Steve Bryant

Yahoo Answers recently added a feature–similar in appearance to Google’s Gmail stars–that allows you to “star” individual answers. Those starred answers are then added to your public profile page, and you can view what other members have starred that answer. Most importantly: “Starring questions lets the Answers community surface the best questions on the site. […]

JPMorgan released findings from a recent survey of consumer spending behavior, including consumer adoption of Google Checkout and PayPal. Loren Baker at SEJ has the details, and you can download the research here. The salient points: Google has 6 percent adoption among online consumers, and those Checkout users are likely affluent and twice as likely […]

Google filed a patent application in December that hints at its plans to place contextual advertising on billboard displays. The application for a “network of electronic display devices” covers a technology that would let local stores tie their stock-control computers to a Google-powered ad network. If a store does not have an item in stock, […]

(via Andy Beal) Pete Abilla built an AJAXified timeline of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft acquisitions. It’s a pretty neat tool, though sometimes hard to interpret, but check it out. Notice how the pace of acquisitions for all companies increased significantly in 2005. In 2002, Microsoft seems to be the only company making moves (I assume […]

Google’s been suffering some security issues of late, which may cause some of you to be anxious about how much of your data is on Google’s servers. While you’re waiting for the G Poppa to fix the latest vulnerabilities, you can at least make yourself feel a little more secure by managing those old Google […]

Google is considering a move to Lenoir, N.C., a small blue-collar town primarily known for its failing furniture industry. State and local governments have offered Google more than $100 million in tax breaks, estimating that a Google facility in Lenoir could bring in over $600 million in new investment, equal to half the city’s tax […]

This has nothing to do with search engines, but it seems to be so incredibly absurd I thought it deserved a honored spot in the “Today in Stupid” category. Paramount Music Corporation, Warner Bros., and several other publishing companies are suing Washington-based Guiseppe’s Italian Restaurant for hosting public performances of popular jazz tunes by the […]

Terrorists attacking British bases in Basra are using Google Earth images to pinpoint their attacks, according to the Telegraph. “Documents seized during raids on the homes of insurgents last week uncovered print-outs from photographs taken from Google.The satellite photographs show in detail the buildings inside the bases and vulnerable areas such as tented accommodation, lavatory […]

We all know that our financial institutions have a tenuous grasp of reality. When bank employees aren’t too busy singing atrocious versions of popular U2 songs, they’re apparently scheming to shut down successful, home-grown knitting stores. My Aunt Alison e-mailed me this morning to inform me that a popular knitting site–Blue Moon Fiber Arts–was unceremoniously […]

I’m pretty sure everybody realizes this now, but I’d like to reiterate: The Official Google Blog isn’t a blog. It’s a press release and public relations machine that happens to use a blog platform. The Google Blog has been changing over the years, as Donna Bogatin notes. But the change isn’t mysterious–the company has simply […]

Now that Google owns a stake in Shenzhen Xunlei Network Technology Ltd., the search giant should urge the Chinese video site to quell piracy, says the MPAA. Xunlei provides software that is used by some to download pirated movies, said the MPAA. The site itself includes access to movies such as Time Warner’s “Flags of […]

A few weeks ago, when Jeremy Zawodny discovered that Google had ripped off a Yahoo page design, I thought it’d be fun to create a Google start page that looked like Yahoo’s. So here it is, just a little fun what-if comp. I’m no designer, so don’t yell at me for substituting the wrong fonts […]