Clint Boulton

One day after Google announced Apple’s iPhone was the most frequently searched word in 2007, Google Dec. 5 released an application that lets users access the company’s search, Gmail, Calendar and other applications on the popular device. Google has put the number of mobile phone users worldwide at 3 billion, and the move is the […]

Yahoo and Google are making significant enhancements regarding instant messaging, reminding the industry that chat is not losing its luster as a popular mode of communication and collaboration. Yahoo on Dec. 6 unveiled a pre-beta test of its Yahoo Messenger for Vista, an instant messaging client tailored for Microsoft’s newest Windows operating system. On Dec. […]

Facebook has agreed to let its users turn off its controversial Beacon advertising system, the latest back-pedal from a company seeking to generate more revenues through social advertising. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in a contrite blog post Dec. 5, said his company missed the right balance between making the Beacon system “lightweight” enough to not […]

Exalead is releasing a new version of its search engine that enterprises can customize to gather information tailored to their business interests. Launched Dec. 5, Exalead One:Enterprise 4.6 includes APIs (application programming interfaces) that let IT managers and OEMs tailor search for specific interests. The new Push API funnels specific content to Exaleads index and […]

Bowing to pressure from users, partners and privacy advocates, Facebook has agreed to let its users turn off its controversial Beacon advertising system. The back-pedal is the latest move from a company that infringed on peoples’ privacy by using its network of more than 55 million users as a testing ground for socially-targeted ads. Facebook […]

One of the job requirements of a high-tech company product manager is to make life harder for their public relations people. The latest and greatest example was the meeting hosted by Google and the Ann Arbor Chamber of Commerce in Michigan last Thursday. There, Google product manager and former JotSpot product development guru Scott Johnston […]

Google will eventually provide an open application programming interface for its Trends analysis tool, allowing users to embed the tool in their applications, or download data from the application for personal use, a company official said. Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google, would not provide timelines for when the […]

The swicki is out of beta. The swicki, formally launched Dec. 4 by search software specialist Eurekster, is a custom search portal and social search widget. The software, free for consumers, also boasts new automation features to make building a swicki simpler. Users may customize a swicki search portal on any topic, choosing content from […]

Alfresco Software turned its Web-based enterprise content management platform into a haven for social computing tools on Dec. 4. The company is blending its open-source ECM software with tools that many employees use to collaborate with colleagues and perform their jobs, forming the Alfresco Social Computing Platform. Alfresco officials expect knowledge workers dealing with content […]

Microsoft said Dec. 3 it has created two new utilities, one designed to improve the way partners in the companys adCenter online advertising system generate revenues from paid search and the other to optimize Web sites for Microsoft Live Search. The adCenter platform is the core weapon in Microsofts bid to compete with rival ad […]