jatiN mahindrA doT coM

Facebook Unseats Google As Most-Visited Site

Although the "thud" wasn’t verified until this afternoon, it seems that an online giant fell a couple of days ago.  According to new data from Hitwise, Facebook managed to beat Google in terms of visits between March 7th and March 13th, becoming the most visited website in the U.S. for the week. The graph visible below makes the changeup pretty clear (blame the sloppy enlarged...

Google Hires XML Co-Inventor

Today, Tim Bray started working for Google, and had the search giant just put out a one-sentence press release stating this fact, the development would be worth reporting.  But what makes this move especially noteworthy is that Bray announced it in a 1,260-word blog post mentioning an absolute hatred of the iPhone. Bray is a rather important person in a lot of tech circles.  Two interesting...

Google, China Edge Closer To Face-Off

The odds of Google keeping its Chinese search operation running are starting to seem quite small.  The Chinese government has started advising Google’s partners to prepare contingency plans, and one anonymous person who’s supposed to be close to Google even said the company is 99.9 percent likely to shut things down. The "99.9 percent" comment, which we first mentioned over...

Microsoft Talks Google’s Privacy “Fails” at SXSW

At the keynote today at SXSW, Microsoft’s Danah Boyd placed a lot of emphasis on Google’s privacy "fails" with Buzz. The topic of the keynote was the relationship between privacy and publicity, and she certainly covered much more territory and social media in general, but it was interesting that Google Buzz was essentially the first thing talked about. A lot of people will...

Possible Scenarios for Google in China @ SXSW

After a long morning of travel and SXSW preperation, WebProNews popped in on an interesting talk from writer and tech watcher, Kaiser Kuo (here’s his bio) about what might happen with the whole Google/China situation, which has essentially remained at a stand-still for the past two months, since Google made its famous announcement about a "new approach to China." Kuo said right out...

Google Gives Wave Another Push With Extensions Gallery

Google Wave didn’t do so well when it came out of the gate, and Buzz’s privacy problems stole all of the attention not too long after.  But now that Google’s addressed most of Buzz’s faults, it’s trying to move forward again by rolling out an extensions gallery for Google Wave. Interestingly, this initial version is still a little rough around the edges in terms of...

Google Product Search for Mobile Showing When Items are in Stock

Users of the mobile version of Google Product Search can now see if items are in stock at a local store from select retailers. These retailers include: Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and West Elm. Product listings from these retailers will have blue dots that can be tapped to see an "in stock nearby" link, which takes you to a seller’s page where it will either say...

Critical: Improve Your Mobile Search and Advertising Strategy

A Google exec recently said, "In three years’ time, desktops will be irrelevant." That’s debatable, but there’s no question that mobile use will have grown much more than it already has. Based on comments in a recent keynote, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer doesn’t seem to think PC use is going to drop too much, but he did say, "Mobile queries are just going to keep...

Google’s Blogger Users Can Now Customize Their Designs

Google has launched the Blogger Template Designer, a way to customize the look and feel of your Blogger blog. "Over the past few years we’ve worked to scale Blogger and ensure that it is capable of handling hundreds of millions of pageviews per day," Google says. "But we also believe that blogging is about self expression and that an important part of expression is creating a...

Street View Nears Omniscience In The UK

Pick a road, any road.  So long as it’s in the UK, there’s a good chance Google will be able to provide you with pictures taken from it.  Today, the search giant made much more Street View imagery available, meaning its photographs now cover about 238,000 miles – or 96 percent – of British roads. The figure below tells most of the story if those numbers don’t...

Motorola Goes Bing on Android-Based Devices

Motorola has announced a "global" alliance with Microsoft, which will see Bing used as the default search engine on Motorola Android-based devices. The move begins in China, where obviously there is some turmoil between Google and that country, but again, this is being called a "global" alliance that is "launching" in China. Motorola says that users will get a pre-loaded...

FTC Takes Closer Look At Google’s AdMob Deal

The "Facts about Google’s acquisition of AdMob" page Google established in November of last year apparently hasn’t satisfied the Federal Trade Commission’s curiosity.  A fresh report indicates that the FTC has stepped up its investigation of the deal by seeking sworn declarations from third parties. This isn’t a good sign for Google.  Todd Shields and Dina...

Google Scores Major Italian Book Deal

Google Books has done it again.  Despite heavy opposition to its book-scanning project, another deal’s been established, and this time, the agreement involves the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage (along with the National Libraries of Florence and Rome). Up to one million out-of-copyright works may be digitized as a result of this arrangement, which is one reason it’s important. ...

Schmidt On China: “Something Will Happen Soon”

Two Google executives have again assured onlookers that the company is dealing with the situation in China.  While in Abu Dhabi, Eric Schmidt indicated today that something will happen sooner rather than later, and Nicole Wong told politicians in D.C. that leaving China is still an option. Unfortunately, not a lot of other details and/or promises were forthcoming.  Eric Schmidt’s exact...

Google, Bing Make Small Gains

February was a quiet month for the search market; we’re not going to suggest any companies either break out the champagne or fire their CEOs as a result of the small changes that took place.  Still, for those who are curious, comScore believes it was Google and Bing that came out looking like winners. Google managed to increase its share of the U.S. search market to 65.5 percent, up from...