Today’s search podcast covers the Daily SearchCast podcast celebrating its
first birthday; Microsoft’s record breaking army of new hires; Baidu getting on
HP computers in China; Google rankings shifting around; a musical about Google and more!
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Below are links to items discussed:
Microsoft Hires Over Ten Thousand Employees In Past Year
The Seattle Pi reports that Microsoft has broke their own hiring records, by
hiring 10,081 new employees worldwide over the past fiscal year. The article
takes the angle that the hires were in order to compete with Google. Now
Microsoft has 71,553 people worldwide as of June 30, 2006. Wow!…
- Yahoo
Launches Visual Link Map Tool Named Webzari
The Yahoo Search Blog announced a new tool developed by the Yahoo Korea team
named Webzari. Webzari is a tool that visually maps the data from Yahoo Site
Explorer. It takes a site’s inlinks, and maps them in planets on a map. Check
out Search Engine Watch’s map which is kinda hard to read, but you can also
check out Search Engine Roundtable which has easier to read planets. Notice,
when you mouse over the planets, it shows you the location of the server
linking to you, and if you click on it shows you more. Very cool interface.
Check…
- Study
Reveals Changing Web
A report of a new study over on WebSiteOptimization.com has some interesting
research showing how users ineract with web sites, revealing an “F-shaped”
eyetracking patterns similar to the results Enquiro found looking at earch
results. From the study: A new browser study revealed a shift in how we
interact with the Web. University of Hamburg researchers found the Web moving
from static hypertext information to dynamic interactive services. Clickstream
heatmaps and web page statistics show rapid interaction over smaller areas of
the screen. The authors recommend that web developers create concise,
flexible, and fast loading web pages to keep pace…
- Powerful
Search + Social Bookmarking = Diigo
Social bookmarking and search services have been exploding in popularity
recently, but I’ve yet to find one that combined ease of use and flexibility
in just the right way. I’ve been playing around with a new “social annotation”
service called Diigo that launched this week, and have been favorably
impressed. It’s simple, easy to use, but offers a lot of power, especially
when it comes to searching—both the web as well as content that you’ve decided
to save. More on the new service in today’s SearchDay article, Diigo Offers
“Social Annotation” Tool….
- Baidu To
Be Default Engine On All HP Computers Ship To China
Philipp Lenssen reports that Baidu, the popular Chinese search engine, will be
the default search engine on all new HP’s shipped to China after October 2006.
As Philipp notes, this is bad for Google who has been pushing hard into the
Chinese market. Today the Wall Street Journal reports that Baidu’s
second-quarter earnings were very high, “but didn’t meet some investors’
higher expectations.”…
- Changes
Spotted In Google Search Results
I reported this morning at the Search Engine Roundtable that Google Search
Results Shifting Again. What folks in the forums are finding is that some, but
not all, of the pre June 27th results are coming back to the way they were.
They are also finding that the Google site command search is again working on
those datacenters that have the new results. There is a lot of commotion going
on in the forums about these changes that began this morning….
- Possible Shift in
Google-Webmasters Communication Policy!, Threadwatch
Were All of Google Properties Down Last Night?, Search Engine
Roundtable
- Adam “Mini-Matt” Lasnik’s Blog
ComScore Adds Competitive Search Data to qSearch, ClickZ
- UK Microsoft adCenter
public opening mid August, Threadwatch
- Yahoo
Partners With British Telecom For Yahoo Local UK
Revolution Magazine reports that Yahoo has partnered with British Telecom to
share the “Phone Book” data. Yahoo will add 120,000 businesses who advertise
in The Phone Book from BT within the Yahoo Local UK platform. This helps BT
offer an additional service to their Phone Book customers and gives Yahoo
access to some more data and marketing opportunities they may have not had
otherwise….
Live From GoogleFi, GigaOM
New Metasearch for Events and Ticket Providers, ResearchBuzz
New Natuaral Hazards Gateway Site from USGS, Fact Sheets & More,
ResourceShelf
- French
Court Preventing Greenpeace France From Displaying Crop Data On Google Maps
BoingBoing spotted an interesting case where a French court ordered Greenpeace
France to remove a site using the Google Maps tool to display “locations of
commercial, genetically engineered corn fields in France.” Greenpeace France
overlaid an X in the spot of those corn fields. They have removed the site,
but plan on appealing the order. “Greenpeace argues the online maps should not
be censored because an EU law requires the French government to make the crop
site information public anyway,” Xeni Jardin of BoingBoing writes….
Flickr set of bad parking at Yahoo lot, Boing Boing
MSN Gets Rights to ‘Arrested’, Los Angeles Times
- Google
The Musical Coming Soon
Philipp Lenssen spots a new musical named Google: The Musical. The musical is
being hosted at the Rarig Center on the University of Minnesota Twin Cities
campus. The dates of the musical include; Friday on August 4th at 5:30 pm,
Tuesday on August 8th at 7:00 pm, Thursday on August 10th at 10:00 pm, Friday
on August 11th at 8:30 pm, and Sunday on August 13th at 1:00 pm. What to
expect?…