Portals and Search Engines

Yahoo will make available to all developers its Search Monkey platform on Thursday, another step in its wide-ranging effort to...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc has introduced a software development tool that lets outside parties create customized views of Yahoo Web search results, the company said on Thursday.

InformationWeek - Search site Ask.com will announce Thursday a deal to buy Lexico, home to popular reference Web sites Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com, a move that will expand its audience by 11 percent.

SAN FRANCISCO - Ask.com has bought a stable of Internet reference sites that includes Dictionary.com in its latest effort to distinguish itself from online search leader Google Inc. and other much larger rivals.

InformationWeek - The market share numbers are important because search engines continue to be the primary way Internet users navigate to key commercial segments.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Google Inc co-founder Sergey Brin said on Thursday advertising on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace was getting better, but was still not perfect.

InformationWeek - Powerset aims to prove that its natural language-based search makes it easier to find things on Wikipedia and Freebase, an open community database.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - The effort to make it easier for Web surfers to connect with their friends is attracting a crowd. Following similar moves by the two biggest online hangouts, Internet search leader Google Inc. is introducing tools that are supposed to make any Web site more sociable.

InformationWeek - The company's adoption of solid state drives will reportedly save energy, speed search, and potentially lead to a shortage of 16-GB and 32-GB NAND flash chips.

Powerset is offering a new way to search Wikipedia -- with natural-language technology and conversational phrasing instead of keywords like Google uses.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Powerset on Sunday unveiled tools for searching Wikipedia that use conversational phrasing instead of keywords, marking the first step of its challenge to established Web search services such as Google.

A new search engine called Powerset tries to one-up Google with an emphasis on natural-language semantic search queries, although Powerset currently indexes just Wikipedia. To test it, we ran five questions by each (plus two challenging bonus questions) to see which one came out on top.

Intelligent Enterprise - The ongoing convergence of BI and search will help "bridge the artificial system boundaries between structured data and unstructured content," the analyst firm said in a recent report.

The public will get its first chance Monday to test a search engine from start-up Powerset that eschews conventional keyword...

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Microsoft Corp. will focus on growing its own advertising and Internet search business after it withdrew its takeover offer for Yahoo Inc., Chairman Bill Gates said Friday.

LONDON (Reuters) - Shares of British video search engine firm Blinkx surged 50 percent to a seven-month high on Friday, on talk that Internet giant Google and media conglomerate NewsCorp may bid for the firm.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Google Inc.'s top executives expressed hope Thursday that the Internet search leader will be able to form a potentially lucrative advertising partnership with Yahoo Inc. — a deal that would lower the odds of Microsoft Corp. renewing its attempts to buy Yahoo.

SEATTLE - Without the influx of Web traffic that Microsoft bet would quickly follow a Yahoo buyout, the software maker is facing a long slog if it wants to turn its money-losing online services business into a Google-killer.

SAN FRANCISCO - It's hard to believe Google Inc. actually looked vulnerable just two months ago. The Internet search leader's stock had plummeted 45 percent from its peak. And its two biggest rivals, Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc., appeared poised to combine forces and launch a double-barreled attack.

Yahoo has chosen India for the beta test of its new search concept that aggregates text, images, and video results on a single...

Sprint Nextel and Clearwire breathed new life into their wireless broadband alliance Wednesday, securing $3.2 billion in much-needed financing from three cable TV companies, Web search firm Google and chipmaker Intel.

Web searching can expose users to a whole range of malicious sites, so Yahoo is now teaming up with security vendor McAfee to make its search experience more secure for users.

Microsoft will pursue independent paths as it figures out how to compete with Google in the aftermath of its failed bid for Yahoo. Speaking at a press conference in Tokyo, Chairman Bill Gates said Microsoft is committed to making its own advances in search and online advertising.

Google last week questioned whether or not Verizon Wireless would actually implement open access requirements on recently acquired c-block spectrum, a notion Verizon quickly dismissed as political rhetoric from the online search engine.

Hard on the heels of yesterday's McAfee/Yahoo partnership announcement McAfee has unfolded a plan to offer its own Secure Search Service to all users of its SiteAdvisor and SiteAdvisor Plus products.

Yahoo plans to soon roll out its Panama search advertising platform in the few remaining markets in Asia and Latin America...

Microsoft wanted Yahoo in order to better challenge Google, but it appears it didn't need Yahoo's search ad system, Panama.

On Tuesday, Yahoo and McAfee announced a partnership to make the Yahoo Search experience safer. Launched in beta, the new SearchScan feature, powered by McAfee SiteAdvisor technology, offers always-on alerts for sites with security concerns involving spyware, adware and other malicious software. McAfee SiteAdvisor tests and rates nearly every trafficked site on the Internet.

The collaboration covers Web site security issues, such as identifying sites associated with adware, malware, spyware, phishing, and spam.