Ben Charny

Yahoo is the latest Internet locale that’s seemingly been won over by the YouTube phenomenon. Starting June 1, Yahoo will let anyone contribute a video to the search engine’s trove of tens of millions now available. The files will be sprinkled into Yahoo’s No. 3 ranked video search engine results, once wrung through Yahoo filters […]

A majority of all the Internet searches conducted in April were carried out through Google, Nielsen/NetRatings found in a report issued last week that might as well be a coronation. This report, and another from ComScore that had Google at or near a majority, if anything suggest that Google’s Internet search market share lead may […]

Four years after first establishing a presence in Australia, Google’s opened up a new office in Sydney, and is now looking to hire a few dozen more locals. Expect more moves like this from Google, which, like rival Yahoo, is in the midst of an aggressive overseas expansion. Both firms say they expect that revenues […]

California registered voters can now take part in an experimental political fantasy camp. At Wicracy, launched last week, participants create a platform of issues they hope a real political party will adopt as its own. The exclusively online sausage-making (PDF) at Wicracy involves voting blocks, ad hoc committees, party platforms and the other usual trappings […]

Google says it’s testing a way in which someone could buy goods from a well-known merchant, such as Apple Computer, via a Google account. News of the online channel to sell “high-quality” merchants’ products via Google accounts surfaced this weekend on Inside Google. The tests were later confirmed by Google executives during a conference call […]

Despite a recent headline-grabbing trademark enforcement, Google seems to have settled on a live-and-let-live attitude about many of its chief trademark offenders, namely Web sites with names that sound like Google that offer Internet search. There are now seven of these Web locales, Boogle, Qoogle, Xoogle, Woogle, Loogle, Ooogle and Voogle, and they apparently operate […]

There’s new reading material for those interested in how the National Security Agency has been supposedly secretly monitoring phone calls, e-mails and Internet sessions since 2003 without a warrant or court supervision. Earlier this week, an electronic privacy supporting group made available this 8-page declaration (here in PDF) by Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician. […]

Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt thinks everybody’s getting it wrong about the recently announced blockbuster ad deal between Yahoo and online marketplace eBay. Schmidt argues it isn’t a blow to Google, as many others believe it is. Rather, it’s good for everybody on the Internet, he said May 25 during a public appearance. What he’s commenting […]

An Internet search engine once known as Chmoogle was recently forced to change its name after aggressive action by Google’s trademark protecting posse. Earlier this week, Google formally objected to the company’s name on the grounds that “Chmoogle” sounded too much like Google. From Google’s perspective, the fact that Chmoogle is also a search engine […]

Google’s expects to soon get a new list of Orkut communities that Brazilian authorities believe violate local law and should be shut down, a Google representative said May 24. The list was drafted following a meeting Tuesday that Google representatives had in Brazil, with the same officials. The topic concerned how some Orkut communities are […]

Dare it be said that rivals Google and Microsoft need each other, at least a little bit? The answer is yes, of course, and in a very fundamental way. Microsoft’s software is at the heart of the computers, cell phones or tablets required to use Google’s Internet services. And a lot of people wouldn’t buy […]

YouTube continues to dominate the Internet video search market, according to a new report. Hitwise, the traffic intelligence firm, recently reported that as of May 20, nearly 43 percent of all video searching was done through YouTube. MySpace Videos is second with 24.2 percent of the video search traffic, Yahoo Video Search third with 9.58 […]