March 30, 2006 | In Technology | No Comments
Arstechnica has published a simple little trick to view Google search results in a slightly different format.
By simply visiting Google.com and typing javascript:alert(document.cookie=”PREF=ID=fb7740f107311e46:
TM=1142683332:LM=1142683332:S=fNSw6ljXTzvL3dWu;path=/;domain=.google.com”) into the address bar, one can alter the appearance of their search results.
Google hasn’t given any official word about if or when they plan to fully switch to the new format, but there are obvious benefits of doing so.
As explained in the Artstechnica article, the new layout includes a narrow left column with links to the different niche search services offered by Google, including Local, News, and Image search options. This is likely designed to better integrate the many different sections of the site, and inspire casual users to explore all of them.
Overall, the new design seeks to make more efficient use of space on the page, and overall, it does quite a good job.
My bet is that Google will attempt some real world testing of the new layout before bringing it to the general public. The key numbers that they’ll look at are the effect on ad clicks, and the amount of time users spend at the Google site.
If the internet giant can make these numbers go up, even a little bit, they’ve got a winning design. If not, it will quite probably go back to the drawing board.
March 16, 2006 | In Technology | 2 Comments
American federal judge, James Ware, has indicated that he plans to force Google to comply with a government subpoena to hand over search data, now that the Department of Justice significantly reduced its demands.
The original request would have required Google to hand over 1 million random web addresses, and a week’s worth of user search queries in part of its efforts to revive a highly controversial internet porn law. Google refused to comply, and the government has now scaled back its request to just 50,000 URLs, and 5,000 random searches.
Although even the scaled back request is unreasonable, and a great imposition for the US government to expect, it does show the fact that the government wants to compromise, and could even be afraid to confront Google head on.
It now appears likely that Google will be forced to hand over the requested information, but their defiance certainly hasn’t been in vain. The world’s largest search engine has sent a very firm message to the government that they will not go down without a fight when it comes to protecting the privacy of internet users.
If Google continues to reinforce this precedent, the government will likely think twice before making even more aggressive requests in the future, including those which may involve personally identifiable user information.
March 16, 2006 | In Business, Technology | No Comments
This past Monday was the first small window of opportunity for US advertisers to participate in trails of the MSN AdCenter internet advertising solution.
For a three-hour period, beginning at 9 a.m. EST, companies in the United States were invited to join those in France and Singapore, for a one-time $5 sign-up fee. Quite an opportunity for a lucky few, but Microsoft has obviously decided not to open the floodgates on the US market just yet.
Expected to fully launch sometime this summer, MSN AdCenter will cover all aspects of the multi-billion dollar internet advertising business, offering PPC search ads, online branding, email marketing, and more. It is being designed to compete with Google Adwords, but some analysts are sceptical of MSN’s ability to break from its constant third-place position, and be a true competitor to Google or even Yahoo in this highly profitable industry.
They certainly have a lot of catching up to do, but if MSN wants to try and provide another quality option for internet advertisers and publishers, they certainly won’t get any objections from me. 
