dogpile won the category both in the popular vote and with Search Engine Watch editors Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman.

InfoSpace Web search is offered through the Company's three search properties, Dogpile (www.dogpile.com), WebCrawler (www.webcrawler.com) and MetaCrawler (www.metacrawler.com), as well as the sites of leading distribution partners.

Source: Infospace Inc.

Earnings strong at Ask Jeeves, company raises guidance

Ask Jeeves Inc. on Tuesday posted earnings that topped Wall Street expectations and raised its guidance on its stock.

The company raised its quarterly and full-year forecasts, citing increased Internet traffic and a rise in Web-search ad revenue.

Ask Jeeves (ASKJ) shares gained almost 4 percent in extended trade after the company boosted its outlook on the heels of first-quarter results that handily beat Wall Street's profit and revenue forecasts.

Emeryville, California-based Ask Jeeves had a profit from continuing operations of $13.4 million, or 23 cents per diluted share, compared with its year-earlier income from continuing operations of $8.5 million, or 17 cents per diluted share. The year-earlier results included an acquisition-related gain of 10 cents per share.

Revenue was up almost 73 percent, to $39.2 million from $22.7 million last year. The company's advertising partnership with Google Inc., the No. 1 Web search provider, contributed 69 percent of overall revenue.

Analysts had expected Ask Jeeves to post a profit in the range of 16 cents to 19 cents a share on revenue of $35 million to $37.5 million, according to Reuters Research, a unit of Reuters Group Plc.

Ask Jeeves Chief Executive Steve Berkowitz told Reuters in a telephone interview that the company's growth had been fueled mainly by recent improvements to its Teoma search technology, coupled with existing Smart Search features that focus on such things as products, pictures and news.

With just 3 percent of the overall Web search market, Ask Jeeves is dwarfed by industry giants Google and Yahoo Inc. (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Nevertheless, it owns its own search engine and is seen by market experts as a strong alternative to the larger players.

"When we look at our technology, not only is it getting better, but it's different," said Berkowitz, who added that the company also is working to deliver more targeted ads.

"Advertisers are going to come where the users are," he said.

Ask Jeeves expects to close its cash and stock purchase of Interactive Search Holdings in mid-May, a move that is expected to nearly double its Web search market share.

ISH owns Web search sites iWon, Excite and others, which should help Ask Jeeves reach more users while providing a platform for delivering more personalized search results, executives said.

Excluding ISH, Ask Jeeves now sees second-quarter revenue of $38 million. It expects per-share earnings, excluding amortization, of 17 cents and net earnings of 16 cents.

Including ISH, the company expects quarterly revenue of $55 million and per-share earnings, excluding amortization, of 21 cents and net income of 15 cents.

For 2004, Ask Jeeves now sees revenue of about $255 million and earnings, excluding amortization, of $1.00 per share. It sees net income of 75 cents a share.

"The second quarter was a little conservative," said Fulcrum Global Partners analyst Imran Khan, who added that Ask Jeeves' 2004 outlook was in line with his own numbers.

Ask Jeeves shares rose to $38.49 in extended trade, after falling 6 percent to $36.90 on the Nasdaq ahead of the earnings report.

The stock has more than doubled since the start of the year.

Source: Ask Jeeves

Froogle.co.uk dispute won by Google

Google has been awarded ownership of the domain name froogle.co.uk, which was registered by a UK web hosting company the day after the world's most popular search engine launched Froogle as its product search service.

Google's apparent mistake was to launch its service on 11th December 2002 – and to seek to register the UK domain name two days later – which left a window of opportunity for LWD Internet to snap it up.

Although Google Inc. had froogle.com, froogle.org and other names, and is in the process of registering trade marks for the Froogle brand, it wanted control of the .co.uk name and got its lawyers involved.

For a while, it looked like the parties would settle: to avoid formal proceedings, a deal was struck comprising a payment by Google of £500 together with credit of £1,000 in a Google Adword account. But negotiations broke down, and no transfer was made.

So Google took its case to Nominet, the registry for all domain names ending .uk. Nominet operates a dispute resolution service similar to that provided by the World Intellectual Property Organisation for other disputes, particularly those involving .com, .net and .org domain names.

LWD argued that the registration had been in good faith, that the “timing of our domain registration and the launch of froogle.com was entirely coincidental.” But the panel didn't buy that argument, saying it stretched “credulity too far”.

Nominet panellist Keith Gymer agreed with LWD that Google had insufficient trade mark rights in the UK in the Froogle brand – which had only been launched in the US. However, he reasoned that, for the purposes of the dispute:

-- “It is not necessary that [Google] should have had sufficient Rights to pursue a trade mark infringement or a passing-off action, nor is it necessary that the Rights be in the UK".

He pointed out that the Nominet dispute Policy defines "Rights" as including, but not being limited to, rights enforceable under English law.

Concluding that LWD did register the name with some "speculative intent,” he ordered that it be transferred to Google.

David Woods, a dispute resolution specialist with Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM comments:

"The case provides a useful lesson for anyone launching a new brand. Bringing a case before Nominet costs the complainant a fee of £750 plus VAT. If lawyers are instructed, the complainant has their fees as well. These fees are not recoverable in the event of success in a Nominet or WIPO case. But disputes like this are often avoidable."

Woods points to another example, from 2000, when PDA-maker Palm announced its new MyPalm service before securing the corresponding domain name. It then had to buy mypalm.com from the owner, who had already been using it for e-mail.

"With domain names, the cost of registration is cheap. For a company with an international profile like Google's, it is advisable to obtain a range of defensive registrations before announcing any new brand. Google could have had the name for £10 if it had registered it before announcing the service."

Source: Out-Law.com

Mesothelioma - FDA Approves First Drug for Rare Type of Cancer," Reuters

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved Alimta (pemetrexed disodium) for use in combination with cisplatin for the treatment of patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma a rare type of cancer. Alimta received a priority review and is designated as an orphan drug. It is the first drug approved for this condition. Cancer of the mesothelium, a membrane that covers and protects most of the internal organs of the body is rare; about 2,000 new cases are diagnosed in the United States each year. This form of cancer is usually associated with a history of asbestos exposure.

Asbestos fibers lodged in the lung attach to the outer lung lining and chest wall, causing tumors to grow. By the time symptoms appear, the disease is usually advanced, and patients live, on average, nine to thirteen months following diagnosis.

"Up to now there has been no effective treatment for treating mesothelioma. Alimta offers new promise in treating this fatal cancer," said FDA Commissioner Mark B. McClellan M.D., Ph.D, "and its quick approval demonstrates FDA's commitment to making safe and effective products available as soon as possible."

The effectiveness of Alimta was established in one randomized clinical trial comparing the effects of treatment with Alimta given with cisplatin to treatment with cisplatin alone. Patients receiving Alimta and cisplatin lived three months longer after randomization than patients given cisplatin alone (12 months vs. nine months). Alimta must be administered with vitamin B-12 and folic acid supplementation to decrease the incidence and severity of adverse effects.

The most common adverse reactions observed with use of Alimta are low white blood count, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, rash, and diarrhea. Patients and caregivers should be encouraged to report the onset of fever, chills, diarrhea, and mouth ulcers immediately, since these symptoms could be a sign of infection, resulting from bone marrow suppression by the drug. Orphan drugs are developed to treat rare diseases, that is, conditions that affect fewer than 200,000 people in the U.S. The Orphan Drug Act provides a seven-year period of exclusive marketing for the drug to the first sponsor who obtains marketing approval for a designated orphan drug.

Alimta will be distributed by Eli Lilly and Company, Indianapolis, Ind.

Search engine toolbars are becoming essential tools

Search engine toolbars for the Internet Explorer browser have become nearly essential tools online: They can block pop-up ads, alert you to new e-mail, even protect you from scams.

You'd need a half-dozen to combine all the best features, the Internet equivalent of leaving home in the morning with six different wallets.

So to narrow the choice I tested 11 - two of which, from America Online and EarthLink, debuted Monday.

Toolbars from the search leaders - Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and AOL - all have decent pop-up blockers that kill windows I don't want (ads) and permit ones I request (shipping details, for instance). And they're all a snap to download and install.

The Google Toolbar includes an extremely useful feature for frequent online shoppers. It automatically fills out online forms, such as name and address. A password protects stored credit card information. And if you keep a Web journal using Blogger software, which Google bought last year, you can add entries from the toolbar.

A small bell appears on the Yahoo! Companion Toolbar when users of Yahoo e-mail accounts have new messages. You can also access bookmarks of favorite Web sites that you've stored on Yahoo. What I like best about the Yahoo toolbar is its portability. Settings are stored online, so you can customize it or add bookmarks wherever you are.

As for Microsoft, you can launch Hotmail and Messenger from its MSN Toolbar, but there's nothing special once you're there.

The AOL Toolbar displays the number of mail messages you have - if you're logged on already through AOL's regular software.

Yahoo outperforms MSN and AOL by allowing sign-ins from the toolbar, but Google outshines all of them. I found its search engine and extra features most useful. It even has a green bar that shows the relative popularity of the site you're visiting.

Among the rest, toolbars from Dogpile and Ask Jeeves have decent pop-up blockers. AltaVista and EarthLink make mistakes recognizing legitimate pop-ups, and Alexa keeps popping up annoying prompts asking whether I want that pop-up or not.

Dogpile, Ask Jeeves and Alexa have buttons for mailing Web links to a friend. Alexa's was the best.

Beyond that, each has its own handy features:

-Dogpile supports an emerging technology called Really Simple Syndication, or RSS. With it, headlines from your favorite Web journals, news or other RSS-enabled sites scroll across the toolbar.

-Ask Jeeves lets you shrink and expand entire Web pages - not just their text in the more limited manner of the Internet Explorer browser.

-Alexa, owned by Amazon.com, suggests related sites, as in "People who visit this page also visit ..." It's similar to Amazon's shopping recommendations. And should a Web site disappear, a copy at the Internet Archive may be reachable with the click of a button.

-AltaVista has a button for translating text to and from other languages. With it, you might get at the gist of what's going on.

-EarthLink blocks fake EarthLink, eBay and PayPal sites that try to steal your passwords or credit card numbers. It also searches your computer for malicious programs known as "spyware," though to remove them, you need an EarthLink account.

Among these features, EarthLink's ScamBlocker is the most promising, especially once sites identified by the anti-spam company Brightmail are added next month.

I also tried GuruNet, which helps you cull useful information from the junk by narrowing results to reference materials like encyclopedias and maps. It reduces clutter. But unlike the others I tested, GuruNet requires a cash outlay - $29.99 a year.

I like Dogpile's RSS scroller and Alexa's recommendations. In both cases, there's a trade-off. They collect information on surfing habits, so read their privacy policies carefully.

Most people will probably be fine with either the Google or Yahoos toolbar, unless there's a specific feature they'd use a lot - perhaps because you frequent foreign sites (then download AltaVista's as well) or have poor eyesight (use Ask Jeeves).

Sadly, however, all these toolbars work only on Windows computers running Internet Explorer. For other browsers, try GGSearch, a standalone application that looks like a toolbar. You get basic Google searches but not extras like pop-up blockers.

Or use Opera's browser, as I do. It has the Google search box and pop-up blocker built-in, though its form filler isn't as good.

Source: News Observer.com

Google announces deal with RealNetworks

Google and RealNetworks announced today that the Google Toolbar is being distributed with RealPlayer 10 downloads.

By making the Google Toolbar available to the very large number of consumers who install the new RealPlayer 10 every day, Google Toolbar is sure to be popping up on the browsers of more everyday computer users and possibly the browsers of people who prefer Yahoo or other search engines.

With MSN, Yahoo, Amazon’s A9, UCMore, and other search related toolbars hitting the market left and right, this may start a “toolbar distribution war” among search engine companies.

RealPlayer 10 is the first free media player that enables consumers to play content in any of the major Internet media formats, including RealAudio, RealVideo, AAC, Windows Media, QuickTime MPEG-4 and MP3.

By including the Google Toolbar in the RealPlayer download options, consumers can choose to install the free web browser tool which enables them to quickly and easily search Google from any web page. Once Google opens its GMail email to the puplic, the Google Toolbar will be the ultimate place to promote the new GMail and access one’s inbox.

The downloading of the Google Toolbar will be opt-in, giving the RealPlayer audience the option to download Google onto their browser. If Google decided to sneak their toolbar on a browser, like many spyware and parasites currently do, they would be breaking some anti-spyware laws and form distrust among the Internet user community.

“By combining RealPlayer 10’s popularity with the Google Toolbar, we’re helping users worldwide improve and enhance their media playback and search experience on the web,” said Carla Stratfold, senior vice president, North America Sales, RealNetworks, Inc.

“Our relationship with Google demonstrates our commitment to partnering with best-of-breed products and services and leveraging our distribution power to reach consumers in all global markets.”

“RealPlayer 10 is a valuable distribution platform for the Google Toolbar,” said Omid Kordestani, senior vice president, Worldwide Sales and Field Operations, Google Inc.

“We are committed to connecting users worldwide to the information they need, and by offering a free pop-up blocker and autofill capability to RealPlayer 10 consumers, Google further enriches their experience on the web.”

Source: Search Engine News.ca

Google wins google.ru domain name

Russian Internet culture developed later than the Western Internet culture.

Russian law also took longer to surface online — as many international companies who came to Russia to do business had a chance to find out the hard way.

All the way back at the dawn of the Internet Age in Russia, some people were already thinking of profiting from Western expansion.

Coca-Cola, Nokia, Kodak, Audi, and most recently, Google, have all had to battle cybersquatters who had registered Western trademarks as domain names.

Google, the Internet’s favorite search engine, has had a Russian interface since the spring of 2002, but not until April 3, 2004, was Google Technology finally able to register a proper Russian second-level domain name (in the .ru zone) for its search engine.

Russian Internet users who typed Google.com into the location window of their browsers were automatically redirected to Google’s mirror at www.google.com.ru. www.google.ru was being used by Avalanche, a Russian company that got the domain from Denis Gledenov, an infamous Russian domain investor, reports Mosnews.com.

Source: Multi Reg

Google going public for April 30?

Privately held Google appears to have triggered a provision of the 1934 Securities and Exchange Act that requires it to disclose closely guarded financial details by the end of the month.

Rampant speculation about a possible public stock offering has turned Google into the most closely watched technology company in the world. Now the Mountain View Internet company may be forced to show its hand.

The filing, with the Securities and Exchange Commission, would reveal so much about the secretive firm that many experts believe Google might take the next logical step and file for an initial stock offering, reaping the financial rewards that go along with having to open its books.

``It's a terrible place to be in because you get all the disadvantages of being a public company and none of the advantages,'' said Scott Spector, an attorney with Fenwick & West in Palo Alto. ``I can't imagine the company wanting to be in that situation.''

Google officials have been tight-lipped about the reporting requirement and possible plans for an IPO, and they declined to comment for this story.

But many observers believe that Google has triggered the requirements to become a ``publicly reporting'' company. Companies must report financial results to the SEC once they have at least $10 million in assets and more than 500 shareholders of record, including employees who hold stock options.

Google's profits are thought to be $100 million or more. And the assumption -- reinforced by Google's Web site, which touts ``pre-IPO stock options'' to prospective employees -- is that the company has granted stock options to most of its more than 1,000 employees.

If those assumptions are true, then Google should have to start making quarterly filings to the SEC by April 30, which is 120 days after the close of its fiscal year.

Reporting companies must disclose the same information to federal regulators as publicly traded companies, including assets, liabilities, operating expenses and partnerships. But they do not trade their shares on the Nasdaq or New York stock exchanges.

``The notion is that once you have 500 shareholders, you are a public company,'' said Peter M. Astiz, a securities attorney with the Gray Cary law firm in East Palo Alto. ``The effect is you become public. They have to report all the same numbers.''

Most companies view this middle ground with disdain because they spend millions to comply with government regulations and get nothing in return. In fact, filing this paperwork can come with disadvantages. In some circumstances, employees or investor shareholders can start selling their shares on the over-the-counter bulletin board. Companies typically prefer to control when and how their shares are traded.

Companies that grow big enough to hit the filing requirement typically opt to become a publicly traded company first, attorneys said. That's because public stock offerings can enrich employees and investors, and they give the company access to cash that it can use to innovate or acquire other companies.

Google executives have appeared in no hurry to become a public company, in part because it would begin to lift the veil of secrecy under which they seem to enjoy working. What is more, the company's revenue stream appears strong, and it may not need the money that an offering of public stock would generate.

Also, Google may not want to undergo the cultural shift that takes place in companies when they have to meet analyst and shareholder expectations every quarter. Google may turn out to be the rare company that willingly files public financial reports but doesn't publicly trade its stock.

Levi Strauss is one company that does this. Its stock is privately held -- mostly by descendants of the Strauss family -- but the company files quarterly reports with the SEC.

Another option is for Google to dodge the public reporting requirement. In 2001, the SEC detailed how companies can do so: by disclosing their financial information only to shareholders.

``You've got to give them the same information that you would otherwise give if you were public,'' Spector said.

Preparing the financial information is costly, and companies run the risk of the information leaking to outsiders. But several companies have picked this option.

``I would think Google would move mountains to not go public this way,'' said Kip Weissman, attorney with the Luse Gorman Pomerenk & Schick law firm in Washington, D.C.

Google could also buy back its shares from employees and investors, but few experts said they believed that was likely to happen.

Source: Silicon Valley

Voting by the Internet up 12 percent

The first electronic vote counting system was introduced in South Korea, even though counting in Seoul and Gyeonggi province was slower than expected, and Internet portal sites and wired and wireless telecommunications services updated poll results as they were released.

On Thursday during the National Assembly elections, about 15 million subscribers at SK Telecom, the largest mobile service provider in Korea, used their cell phones to place 319 million calls. The figure was about 33 million more than the average for a holiday.

"The increase is attributable to the election," an SK Telecom official said. The power of information technology was illustrated during the election.

KTF, the second largest cell phone carrier here, said text message traffic on Thursday was 12 percent higher than on other holidays. The voter turnout was nearly 3 percentage points higher than in the Assembly elections in 2000; in Seoul, the increase was about 6 percentage points. "Information technology, such as mobile phones, must be credited for the increase in turnout," an industry official boasted.

The electronic ballot counting system was set up by SK C&C. The system scans paper ballots and tallies them. Safeguards include a system that puts ambiguous ballots aside for scrutiny by poll officials.

KT, the nation's dominant landline telephone carrier, was on watch to ensure that its lines were available for precinct polling stations to transmit results electronically to the National Election Commission's computers.

Internet portal sites updated the election data as the commission released it, and political junkies pounded their keyboards in chat rooms.

The downside, though, was the increase in Internet election law violations. Campaign violations on the Net rose from 25 four years ago to 254 in the 2004 campaign.

Source: Joong Ang Daily

Google Overshadowing News

When I want to optimize a page for top Yahoo! rankings, it just happens. Little to no effort = lots o distribution. I can't think of a single site I have ever worked on which has not got decent Yahoo! distribution. Google, on the other hand, either takes a bunch of money, time, or understanding to manipulate. Last November Google made changes that most SEO's still do not understand to this day.

Google is so far ahead of it's competitors that it is a joke. I think they honestly hold back tons of information and innovation (perfecting it in the background) just waiting for competition to have an exciting story to squash.

Yahoo! dumped Google. Google added a billion pages to it's index. Which got more coverage in general media...Google adding a billion pages.

Amazon A9 just launched. Google just launched the ability to target ads to your neighbor's house. Google's new technology will allow small people with low funds to cause huge ripples in social and political processes...I, for one, think it is fun to mix things up a bit :)

The changing face of search engines

Ken Abbott knows the ins and outs of search engine marketing: Dollars for clicks are in, directory listings are out.

Abbott, head of Web marketing for Integramed.com, which sells infertility treatments, considers obtaining an editorial listing in Yahoo's directory "a waste of time," given that 95 percent of his site's traffic comes from pay-per-click advertising in search networks Overture and Google.
"I paid for reviews with all the directories at the beginning of my marketing initiative (in 1999), but being in a directory is meaningless now unless you can rank on the first page," he said. "I have complete control with pay-per-click advertising--I can get to the top, I control the headline and message--whereas with a directory listing, it's what (Yahoo editors) decide to write."
Once the primary road signs to navigating the Internet, directories have moved to the shoulder. They are being displaced by algorithmic search tools and commercial services that many people--Abbott among them--now believe do a better job in satisfying Web surfers and advertisers. The transformation is bringing to an end an altruistic era of human editors, who once wielded significant clout in driving traffic to Web sites through recommendations made without regard for commercial considerations.
The transition has sparked a power shift in the search world that is forcing directory leader Yahoo to reinvent its search business to better compete with an uprising of algorithmic and commercial search providers, most notably Google and Overture Services. In response, Yahoo over the past year has continued to distance itself from its noncommercial directory roots, adding paid search links from Overture, demoting directory listings on its search pages to results provided by Google and scooping up algorithmic search provider Inktomi.
The recent flurry of activity at Yahoo has company watchers wondering what the future holds for the portal's search tools, and what place, if any, there might be for its once dominant directory. "In October, Yahoo made the directory secondary to Google," said Danny Sullivan, editor of the industry newsletter Search Engine Watch. "Suddenly the value of getting listed in Yahoo seemed to disappear. Now, if you're not listed with Yahoo, it may not matter."
Clearly, it pays to be in the paid search business. Yahoo's deal with Overture has helped it achieve three consecutive quarters of profitability and has allowed management to boost financial expectations. Yet the success in partnering with commercial search providers raises the inevitable question, why pay dozens or hundreds of people to search the Web when another company wants to pay you to do the same?
Yahoo keeps the operations of its search editors close to its vest. Company executives will not comment on how many editors it employs. A Yahoo representative said "on average" the company employs "a building full" of directory editors. At least one search engine marketer has said that Yahoo has scaled back on its directory editors slowly over recent months, giving people new duties or emphasizing paid search listings.
But Srinija Srinivasan, Yahoo's vice president and editor in chief, denied the company has recently laid off or redeployed members of its editorial staff. "The state of search technology thankfully has improved," Srinivasan said in an interview. "That said, we firmly believe there continues to be a gap between the best technology and what we can provide incrementally with the human experience."
Conceived by co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo in a Stanford trailer in 1994, much of Yahoo's popularity was built on the directory's ability to give order and organization to the unruly Web. As legend has it, Yahoo was developed by Yang and Filo as a way to categorize their favorite sumo wrestling Web sites. Even the company name--originally the acronym "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle"--highlighted its directory roots.
Unlike the other search competitors that emerged in the mid-1990s, such as Excite, Lycos, Infoseek and AltaVista, Yahoo did not develop its technology to crawl through millions of Web sites. Instead, it hired humans to manually search the Web to find, organize and review sites about thousands of topics. Yahoo's editorial team became an emblem of the Internet's rise where legions of college graduates would do the heavy lifting to help Web newbies find what they want.
Yahoo did not rely exclusively on its directory, signing partnerships over the years with algorithmic search engines such as AltaVista, Inktomi and Google to provide backup results. But up until October, these third parties were never the centerpiece of Yahoo's search results. In late 1999, Yahoo began to tinker with its coveted directory service. Under then Yahoo CEO Tim Koogle, the company launched a new fee plan, requiring sites to pay $299 a year--$600 for adult sites--in order to be considered for inclusion in its directory listings. If accepted, companies would be required to pay the fee annually to retain their listing.
Yahoo does not break out results for this business, but said it has no plans to discontinue it. While many analysts called the move to paid inclusion overdue at the time, others believe the decision hurt the directory's credibility. "One has to wonder how the economic interests of search is messing with the altruistic agenda of the directory," said Lance Loveday, president of Web marketing consultancy Closed Loop Marketing.
Altruism vs. cash
Yahoo isn't the only directory facing criticism these days. Search engine marketers also point to the Open Directory Project (ODP) as an example of how far directories have fallen behind algorithmic search providers, both in terms of the reach and quality of the results they provide. AOL Time Warner-owned Netscape runs the ODP, which launched in June 1998 under the name NewHoo. It uses about 210,000 volunteer editors to catalog the Web, many of whom are search engine marketers. Though Google and AOL both draw on this directory for specialized searches, the service is thought to be plagued with troubles. Hardware failures over the winter holidays caused the directory to be out of commission for several months, for example.
Elisabeth Osmeloski, a search engine marketer and a volunteer editor with ODP, said that more than 50 percent of the sites submitted for review are spam links, causing a major sap to volunteers' time. "The ODP has a huge backlog from bad submissions; there are sites waiting for two years to be reviewed. It would be better if Netscape got (more) behind it," she said.
Bob Keating, editor in chief of the ODP, said that it's fighting the good fight against the encroachment of the profit motive into what is rightfully an editorial process. "We're trying to combat the commercialization of search," said Keating, whose ODP has a catalog of 3.8 million sites, compared to some 4 billion for Google. "A lot of Web directories have gone the other direction. As search gets even more commercialized, the Open Directory is the only one that's left that's really grounded in the original concept of the Net--that it's an information source and not a money-making vehicle."
He added that the ODP has checks and balances to stop spammers from controlling the directory. LookSmart, which launched in October 1996 and was originally backed by Reader's Digest, started as a directory of the top sites in any category on the Web. It employed hundreds of editors and writers to handpick sites. Now, it employs about 100 editors, but they largely review commercial sites that have bought into the directory, which is licensed to Microsoft's MSN. It also runs a noncommercial directory called Zeal.com that is staffed with about two or three editors and a team of volunteers.
Many small sites say they still see value in a listing in directories like Yahoo's, LookSmart's and the ODP because such links are given weight by Google's PageRank, a system for evaluating the popularity of a Web page. Google rides on the back of human-screening of Web sites, and many people see directory links as an easy step on the road to popularity in major search engines.
Tim Mayer, vice president of Fast Web Search, which was recently acquired by Overture, said that directories are largely treated like any other link on the Web, and some may be thought of as more authoritative than others. But he said the influence of the directories has faded as they have become more commercial. "The more authoritative the site or directory is that is linking to your site, the more weight given in the link popularity," said Mayer, adding that link popularity is only one feature of many in the relevance algorithm. Still, he said, it's less important "in many search engines in the past years as directories have moved from purely editorial to pay-for-play."
Story by Stefanie Olsen and Jim Hu
Source: CNET News.com

Google mulling changes to its Gmail service

Internet search company Google is considering changes to its Gmail e-mail service amid criticism over privacy concerns, the company's president said.

Privacy groups and a California state senator have criticized the free e-mail service because it would place advertising in personal messages after searching them for key words.

Google President and co-founder Sergey Brin told the Journal his company will not make any "rash changes" to the e-mail service which is still being tested by thousands of users.

But he also said the idea of letting Gmail users opt in or out of the targeted ad service was an idea that "is being batted about. We certainly wouldn't rule it out," the Journal said.

In late March the world's top Web search company announced plans to launch Gmail -- a service that would offer users one gigabyte of free storage, more than 100 times the storage offered by other free services from Yahoo Inc.

Source: Yahoo News

Amazon launches its search e

Amazon's A9.com offers both a Web site and an Internet Explorer toolbar from which users can enter search terms.

The service, in test mode for now, is operated by a Palo Alto, Calif.-based subsidiary and branded separately.

Searches also can be limited to just Amazon.com products -- as well as the text of books available at Amazon.com.

A9's service relies heavily on Google, which supplies many of the search results, and Amazon's Alexa subsidiary, which provides traffic, related sites and other information on specific Web sites.

Search results also include text ads from Google's sponsored links program. Alison Diboll, an A9 spokeswoman, declined to say whether the company eventually plans to create its own search technology. She confirmed Amazon plans to use the technology both for its online store and the rest of the Web.

''Having this e-commerce search technology as a separate company is part of Amazon's continuing development from an online retailer to a technology services company,'' she said.

Unlike other Internet search tools, users sign onto A9.com with a user name and password from their regular Amazon.com account. A9 also offers an anonymous site that does not require a user name and password.

Source: Chicago Sun

Google to display local sponsored listings

In March, Google launched "Google Local", a service that helps surfers find local businesses by typing in a search term and a city name.

Google today will introduce capabilities for U.S. and international advertisers to reach Internet surfers by their city of origin, a move that represents the company's latest efforts for ad sales.

It also lets advertisers reach customers in their region, or within about 210 designated market areas in the United States.

Now, Google Local is circling in closer to consumers, tracking Web surfers' location down to the city level.

That means that advertisers (in the United States) can tailor promotions to hit people in a specific city, so, for example, a surfer in New York who searches for "sushi" may get results accompanied by ads for local restaurants.

Advertisers can also tailor ads so they appear on Google and its partner Web sites only when a visitor originates within a defined radius of a business' physical address; Google calls this feature "customized targeting."

For the first time, customized targeting will be available to international advertisers.

"This is a new way for small-business advertisers to step in at a level that's meaningful to them, which is around their business," said Sukhinder Singh, general manager of Google Local.

Mountain View, Calif.-based Google has been rapidly expanding local search during the past eight months.

Financial analysts and industry executives say geographically targeted search listings are prime real estate for local advertising, an estimated $12 billion annual business in the United States.

In 2004, less than $50 million of that market will go toward ads related to local Net searches, but over time the dollars will find their way to the virtual world, analysts say.

Google rivals Yahoo and MSN also are developing local targeting services for advertisers. CitySearch local city guides began offering a similar service for advertisers last year.

Singh said that Google will soon begin displaying sponsored listings on the Google Local specialty site, Local.google.com.

Source: C-Net News

Search engines and sensitive issues

As great and powerful search engines are today, some sensitive issues can lead to a lot of controversy.

Google Inc., the leading Internet search engine, said Monday that it had no plans to alter its search results despite complaints that the first listing on a search for the word "Jew" directs people to an anti-Semitic Web site.

The dispute points to one of the most difficult challenges that has plagued Web search engines: what to do when the results of a search are offensive to some, but legal?

In this case, the first listed site on a search for "Jew" is "Jewwatch .com," which promotes itself as "Keeping a close watch on Jewish communities and organizations worldwide" and offering references to anti-Semitic research, documents and organizations.

A Web site calling itself "Remove JewWatch.com from the Google search engine!" is circulating a petition asking Google to remove the site from its listings. Google search results rely on a complex set of algorithms that ranks sites based on the number and quality of the links to them.

The company, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., said it had no plans to remove the site from the search results list because it trusts its automated program to rank Web sites accurately. The search engine has been listing "Jewwatch.com" as the first-ranked site for three years.

"We find this result offensive, but the objectivity of our ranking function prevents us from making any changes," said David Krane, a spokesman for Google, adding that an exception is made only in cases where a site is illegal. Mr. Krane said the company has, for example, removed sites from its rankings that promote pedophilia, which is illegal.

For example, until February 2003, a user searching for a guide to the English city of Chester would have been presented with "Chester's guide to molesting young girls" as the second entry. After officials from Chester complained, Google removed the site.

But offensive material is often a matter of opinion, not legality. Conduct a search on Google for "George W. Bush," for example, and the fifth and sixth sites are critical of the president.

Because Google's search results are determined in part by the number of links to a given page, as well as the number of times the search term appears near a link, even sites criticizing the "Jewwatch" site may be contributing to its high-ranking simply by linking to it. The top Google ranking for Jewwatch.com was discovered recently by a Google user, Steven Weinstock, who began the petition drive to force Google to remove the site from its listings.

In a letter posted on its Web site on March 30, the Anti-Defamation League explained that the ranking is "in no way a conscious choice by Google," but rather the result of an automated system.

"The longevity of ownership, the way articles are posted to it, the links to and from the site, and the structure of the site itself all increase the ranking of 'Jewwatch' within the Google formula," the letter said.

Over the years, some Web site developers have learned to manipulate the automated system by building links to make a site appear even more popular than it may be. And some commercial Web site developers have become quite adept at using this practice to raise the ranking of their businesses.

Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Watch, a newsletter based in Darien, Conn., said Google was in a difficult position because it cannot be seen as treating material differently because it is offensive.

"Google would certainly come under fire if they were to choose to change it," Mr. Sullivan said.

Source: NY Times

Gmail project critized by privacy concerns

Democratic Sen. Liz Figueroa of Fremont is drafting a bill asking Google to reconsider the e-mail service, in which users' incoming e-mail would be scanned for possible targeted advertising.

Senator Figueroa wants Google to abandon its proposed free e-mail service, calling Gmail an invasion of privacy.

For example, if an e-mail message mentioned a medical condition, then Google's software would display ads for specific medical products.

The advantage of Gmail is that it would provide lots of free storage for e-mail.

A British group, Privacy International, has complained about Gmail to the British information commissioner.

Google has said it will work with European authorities to address privacy and other concerns. The Mountain View, Calif.-based, company said users' e-mail would remain private because the process of scanning for key words would be entirely automated.

A Google news release said Gmail would offer each user storage capacity of up to 8 billion bits, or the equivalent of 500,000 pages of e-mail.

Source: Washington Times

Copernic offers enterprise search indexing

Copernic today announces an agreement with InfoSpace, to offer Copernic’s Enterprise Search indexing technology for site search through InfoSpace’s network of search distribution partners.

InfoSpace and Copernic will offer online businesses the power to affordably integrate Web and site search into their Web sites.

This allows visitors to do broad Web searches as well as search for information contained on a particular site – without ever having to leave the originating site – to quickly find the information they’re looking for. By offering Web and site search from the same search box, InfoSpace and Copernic are enabling businesses to retain customers on their sites, creating new opportunities for increased sales.

InfoSpace’s private-label search platform enables online businesses to quickly deploy and monetize Web search at their site under their own brand.

The InfoSpace solution combines a scalable and flexible co-branding architecture with the company's award winning metasearch technology, which searches all the leading engines and returns only the best results. As the only provider to combine all the leading paid placement engines, InfoSpace offers its partners the highest match rate and revenue per query available.

The new offering also leverages Copernic’s leading enterprise search technology, which was designed from the ground up to be flexible – meeting the cost, complexity and deployment requirements of all types of companies.

Together, InfoSpace and Copernic are offering customers a cost-effective, easy-to-use and deploy, end-to-end Web and site search that returns highly relevant results in a flash – enabling customers to easily find the information they need in a single search setting, and ultimately offering a better online experience.

"Under this agreement, InfoSpace makes it easier for its private-label search partners to increase customer revenue. From a single search box, customers will be able to locate relevant results from both their favorite site as well as the Web.

By generating more site page views, marketers will have new opportunities to monetize traffic," said Richard Pelly, InfoSpace Vice President for Distribution Sales and Strategic Accounts. "Copernic site search offers exceptionally accurate results and can easily scale to meet the needs of the largest sites. When matched with InfoSpace Web search, it delivers a great search solution for high-traffic sites."

“Our partnership with InfoSpace, a major force in this market, further validates the power of our technology, helping us to achieve our goal to make search accessible to every company by meeting the price, scalability, ease-of-use and implementation requirements of all types of businesses,” said Martin Bouchard, Copernic’s president and CEO.

“InfoSpace’s leadership in the market is a perfect complement to our ongoing partnership strategy and only works to reinforce our recent office expansion and growing customer base in the United States. We look forward to an ongoing relationship with InfoSpace.”

Source: Copernic Inc.

The MozDex open source search engine

Over the past week MozDex, an open source search engine, has been tweaking and refining its search results while in beta testing.

MozDex is the brainchild of Byron Miller and is built on an Open search system using different open source technologies. MozDex plans on full indexing of the Internet in the next upcoming weeks.

Mozdex.com offers the firsts OPEN search system based on publicly available software, APIs and algorithms, said Byron Miller, President at Small Productions. There is no secrecy into understanding the results or ranking thereof offering the first public insight into an open index.

What does Open Search Mean?
Searching the Internet has always been something people just did without ever wondering how it worked. Mozdex.com offers the insight into the search results that allow people to fully understand how they are ranked and displayed.

The test index itself is seeded from the dmoz.org directory, Netscape’s open source volunteer edited directory. However, MozDex - being a true search engine- is building its own index and allows web site users to submit via an Add Url form.

Adding to the Open Source buffet that MozDex is powered from, mozDex also uses Nutch open source search engine and archive.org spider technologies to power its search.

The site is at www.mozdex.com
Source: MozDex
Review by Loren Baker
http://www.searchenginejournal.com
http://www.mozdex.com

Microsoft to release Longhorn in first half of 2006

Microsoft said Longhorn will include three major advances: a new file system known as WinFS, a new graphics engine dubbed Avalon and a Web Services architecture known as Indigo.

The company said on Friday that it is aiming to release Longhorn in the first half of 2006--a move that will require the company to scale back some of its more ambitious plans for the next version of Windows.

"There may be specific features within those subsystems that will be scaled back," lead product manager Greg Sullivan said. Sullivan would not identify which features have been trimmed but said such efforts are typical of all new releases of the Windows operating system.

"It's a matter of scaling back by degrees," Sullivan said. "In some cases, the scenarios won't be as all-encompassing."

Microsoft has been reluctant to pin down a date for the launch of the Windows update, though Chief Software Architect Bill Gates said recently that 2006 was a likely target. Even now, there is no public target for Longhorn's release, Sullivan said, but acknowledged the company's internal goal of shipping it by the middle of 2006.

Microsoft plans to cut features from Longhorn and roll them into a future release of Windows, code-named Blackcomb, Jim Allchin, vice president of Microsoft's platform group, told CNET News.com last month. Details on the changes to Longhorn were first reported earlier Friday by BusinessWeek.

Work on Longhorn slowed after Microsoft shifted programmers from that effort to the task of adding security features into Windows XP Service Pack 2, or SP2, an update due to be released shortly.

In an interview with CNET News.com last month, CEO Steve Ballmer said Microsoft had made a decision to prioritize SP2 at Longhorn's expense. Ballmer said all the major components would still be part of the OS but that the company was planning to "carve a couple of features around the edges."

Microsoft also said Friday that the next version of Office, due to arrive at about the same time as Longhorn, will run on prior versions of Windows. The company has talked about an Office version designed to specifically take advantage of Longhorn's new features.

"Microsoft knows that customers have different roll-out needs," a representative said. "We'll be working to ensure they can use next version of Office with other recent versions of Windows as well (as Longhorn)."

The company representative declined to discuss specific changes to features planned for the next version of Office, saying "it's very early in the development process to speculate on specifics."

Microsoft has also decided not to move ahead with a full interim release of Windows before Longhorn.

"Any smart company is going to have contingency plans," Sullivan said. "That's what we were doing. Longhorn is the next release of Windows."

However, a more modest update to Windows XP still under consideration could include a new Media Player, among other new features. Sullivan said no final decisions have been made on that.

Allchin said the software giant also plans a marketing effort to tout technological advances that are only possible when running Windows XP, such as the ability to connect to the portable Media Center devices that are set to debut later this year.

As for where the cuts to Longhorn may come, some may be in the extent to which the WinFS file system is implemented. Sullivan said work is focused on making sure that WinFS is accessible from within desktop PCs running Longhorn.

"We're still scoping out exactly what are the specific features and scenarios that will be delivered," Sullivan said. "The essence of the WinFS file system will be delivered."

Microsoft executives said last month that the first widespread test, or beta, version of the software, would likely not arrive until the first half of next year. The company had originally promised that a beta would arrive this summer.

Microsoft gave out very early code to developers at last October's professional developer conference in Los Angeles. Sullivan said the company will release an updated preview version of Longhorn at WinHec, the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, scheduled for early May in Seattle. The company will also offer hardware makers more details on the types of machines that will be needed in order to run Longhorn, he added.

"We are going to provide some broad guidance to hardware manufacturers about the kind of systems that will be great Longhorn systems," Sullivan said.

Source: C-Net News

Google changes its trademark policy

In the past, people were unable to place Google AdWords bids on trademark keyword phrases.

However, Google has recently changed it’s trademark policy to allow people to bid on keywords which match trademark phrases of companies within the US and Canada.

Inside the US and Canada they will not allow trademark terms to appear in the ad copy. Outside those areas they will check ad text and keyword.

Google's AdWords Trademark Complaint Procedure:
For companies in the US and Canada - "When we receive a complaint from a trademark owner, we will only investigate whether the advertisements at issue are using the trademarked term in ad text. If they are, we will require the advertiser to remove the trademarked term from the text of the ad and prevent the advertiser from using the trademarked term in ad text in the future.

Please note that we will not disable keywords associated with trademark usage. In addition, please note that any such investigation will only affect ads served on or by Google".

Google AdWords Trademark Complaint Procedure:
Trademark rights outside the US and Canada - When we receive a complaint from a trademark owner, our review is limited to ensuring that the advertisements at issue are not using the trademarked term in the ad text or as a keyword trigger. If they are, we will require the advertiser to remove the trademarked term from the ad text or keyword list and will prevent the advertiser from using the trademarked term in the future.

Please note that any such investigation will only affect ads served on or by Google.

Source: Google.com

Some PPC keywords reach bidding war

Paid search ads have become a major source of search engine income by creating a flexible market for business leads, which allow an advertiser to reach a new customer.

Mesothelioma, an asbestos-related cancer, was the biggest word in search-engine advertising Thursday, with law firms paying $90 or more to place ads.

"It can get to be a bidding war," says Tracy Helser, Web manager for Kazan, McClain, Abrams, Fernandez, Lyons & Farrise, an Oakland, Calif., firm specializing in asbestos cases that advertises on search engines.

Though it can change daily, the amount advertisers will pay for such leads ranges from as much as $100 for mesothelioma information to $20 for conference-call services and 31 cents for paper clips.

From an attorney's point of view, mesothelioma cases, when pursued individually, "are the most valuable cases in the system," says Deborah Hensler, professor of law at Stanford and co-author of several Rand studies on asbestos litigation.

Source: Washington Times

Google testing searching of scholarly documents

Google has long indexed university Web pages, but the new project will allow users to direct their searches to on-campus repositories of scholarly materials, sometimes known as superarchives.

Those archives contain copies of academic papers, technical reports, drafts of articles, and other work by a university's professors. Scholars can choose whether their works will be available to all Internet users or only to others on their own campuses.

Google, the popular search-engine company, has teamed up with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and 16 other universities around the world to provide a way to search the institutions' collections of scholarly papers, according to university officials.

A pilot test of the project is just getting under way. If all goes as planned, the search feature could appear on Google in a few months, said MacKenzie Smith, associate director of technology for MIT's libraries. She said the search would probably be an option on Google's advanced-search page.

"A lot of times the richest scholarly literature is buried" in search-engine results, said Ms. Smith. "As more and more content is on the Web, it's harder and harder to find the high-quality stuff that you need."

The participating universities have tagged all the materials in their superarchives with "metadata tags" -- hidden codes that contain catalog information and summaries -- that can help a search engine like Google's sort through the material.

MIT has developed free software, called DSpace, that colleges and universities can use to set up superarchives. About 125 universities have done so, but no one had created a tool that searches across the archives, said Ms. Smith.

So far, each of the 17 participating institutions has, on average, about 1,000 papers in its archive, said Ms. Smith. But she said the collections are growing rapidly. "It's going to scale up pretty fast over the next few years," she said.

Ms. Smith said the universities also plan to work with providers of other search engines. "It's not like we're working on an exclusive arrangement with Google," she said, adding that the universities are neither being paid nor paying for the arrangement. "We may even do our own thing over time" to search across the archives, she said.

In the pilot test, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc., a nonprofit library organization, has set up a search process that will serve as an interface between Google and the universities. "This will make it a lot easier to find a particular article," said Thomas Hickey, a chief scientist for OCLC.

Ms. Smith said that she hopes to include all 125 DSpace users in the search tool in the future. Officials at Google could not be reached for comment.

Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education

Yahoo's earnings surpassed analysts' estimates

Yahoo reports that it more than doubled its first-quarter profits, largely through a big boost in advertising revenue.

Yahoo said profit for the quarter that ended March 31 hit $101.2 million, or 14 cents a share, compared with $46.7 million, or 8 cents a share, a year ago. Revenue was $757.8 million, more than double the $283 million reported for the same period last year.

Along with earnings, the company announced a two-for-one stock split, effective May 11, to make shares more affordable to investors.

Semel, who will celebrate his third year with the company in a few weeks, was audibly beaming on a conference call with analysts.

``I have a big smile on my face,'' he said. ``This is by far the most successful quarter in Yahoo history.''

For the second consecutive quarter, Yahoo has reported a revenue number that excludes ``traffic acquisition costs'' associated with its advertising subsidiary, Overture Services.

Overture shares its revenue with various partners, which use its advertising technology on their Web sites, such as Microsoft's MSN. Subtracting those payments, Yahoo's first-quarter revenue was $550 million.

As usual, ad revenue was the big driver for Yahoo, jumping 235 percent to $635 million. Revenue from fees for premium services jumped 39 percent to $88 million, while income from job listings and other online classified advertising ticked up 16 percent.

The numbers surprised Wall Street, where analysts had predicted the Internet bellwether to report a profit of 11 cents a share on $497.9 million in revenue excluding total acquisition costs, according to estimates from Thomson First Call.

Analyst Derek Brown with Pacific Growth Equities in San Francisco said he was surprised by the ``the sheer size of the quarter'' for Yahoo.

``This was a substantial quarter for them and for the industry overall,'' Brown said.

Perhaps more than any other company, Yahoo is riding a rebound in the online advertising industry. After years of declines, Internet ad revenue hit $2.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2003, a record-breaking 38 percent jump over the same quarter in 2002, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. That's the highest quarterly growth rate since the firm started recording the numbers in 1996.

In October, Yahoo helped gain a bigger share of that spending by acquiring Overture, which operates a pay-per-click advertising service.

``There is a bigger acceptance of the Internet as a marketing medium, and within that context, of Yahoo in particular,'' Brown said.

The earnings are further validation of Semel's efforts to turn around the once-sagging company. As recently as early 2002, Yahoo was posting losses as it reeled from the dot-com bust.

But Semel focused the company's vision, sought out new kinds of advertisers and further integrated its various services so that users can more easily move around the portal. Earlier this year, for example, Yahoo announced a new tool that links its Yellow Pages, mapping service, movie listings and other services.

The company is also becoming less reliant on business partners; it dumped Google as its search engine this year, opting to use its own technology. Its search box is now embedded into virtually all of its services.

``We have created an efficient operating model,'' Semel said, ``in which services are starting to support each other, making the whole greater than the sum of the parts.''

The company also boosted the number of fee-paying customers who use services such as premium e-mail to 5.8 million, about double what it was a year ago. There are now 141 million ``active'' registered users, the company said.

The first-quarter results prompted the company to revise its expectations upward for the rest of the year, predicting revenue -- excluding the total acquisition costs -- of between $2.4 billion and $2.5 billion through December. The company's previous forecast was no more than $2.25 billion.

Yahoo shares dipped 42 cents during regular trading on the Nasdaq. But the earnings news pushed shares up 10 percent in after-hours trading, to $53.14.

Source: Silicon Valley.com

3721 search engine sued in China

Mr. Shi said that he had downloaded Baidu's Search Partner to facilitate data searching and information browsing, however after several days, when browsing a website, he was directed to install the Network Real Name Software.

According to a new lawsuit in Beijing, a Mr. Shi has accused Internet company 3721 of infringing upon his rights. Mr. Shi claims that after he installed 3721's Network Real Name Software on his computer, not only was the existing Baidu software on his terminal deleted, but also he found that searches for information from other websites were being illegally monitored and shielded.

Baidu is 3721's rival in the heated Chinese search engine industry.

He clams this is a violation of both his privacy and his right to voluntarily choose software.

As a result, Shi brought lawsuits against 3721 at Beijing's No. 1 Secondary People's Court and asked for RMB1000 (about US$130) in compensation.

After he followed the online instructions, he found that the previously-installed Search Partner software, Baidu's icon, and also the menu in the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser's address column had all been deleted.

He said it was impossible to re-install Baidu's software, and he claims 3721's software illegally prevented him from doing so. In addition, Shi's lawsuit states that whenever he browsed any websites, the software was continually monitoring and screening his actions.

Shi's lawsuit maintains that 3721 seriously affected his legal access to Internet information and impinged upon his legal use of other relevant software. In addition, it is said that 3721 did not clearly state the functions and results of its software, infringing upon his right to a full disclaimer.

3721 has said that it has done its part to notify users of the potential problems as well as solutions related to the software. The company has no other comments.

In recent years, more Internet consumers are using China's emerging consumer protection laws to protect them from poor product manufacturing and delivery.

Last year a consumer in Beijing successfully sued an online game company because the company caused the user's online game assets to disappear.

The 3721 case is currently underway.

Source: China Tech News.com

Privacy rights issue with Google's Gmail

Google says it needs to know what's in the e-mail that passes through its system so they can be sprinkled with advertisements that Google thinks are relevant.

Privacy advocates are concerned that there's one big flaw with Google Inc.'s free e-mail service: The company plans to read the messages.

Revenue from those targeted ads will pay for the Gmail service, which began a test last week, offering up to 500 times as much e-mail storage as competing Web e-mail programs from Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

The electronic letters will be read by computers, not by Google employees, but the specter of seeing an ad for an antacid beside a message from a friend complaining about stomach pain is enough to make some people nervous about the e-mail service.

"There will undoubtedly be some folks that will see this and freak out," said Ray Everett-Church, chief privacy officer for TurnTide Inc., an anti-spam company in Conshohocken, Pa.

The aggressive advertising strategy might put a damper on Google's biggest move away from its core business of Internet searches. After reading the privacy policy on the Gmail Web site last week, consumer-rights groups began sending complaints to the privately held Mountain View, Calif., company and began preparing to warn users to stay away.

"The privacy implications of going through and perusing a customer's e-mail to display targeted advertising could be the Achilles' heel for Google's services," said Jordana Beebe, communications director for the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a consumer group in San Diego.

The consternation caught Larry Page, Google's co-founder and president of products, off guard.

"I'm very surprised that there are these kinds of questions," he said. Spam-filtering programs routinely scour e-mail for telltale words such as "Viagra," and companies monitor the messages of employees on their corporate networks.

In addition, Internet companies scrutinize Web search terms to serve up ads that are related to the topic a user apparently cares about.

Google's AdSense program goes a step further, placing such ads alongside content on Web sites that come up in search results.

But e-mail is a more personal form of communication, making targeted advertisements feel intrusive, said Chris Hoofnagle, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. He likened the Gmail ads to a computerized voice interrupting a phone conversation about a vacation with a pitch for a travel agency.

"This is an expansion in a way that should bother people," Hoofnagle said. "Communications are sacred."

Consumer advocates are also worried about the potential for Google to link Gmail users to their Internet searches.

Google records the numerical Internet addresses of the computers that request each of the Web searches the company performs. But it hasn't had names or other identifying information to link those addresses to specific people and learn who, for example, is searching for "Janet Jackson halftime show."

Once users register for Gmail, Google could make that connection, said Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum in San Diego. And if Google ever compared the two sets of data, she said, "there are some people who would be chilled and embarrassed."

Page wouldn't say whether Google plans to link Gmail users to their Web search queries.

Source: Baltimore Sun

FindWhat offers Pay per Call advertising

FindWhat will offer "Pay Per Call" ads to appear in search and directory result pages for businesses that don't have websites.

In recent years, paid listings have taken an increasing share of online advertisers' budgets, but have not been an option for businesses without a website.

Through the combination of Ingenio's patented technologies with the FindWhat.com Network(TM), non-web-oriented businesses can now take advantage of online, performance-based marketing opportunities. In addition, Pay Per Call(TM) provides current online businesses another advertising vehicle to generate sales, with the actual connection occurring offline, over the phone, directly with the merchant.

Plans call for participating merchants' Pay Per Call ads to appear in search and directory results whenever a consumer conducts a keyword or keyword phrase query, similar to the appearance of current paid listings in the FindWhat.com Network.

The online advertisements will contain special phone numbers, provisioned through the Ingenio Platform, which connect to the merchant's location. A phone call from a prospective customer, as opposed to a click, will become the true billing event.

Under the proposed service, merchants will agree to a Pay Per Call fee based on an open market bidding system, with the top bidder's Pay Per Call ad appearing first, and all others listed in descending order of their bids. This pricing mechanism will allow each merchant to determine how much they wish to pay based on their goals, budget and lifetime value of their customers.

There were approximately 22.9 million small businesses in the U.S. in 2002. Estimates project search revenue to grow from $1.5 to $7.0 billion by 2007, while local search revenue should grow to $2.5 billion by 2008 (Source: US Bancorp Piper Jaffray March 2003 and The Kelsey Group December 2003, respectively).

Local commercial searches - those seeking merchants "near home or work" - represent over 25% of all commercial searches being performed by online buyers.

The Ingenio/JupiterResearch findings (March 2004, 336 businesses) indicate that 48% of small businesses surveyed are very/somewhat interested in using Pay Per Call, and that 40% would be very/somewhat likely to allocate new advertising budget dollars to take advantage of this new product.

Under the terms of the agreement, FindWhat.com plans to incorporate Ingenio's technology, processes and systems to offer the Pay Per Call advertising platform and services to its advertisers, distributed through the FindWhat.com Network. Additionally, FindWhat.com and Ingenio plan to develop and co-market a unified pay-per-click and Pay Per Call solution (PPC2) to companies seeking to utilize both forms of performance-based advertising opportunities.

"FindWhat.com follows a strategic direction of aligning itself with the best-of-the-best - like Ingenio - to develop and provide high quality performance-based marketing and commerce enabling services for businesses to find prospects, get those prospects to become customers, and then keep them through retention-based marketing efforts," said Craig Pisaris-Henderson, chairman and chief executive officer of FindWhat.com.

"Together with Ingenio, our services can offer millions of small-to-medium sized businesses (SMEs) the ability to connect with new customers, through phone calls and/or clicks driven by paid listings on the Internet."

"Industry leaders like FindWhat.com are recognizing the need for different types of advertising solutions. There are many segments of advertisers and merchants in the market; each with their own set of needs. Those companies who are first to deliver products and services to address those needs will benefit most," says Mark Britto, CEO and president of Ingenio.

"We believe online marketing is not just about the technology, it's about rational and measurable customer acquisition... that is why merchants advertise in the first place. Our role is to enable companies to better monetize their paid listings networks while helping merchants to grow their businesses and prosper."

The companies expect the service to launch in Q3 of 2004, as they work to deploy the Ingenio platform through the FindWhat Network.

Source: Yahoo Financial News

Expect strong earnings from Yahoo

Yahoo is expected to report a quarterly profit of 11 cents a share on $497.9 million in revenue for the period ending March 31, according to consensus estimates from Thomson First Call.

Yahoo reports revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs (TAC), which refers to the percentage of revenue it shares with third parties that display paid search ads from its Overture Services subsidiary.

The practice has come under criticism from some Wall Street analysts who believe that TAC clouds Yahoo's true financial health. Yahoo said TAC-less revenue is a more accurate portrait of its overall business.

Analysts are not expecting any drastic changes at Yahoo and predict continued revenue and profitability growth, fueled by paid search and online advertising.

"I don't foresee paid search having too much downward pressure," said Martin Pyykkonen, an equity analyst at Junco Partners. "I'm expecting it to be up year over year."

Yahoo CEO Terry Semel said search continued to be the company's main priority in 2004, helped by last year's acquisition of Overture and the integration of search technology provider Inktomi.

Most of Yahoo's moves were prompted by heightened competition against popular search engine Google, which is beginning to look more like Yahoo. Google once powered Yahoo's algorithmic search engine, but Yahoo dropped Google in February and replaced it with its own technology.

Last week, word leaked that Google is planning to launch its own free e-mail service called "Gmail," which will offer people a gigabyte of storage. Yahoo offers 4 megabytes of storage and then requires people to pay a yearly fee for extra memory.

The company's premium e-mail is folded into a larger business of paid services, which includes fantasy sports, online personals and its broadband partnership with SBC Communications.

In the fourth quarter of 2003, Yahoo reported $62 million in paid services revenue, most of it stemming from its SBC deal.

Yahoo is also expected to show some gains in its listing business, which is primarily comprised of its HotJobs subsidiary.

Source: ZD Net

Mamma.com investigated by the SEC

Mamma.com Inc. said Tuesday U.S. securities regulators have launched an informal probe concerning recent activity in its stock, which has almost quadrupled over the past month in highly volatile trading.

The Montreal, Quebec company, formerly Intasys Corp., said it is cooperating with the Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry and knows of no nonpublic information that might "bear upon the recent activity."

"We are confident that all information and disclosures are fully compliant with all applicable accounting practices and all SEC and other regulatory disclosure requirements," David Goldman, executive chairman of Mamma.com, said in a statement.

Mamma.com (MAMA: down $0.68 to $14.98) shares fell as much as 15 percent Tuesday before bouncing back a bit. It closed at $15.66 Monday on Nasdaq, up from its $4 price range at the beginning of March.

It began its spike in the two days after the company said it swung to a quarterly profit as revenue more than doubled, rising to a high of $15.80 per share March 3.

After easing back gradually to close at $7.86 on March 15 the stock again jumped more than 24 percent March 16 after Mark Cuban, who owns the Dallas Mavericks professional basketball team, said he owned a 6.3 percent stake in the company.

The company, which sold the assets of its Intasys Billing Technologies business in February, provides Web-search marketing services to online advertisers and aggregates search results from search engines such as market leader Google Inc.

Source: CNNfn.com

Yahoo & Google to drop gambling ads

In a move that could hurt the Internet gambling industry, the two powerful web firms on Friday said they will stop running ads for online casinos by the end of April.

The action comes as US authorities threaten to crack down on US companies doing business with online gambling firms located overseas and whose operations are illegal in the US, the Times said.

Yahoo and Google declined to say if they have been subjects of the gambling probe, the Times said.

The prosecutors are arguing that the American companies are "aiding and abetting" offshore Internet casinos, whose operations are illegal in the United States. Prosecutors started a grand jury investigation last year, issuing subpoenas to American broadcasters, publishers and Web sites that run advertisements for the casinos.

Executives from Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, California, and Google, based in Mountain View, California, declined to say whether they had been subjects of the investigation. The fact that both companies announced the change in policy on Friday appeared to be coincidental.

Jennifer Stephens, a spokeswoman for Overture, a Yahoo subsidiary that sells paid sponsored links for Yahoo, said the policy change was the result of a "lack of clarity" in the legal and regulatory environment.

Overture also provides advertising links to MSN, the Internet access division of Microsoft. Stephens said that it would no longer provide casino advertising to MSN, and MSN confirmed it would, as a result, stop running the advertisements.

Stephens said Yahoo would cease running casino advertisements on its U.S. Web site, but it would continue to run online casino advertising on its Web sites published in dozens of countries where Internet casinos are legal.

Google executives, however, said Friday that they would stop running Internet gambling advertisements in all markets. A spokesman for Google, David Krane, said the policy change was part of an effort to "reflect the growth of our company and ensure we provide the best search experience for our users and advertisers."

A spokeswoman for Lycos, another large search engine, also said Friday that the company had decided in the past few months to stop running gambling advertisements but declined to give details on when the company stopped publishing the ads or why it had made the decision.

Search engine companies, broadcasters and experts who follow the Internet gambling industry said the loss of advertising was not big enough to make a major difference to the profits of U.S. broadcasters and publishers. But some industry experts said the policy change could have a big impact on the online casinos.

"The Department of Justice is being very effective," said Sue Schneider, publisher of Interactive Gaming News, an online newsletter focusing on the online gambling industry. "It's unfortunate. It doesn't leave many outlets" for casinos to reach American customers.

The new policies angered some representatives of the Internet gambling industry who contend the search engine providers were bullied by prosecutors wielding an untested legal theory.

"I urge these search engines and other service providers to stand up for themselves and challenge these pressure tactics by federal prosecutors," said David Carruthers, chief executive of BetonSports.com, an online casino and sports betting site based in Costa Rica. The site took some 33 million bets last year from people in North America, mostly in the United States, the company said.

Although operating an online casino is illegal in the United States, state laws vary as to whether it is illegal for an individual to place a bet. In New York, for example, it is not a crime to place a bet over the Internet, state prosecutors said.

Critics of the grand jury investigation, including several legal experts, said that American companies were within their free speech rights to publish online casino advertisements because they were disseminating information.

A decision by a panel of the World Trade Organization issued on March 24 said that the United States' prohibition on Internet gambling violated the country's free trade obligations.

But companies do not appear eager to test the aiding and abetting theory. Several major media companies - including the radio giants Clear Channel Communications and Infinity Broadcasting and Discovery Networks - have recently stopped taking online gambling advertisements.

Some companies that continue to accept those advertisements, like LookSmart, a San Francisco-based search engine, said they were reviewing their policies. "There's been a general message sent to publishers from various agencies in the government that the legality of this advertising is unclear," said Dakota Sullivan, vice president for marketing at LookSmart. Sullivan declined to say whether LookSmart had received a subpoena.

"There's been a general shift in the atmosphere," he said. "There's a question of whether it's legal, and, beyond that, whether it's right."

The New York Times SAN FRANCISCO Google and Yahoo, two of the most widely used Web search engines, have decided to stop running advertisements for online casinos, a shift that could dampen the growth of Internet gambling.

The move, which the companies said would go into effect by the end of April, comes as U.S. prosecutors are threatening action against American companies that do business with Internet casinos that are based abroad.

The prosecutors are arguing that the American companies are "aiding and abetting" offshore Internet casinos, whose operations are illegal in the United States. Prosecutors started a grand jury investigation last year, issuing subpoenas to American broadcasters, publishers and Web sites that run advertisements for the casinos.

Executives from Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, California, and Google, based in Mountain View, California, declined to say whether they had been subjects of the investigation. The fact that both companies announced the change in policy on Friday appeared to be coincidental.

Jennifer Stephens, a spokeswoman for Overture, a Yahoo subsidiary that sells paid sponsored links for Yahoo, said the policy change was the result of a "lack of clarity" in the legal and regulatory environment.

Overture also provides advertising links to MSN, the Internet access division of Microsoft. Stephens said that it would no longer provide casino advertising to MSN, and MSN confirmed it would, as a result, stop running the advertisements.

Stephens said Yahoo would cease running casino advertisements on its U.S. Web site, but it would continue to run online casino advertising on its Web sites published in dozens of countries where Internet casinos are legal.

Google executives, however, said Friday that they would stop running Internet gambling advertisements in all markets. A spokesman for Google, David Krane, said the policy change was part of an effort to "reflect the growth of our company and ensure we provide the best search experience for our users and advertisers."

A spokeswoman for Lycos, another large search engine, also said Friday that the company had decided in the past few months to stop running gambling advertisements but declined to give details on when the company stopped publishing the ads or why it had made the decision.

Search engine companies, broadcasters and experts who follow the Internet gambling industry said the loss of advertising was not big enough to make a major difference to the profits of U.S. broadcasters and publishers. But some industry experts said the policy change could have a big impact on the online casinos.

"The Department of Justice is being very effective," said Sue Schneider, publisher of Interactive Gaming News, an online newsletter focusing on the online gambling industry. "It's unfortunate. It doesn't leave many outlets" for casinos to reach American customers.

The new policies angered some representatives of the Internet gambling industry who contend the search engine providers were bullied by prosecutors wielding an untested legal theory.

"I urge these search engines and other service providers to stand up for themselves and challenge these pressure tactics by federal prosecutors," said David Carruthers, chief executive of BetonSports.com, an online casino and sports betting site based in Costa Rica. The site took some 33 million bets last year from people in North America, mostly in the United States, the company said.

Although operating an online casino is illegal in the United States, state laws vary as to whether it is illegal for an individual to place a bet. In New York, for example, it is not a crime to place a bet over the Internet, state prosecutors said.

Critics of the grand jury investigation, including several legal experts, said that American companies were within their free speech rights to publish online casino advertisements because they were disseminating information.

A decision by a panel of the World Trade Organization issued on March 24 said that the United States' prohibition on Internet gambling violated the country's free trade obligations.

But companies do not appear eager to test the aiding and abetting theory. Several major media companies - including the radio giants Clear Channel Communications and Infinity Broadcasting and Discovery Networks - have recently stopped taking online gambling advertisements.

Some companies that continue to accept those advertisements, like LookSmart, a San Francisco-based search engine, said they were reviewing their policies. "There's been a general message sent to publishers from various agencies in the government that the legality of this advertising is unclear," said Dakota Sullivan, vice president for marketing at LookSmart. Sullivan declined to say whether LookSmart had received a subpoena.

"There's been a general shift in the atmosphere," he said. "There's a question of whether it's legal, and, beyond that, whether it's right."

The New York Times SAN FRANCISCO Google and Yahoo, two of the most widely used Web search engines, have decided to stop running advertisements for online casinos, a shift that could dampen the growth of Internet gambling.

The move, which the companies said would go into effect by the end of April, comes as U.S. prosecutors are threatening action against American companies that do business with Internet casinos that are based abroad.

The prosecutors are arguing that the American companies are "aiding and abetting" offshore Internet casinos, whose operations are illegal in the United States. Prosecutors started a grand jury investigation last year, issuing subpoenas to American broadcasters, publishers and Web sites that run advertisements for the casinos.

Executives from Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, California, and Google, based in Mountain View, California, declined to say whether they had been subjects of the investigation. The fact that both companies announced the change in policy on Friday appeared to be coincidental.

Jennifer Stephens, a spokeswoman for Overture, a Yahoo subsidiary that sells paid sponsored links for Yahoo, said the policy change was the result of a "lack of clarity" in the legal and regulatory environment.

Overture also provides advertising links to MSN, the Internet access division of Microsoft. Stephens said that it would no longer provide casino advertising to MSN, and MSN confirmed it would, as a result, stop running the advertisements.

Stephens said Yahoo would cease running casino advertisements on its U.S. Web site, but it would continue to run online casino advertising on its Web sites published in dozens of countries where Internet casinos are legal.

Google executives, however, said Friday that they would stop running Internet gambling advertisements in all markets. A spokesman for Google, David Krane, said the policy change was part of an effort to "reflect the growth of our company and ensure we provide the best search experience for our users and advertisers."

A spokeswoman for Lycos, another large search engine, also said Friday that the company had decided in the past few months to stop running gambling advertisements but declined to give details on when the company stopped publishing the ads or why it had made the decision.

Search engine companies, broadcasters and experts who follow the Internet gambling industry said the loss of advertising was not big enough to make a major difference to the profits of U.S. broadcasters and publishers. But some industry experts said the policy change could have a big impact on the online casinos.

"The Department of Justice is being very effective," said Sue Schneider, publisher of Interactive Gaming News, an online newsletter focusing on the online gambling industry. "It's unfortunate. It doesn't leave many outlets" for casinos to reach American customers.

The new policies angered some representatives of the Internet gambling industry who contend the search engine providers were bullied by prosecutors wielding an untested legal theory.

Source: International Herald Tribune

Google adjusting prices to its AdWords program

Google introduces automatic price adjustments for certain clicks on its Google AdWords Network. At the same time, it plans to place ads for its customers in its own test e-mail service, Gmail.

Such a move could lower costs for some advertisers. Mountain View, California-based Google gets the lion's share of its revenue from its automated advertising services.

One Google program generates ads based on the words Internet users type into its search engine and the other serves up ads based on the words that appear within text on Web sites that participate in Google's content advertising program.

Susan Wojcicki, director of product management for Google, said the move is a response to advertisers who want to price search-based and content-based advertising campaigns differently. She said some content advertisers will immediately see some of their costs fall due to the new pricing.

Advertisers pay Google each time an Internet user clicks on one of their ads. They have called for Google and other providers of key-word advertising services to offer different pricing on clicks from search and content ads.

Because people are usually looking for something when they are searching, many advertisers say that clicks on ads during searches result in more business than clicks from on ads in content sites, where people are more likely to be browsing.

Ads in content sites also tend to be less specifically targeted than search-based ads. For example, Google showed an ad promoting gay and lesbian vacations in Australia near a news story in the online edition of the New York Post about a spat between New York mob boss Peter Gotti and his wife.

Despite continued scepticism about the effectiveness of content ads, Wojcicki said there are a large number of content sites where ads perform better or the same as search ads.

She also noted that not all content ads are equal. "A click from the review may be more valuable than a click from a general page," she said. "Our goal is to ensure positive [return on investment] on all of our clicks regardless of where they come from."

Source: IT Web

Google offers free e-mail service

Called "Gmail", the new Google service will compete with offerings from Yahoo, Microsoft and others, and move it closer to being a Web portal that offers a wide variety of Web services.

Larry Page, Google's president of products, stressed the service's search function, which will allow users to instantly find e-mail messages with the same type of technology used on the Google Web site.

"Being able to search e-mail quickly and easily is an important thing", said Page.

Google will begin testing Gmail among a small group of users this week, Page said. He did not say when the product would be available to the general public.

The service will be free with one gigabyte of storage, hundreds of times more than what other free e-mail services provide.

Google will make money off the product with small text ads placed in each e-mail message. The ads will be contextual, meaning they will be related to the content of the e-mail.

"This is a good way for us to make money and it's also un-intrusive", Page said. "The clicks that this generates will be good eventually for advertisers".

Like the Google Web site, Page said, Gmail will have a clean and simple interface and be easy to use.

Source: Mercury News

Ask Jeeves removing all its banner ads in the UK

The move marks the latest stage in a rapidly maturing online ad market and follows the decision by many large sites, including MSN and Ask Jeeves, to ban pop-ups.

Ask Jeeves, the UK's third-largest search engine, is removing all banner ads, saying they put people off using its site.

Until recently banners were the most widely used ad product on the site. Now, although existing deals with advertisers will be honoured, all banners should have disappeared by the end of the year.

It's also further evidence of the growing importance of search engine marketing within the advertising mix.

Chris Babayode, VP of sales and business development for Ask Jeeves UK, said he expects the UK site to follow the experience of its US parent, which stopped taking banner ads in January last year.

'Banner ads dissuaded people from visiting,' said Babayode. 'More people will come to our site to search and we'll increase the frequency of searches if we take off banner ads, and our other ad products will do better.'

These include the Branded Response display ads and text-based Answer Links, both of which appear within the search results.

Ask Jeeves has refused to discuss the revenue implications of the loss of banners. However, Babayode said it should be possible to accommodate most of its current advertisers within the other types of ads it sells.

'A lot of people take a mix of ad types with us. We'll be able to realign their needs,' he said.

Ask Jeeves reaches almost 18% of the UK's Internet audience, according to Nielsen//NetRatings, and within the search market trails only Google and MSN in the size of its user base.

Source: New Media Age