The Google Public Policy Blog offers a recap of presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s visit to the Googleplex yesterday. According to the blog, Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt didn’t waste any time getting to the tough questions:

Barack Obama added another “first” to his already notable list yesterday: he became the first U.S. presidential candidate — and, I’m guessing, the first high-level elected official in any country — to have a ready answer to a standard Google engineering interview question. Asked by Eric…

...continue to read "Speaking at Google, Obama Promises Nation’s First CTO"

Our international readers may not realize that former U.S. Vice President-turned-environmental-activist Al Gore is at once laughed at and lauded for statements about his role in “creating the Internet” — a gem of a sound bite, especially when taken out of context. Well, he may want to take it back. If this screenshot is any indication, he’d have been better off inventing “Web 2.0″; at least then, he might be able to conjure up a Facebook app that could convince…

...continue to read "Al Gore Discovers an Inconvenient Truth About Facebook"

Ever feel like Yahoo’s the Rodney Dangerfield of Search? I tell ya, they’re the the #1 site on this Intertron thing, and still… No respect.

Their latest soon-to-be-overshadowed endeavor, Yahoo! Search Assist, includes an advanced version of the predictive keyword results the major search engines are using, and improved video and Flickr photo search integration.

Here’s what Yahoo’s Yodel Anecdotal blog had to say:

With this launch, we took some liberties with the search box itself, turning it into an interactive experience that senses when…

...continue to read "Yahoo Launches Search Assist, Gets No Respect"

Let’s say you need to unload a promising-yet-way-overestimated tech company you bought for $2.6 billion in 2005 dollars. Where do you turn — eBay? What if listing a “Buy it Now” price isn’t an option? What if you are eBay?

The New York Times has some bubble-bursting hindsight on the broader effect of eBay’s soured Skype acquisition.

Skype earned $90 million during the second quarter of 2007, far below eBay’s projections. EBay said in a regulatory filing that the charge was “the result…

...continue to read "EBay Lowers Reserve on Skype"

Imagine being able to compare prices for airfares, hotels and retail products, with customer reviews, directly in your browser.  SmartShopper — a plug-in for Microsoft Internet Explorer (they’ll add Firefox next quarter) — does just that.

Our friends at CenterNetworks spoke with SmartShopper CEO Oren Dobronsky about this exciting new tool for consumers and e-commerce shops.

The add-on is only .5 mb in size Automatically recognizes any product or travel offering Oren’s mission statement is to, “make the comparative shopping experience better and…

...continue to read "A Pricing Engine That Takes it to the Browser"

Well, at least that’s what Bill Gates said at the recent Microsoft SAS event. While Microsoft is not always known to be right about everything, Bill Gates has been pretty good at predicting long-term trends. Bill riffs about yellow pages, traditional media channels, mobile, virtual worlds (e.g., Second Life), and even social networking. You can watch a video of his presentation.

I’d have to agree with most of what he says; I just wonder about the speed of decline and consumer…

...continue to read "Traditional Advertising Models Are Doomed!"

There is a new Yahoo! PayPal Checkout initiative that expands the deal announced last year. With the Yahoo! PayPal Checkout Program, a blue shopping cart icon appears next to your ad in Yahoo! search results. This may help your ad stand out, and let customers know you offer PayPal Express Checkout. You can see how it works here. You can sign up here and get $100 credit each from both partners.

This is a powerful counter-punch to Google Checkout. PayPal is by far…

...continue to read "Yahoo! Checks Out Google And Embraces Paypal"

I’ve never used Yahoo! Answers but, then again, there’s a lot I don’t know. Yahoo! Answers Network is trying to make the answers we get “smarter.” The Yahoo! Search blog explains:

“But even with all that knowledge being shared, one of the biggest pieces of feedback we’ve gotten from our users is to make Answers “smarter”, enabling them to get even better answers to their questions and connect to the smart people they know in (and out of) Answers. Well today, we…

...continue to read "Wanna Be in My Knowledge Network?"

The Ask.com blog shows some amazing new features for their local search product. You can actually draw and write on the map, marking it up so you can send it to friends. It’s worth a try. Actually, my friends know better than to take any directions from me, with a map or without.

...continue to read "Ask.com Maps – Or New Ways To Confuse My Friends"

Every time I read a “best practices” guide to optimizing landing pages, I cringe. I know full well the limitations and the biases inherent in what the teacher is about to dispel to the pupil. Even worse, I know full well the pupil is likely to accept the teachings as gospel, and run off to begin implementation. Honestly, I don’t blame them- implementation led by a methodology will inevitably outperform pure talent or intuition. However, the assumption in that last…

...continue to read "Problems with Landing Page Optimization?"