Google News Inside

Joyent to Compete with Google Apps

Cloud computing is becoming a hotter and hotter topic everyday. Cloud computing, cloud hosting, and everything else in the cloud. This makes me really glad that I don’t live in Seattle because you’d always be in a cloud. Joyent Inc. has acquired a company called Reasonably Smart. Here is a blip of the announcement from [...]

Apples Launches iWork.com, Google Docs Competition

This week at Macworld, Apple announced iWork ’09, but there’s a kicker: iWork.com has a new home at Apple. iWork.com is going to be a Google Docs [and Zoho] competitor. One of the coolest new features of iWork is the new Keynote iPhone Remote. This $0.99 app will let you cue your presentation over Wi-Fi, [...]

Yahoo! Offers Comprehensive People Search

Something I hadn’t ever noticed before is that Yahoo! offers very comprehensive “people search.” I say that in loosely and in the context of helping a visitor that is searching, find exactly what they are looking for. Here are a couple sample queries. First, my name, “jonathan dingman” So this search displays other results above [...]

Adobe to Compete with Online Tools Suite

Last night, Adobe Systems Inc. launched a new suite of online productivity tools on their Acrobat.com property. The first of those tools is called Buzzword. After logging in, this tool is a fairly basis document editor, such as Microsoft Word (for desktop) or Google Docs (online). Here is an example of what it looks like. [...]

Yahoo! Directory Adds Images to Sponsored Links

Yahoo! has added images to their sponsored ads in their directory. I used to have a listing there, but it proved to be pretty worthless (purely in my opinion). [Thanks Barry] Incoming search terms:SPONSORED ADSyahoodirectory

Google Losing China to Microsoft

Google is indirectly losing China’s market share to Microsoft. This is happening through the Microsoft-Founder agreement announced this morning. “San Francisco (IDGNS) – Founder Technology Group, China’s second-largest PC maker, agreed to preinstall Windows Vista on laptop computers and commercial desktops, closing a loophole in an earlier deal with Microsoft that potentially exempted commercial PCs from agreements to preinstall Windows.” Google’s search engine product (which they are originally based around) is going to lose some serious market share to Microsoft’s Live.com because of the pre-installation of Windows on these new machines produced by Founder Technology Group. With Live.com taking more of the market in China — with a current population of 1,321,851,888 (as of July, 2007) — Google’s loses will be noticeable.

Microsoft’s Live.com to Compete with Google’s Free 411 Service

Microsoft recently announced that they are launching a free 411 service, which is in direct competition to Google’s new 411 service. This announcement comes just three months after Google made their announcement.
Microsoft is building this 411 service based on the acquisition of Tellme which took place in March of 2007.
Here is a quite feature comparison between the two services.

Shopping Engine Jellyfish is Acquired by Microsoft

Microsoft has announced that it is acquiring the shopping search engine Jellyfish.com. Jellyfish has quite a range of different technologies in the shopping niche, with a quote of “…it’s the ‘deal or no deal!’ of online shopping…” by the US News. Something unique that I noticed right away while using the site is that it offers direct cash back awards to the visitor. Search for something such as 23″ LCDs. You will get the normal list of products, but on the side, you will notice something different — which I have not seen on any other site. “Shop Direct & Get Cash Back.” Definitely something new for me. An awards system that is built into the shopping network. This is an innovative idea and I feel that Microsoft thought so too.

Microsoft Improves Live Search (Maybe?)

MercuryNews.com brings us this story. Hot off the press, Microsoft is being reported to have updated its Live Search which powers MSN.com’s search. “Calling search ‘a killer app,’ Satya Nadella, corporate vice president, search and advertising platform, said Microsoft has made substantial improvements in understanding what people want when they type a few words into Microsoft’s search engine, Live.com, and in delivering more relevant responses.”

Yahoo! Jumps on the Office Train with Zimbra

Reported exclusively on TechCrunch.com, Yahoo! will be announcing the acquisition of Zimbra tonight. The acquisition details were noted to be USD$350 million in cash. Yahoo! seems to still have quite a bit of cash laying around and they felt like they needed to jump on board with the Office Train. With Microsoft already scared that Google will soon be an influence in the office application industry, this

Yahoo! to Take on Facebook and MySpace

Yahoo! is once again at it trying to take on the big dogs. The question that first comes to mind is, “will is be successful?” I ask that question because if you look at the first post for the Mash Blog, you can see that it’s powered by Wordpress. But wait a second, doesn’t Yahoo! already have their own blogging platform called 360? Yeah, they do…so why are they using third-party software to power their blogs instead of their own in-house software? Hit number one against Yahoo!

You can make starter profiles for your friends. Think: “first round’s on me.”
You can leave your profile open to contributions by trusted friends.
You can customize your — or your friend’s — profile with modules from a growing gallery of apps.

Google Under Attack from Microsoft

Google has been getting a lot of heat from Microsoft lately. Here is the most recent development in the industry. “We believe competition is good for customers and the industry. That said, customers tell us that our solutions deliver the ease of use, reliability and security that enterprises need. This is validated in the strong reception we’ve seen to 2007 adoption and usage and by having achieved more

YouTube Rival Rounds Up Some VC Funding

There are still quite a few YouTube rivals out there right now, but very few that actually have a chance at seriously competing to the brand name of YouTube. Youtube rival Dailymotion has rounded up $34 million in venture capital funding to continue their progress and competition efforts.
Dailymotion currently ranks #50 around the world in today’s Alexa.com rankings, but it ranks at #8 for just France. YouTube boasts #4 worldwide, but trails Dailymotion at #9 in France. YouTube started their international efforts last June with their emerging services to Europe. YouTube will need to be even more aggressive if they want to capture the European market.

Microsoft to Acquire Parlano

Parlano and Microsoft have come to terms which are undisclosed, to be acquired by this corporate giant. Their 50-odd employees are planning on moving to Redmond, WA after the close of the deal expected to happen in the fourth quarter.
“…Parlano’s “collaborative” software enables thousands of workers to share messages and other documents in real time, and offers better security than the freebie instant messaging offered by some Internet service providers…” is what ChicagoBusiness.com had to say about the deal. This actually doesn’t come as a surprise to me, not in the least bit.

Amazon to Compete with Online Payment Services

Amazon, after a long time rumor, has confirmed that they are developing their own in-house payment system dubbed the Amazon Flexible Payment System (AFPS). So what advantage would Amazon have with building their own in-house payment system? Everything. I say everything because they will end up with their own store system that would allow businesses to become fully dependent on Amazon. Yahoo! already does this in a

Upcoming Google Competition

DW World writes that Germany is the upcoming competition for Google. Germany’s ministry of economics and technology will be begin their research into the Theseus project. The project, which lists 22 partner organizations, companies and universities on its Web site, aims to create a multimedia search engine, a set of tools for translating text and identifying and indexing images, sound and text. Google is definitely an industry leader

Microsoft Attempts the Market with aQuantive

Microsoft recently announced that they are moving forward with the acquisition of aQuantive for USD$6.0 billion. Microsoft is feeling threatened by Google with their recent acquisition of DoubleClick, followed by the acquisition of 24/7 Real Media by Yahoo! It seems that every company is just out to purchase another company in hopes to stay on top of that industry. Microsoft wasted their money. Sure they have

Microsoft Holds on Video Site

Microsoft launched their new video platform in September 2006. This past week, it was closed off to new users.
Why? Microsoft is fearing the dreadfully same lawsuit to be launched against them that happened to Google (YouTube.com).

Viacom to Compete with YouTube

Viacom recently requested removal of tons of content on YouTube due to copyright violation. This wasn’t to go to say that they no reason for it, because now they have a reason. Viacom is starting up their own video broadcasting network similar with YouTube and Google Video to try to take some market share away from these two industry leaders. The idea of allowing people to take content