Recently, there have been efforts by the competition to raise the game by focusing on improving the product quality: Yahoo! upgraded its search algorithms to make its results more accurate than Google and Microsoft recently released a replacement to their engine, called Bing. However, nothing seems to have dented Google’s dominance.

So, after a long and arduous courtship, a deal has recently been announced between Microsoft and Yahoo! As it is something that I’m sure our clients will be interested in, I thought to outline the basics of the deal:
•    Bing will become the search engine used by both Microsoft and Yahoo.
•    Microsoft AdCenter will become the single search advertising platform.
•    Yahoo will focus on media, marketing services, and sales.

What does each party stand to gain?
Whilst Yahoo’s share fell slightly after the deal was announced, Microsoft’s has remained stable and the industry seems to feel that this is a positive move for both companies: Bing usage has been growing at an average of 25% per week, but this has primarily been at the expense of Yahoo Search and it is yet to dent Google’s market share. The deal will instantly provide Bing with almost 30% of US internet queries and save Yahoo $200 million in search engine technology development costs. Advertising prospects for the combined systems should also improve. Yahoo and Microsoft both offer effective search advertising platforms, but advertisers often choose Google because it receives significantly more traffic.

Will it work?
The link up will not be easy and both companies expect scrutiny from the US Department of Justice. The Google-Yahoo advertising alliance failed in November 2008 partly because of DoJ opposition. Ironically, Microsoft was the biggest and loudest complainer about that deal.

Also, tech mergers have a history of failure: jobs are bound to be shed from both companies and the cultural amalgamation aspect always proves to be difficult for such firms (perhaps they need our help on developing and implementing an Employer Brand?) However, this is a ‘partnership’ not a merger, so perhaps this is just me being cynical. Verdict? The jury remains open: keep watching this space.

The last site is a designer’s portfolio site which caught my eye. We’ve also been looking at how individuals are looking to manage their personal brand in this new environment and this example stood out for me as simple, intuitive and endearing. Nothing new, just a simple idea nicely executed.

Enjoy

A

Debategraph (http://debategraph.org/)

Hosted by Independent newspaper, debategraph is a wiki that maps all the arguments and issues on particular topics. Interested in exploring the causes, consequences and responses to the global financial crisis? Want to know if computers can think? Or would you like to delve into the classic existential debate posed by the Bard in Hamlet?  Then this site is for you. It takes a while to get used to, but once you do, it’s a really useful and engaging tool.

Al Jazeerah ‘War on Gaza’ mashup (http://labs.aljazeera.net/warongaza/)

I first came across this site on the BBC Digital Plant podcast. Its an interesting example of how the Broadcast community is interlinking professional reporting with individual commentary to produce a more comprehensive insight into a particular topic. In this case, news agency Al Jazeerah has entered the world of neogeography  to create an interactive map that tracks the reporting on the conflict, allowing users to break the information down to various layers (number of deaths, strikes etc.). It’s something that has been done before, but the most interesting feature is that information can be derived from people themselves, using a number of tools including Twitter. Given the increasing popularity of Twitter, I’m just wondering how long its going to be before the recruitment community uses something like this to overlay the number of available jobs in particular regions for a company, and what employees feel about the particular company…

Yahoo! NewsGlobe (http://next.yahoo.net/download/newsglobe)

For global news junkies amongst you, last year Yahoo! released a tool that allows you to visualise real-time news releases around the world. Each story has a snapshot and a pinpoint on its particular location in a 3d rendition of the globe. You can download this to your desktop, or place it as a widget and use it for your own purposes. Its harmless fun, but my level of need for news isn’t THAT pressing. Perhaps it’s more your bag? An alternative (customisable) version of this can be seen at MappedUp (http://www.mappedup.com/)

Bibina (http://www.bibina.com/)

“Mi nombre es Isabel, soy disenadora actualmente me dedico al diseno web y vivo en Barcleona. Si quieres ponerte en contaco conmigo mi email es bibina@bibina.com” roughly translates as “my name is Isabel and I’m currently a web designer working in Barcelona. If you would like to get in contact, my email is bibina@bibina.com” Simple stuff, nicely done. What more can I say?