Microsoft and Yahoo logos
It has recently been announced that Microsoft and Yahoo! have agreed on a 10 year business plan in an attempt to challenge Google’s dominance for online search. Confirmation on the deal has been long awaited, and it was finally agreed earlier today. Yahoo! is going to integrated into Microsoft technology platforms, and Bing (Microsoft’s most recent Search Engine) is going to power Yahoo! search. Yahoo! will also be able to sell premium advertising on both Bing and Yahoo! search.
It will be very interesting to find out more about the partnership deal, and exactly what their plans are to try and capture the market share which they have slowly been losing out to Google over the past few years.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said the partnership will:
… Create more innovation in search, better value for advertisers and real consumer choice in a market currently dominated by a single company
Hopefully this will be good news for everyone all round!
I have had a Yahoo! mail account since 1999 - it was one of my very first email accounts & I still use it today even though it now gets bombarded by SPAM emails. I heard a while back that there was a way of being able to hack into a Yahoo! account, by basically ‘tricking’ the system into giving you your login details by using the ‘forgotten password’ options. I don’t know the full details of the rumour, and if I did I wouldn’t re-post it on this site (so don’t ask!). Anyway, I later dismissed this as nothing more than just another rumour / scare mongering that we see and hear on a daily basis.
However, I recently tried to login into my Yahoo! account, and it would not let me progress until I provided a secondary email account which they can use in the instance that I have forgotten my password. I managed to click in and out of the site, and could access my email without having to provide this information. I don’t know why, but I simply did not want to give them any more information about me, and I’m not going to forget my password - I’ve been using it for 10 years! Anyway, I’ve been avoiding entering this information and I’m now completely locked out of my account unless I enter in this secondary email.
This suggests to me that perhaps there may be more to the rumours than I originally thought. Sending the information to a secondary email address would resolve the issue. However, I don’t want to give them that information. Perhaps I’m just being difficult, but what if this was my only email account? Would I have to create a new account just so that I could continue using it? The other thing I found annoying, is that there is no way to refuse to enter it or to contact Yahoo! about it. Has anyone else experienced similar issues, or can you shed some light on the issue?
Following the recent outbreak of swine flu, Google has started tracking the latest epidemic using it’s maps API. On the map there are a number of markers. Pink markers represent suspect cases, purple markers represent confirmed cases, yellow markers represent negative cases and markers without a black dot inside represent a confirmed death. You can view the map by using this link to Google Maps H1N1 Swine Flu.
The page was created on the 21st April 2009 and already had 65,348 views when I first opened the page. Approximately 5 minutes later after refreshing the page, the page had received 66,632. That’s approximately 250 hits per minute.
This is just one of many uses that Google has found for it’s maps API. Personally, despite the morbid feelings associated with this, it is quite interesting to view. It also shows just how quickly the virus has spread and gives a much more accurate overview of the epidemic. Although this certainly isn’t something that an online marketing company should look to capitalise on, it shows how much traffic can be generated if you were to create a link bait on popular world news.
The latest news circulating around the internet is all about Google potentially buying Twitter. Apparently Google is in the final stages of an acquisition which could potentially lead to a successful sale. How much this business deal would go for is also causing a stir. Twitter is currently estimated to be valued at $250 million dollars, although they turned down a considerably larger deal from Facebook at the end of last year for $500 million dollars.
Google aren’t the only people trying to buy Twitter, there is also competition / interest from other internet giants including Amazon. The real value that has been seen in Twitter is it’s potential to become a search engine with a real-time database; something that Google will be very interested in (and also don’t currently have).
Twitter have also been working on developing their own functioning revenue model, and being aware of the potential for a real-time search engine is probably what is making their own valuations that much higher than what is being currently offered.
Aside from the real-time search, others believe that Google would introduce a charging scheme for Twitter or use it to combine adverts and other sales strategies. It would be very interesting to know exactly what Google’s plans are for Twitter, and most importantly, what would become of Twitter if the sale was to go through.
Streetview in Google maps has been a very popular addition for a lot of users, however the recent introduction of streetview in Manchester has caused a lot of controversy. For those that haven’t heard of streetview, it is functionality within Google maps that allows the user to explore around the map at ’streetview’. This isn’t available on every location, only those which have been captured using a special camera. I have used this a few times for exploring locations such as Manhattan which I’ve found very interesting. To try it for yourself, go to Google maps, enter Manchester as your location and you should see the icon (picture below) light up when streetview is available. Click on this to begin exploring!
Streetview allows you to look all around the location due to the way it is captured with it’s multiple angle cameras mounted on top of a Google car. A lot of people now recognise the camera on the car, and lot’s of people can be seen waving as the car goes past!
Although a lot of people think that streetview is fantastic, a lot of people are concerned about security and privacy issues now that the Manchester has been added. Some people think that it is a great tool for potential burgulars to scope out areas and houses online looking through the residential areas, whereas others are concerned that it may be a tool to aid potential terrorist attacks.
One feature of streetview, is that you can send any view to another user as a link, and the recipient can see exactly the view you’re looking at. This caused controversy last year when links were being sent around showing a drunk man asleep outside his house, and even a man leaving an adult bookstore!
Google stresses that it is not showing anything that people could view by simply walking down a street. Although I think that this is a great tool, I agree that there are potential implications with the technology.
