The fourth of July marked the celebration of the Independence Day of the United States of America; their birthday, as some may call it.
While the citizens took a day off to enjoy the three day weekend in different ways, the search engines were also not left far behind in supporting the celebration.

A dedicated Search Help Centre has been launched by The Interactive Advertising Bureau, UK, to offer marketers advice on best practices, legal regulations and policies related to search marketing.
Advertisers and a panel of agencies from the IAB UK’s Search Council along with biggies like Yahoo, Microsoft and Google will be supplying the content for the […]

Semantics oriented search technology Powerset has launched its limited public testing application, the one that lends a new way to semantically navigate Wikipedia. It seems that their positioning themselves as an alternative to the technological norm, along with excellent public relations, has paid dividends. It seems that the talk of the Microsoft acquisition that started […]

Advertisers prefer the affiliate approach since it makes it possible for them to work on a ‘cost per action’ (CPA) basis. They do not need to pay for millions of page views (with a possibility that a user might not even notice their advert) or for thousands of clicks that seldom lead to a sale). […]

Microsoft has given a new lease of life to its Windows XP system a few weeks before PC makers were to stop selling it. Windows XP is slated to reach the end of its run on 30th June. However, the firm has now decided that it can continue to be on the market until June […]

Research firm IDC predicts that ultra low-cost notebooks sales will touch nine million units in 2012. The extension, which Microsoft granted to XP for netbooks or the low cost laptops, covered machines with less than 1GB of RAM; a screen no larger than 10.2in (25cm), a processor not running faster than 1GHz; a hard drive […]

Microsoft’s Live Search is coming up with a new strategy, ‘Live Search Cash Back Programme’, to help attract more users and thereby boost their web search market standing. Under it, users will be paid back by Microsoft for using Live Search to search for and then buy the products from participating online retailers.
The cash back […]

Microsoft’s new operating system (OS) version will incorporate multi-touch features, serving as an able alternative to the mouse. Slated to be unveiled next year this new fingertip interface will allow users to paint pictures, trace routes on maps, shrink as well as enlarge photos, and play the piano.
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates informed at the All […]

During the All Things Digital conference that took place in San Diego, the Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer talked about the firm’s failure to buy Yahoo!, despite its offer of $47.5 billion. He clarified:
Look, we made a bid (for Yahoo). The bid was out there for three months. There was a difference between bid and ask. […]

While many delegates who attended the D6 conference largely remained glued to the Windows 7 announcement and developments on Yahoo!, a share of spotlight was also grabbed by Bill Gates who is counting down to his last day (1 July) at the firm.
At a reception that was held as part of San Diego’s All […]

Microsoft has announced that it will begin using its ODF or the Open Document Format, ‘sometime next year’. The announcement has been met with mixed reactions. Managing director of the ODF Alliance, Marino Marcich, stated:
The proof will be whether and when the firm’s promised support for Open Document Format is on par with its support […]

2008 is the year that (online) search got competitive.
So stated Bill Gates. The company chairman, speaking at the annual digital ad summit in Redmond, gave details of their latest product and informed the audience to be ready for ‘big announcements related to search to happen every six months’. He remarked in his keynote speech:
The overwhelmingly […]

When Microsoft had invited its advertising customers for its annual gathering in Seattle almost a year ago, Terry Semel, who was then the Yahoo! chief executive, was one of the main attractions. News that Microsoft and Yahoo! held talks about a possible merger was leaked just before the event, and everyone was looking to find […]

Analysts believe any agreement with Microsoft could well save Yahoo! from having to engage into a battle with Mr Icahn, who is amassing a stake in the internet firm in an effort to force out the current board. Mr Icahn’s manoeuvre followed criticism over Yahoo’s decision that was led by Jerry Yang, the co-founder and […]

Becta, one of the UK’s renowned educational technology agencies, is fighting a grim battle against Microsoft. It delivered the first blow after complaining to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) about the latter’s anti-competitive practices.
Becta has further stepped up its Microsoft fight and referred its concerns over interoperability to the European Commission (EC). It has […]

The reported deal between the WPP Group, the advertising holding firm and Yahoo! is one of many similar such partnerships, which both sides plan to make. WPP’s chief executive, Martin Sorrell, stated in an interview he was disappointed that Yahoo! and Microsoft failed to reach an agreement. He said:
Anybody who is a customer (in the […]

Yahoo! chairman, Roy Bostock, rejected accusations from the billionaire investor Carl C. Icahn that the firm’s board had acted irrationally in rejecting the takeover offer from Microsoft and asserted that Yahoo! remained open to a good deal at the right price.

The European Union is recommending to leading search engines that they follow its data protection rules. The thing to note here is that most of the companies are based outside the European Union (EU).
A privacy panel has issued a report urging the top search engines like Google, MSN and Yahoo! to delete the stored data […]

A group of Unix users has taken the British Standards Institution to court in an attempt to get the standards body to take back its support of Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) document format. The UK Unix & Open Systems User Group UKUUG said the British Standards Institution’s contentious decision to vote for approval of […]

The split between Microsoft and Yahoo! has left the online advertising market wide open for Google to move in, capitalise and expand. It also catapults the search engine giant in the envied position of deciding the destiny of its closest rival, so to say. Microsoft took away a $47.5 billion offer for Yahoo! after the […]