Search

Desktop search declined for the first time in 2012, report says

Looks like those reports last year suggesting that desktop search is in decline were correct: Total searches dropped 3 percent in 2012, according to a new report from ComScore.

The main reason for the decline, according to the report, is that individuals are searching less: about 7 percent fewer searches per user. That's enough to cause the decline, even though the number of searchers is up 4 percent.

Of the major search engines, only Bing saw an increase in searches per user: 6 percent, ComScore said.

ComScore names two possible reasons for the decline: the move toward vertical search … Read more

Google Now widget comes to search app for Android 4.1

Rumors that Google Now would come to the core search app for Android were true: An update to the Google Search app today brings Google's popular predictive search technology to users' home and lock screens.

To use the feature, your phone must have Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) or above. Now it tries to anticipate users' queries by automatically showing weather, sports scores, calendar appointments, and other information without the user having to search for them.

Other features in the updated app, per the changelog:

Movie passes from Fandango Movies now include ratings from Rotten Tomatoes … Read more

Yahoo buys maker of mobile app for recommendations

Over the last few months, Yahoo has been talking about plans to beef up its mobile unit, and now it's making good on the promise. The Web giant announced today that it has acquired Alike, a company behind a mobile app for recommendations.

"The Alike team created an app that focuses on personalization -- using the restaurants and places you like to find the ones you'll love," a Yahoo representative told CNET in an e-mail. "We were very impressed by the team and their approach to building personalized experiences. The entire Alike team will join … Read more

Mayer: Yahoo's future is personalization for content, ads

SAN FRANCISCO --The future of Yahoo will be providing personalized user experiences both on mobile and the desktop, according to the company's chief executive officer, Marissa Mayer.

Speaking at the 2013 Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference this morning, Mayer offered another glimpse into the search company's evolving mobile strategy, which will include some consolidation for the existing product portfolio.

"The core of Yahoo's business is to personalize content," affirmed Mayer. But within that content, she continued, is also advertising, which she said can improve the experience when done right.

Mayer suggested that smartphones offer … Read more

Inkling takes on Amazon, Apple with new e-book publishing tool

The launch of Amazon's first Kindle e-reader in 2007 upended the publishing industry. Now a San Francisco startup founded by a former Apple executive wants to shake things up again.

Inkling, which counts Sequoia Capital and publishers McGraw-Hill and Pearson among its investors, yesterday at an event in New York City unveiled a new digital book publishing tool for professionals, dubbed Habitat. It also launched the "Inkling Content Delivery Platform" to allow people to comb through books using search engines like Google and read limited amounts of content for free.

With its new products, Inkling aims to … Read more

Foursquare debuts venue pages to share with non-members

Foursquare launched its shareable mobile venue pages for non-members today, as it continues down the path of becoming less of a social network and more of a recommendation search engine -- a la Yelp.

"Foursquare has tons of helpful information about places, like photos, menu items, and great tips from insiders and local experts," the company wrote in a blog post today. "When you Tweet, post to Facebook, email or text about a place with friends who don't have Foursquare on their phones, they'll be linked to a shiny new page showing all the most … Read more

Eric Schmidt cashing out 42 percent of his Google stock

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is planning on selling off about 42 percent of his stock in the search giant, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Today, Marketwatch reported on the expected sale, suggesting that Schmidt -- currently Google's chairman -- will try to net as much as $2.51 billion from the sale of the stock. To date, he owns as much as 2.3 percent of Google's stock, and has 8.2 percent of the company's voting power.

Schmidt currently owns 7.6 million shares of Google's Class A stock, … Read more

Bing falls to 5th global search engine, surpassed by Yandex

Yandex is probably the biggest search engine few people have ever heard of.

The Russian search engine has surpassed Microsoft's Bing in the world's top search engine rankings, according to Search Engine Watch, which got its data from ComScore.

Coming in first place is Google with 114.7 billion search queries and 65.2 percent of the market share. China's Baidu ranked second with 14.5 billion queries and 8.2 percent share. Third was Yahoo with 8.6 billion queries and 4.9 percent share. And, fourth was Yandex with 4.8 billion queries and 2.… Read more

Twitter to enable searches for tweets older than a week

Twitter said today that it has begun slowly rolling out the ability to search for tweets older than a week.

In a blog post, the social-networking giant said it plans to enable users to find more than just the most recent tweets.

The announcement is the second this week aimed at letting users surface more content on Twitter. Yesterday, the company rolled out updates to its iOS and Android apps, as well as to mobile.twitter.com, designed to streamline the discovery process on Twitter.

As we roll this out over the coming days, the Tweets that you'll see … Read more

Montana for badasses? The USA according to Search Assist

Poor Missouri. The Show Me State is also "The Worst State," according to Yahoo Search Assist, as compiled in the above map by FlipCollective.

We've seen other such fun stabs at merging Google's autocomplete with digital cartography, but the results gathered from FlipCollective's methodology are the most entertaining and nonsensical yet. For example, while I have no idea why Yahoo thinks my home state of New Mexico is best described as "stretching," it does explain why I've been feeling so limber lately.… Read more