Ben Charny

Microsoft on Monday unveiled an improved Internet advertising system that lets companies target a more precise audience based on sex, age and location. The technology is now serving up ads alongside MSN search inquiries from Singapore and France. U.S. testing of what Microsoft Corp. calls adCenter begins in October, Microsoft said in a statement. Microsoft […]

A recently filed lawsuit claiming Googles digitizing of library books is a “massive” copyright violation will deter libraries from opening their collections to the search giant, which could ultimately doom the effort, say legal experts. Libraries are not now a defendant in the U.S. District Court complaint against Google filed earlier Tuesday by The Authors […]

Google Inc. announced a kind of Google school for systems integrators and other initiatives Thursday in order to bolster sales of its specialized search products for businesses. The new effort is, in essence, a program to train and otherwise assist systems integrators, consultants, resellers and corporate information technology managers in all things Google. Googles search […]

Telephone companies typically own some sort of network and offer telephone service and access to high-speed Internet connections. Now, so does Google. So should people start calling the search giant a phone company? Not yet, but some Google Inc. watchers say the search giant appears headed in that direction. Speculation about Googles phone company aspirations […]

Five years after pioneering Internet telephony in the United States, America Online, Yahoo and Microsofts MSN are finally taking the business seriously. And that, said analysts interviewed Tuesday, could spell trouble for hordes of companies that subsequently introduced their own telephone services based on VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol), software that allows an Internet connection […]

Search giant Google next month plans a first-ever gathering of its partners, with one eye-raising caveat: no one speaking or attending the event can talk about the goings on with outsiders, according to two sources with knowledge of the three-day affair. A Google spokesman explained that Zeitgeist 05: The Google Partner Forum is a private […]

Whats the next big killer app from search companies? Quickly and easily searching telephone calls for a particular word or phrase—in essence, to Google your calls—is a likely candidate. And it isnt as far off as it might seem. In the past two years, a number of customer service calling center operators for hire, some […]

Internet phone operator Vonage said Tuesday it now has more than a million customers, marking another milestone for the nascent industry of selling phone calls over Internet connections. The 4-year-old firm, based in Edison, N.J., smashed the million mark on the strength of its present advertising campaign, which Jupiter Research analyst Joe Laszlo said he […]