Tag Archives: Yahoo

The New Gmail is Terrible

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The new Gmail layout makes Hotmail look more and more appealing. The separation of content and chat frames makes scrolling down the friends list in chat difficult and the extremely large spacing between emails means less work can be done. Why on earth would Google permit something like this from happening, and not provide a way to revert to the old Gmail look? Hopefully this is not a sign of what is to come with Google products, otherwise I would wager on Microsoft and Apple…

If you haven’t switched yet, DONT DO IT! See prompt message below (which is interesting because they way they phrase it is confusing). Select the “continue to the old look”, which really should have been “continue WITH the old look”. Something seems fishy and if you choose the new look you will be in loads of mental anguish over something so dramatically worse it will make your eyes bleed.

If you’ve already made the mistake like I did of switching to the new look, I’m sorry for you. Hopefully very soon Google will enable a revert functionality to start using a functional email client again.

Google Caffeine – faster for less

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Google has unleashed Google Caffeine, a snappy new name for a snappy new product that apparently speeds up it’s already infamously fast Google Search. A testbox has been set up at http://www2.sandbox.google.com/

A quick test of the search term “Adam Lee” results in half the search speed, but less than half of the results. Apparently, part of the code includes sacrificing results for speed. This is not something I am worried about though as I am not going to look at number 40,000,000 in the list and 10,000,000 suits me just fine (the numbers represent the amound of entries corresponding to my previously mentioned search term).

I believe the hype and new release are perfectly timed to stem the rise of the Microsoft-Yahoo underdog team. Microsoft obviously has a keen interest in making Bing better, and it has made some improvements that have shown results, including a rise in market share since Bing’s birth. Google is basically saying, “this is my territory, get out!”

Microsoft and Yahoo Finally Join Sides

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The two underdogs in the online search industry are joining up, according to sources who have yet to reveal themselves. According to Reuters, Bloomberg, and Businessweek, the deal has come to a close. Microsoft will buy out Yahoo search. Yahoo, on the other hand, will be hosting Microsoft’s AdCenter technology for it’s own ads and utilizing Microsoft’s Bing search engine. Although the deal seems complex, I think it’s simple to see that companies are starting to band together to stem the rise of one of the worlds most fastest growing tech companies, Google.

However, I think it’s a bit too late. Google has already gathered over 60% of the search market, and continues to deliver excellent product for free. Among these are Gmail, Google Docs, Google Sites, and Google Maps. It has established a reputation for delivering highly tuned efficient products that benefit those that use them and also pioneered the use of context focused ad placement and still makes most of it’s money through Adsense and Adwords. Although it has keen expertise in the hardware area (Google custom creates their servers themselves), it remains focused on web technologies and the move towards browser-like operating system.

In other news, Apple rejected Google’s ‘Google Voice’ app on it’s iPhone.

Jerry Yang Finally Steps Down as Yahoo CEO

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Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, founder of internet giant Yahoo, was recently outed by the board. This was largly due to the desultory performance of the company, and Yang’s turning down of Microsoft’s repeated offers for buyout. The current price of YHOO is around ten dollars, far from Microsoft’s buyout price ($31 per share). Investor anger and company underperformance, mixed with Mr. Yang’s lacking charisma (as seen on his Web 2.0 summit intervew) culmanated in his ultimate replacement. He will still be a member of the board and act as “Cheif Yahoo” after his step-down.

Yahoo was founded by Jerry Yang in 1995. It’s precuror was a site built by Jerry Yang and David Filo at http://akebono.stanford.edu/.