Posts Tagged ‘Yahoo’
Why not block Facebook?
Given the recent commotion regarding Facebook (Scott Gilbertson and Dave Winer has some wraps on this), Paul Buchheit asks an interesting question.
What Facebook wants to prohibit Plaxo Pulse from doing is, to some extent, what Facebook is doing when users import their address books from, say, Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail. So should Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail block Facebook?
Head on over to Paul's post and have your say.
Related postsTags: Facebook, Gmail, Hotmail, Privacy, Yahoo
Yahoo takes a leap forward: Buys e-mail company
CNET News reports that Yahoo buys e-mail software firm Zimbra:
Zimbra offers branded e-mail with calendar and mobile features as well as the ability to work offline. The company has more than 200 educational, business and ISP partners, including Comcast, that offer branded e-mail service to roughly 9 million subscribers.
What differentiates Zimbra are the "Zimlet," Web service mashups that offer richer functionality in e-mail. For instance, people can simply mouse over airline flight information in an e-mail to check on flight status. Users are also able to track FedEx deliveries and get maps, stocks and other information in e-mail too.
GigaOM also has a post on this.
Looks like there's a great deal of stuff happening in the field of browser based email applications. Again. Nice. Very nice.
Related postsTags: E-mail, Online applications, Yahoo
Is Yahoo looking for trouble?
Via Scobleizer i found this article at Marketing Pilgrim entitled "Exclusive - Yahoo Using Dirty Tactics to Switch Google & Firefox Users?".
Apparently the update feature in a new upgrade of Yahoo Messenger downloads and installs Internet Explorer 7, tries to make Internet Explorer 7 the default browser AND makes Yahoo the default search engine in Internet Explorer 7.
Also check out Yahoo's reply to Andy Beal from Marketing Pilgrim:
Yahoo! Messenger’s update process does not download IE7 to a user’s computer. As part of the Yahoo! Messenger update process, people have the choice to download Yahoo! Toolbar, set Yahoo.com as their homepage and set Yahoo! Search as their search engine. This is an industry-wide practice….IE7 is not bundled into the Yahoo! Messenger update process.
Industry wide practice?
I can't see why Yahoo is doing this, and I can't imagine how attempting to modify the user's settings in any way can be an advantage to them. It's bad practice and people are gonna know about this "upgrade", and Yahoo and Yahoo's reputation gets damaged.
Related postsTags: Instant messaging, Messenger, Yahoo
Opera ditches Google for Mini and partners with Yahoo
Opera is now saying "bye bye" to Google as the standard search engine for Opera Mini, Opera's browser for mobile phones.
Instead they've chosen Yahoo to handle searches in Opera Mini.
I noticed this when I started Opera Mini and I say the Y! logo in Opera Mini and though "didn't that used to be a Google logo?".
I'm not sure what this means for the end user. I just did a Yahoo search in Opera Mini and it seemed ok — not too different from a Google Search.
Read Opera's press release "Opera Names Yahoo! Exclusive Global Partner for Mobile Search"
Related postsTags: Google, Mobile, Opera, Yahoo
It's official: I really really really like MyBlogLog
After Yahoo's acquisition of MyBlogLog I hurried to the site and signed up.
And I must say I'm impressed, and therefore I've already bought a month's worth of membership ($3) and if I continue to like it I'll sure pay for a year ($25).
Besides being a service where like-minded bloggers can connect to and talk with each other, MyBlogLog also offers statistics (updated on an hourly basis!!) and some widgets for my blog.
I've added some of the widgets to this blog — see them here.
The best thing (besides the quickly updated statistics) is, that instead of creating a new blog at MyBloglog.com, I just type the address of my blog, and MyBlogLog recognized it as a WordPress powered blog.
Sweet and painless.
Related postsTags: Blogging, MyBlogLog, Yahoo
Yet another Yahoo acquisition: MyBlogLog
I have previously written about Yahoo acquisitions in 2005 and 2006, and now Yahoo has been out buying again.
This time it's MyBlogLog a service aiming to connect like-minded bloggers in communities. You just add your blog by typing in the URL/URI. Apparently MyBlogLog also has a built in statistics module, that requires you to add a single JavaScript to your blog.
Read more about Yahoo's acquisition of MyBlogLog:
Related postsTags: Acquisitions, Blogging, Yahoo
Yahoo acquisitions in 2005 and 2006
CyberNet News has an article on Yahoo Acquisitions Over the Last Two Years.
The article sums up two years of interesting Yahoo acquisitions, seven in 2005 and three in 2006.
I can honestly say that there are some acquisitions in there, that I haven't heard anything about.
Related postsTags: Acquisitions, Yahoo
Germany leaves Chirac's prestige search project
Last year France and Germany proclamed, that they would create a competing search engine to take on Google and Yahoo. The new project was dubbed "Quaero", latin for "I search".
But according to The Guardian, Germany has now left the coorporation.
»The project soon ran into difficulties and now the German economics and technology ministry has confirmed it is abandoning the €400m (£270m) project because it was sceptical it would ever be able to challenge the might of Google and Yahoo! A ministry spokeswoman told the Guardian: "The French wanted a search engine. We wanted something else."«
It's hardly surprising that they don't think the new search engine stands a chance, but I find it surprising, that it apparently took the Germans quite a long time to realize that France wanted a search engine — which they didn't.
According to The Guardian, the French will continue to work on Quaero.
Related posts