I got in touch with a couple of people from Yahoo including Tom Chi, Senior Director of Product Management for Yahoo Search, about their new feature called Search Pad. Essentially, it keeps track of your searches, figures out when you are researching things, and stores results of interest in a virtual notepad you can use for reference. The following video will give you a pretty good idea of what it does:
Microsoft Names Most Popular “How To” Searches Of ’08
Like it or not, we’re now 35 days into 2009, and textbook writers are probably already trying to compose a few paragraphs about last year for the overpriced latest versions. Microsoft may want to help, as it’s just released a list of the top "how to" queries of 2008.
Ask Partners With Symantec On Safer Searches
Ask.com has partnered with security firm Symantec to offer users safer search results in an effort to attract more traffic.
Ask and Symantec developed Safe Search that makes searching the Web safer by providing users with ratings before they visit a site that could damage or infect their computer.
Top Mobile Searches, Viral Videos of 2008
Tis the season for top ten lists and year-in-review reporting. Not to be left out, AOL released an extensive list of Internet chart-toppers, this one focusing on mobile search and Web video in addition to top overall searches.
Report: Roughly One-Tenth Of Brand Searches “Hijacked”
Companies put all sorts of time and effort into getting people to search for certain terms. This happens with the expectation that people will then visit corporate sites, but a fresh Hitwise report relays the somewhat threatening news that about 13 percent of searchers wind up somewhere else.
Bebo Searches For Alien Life
Social networking site Bebo has transmitted 501 photos, drawings and text messages into space using a giant radio-telescope in the Ukraine that is used to track asteroids.The communications were selected through a contest on the site called A Message From Earth, Bebo users sent in images that they believed would best represent life on Earth.
Public Searches For Gas Relief
It’s usually fun to see what’s on everybody’s mind by looking at Google Trends. Today, no so much, because gas is on their minds, and hurricanes, and not necessarily in that order, depending on where you live. In Texas, or near Texas, or if people have loved ones in Texas, they’re searching for news of Hurricane Ike, which is destined for landfall in Galveston. The rest of the country, while no doubt very concerned for their countrymen are also concerned about spiking gas prices as the hurricane makes for oil refineries.
Google Grabs 1 Billion Searches In India
Google sites received the majority of searches conducted in India according to a study of the online search market from comScore.Google sites in India had more than 1 billion searches conducted in June, representing 81 percent of the market. Yahoo sites ranked a distant second with 117 million searches accounting for 9.4 percent. Ask Network landed in the third spot with 24 million searches representing 1.9 percent of the market.
Senators Oppose Laptop Border Searches
The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) have the power to search, copy contents or seize laptops or mobile devices when travelers re-enter the U.S.U.S. Senators Russell Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, and Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, are calling on the CBP to amend its policy that allows frequent searches of laptops, digital cameras and mobile devices at the borders.
Google News Suggests Related Searches
It’s not by any means a revolutionary feature, and to be honest, it’s probably not even something that you’ll use once a day. Still, the introduction of related search suggestions to Google News seems like a solid idea.