Internet News

Clusty goes Yippy

Clusty, a metasearch engine that clusters results into folders, is under new ownership (though you wouldn't know it from the website). Vivisimo, which developed Clusty as a showcase for its technology for automatically categorizing results, has sold it to Yippy.

Yippy is a happy looking, kid-appealing portal-styled place which asks you to register to use its wares.

From Yippy Acquires Clutsy new release - " Yippy, formerly known as Cinnabar Ventures, Inc., is a Fort Myers, Fla.-based company that develops technologies and application services environments for both consumer and commercial market segments in the cloud computing sector."

Not much to go by.

Yippy describes itself as " the world’s first fully-functioning virtual computer that operates on a cloud-based worldwide LAN. Yippy is simply hardware mated to dynamic software set through a worldwide LAN using a virtual, ubiquitously connected web-based operating system. Tapping into the Yippy OS means virtually any computer, whether it is a PDA, notebook or desktop, can be accessed as if from a computer terminal. " [From FAQ]

Highly technical language for a site designed to appeal to the under-12 crowd.

Future - "During the course of 2010, Yippy will present its web-based OS to include social networking, full user interaction, customization, Microsoft Office-type applications including word processing and spreadsheet programs (i.e., Yippy users will be able to open a spreadsheet program through Yippy, create a document online, and save it to their Yippy storage bucket), tabbed browsing, customizable icons for favorites, web sharing and much more."

This will be a download that parents can install to create a controlled environment where even (it is stated in the FAQ) Google can be blocked. (And Bing and Ask are safer and better?)

For now, the web Yippy provides a range of tools for the signed-in member - email, conferencing and chat, news, games, favorites / bookmarks. There is also Tools - which includes classified ads. It also blocks 4.8 million sites. If Yippy really wants to be a safe place, it should provide directory of hand-picked sites approved for children.

The passerby can use the web search component without being a member. Results, however, show inside the Yippy frame making it less useful for the searcher.

Lets hope that Clusty.com continues at the clusty.com domain for searchers to use because going through Yippy is not an attractive option. The worry is that Vivisimo will no longer have an interest in improving the technology to demonstrate the capabilities of its enterprise search products.

What are the chances of success? Controlled communities don't have a wide appeal - ask AOL. Yippy will have no interest in meta-search technology. Vivismo has left the public web search space. All round - I don't think the signs are good.

Added: Vivisimo sells Clusty for $5.6 million, Pittsburg Business Times (May 17)

Yippy plans to increase use of Clusty - "Under Vivisimo the search product had limited use, Granville said, but he intends to kick it up to 3.3 million users in the next 18 months, or one percent of the U.S. search market.". I presume that is the anticipated growth of the Yippy community.

A telling statement - "“In a time with Google under fire, we intend to use those business practices against them as a company to drive conservative, right-of-center eyeballs to our environment,” Granville (CEO) said.

MSN Portal

MSN: Bing’s Not-So-Secret Weapon, by Greg Sterling, Search Engine Land (Dec 10)

MSN has been redesigned (in the US) is still a vital portal - "The portal has a massive global audience of more than 600 million according to Microsoft. Different countries will have somewhat different looking MSNs, which it turns out is the source of roughly 45% of Bing’s query volume. Thus MSN is critical, at least for now, to Bing’s continued success. If MSN grows and gains users Bing will presumably gain and grow query volumes."

MSN Portal

MSN Introduces Dramatically Improved Redesign, Portal Drives Nearly 50% Of Bing Queries by Greg Sterling, Search Engine Land (Nov 4)

MSN has revamped its portal - proving that portals aren't dead. Preview it here.

"Microsoft has introduced a dramatic new look and feel for the MSN portal. The redesign simplifies and cleans up most elements on the site. Among other things, it makes video more central, incorporates Facebook and Twitter, creates a dedicated new local area and emphasizes search."

Windows Live network is on the home page too.

Also - Microsoft Gives MSN an Overdue Face-lift By Peter Burrows , Business Week (Nov 4)

"Heartened by the reception for new search engine Bing, Microsoft has simplified MSN's home page to play up search with the detail of a local paper"

Points out that the history of the MSN portal has been dismal - something put on a computer at purchase and not changed. This new version has been created partly to push search traffic to Bing.

"Now, for the first time in a decade, Microsoft is giving MSN a face-lift. On Nov. 4 some of the millions of users of the MSN home page will see a less cluttered site that for the first time lets users access Twitter and Facebook feeds without having to leave the page. A section called MSN Local Edition provides news of local doings such as concerts, restaurant reviews, and weather and traffic reports which vary based on the user's location."

This new version is only for the US portal - msn.com. Canadians were introduced to a revised portal after the Microsoft split from Bell Sympatico. It is more crowded than the US but is an improvement over the old. There is a video tour.

Sympatico and MSN split

Bell, Microsoft to end online partnership by Simon Avery, Globe and Mail (Aug 28)

Sympatico.msn.ca is closing as Microsoft and Bell end their deal. Instead we have sympatico.ca and msn.ca - good.

"Microsoft Corp. and BCE Inc.'s Bell Canada will close their Web portal, sympatico.MSN.ca, on Tuesday and refresh their own sites: MSN.ca and sympatico.ca.

Both companies said the split will give them greater flexibility to pursue their own online strategies. The formula for making money online is now driven by advertising, they noted, making it vastly different than it was in 2004."

Yahoo Home Pages

Yahoo to streamline redesigned home page by Stephen Shankland, Webware (Mar 17)

New home page coming --

"The new home page, code-named Metro and due to launch later this year, will let users customize what they see and install a range of applications. But upon beginning "bucket testing" last September, in which different subsets of Yahoo users are involuntarily presented with variations of the new home page, Yahoo found out it was making it too difficult for people to continue with their accustomed practice of dropping by the page to scan for changes,... "

But what about the MyYahoo page --

"Another complication: Yahoo already has a customizable home page, My Yahoo. The company has a plan for keeping the two properties relevant, though: as Yahoo.com becomes more flexible, the Internet company will reposition My Yahoo for sophisticated users who demand even more customization such as themes and movable modules, ....

New features at AOL

New Features Put You More in Control on AOL.com by Tracy Highnote, AOL.com blog (Feb 23)

Two new features on AOL home page to "tailor your home page more to your preferences."

Yahoo's Open Strategy

Yahoo puts meat on Open Strategy bones by Stephen Shankland, Webware (Dec 15)

For a couple of years, analysts have talked about Yahoo's social aims and strengths. It may be that Yahoo has now truly "flipped the switch" to promote and exploit social connections and online applications.

"The company has been working mostly behind the scenes to build what it calls the Yahoo Open Strategy, but now the strategy's changes will become evident to U.S. users of some of Yahoo's main properties such as Yahoo Mail, My Yahoo, and Yahoo's music and TV sites. In addition, the company will begin previewing a new Yahoo Toolbar later this week. "

Biggest changes are to Yahoo Mail:

"Yahoo Mail, which according to ComScore has about 275 million active users each month, gets some significant changes, with more to come. First is a new welcome page that now spotlights messages from people in a person's Yahoo social network and invitations from others to join their networks. And the in-box page now includes a new "from connections" button that shows e-mail only from those social connections. "

Also,

+ Changes in customizing the home page
+ browser toolbar will show contacts
+ media properties will spotlight ratings or activities by contacts

See another short summary of the changes at Yahoo Enhances Open Strategy: Mail, My Yahoo, Toolbar & More by Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land (Dec

Yahoo's Front Page

Changing That Home Page? Take Baby Steps by Miguel Helft, New York Times (Oct 18)

Yahoo is slowly changing its main page and asking users how they feel about it every step along the way.

"Users will be able to customize the new home page, which eventually will include more content from other popular Web sites; applications allowing people to track their activities on places like eBay, Netflix or Facebook; and social networking features.

“We are fundamentally changing the front page into a dashboard for the Web,” said Mr. Bhat, a senior vice president.

In mid-September, after months of research and testing of early prototypes, Mr. Bhat’s team began introducing a redesign of the home page to randomly selected fractions of Yahoo’s audience in the United States, Britain, France and India. "

AOL Ending

Report: AOL Units Being Readied For Sale by Greg Sterling, Search engine land (Aug 4)

AOL has separated (or is separating) its ISP business of 8.7 million subscribers from its advertising and consumer portal businesses. Both might be sold. Rumours are that Earthlink will take the AOL members.

New MyYahoo Coming

My Yahoo graduating beta, adding new features By Josh Lowensohn, Webware (July 7)

There is a new MyYahoo that users in all markets will see over the next few days - "integrating improvements made over the last several months like new and third-party content modules, a streamlined header, and advertising that's not as in-your-face as previous iterations"

It has arrived in Canada (http://cm.ca.my.yahoo.com/) - so now to the task of re-arranging and re-selecting. But it does still have my bookmarks even though those are under my US account (us.bookmarks.yahoo.com).

Upcoming changes to iGoogle

Coming in June: iGoogle canvas view, ads by Stephen Shankland, Webware (May 22)

iGoogle - first ads and then social stuff.

1. "Google will overhaul its iGoogle interface in June and give people a way to advertise on its personalized home page service, the company said."

2. Later in the summer, Google will add the OpenSocial API - lets "programmers create Web site applications that can run on any OpenSocial-enabled site".

3. "Also coming later this summer are iGoogle updates and notifications, where for example an application can notify a user's friends of some event such as a new high score in a game. " - what about notifications of a backyard BBQ?

Microhoo Status

Is Microhoo A Done Deal? by Mona Elesseily, Search Engine Land (Mar 24)

This analyst sees the end drawing near for Yahoo in its fight not to be taken over by Microsoft. We all hope that the many Yahoo services we've come to depend on will be preserved.

"As distasteful as it might be for proud Yahooers to make plans for the future Microhoo, from their SEC filing we now get early indications that they’re preparing to negotiate, not fight. For the good of both companies, consumers, and business partners, it would be quite a feat if Yahoo! could secure some real commitments to preserving the best elements of the Yahoo! brand, and to planning the future intelligently rather than gutting the company for its perceived assets. "

Google Services

The Top Ten Most Useful Google Services Wendy Boswell, About.com web search (

Picks for the "top ten most useful Google services: the products that consistently help people achieve the ultimate productivity, demonstrate ease of use, and are viable for the long term."

I live without Google Mail, Talk and Desktop, but I like the others on this list.

New themes for iGoogle

New iGoogle Themes and Personalization SEOish (Jan 16)

SEOish is a blog about Google gadgets and SEO - quite the niche.

iGoogle now lets people create and share their own themes for iGoogle in the gadget directory. Thank heavens - I was extremely tired of city scape.

Kosmix Growth

Kosmix Lands $10 Million Investment Enterprise Search (Dec 14)

Kosmix will likely be expanding with the new funding.

"Kosmix announced a $10 million investment led by new investor DAG Ventures with additional participation from current investors, Accel and Lightspeed, giving it a strong cash position to accelerate growth in the marketplace. The company's fundamental content categorization engine, licensed to numerous companies, is built upon technologies in algorithmic categorization and large-scale systems distribution."

The Kosmix homepage has been changed to show popular topics in health, autos, and travel.

Google Themes at iGoogle

iGoogle Gets New Themes; Google China Gets New Home Page Barry Schwartz, Search ENgine Land (Nov 6)

Themes: Solar System, Autumn theme, Hong Kong, a JR The Monster theme, and an Aja Tiger, available at the personal iGoogle portal

Yahoo More Open

Yahoo opening up home page to outside sources Elinor Mills, CNet (Oct 25)

The Yahoo portal will feature some outside resources (ie not Yahoo) on the front page. "It looks the same, except the items in the Featured section in the center of the page now include links to news and other items located on outside sites. The items are chosen by editors."

I don't think we are going to be overwhelmed by these - I don't see any today.

AOL Transforming

AOL to cut global work force by 20% KENNETH LI, Reuters via Globe and Mail (Oct 15)

AOL is 13 months into its transformation program: boost advertising operations; build up "key channels" for news, food, finance and entertainment; support email and AIM.

"On Monday, Mr. Falco told employees the company is now focused on three main areas, Platform A, the AOL publishing business and online access services, which continued to attract just over 10 million subscribers at the end of the second quarter."

Portals changing

Wither the Internet portal?, Anick Jesdanun, AP via Globe and Mail (OCt 7)

The role of the consumer portal to be the one-stop centre for everything is continuing to slip away. Consumers use them to find other places - search trumps content. The response by the portals is "to buy advertising companies and extend their sales networks".

Yahoo's Strategy

Yahoo’s 100-day review: A lot of cards shown already, Between the Lines, ZDNet (Oct 8)

Recap of stories from the last month about Yahoo as it wrestles with costs and market share.

What's Up at Yahoo

Two stories about Yahoo today - but I think they'll have to do better to increase traffic.

Report: Yahoo Mistakenly Leaks New Service Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service via PC World (Sept 13)

An employee accidentally leaked that Yahoo is working on a new social networking space called Yahoo Mash. Good luck - Yahoo 360 hasn't succeeded and the social networking market seems very crowded now.

Yahoo Tests Two New Services, Reuters via PC World - Yahoo may have better luck with these two new services:

+ create a composite map using Yahoo MaxMixer - merge one map, such as of a campus, with Yahoo maps.

+ Shop by Color at the shopping site - "Online shoppers will be able to filter their search for items such as shoes or pants by selecting from 56 color hues."

Also see - Yahoo MapMixer & Shop By Color, Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land

Netscape Portal Returning

AOL to Drop Digg-Like News From Netscape By ANICK JESDANUN, AP via Examiner.com (Sept 7)

It's hard to believe that AOL once enormously successfully in creating online communities could bungle the once excellent Netscape portal so badly. Here's the lastest - "AOL is once again revamping its Netscape.com Web portal, dropping a year-old "social news" component in which visitors submitted and voted on news stories and blog entries to determine how they're ranked on the site."

Has something to do with brand, which companies turn somersaults to create and then again to destroy. "AOL said visitor feedback indicated that "people really do associate the Netscape brand with providing mainstream news that is editorially controlled.""

So what does AOL do? "Within the next week or so, Netscape.com will revert to a more traditional format and resemble the portal that AOL also runs at AOL.com."

And who uses the AOL.com portal other than devoted AOL users from yesteryear? The Netscape portal will probably be a clone, a ghost of former self.

Also see Netscape "Classic" To Return As Default View, SearchEngineLand.

BTW - there is a Canada AOL s till and it does have some Canadian content in its channels - eg MediResource for Health.

State of Microsoft

Microsoft's Latest, Best Hope in Search by Jay Greene, Business Week (June 26)

"With little chance of catching Google in general online information queries, the software colossus is helping Web surfers plumb niche topics"

State of Google

Google's Marissa Mayer on The Future of Search by Nitin Karandikar, Read / Write Web (June 28)

Notes from presention by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products and User Experience at Google, given at Searchnomics 2007. She talked about eight areas Google is working on.

+ automatic transalation
+ book search - adding metadata.
+ video search - is part of the universal search
+ Google 411 - free phone service
+ universal search - adding more such as blogs (but not podcasts)
+ maps - adding traffic, shows buildings at street view (for some cities)
+ client software - Google Gears and Google Gadgets
+ iGoogle - many gadgets.

Yahoo Redesigns

Yahoo redesigns everything but its web search.

Yahoo Travel Adds Personalization, New Maps, by Greg Sterling, Search engine land (May 9)

Yahoo Redesigns Yahoo Video Home Page by Barry Schwartz.

Earlier there was the notice that Yahoo dropped Auctions.

Google Top Brand

What's 10 years old and worth more than Coke? by Keith McArthur, Globe and Mail (Apr 24)

Every newspaper and maybe every search-related blog has run this story. It's time I added it too. Google, according to Millward Brown Optimor, has a brand that is worth $66.4-billion (U.S.), - more than Coca Cola, more than GE, more than Microsoft - and it happened in a short 10 years.

Key sentence - ""Google is a technology brand that - until recently - was almost universally loved," Ms. Campbell said."

Portal Numbers

Top Web sites in March 2007: Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft.com, ZDNet (Apr 15)

"Google.com and Yahoo.com both received more than 100 mln unique visitors in March 2007, Nielsen//NetRatings says, followed by Microsoft.com and a combo of MSN.com and Live.com portal sites that the research company bundles together for tracking purposes."

More people go to Google, but they spend their time at Yahoo and AOL.

Google Personal Themes

Google adds more pizzaz to Web site with decorative themes, AP via SiliconValley.com (Mar 19)

"Sprucing up its famously plain Web site, Google Inc. is offering a new option that plants its Internet search box in panoramic settings that change with the time of day and the outside weather."

Some screen shots here - Google home pages get more personal, CNet News (Mar 19)

More illustrations and some explanation at Dynamic themes available for your Google Personalized Home Page.

If you have a personal Google homepage, you'll see the option to Select theme in the upper right immediately. If you don't, check if you have other gadgets that are customizing the look of your page - such as bgcolor - remove them and refresh the page.

You can set the theme to change with time of day (sunset and sunrise). Announcements say it will change with the weather too. We'll see if it knows Toronto, Ontario - it may be restricted to the United States and its zip codes.

Google supports tabs now too - very useful for managing content better -such as news on one page, gadgets on another, and the Google Reader on another. (Not that I'll take the time to do that.)

Postscript: Mar 20 late at night - theme has disappeared. Was it removed or is this the night version for Toronto?

Search Engine Land says Google is just going with the crowd - Google Offers 'Themes' For Personalized Homepage - after AOL, MyYahoo, and NetVibes all adopting new features. (The new My Yahoo doesn't work in Canada either.)

Postscript: Mar 21 - I have this figured out. The new themes will not show on My Google Canada - http://www.google.ca/ig?hl=en - but they will show on the .com version - http://www.google.com/ig?hl=en. Solution - change your MyGoogle bookmark or link to the .com address - you'll still get any Canadian news and weather content you set up.

New MyYahoo.com

Revamped MyYahoo Launches Amid Intensifying Competition, Search engine land (Mar 9)

The new MyYahoo launched ahead of schedule. Read about it and also about the competition.

The page that shows at http://my.yahoo.com/ is a great improvement in appearance. However, for Canadians, once you sign in it's the same old boring display.

MyYahoo Personal Page

My Yahoo! Gets Web 2.0 Makeover, Read/Write Web (Mar 8)

Yahoo is revamping MyYahoo personal page into something more "web 2.0" and presumably competitive with Windows Live. Sounds like it's going to look much better - but this is early beta still and only a few invited users will see it.

"Certainly, the first thing I noticed about the new beta My Yahoo was that it had some of the new features Yahoo introduced last year with its Ajax makeover of yahoo.com. And the look and feel is very similar between the two."

Yahoo Troubles

Pain returns for Yahoo, with options running out - Commentary: After being eclipsed on many fronts, going private looks better by Bambi Francisco, Marketwatch (Jan 22)

Yahoo's future not seen as rosy as it was a year ago - "After collapsing 36% last year, Yahoo sports a market valuation of about $39 billion and its stock looks more like that of an old-line media company than a nimble, fast-growing Web dynamo."

It lost to Google on search and now is seen as faltering on content. But the greatest threat seems to be traffic going to MySpace.

" Wall Street and other observers believed that even if Yahoo couldn't win in search, at least its massive breadth in properties would make it the go-to place once marketers put their brand dollars to work.

Today, however, that dominance in media is questionable.

Google, through the YouTube acquisition and its MySpace relationships, has a lot of display-advertising inventory at its disposal. "

Is Yahoo de-portalizing?

Yahoo's Acquisition Pattern: Smart and Cheap by Emre Sokullu and edited by Richard MacManus, Read/Write Web (Jan 16)

According to this article Yahoo is de-portalizing. It has acquired many companies since 2005. Most know about Flickr and del.icio.us but there is also blo.gs, uncomiing.org for meetings, konfabulator for widgets on a desktop (how many people really do this?), jumpcut - video. But Yahoo is slow to integrate these.

Expect Changes at Yahoo

Yahoo! remodelling itself on its users "Expect social media features, say analysts..." By Elinor Mills, Silicon.com (Dec 7)

There will be some changes at Yahoo with the reorganization - may mean rationalization and consolidation of some services.

"Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence, said: "We will see products merged, maybe Del.icio.us and MyWeb or Yahoo! Photos and Flickr. ... There will be a stronger focus on what the audience is interested in, which could include the integration of more social media features into the existing media products, said Charlene Li, an analyst at Forrester Research."

The free AOL

The return of the bubble by David Pogue, New York Times via Globe and Mail (Nov 15)

AOL , (formerly American Online) is free (almost completely), does not send out CDs with software, operates through any browser, looks like Yahoo, and is part of the Web 2.0 world.

Strengths are parental controls, XM radio with 20 free channels, OpenRide software for an AOL bounded experience, online backup, antivirus software, custom email address.

"AOL still sells subscriptions, by the way, for $10 or $26 a month. Such memberships grant you dial-up access, 50 more XM radio stations, unlimited e-mail storage (versus 2 gigabytes for freeloaders), a 50-gig Xdrive, identity-theft and PC-malfunction insurance, and so on.

But even the free AOL has a lot to offer. If you're a parent or a technophobe, AOL is still one of the easiest, safest Internet on-ramps. And even if you're an experienced Netizen, you should help yourself to the free antivirus software, or at least a custom e-mail address and a few satellite radio channels to listen to as you work. AOL's video search, meanwhile, is one of the Web's best; it finds video clips from all over the Web, including YouTube."

Web 2.0 Social Portals

3 road maps to the web, Pandia (Oct 26)

"We are talking about a new genre of web community where you or I or anyone who feels like it can create topic based gateways to the web. Once upon a time there was About.com the and Open Directory Project (ODP) where voluntary editors edited submissions to the directory. But the number of editors was relatively low and it was considered a decidedly geeky hobby to be an editor."

Three communities:

+ Squidoo - lenses on topics written by contributors - call them lensmasters.
+ Zimbio - public portals on topics created by enthusiasts.
+ Fanpop - social portals of special interests - find fellow fans of Harry Potter, as an example.

These sites make it even easier for everyone to be a guide and to self-publish. How enduring will these be? Can people be active as editors at social news sites, and answer services (Yahoo's and Live's), as well as keep content areas up to date?

Google Tools

Googlife – The good life by Anupam Jain, Information. Integration. Distribution blog (Oct 18) - a day in the life of a software engineer who uses nearly every Google tool there is.

Google Help for Everything

Get Some Google Help in Research Buzz (July 29) -- points to Google's new help page -- http://www.google.com/support

Yahoo Canada

Yahoo Canada unveils slicker, feature-rich home page By: Joaquim P. Menezes, IT World Canada (03 Aug 2006)

Yahoo Canada has a new home page -- "The Web media giant says its new Canadian homepage was created as part of "the most comprehensive redesign in the company's history," signifying this operation was far more than a facelift."

Indeed it does. Yahoo really looks like a portal and community centre now - hardly even a remnant of its time as a search centre.

Windows Live Report

Windows Live suffering from 'paralysis,' says Microsoft Ex, The Register (Aug 9)

Trouble in Microsoftland with plans for Windows Live. Niall Kennedy, formerly with Technorati, quit and in leaving had a few things to say -- "Kennedy is leaving Microsoft to run his own company and has fingered a combination of bureaucratic inertia, attention defecit disorder and budget cuts at Microsoft as extra motivation for fleeing. He said there was a tightening of the corporate belt after Microsoft took a bashing from Wall Street earlier this year when it revealed a massive $2bn spending program to catch up to Google and others."

Changes at AOL

AOL poised to offer more free services, AP Via Yahoo News (Jul 24) AOL may move more of its content onto the public web for the advertising revenue. But what will happen to its subscription accounts?

"Time Warner Inc.'s board is expected to review on Thursday a proposal for its AOL LLC online unit to make even more services free, likely including the vaunted AOL.com e-mail accounts, in hopes of boosting advertising."

House Valuations at Yahoo Real Estate

Yahoo does deal with Zillow.com Associated Press via Globe and Mail (July 19) Yahoo's online real estate portal now links to Zillow.com for information on home values. Look for Free Instant Home Valuations and Comparables.

"Zillow.com calculates its estimates — used by potential buyers and sellers, as well as those just curious about their neighbors — based on county records and other data."

Google's Strategy

Google's Desktop Offensive "The Internet giant is fighting Microsoft's advances into search with a host of tools that move it deeper into Redmond territory", Burt Helm, Business Week Online (May 11)

Competition between Google, Microsoft and Yahoo is very hot. Microsoft is launching a new search-advertising network as well as the ongoing construction of Live.com; Yahoo is redesigning its home page; and Google announced four new products.

Business Week has this analysis of Google's activity -

+ "Desktop and the other tools fit with Google's dual strategies of getting its brand in front of computer users in as many ways as possible, and at the same time creating ways for advertisers to get their message to specific audiences. "The key for them is to continue to leverage search, and then use their position there to garner success in other areas," says Scott Kessler, an analyst with Standard & Poor's."

+ "But for the millions who spend their days toiling (or playing) in front of a computer, there is going to be a growing number of places to find the Google imprint rather than just in search. And each one makes Microsoft's dominance of the desktop look that much less secure. "

New Yahoo Home Page

Users of Yahoo in the United States and Europe can view a new design of the Yahoo home page at http://www.yahoo.com/preview. The design seems clearner and calmer. Yahoo services are listed on the left, and your own tools on the right. Search box is on the top. News and a lot of advertisements are everywhere else. There is no directory.

I think there has also been a slight change in the presentation of the MyYahoo page that makes it more readable. However, if anything needs attention at Yahoo it is the personal page.

Yahoo! Inc. refreshes its popular home page - More interactive features added by Michael Liedtke, AP via Seattle PI (May 16)

Of interest:

+ "more interactive features that reduce the need to click through to other pages to review the weather, check e-mail, listen to music or monitor local traffic conditions."
+ Yahoo! Pulse "recommendations and insights about cultural trends culled from the Web site's 402 million users worldwide".

Comments by:

ResearchBuzz -- Yahoo's Got a New Home Page - notes that the directory is completely gone.

SEW Blog -- New Yahoo Home Page Available - likes the look Links to a podcast interview with the executives.

Yahoo Blog -- Yahoo!'s New Home Page and the Future of Information -- "we're also on a mission to empower people to find information and turn it into knowledge, play, and meaningful communication."

Yahoo Tech Portal

Yahoo has a new portal on technology - Yahoo! Tech. Get technical help, research products and prices, merge it with MyYahoo or put on your mobile phone, track products you own and recent searches. Tech seems to be everything electronic - camcorders, home audio, laptops, cell phones, etc.

Google Press Day

Google Health: Probably coming next week, Kevin Manney, USAToday blog (May 3) - Rumours were confirmed that Google is soon to add a health search. Also, video will be added to Google news. More announcements expected at Google Press Day on May 10.

Windows Live

Keeping Up With The Googles "Microsoft's next Windows version is hung up, but its cool Web services are flowing freely", Business Week (Apr 10)

If there is a way to put Google in the title of an article even though the article is not about Google, writers will find it. In this case, the article is about Windows Live. Live , as it is more customarily called, is Microsoft's bid to attract consumers for the day, not just the hour. It is the ultimate in stickiness.

" What exactly is Live? It's a set of technologies designed to blend the programs people run on their computers, such as Windows or e-mail, with the things they do out on the Web. Live.com, for instance, is a next-gen Web portal loaded with services such as Windows Live Expo, where people can search classified ads on the Web and compare notes on bargains with people on their instant messenger buddy lists. Live "makes it feel like the Web isn't a place where you go to. It's linked [to desktop computing]..."

Personal Portal

Still Seeking a Site to Call Home, by Leslie Walker, Washington Post (Mar 23) -- Walker is looking for a single page online to call home. But looking over Yahoo, Google and Microsoft, she finds them all wanting.

Windows Live Portal

Memo Outlines Microsoft's Plans -- "The Redmond giant details the progress of Windows Live -- and points to a slew of new services on the way" -- by Olga Kharif, BusinessWeek Online (Mar 10) -- Microsoft is moving its online users to Windows Live . Already there is Live Mail, Life Safety, Live Messenger, and most recently, Live Search. More services are in the pipe.

Netvibes Personal Information Portal

My Yahoo! Gets Ajaxy at Traffick (Jan 19) - New drag and drop features are at My Yahoo, but Cory at Traffick prefers Netvibes, a new news portal. Add RSS feeds and set up a weather watch. Also has Flickr photos, del.icio.us tagging, bookmarks, to do list - much more.

Yahoo Portal Brings in People

Yahoo's Search for Net Supremacy, by Grant Robertson, Globe and Mail (Dec 12)

Yahoo is the most popular website with 400 million visitors a month. Google gets 90 million. Yahoo does this by exploiting fully the portal model. It has gathered content for a long time. Now it produces it.

,"Beyond indexing and repackaging existing Web content, it has taken the unusual step for an on-line portal of hiring its own reporters, including a war correspondent and a travel writer, to produce columns, video clips and to interact with visitors to the site."

Yahoo has also got on the bandwagon for building communities of new users who create their own content. We've gone through this cycle before with GeoCities (which Yahoo bought) and others. That fizzled out eventually. But maybe the new communities of people who do blogs, share photos, and work with audio and video will be different.

The aim, whatever the model, is to bring in more ad dollars.

"Google and Yahoo illustrate two different advertising philosophies for the Internet: The former connects its advertisers directly to surfers; the latter also sells itself as a "branding site," where a marketer can use movies and sounds to reach a broad demographic, in addition to search-based advertising."

Yahoo Portal Strong

Portals Hot Again, eMarketer (Dec 8) - Consumer portal sites are strong again, and Yahoo is in the lead.

"Measured by sheer size of audience, Yahoo! continues to be the number one site on the Web, according to data from Nielsen//NetRatings. MSN, Google and AOL trail Yahoo! in terms of unique audience. The value of e-mail and instant messaging (IM) services can be seen in the varying levels of time per person."

Yahoo has highest unique audience, and its users stay longer - 3.38 hours thanks to use of email and IM. People also go to Yahoo for news (24.9%) higher than even MSNBC (23.8 ) and much higher than Google News (7.2%). And they use Yahoo's music.

Most people also do some searching while at a portal - "Search has become a cornerstone, and perhaps the cornerstone, of Web use. More than half of all users access a search site during most or every online session. Just 4% say they don't use search engines."

My Yahoo Canada

Yahoo Canada has greatly improved the MyYahoo page. Changes are described at http://ca.my.yahoo.com/s/about/new.html. Essentially these are much better colours and layout, more content, and a separate Finance page.

However, I would like to be able to remove the animated banner advertisement.

Would also like to see the personal page integrated with the My Web 2.0, or vice versa.

Google Business

Google's ultimate goal is knowledge Bambi Francisco, Marketwatch [free subscription] (Oct 25) - bits and pieces on what Google is up to as part of organizing the world's knowledge - and, now by the looks of it, assist in communications. Monika Henzinger, Google Research Director, is quoted from a paper she wrote, "The World Wide Web has become an important knowledge and communications resource. As more people use the Web for more tasks, it provides an increasingly representative and unprecedented in scale machine-readable sample of interests and activity in the world". This has WiFi, Google Maps, voice commands, Google Video, the Google's entry to classifieds.

Google is going way beyond portal at this point. We need a new word.

EliteWeb Portal

Canadian startup takes on search engine giants by Shane Schick, itbusiness.ca (Oct 11) - new search engine from Toronto-based EliteWeb.

"A Canadian startup entered the search engine industry Monday with a portal and set of services designed to provide more selective results than what users find on Yahoo! or Google." Directory is maintained by editors.

"Besides an assortment of news, weather and online communities, EliteWeb is also offering several subscription-based software tools to help small and medium businesses compete with enterprise organizations, including scheduling, recruitment, e-mail marketing and Web site development."

EliteWeb (http://www.eliteweb.cc/) may be based in Toronto, but it is targeting the US. Weather is by zip code (not postal code), top news is American. Directory is quite small. Site offers web mail, online communities, and a personal portal. It has metasearch capabilities. It is packaged fairly well, but there is no compelling reason for using this over all the other very well established portals.

Local Search at the Portals

Portal race goes local and global by Spencer Kelly, BBC Click ONline (Aug 19)

"In the second of Click Online's series looking at competition among the big portals and search engines, Spencer Kelly reports on how the battleground is going global, in more senses than one." -- lots on satellite images, maps and the competition in the local search sphere.

The allure of portals

Search engine race gets personal by Spencer Kelly, BBC News (Aug 12) - Yahoo widgets, personal pages, personal search, video, email - many features to attach us to one portal. Which shall it be?

"When you fire up your browser, do you go straight to a search engine, like Google, or do you go to a portal, like Yahoo or MSN? Spencer Kelly finds the battle for the number one spot is playing into our hands."

AOL Wireless?

Microsoft execs reunite to save AOL by Andrew Orlowski, The Register (Aug 9)

AOL is trying several things to halt the continuing loss of subscribers including wireless and mobile networks - or so it is rumoured.

Lycos has new home page

Lycos revamps portal for tenth birthday netimperative (July 15) -- "The Lycos home page now includes more content updated daily, including streaming video and audio, games, photo albums, blogs, horoscopes, and news. "

Lycos began as a spider, a very good search engine developed at Carnegie Mellon. Now it has a dog beside the search box, uses the Teoma search engine, and features a lot of entertainment on the home page.

Special Features of Consumer Portals

50 Coolest Websites 2005: In A Class By Themselves at Time.com - but the article highlights the services and tools most liked at Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL. Surprise - Yahoo has a Briefcase service for free online storage space. Time also likes the new AOL portal still in beta for mix of channels.

TIME's 50 Coolest Sites Andrew Goodman, Traffick.com

Yahoo - all things to all people

Yahoo Learns New Tricks "Yahoo wants to be all things to all people. But most of all, it wants to be successful" Red Herring (July 4, 2005)

Feature article on Yahoo now in its 11th year. Yahoo describes itself as an "Internet destination". But it is so in part because it became aggressive about search in 2002 with the purchase of Inktomi. Next - again the rumours about Hollywood with video search and a digital media centre.

"Yahoo continues to chase user-generated content. It has come out with blogging and social networking tools for users. The intent, says Mr. Horowitz, is to create new models of programming. It’s an ambitious goal. “Instead of 500 channels, you’ll have tens of millions of options you can watch or listen to at any point,” he says. “Yahoo will play a significant role in helping people navigate that.”"

New AOL Era

AOL takes bold step: Content's now free By Paul Davidson, USA TODAY (June 22)

"The walls guarding America Online's proprietary content quietly started to crumble this week as the company placed most of its news, sports, chats and other features on the open Internet."

AOL has begun its move to a free and open public portal along the lines of Yahoo and Google. It is inviting Web users to test the service at AOL Beta Central, a page that has links to the testing area and news and updates on progress. Test ues is at is AOL.com Beta. At present service includes search, communications, blogs, and Find-it services. To get to the start page you have to accept a license agreement for software downloads of AOL-Beta products - in case you want to test those as well.

The start page itself is very attractive and nicely organized - much better than the Netscape portal. There are tabs, a large search box, local information for your US zip code, a Find-it centre, audio and video - of course.

There will be a My AOL - "My AOL will automatically scan the Web for new articles and information on the subjects that matter most to you. You can sign up for "feeds" that deliver information on just about anything. So check in again in a few weeks to test and explore My AOL."

Very promising. It could be strong competitor to Yahoo and especially MSN. Success may depend on how well AOL deploys personalization.

AOL Portal

Free Internet Site: A Portal to AOL's Future? by Saul Hansell, Geraldine Fabrikant, New York Times (June 2) - AOL after a lifetime of being a paid subscription service is about to open a free portal.

The new portal will have news, sports and business and "some original programming, like music videos, and an emphasis on interests like women's fitness".

"AOL hopes to leapfrog its rivals by using the latest technology in its new portal, particularly with video. The site will begin public tests this month and should be generally available by the end of the summer. AOL will try to draw traffic to the portal from its assorted free properties, including Netscape, Mapquest, Moviefone and most important, the AOL Instant Messenger chat system. Collectively, those services are used by more than 50 million people a month who are not AOL members."

AOL had 21.2 million subscribers in January, down from 26.5 million in 2002

Yahoo Entertainment

Yahoo raises eyebrows with Hollywood push, "Web portal moving into 'micropublishing' of user content" from AP via MSNBC (APril 3) -- Analysts see a shift at Yahoo to being a distributor of Internet programming. It is doing some webcasting, has behind-the-scenes information on shows, and it bought Flickr for online photo albums. It's too early to say if Yahoo is headed to becoming a full online producer, but it does seem to have a strong interest in entertainment

"Yahoo says it is in the earliest stages of developing its entertainment strategy and therefore declined to make an executive available to discuss it with The Associated Press. But the company has made it clear that one of Braun’s mandates is to find new ways for Yahoo’s music, games, news, sports, kids and other divisions to draw more visitors."

Google not doing portal

Google rules out becoming net portal by Richard Waters in San Francisco. FT.com (Oct 25) Google says no portal, no browser.

Yahoo's new page

A redesigned home page for Yahoo.com is on the way. See new page at http://www.yahoo.com/upgrade. Note how little space is given to the directory and how much more is given to advertisements and promoting Yahoo's "services". There will be 2 or 3 options for personalizing the page slightly.

Yahoo's new home page gets more simple By Leslie Walker, Washington Post via Oakland Tribune (Oct 11).

Library Portal

Pick up a portal by Lorcan Dempsey. Update Magazine (OCt 2004) "Lorcan Dempsey looks at what is happening with portals – including a growing awareness that the library portal is only one step towards creating an effective network presence." Reviews use of portals by libraries and predicts more use of it to create a network presence. [Mentioned in ResourceShelf]

Suggestions for Yahoo

Pamela Parker at ClickZ has some suggestions to revitalize the Yahoo service in What Should Yahoo Do? (July 9) She'd like to see a much better interface for reading RSS news feeds - something like Bloglines, a unified desktop service that takes in documents, photos, email - the works, wireless service, and help for people interested in doing local commercial / consumer searches.

Corporate Portal

Portals: Back to Basics: Despite emerging goal-oriented portals, many companies still wrangling with self-service, HR and information overload.
by Jim Ericson. Line56.com. Portals Magazine (Thursday, June 03, 2004) -- Learn more about portals and their management through Portals Magazine.

Ovid to help build Portals

Ovid Launches Portal Advantage Service with Medical Content by Barbara Quint. Newsbreaks (May 17)

"Ovid Technologies (http://www.ovid.com), a Wolters Kluwer Health subsidiary, has announced a Portal Advantage Service “to help societies and publishing partners, independent journal publishers, foundations, and corporations to build fully customizable portals.” Initially, the service will aim at providing medical content, Ovid’s dominant market. Besides allowing content providers to re-deliver their own content, the service will expand access to new content and resources."

Internet Search Wars

Net search wars heat up CNet (May 13) "
Yahoo boosts free e-mail storage to 100MB, while Google makes moves on Yahoo Groups. "

AOL Portal

Portal envy strikes AOL by Jim Hu. CNet (April 22) AOL wants to (re)join the web portal crowd where the online advertising market is. Here's the good news -- "The first step in Miller's plan comes this summer when the company relaunches AOL.com to include similar content and features found on its proprietary service. While the relaunch will be only for members to access, AOL.com could eventually offer more of its content and services to the general public, sources said. "

Article reviews AOL's history of off-and-on-again portal endeavours.

Google Portal

Refreshing article by Andrew Goodman in his weblog, Traffick, about Google vs Yahoo. Goodman has been watching portals since 1998. He believes Google will succeed with Gmail, pulling people away from Yahoo and MSN. One Month Ago in Webmail History (April 2)

Lycos Changing

Lycos gets a fresh look By Frank Barnako, CBS.MarketWatch.com (Feb 25) - reported that the U.S. Lycos has a new layout that emphasizes the Lycos services for Gamesville, Matchmaker, Angelfire and Tripod. Terra Networks intends to make the Lycos.com homepage "a hub for personal connections, giving users a single starting place to manage their Internet experience as a way to connect with others".

It has been a long time since I last looked at Lycos. People located in Canada are forced to Lycos.ca. Lycos sites and services are very prominent. There is also a link to Bell.ca for phone products - a remnant of the old Bell-Lycos association. Lycos Topics connect to content areas. Autos123.com is Canadian, but the Entertainment is a mix - there are Canadian television listings for members, but not Movie Showtime and Tickets. Searching is no longer the point at Lycos. Advanced Search is a dead link at Lycos.ca. There are fewer search results from Lycos.ca than Lycos.com (have to play tricks with the URL to get the .com results).

Search Lycos still exists with Advanced Search and the Open Directory categories. But this may not be for long.

Lycos going for subscribers

Lycos U.S. Changes...Everything By Rebecca Lieb. Internet Advertising Report (Feb 12) - In two weeks Lycos will close its public portal and relaunch as a subscription-based service. It intends to tap into the increasing popularity of social networking that will include online dating and web site publishing. It is remaking itself into a "hub for personal connections."

"Stoever [Mark Stoever, executive vice president of Terra Lycos, U.S.] is confident Lycos can platform a dating customer into a subscriber to job, health, finance, family, or other categories Lycos is a player in, as well as encourage them to use the company's Web services, including site building and Weblogs. "We're excited by our progress in building a subscription business, but not at expense of advertising," he said. "We're building an audience that advertisers want to reach as well." "

Also Lycos taps into social networking AP via Globe and Mail (Feb 12)

KMWorld Newsletter

KMWorld is issuing a new newsletter called NewsLinks. Updates will be issued twice a week. More information and sample issue at KMWOrld NewsLinks. Covers news, webinars, events, white papers, conferences.

New MyMSN

MSN Makes Personalized Portals Interesting Again by Cory Kleinschmidt, Traffick.com (Jan 10) - Kleinschmidt says that the revamped MyMSN is superior to MyYahoo for presentation. MSN users will also be able to view the EBay content from inside their personal MSN page. He hopes that Yahoo, which still is better than MSN for content, renovates their "outdated platform".

MSN personal page has news and multimedia (especially for people with broadband connections.)

There is a choice of content areas - weather, news, entertainment, health, comics - items from which can be added to the main page and moved around. Among these is Hotmail and the eBay. Only 7 items are allowed on a page, but one can add new pages. MSN offers some prepared pages for Finance, Technology, Entertainment, Sports, House and Garden and a couple of others. The Finance page automatically picks up a personal stock portfolio. Blocks on a page are very easy to rearrange with a drag and drop. Of course, one can change page colours and themes. There is also the option for MSN Video if you have time to watch television on your computer. This page, according to the instructions, cannot be deleted - so think carefully before adding it.

Content is for people in the United States - movie listings, tv, stocks.

Three complaints. Can't adjust the number of news headlines from a source. MSN limits it to 3. Can't get TV listings. Can't add RSS feeds. Will be great when then personal portals can truly operate as a single information centre.

The Canadian MSN portal does not sport these new features.

Elsevier End-user Portals

Elsevier to Close Three End-User Portals by Barbara Quint. Information Today (Dec 29, 2003)

Three of Elsevier portals are to be closed, with some services moving to the main site. These are BioMedNet (http://www.bmn.com), ChemWeb (http://www.chemweb.com), and ElsevierEngineering.com.

All require registration but provide many free features - news, abstracts, job postings, e-zines. No date was given for closure.