Google

Google is well positioned to expand its dominance of the Internet advertising space -- if -- it can pull off a triple play in the market. In baseball, a triple play is almost unheard of: it requires one team to get three outs in a single, continuous ... play. But it does happen. The most recent was this last September when the Philadelphia Phillies made a triple play while playing the Colorado Rockies. Now Google may be on its way to the first Internet advertising "triple play." Google's first play, of course, was unseating Yahoo! as the search-engine-of-choice. From Google's launch in 1998, it ... (view more)

What a difference a year makes! At this time twelve months ago, Google was the darling of the online world. As 2007 progressed, however, the search firm found itself under scrutiny for 'collaborating' with the Chinese government, questions arose ... about Google's role in privacy issues via its web advertising, and it is in the middle of a lawsuit with Viacom over proprietary content on YouTube. Perhaps the most interesting development is the head-to-head battle between Google and Microsoft, the undisputed heavy-weight champion of the software world and new contender for the advertising crown. A ... (view more)

Think just because a company can throw around a big 'ol brand name it means their web business is always protected by an iron curtain? Think again. According to reports from Reuters, advertisements placed by Google on a number of web pages have been ... hijacked by Trojan software. Reuters' source on this one is Romanian antivirus group BitDefender, who allege that Google's ads are being steered by text from a much different provider. What that means is that a specific program is directing queries for Google to a tertiary rogue server, which replaces the big G's ads with marketing from a third ... (view more)

A report from the Associate Press reveals details of a telephone survey of 1,623 Internet users conducted between Nov. 30, 2006 and Dec. 30, 2006 by Pew Internet and American Life Project showing that more Americans are Googling themselves, their ... friends, co-workers and romantic interests. According to the report from Pew, 47 percent of U.S. adult Internet users have searched for information about themselves through Google or another search engine, more than doubling the 22 percent of users from the previous survey conducted in 2002. About 60 percent of Internet users aren't worried about the ... (view more)

Google is launching an ambitious project to become the Internet's leading source of information on just about every subject. Their plans appear to be a direct attack on Wikipedia's popularity. According to a blog by Google's Vice President of ... engineering, the company wants to make it easier for experts to share knowledge. They plan to do this through a project titled 'knol' (a term they are also using to refer to each entry). The idea is for Google to take care of the hosting and formatting, leaving the experts to concentrate on the information. The goal is for the 'knol' to be "the first ... (view more)

Renowned photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand has entered into an arrangement with Google to display his work in the web portal's Google Earth. Close to 500 photographs are included in the free program, as well as on a gadget made for the search ... company's customizable home page iGoogle. Accompanying the pictures are facts and figures about issues and challenges across the globe. (Source: google.com) Google Earth's innovative and highly popular program uses a layer system which allows users to see separate categories of data, such as roads, terrain, hotels, restaurants, and building information ... (view more)

Have you been charged with libel for what you've posted on your blog? If you have, don't expect Google to protect your identity. On Wednesday, the search giant agreed to hand over the Internet Protocol (IP) address of a Blogger user accused of ... posting defamatory comments against three members of the Israeli Shaarei Tikva council currently bidding for re-election. (Source: techcrunch.com ) Shaarei Tikva, which means 'Gates of Hope' in Hebrew, is an Israeli settlement located in the West Bank. The anonymous blogger accused the council members of receiving bribes, committing tax fraud, and ... (view more)

Representatives from Google recently revealed the company's 2008 initiative to research, fund, and supply energy resources to replace coal, a major culprit in global warming. "We have gained expertise in designing and building large-scale, ... energy-intensive facilities by building efficient data centers," said Google cofounder Larry Page. "We want to apply the same creativity and innovation to the challenge of generating renewable electricity at globally significant scale, and produce it cheaper than from coal." (Source: Technewsworld.com ) The Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal (RE<C) ... (view more)

Personal DNA profiling now has an official place on the web, thanks to the Google-funded company 23andme . (Source: reuters.com ) Last week, 23andMe launched a web-based service which, for $1,000, will allow users to access and interpret their ... genetic information. The company name refers to the number of chromosomes in the human genome. (Source: nzherald.co.nz ) Users submit their DNA by mail in the form of saliva samples, and can view their results on a personal homepage within the 23andMe site. The results include information about the user's ancestry, inherited personal traits, potential ... (view more)

Facebook appears to have decided not to fight Google's plans to bring social networking sites together. Jim Breyer, an investor and board member at Facebook, reportedly says the company would be willing to join Google's OpenSocial platform. That's a ... scheme by which programmers can more easily create applications that run on many different social networking sites. For example, a user could make a single blog post that is instantly viewable by their friends on both MySpace and Bebo. One of the main reasons for Facebook's success to date is that users can create their own applications such as ... (view more)