So I’ve been meaning to do some write-ups on some browser toolbars and plugins that may be useful for SEO purposes . . . and leave it to Rand at SEOmoz to remind me of this with his review of 12 popular browser toolbars. Link Counter is one that I absolutely love …

Google invited hundreds of folks, mostly from D.C.'s tech policy set, to nibble on hors d'ouerves at the opening of its new Washington digs, which temporarily took on a nightclub-like glow.(Credit: Anne Broache/CNET News.com) WASHINGTON–I now know the real reason why Google …

WASHINGTON–Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt on Thursday suggested NASA could learn a few things from his company. Google CEO Eric Schmidt was the keynote speaker at a Washington luncheon commemorating NASA's 50th anniversary.(Credit: Anne Broache/CNET News.com) Speaking at a luncheon series to commemorate the agency’…

Google.org’s technology project to help save lives in the event of natural disasters or public health threats is expected to launch Thursday. The project, called Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases and Disaster (InSTEDD), is a nonprofit organization that ambitiously aims to help communities around the world use Web …

Vic Gundotra, vice president of mobile and developer at Google, shows of the new user interface of Google Web apps for the iPhone being unveiled at Macworld on Monday.(Credit: Google) On Christmas Day thousands of people opened up boxes with something cool and functional inside and wasted no time …

Two of the most useful online services have got to be maps and weather. With this in mind, The Weather Channel Interactive is offering a new mapplet for Google Maps that lets people add customizable weather layers to maps and see weather data on Google Earth (download here). One click …

Google just keeps getting more popular for search. The latest figures from Hitwise, which monitors search market share, show Google with a record 66 percent share of Web searches in the United States for the month of December 2007. Google had just over 63 percent for the same period a …

With the recent admission by Matt Cutts to Stephan Spencer that Google is using Adobe’s Search Engine SDK technology, a new set of optimization opportunities opened up. That fairly definite confirmation of how Google reads text within Flash files makes it possible to create Flash .swf files with some …

Google may not have monopoly power, but it certainly has monopoly mind share. As The New York Times reports, Google’s search market share has jumped from 58 percent in March 2006 to 65.1 percent today. Yahoo? Less than one-third of Google’s share. Microsoft? Less than one-ninth. Monopoly? …

In its attempts to add social elements to products, is Google pulling a Facebook? Google Reader has allowed people to share items they are interested in with others since 2006 with hyperlinks, clips on blogs and storing them on a public page that you had to know the URL for …

An appeals court has reinstated a patent lawsuit filed against Google over a toolbar feature called AutoLink that provides links to online maps or books on Amazon.com, according to a Bloomberg News report. Wisconsin-based HyperPhrase Technologies sued Google in 2006 for patent infringement. The case was thrown out a …

A court in China has dismissed a trademark lawsuit filed against Google, according to a report on ChinaCourt.org that was translated into English and posted on Pacific Epoch. A Beijing company called Gu Ge Technology sued Google China earlier this year, claiming that its Chinese name, “Gu Ge” was …

Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton is breaking up with YouTube. On Thursday, Hilton said that he would stop posting videos on YouTube, according to story on TVWeek.com. Instead he plans to host video on his own site, Perezhilton.com. (Credit: PerezHilton.com) The feud began earlier this week after YouTube …

Google is using its YouTube video site as a forum for explaining its privacy practices to the millions of consumers who use its products every day. The company launched a Privacy Channel on YouTube about two months ago. The videos aren’t professionally produced; they are made by Google engineers, …

Federal Trade Commission regulators said Thursday that Google’s controversial $3.1 billion merger proposal with DoubleClick can proceed, despite earlier complaints raised by competitors and privacy advocates. FTC regulators have been reviewing the proposed merger for months for possible antitrust violations, after Google announced plans in April to acquire …

Jason Shellen, who was the founding product manager for Google Reader, is joining social network and blogging platform LiveJournal as vice president of product development. Shellen will be based in San Francisco in new offices LiveJournal will be opening in 2008, according to the company. He arrived at Google in …

A computer worm has been spreading on Google’s big-in-Brazil Orkut social network, according to a report on the Sounds from the Dungeon blog. The relatively harmless worm appears to use JavaScript and Flash code to create new scrapbook entries on profiles with a New Year’s message in Portuguese …

Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google will pay a combined $31.5 million to settle allegations they accepted money for illegal gambling ads, according to the Associated Press. All three companies said they stopped accepting ads for gambling years ago. The agreement settles an investigation launched in 2000 and conducted by the …

At a Capitol Hill hearing in September, Microsoft’s top lawyer skewered the proposed merger of Google and DoubleClick as a sure path to an online advertising monopoly. “One company will become the overwhelming dominant gateway that connects the universe of online advertisers to the millions of websites that display …

Yahoo Maps users can now re-route a trip on the fly.(Credit: CNET Networks)Yahoo’s mapping service has been tweaked today to include a rerouting feature similar to the one Google’s had since June. The new addition lets you pick up and drag your directions at any point …

European lawmakers plan to hold a hearing next month to scrutinize the privacy implications of the proposed Google acquisition of online-ad firm DoubleClick, according to the Associated Press. The proposed $3.1 billion deal has provoked complaints that it would give Google an unprecedented amount of information about consumers’ online …

For those who have spent years wringing their hands over Microsoft’s desktop dominance, have no fear: competition is on its way. It’s called Google and it promises to dramatically shake up the computing market by shifting the battle to the Internet, as the New York Times insightfully writes….

Ask.com released its Top 10 list for Web search terms for 2007 on Friday and it was noteworthy as much for what made the list as for what didn’t. No. 1 is MySpace, followed in order by: Dictionary, Google, Themes, Area Codes, Cars, Weather, Games, Song Lyrics, and …

As if we hadn’t all already given up trying to extricate Google from our brains today they came out with sync for Google calendar and your Blackberry. It also supports Google Apps for your Domain. If this doesn’t kill MS Exchange I don’t know what will…and …

Two privacy groups are asking the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission to recuse herself from the agency’s review of Google’s proposed acquisition of online ad firm DoubleClick because her husband’s law firm is advising DoubleClick on antitrust. In addition, FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras used to …

Antitrust regulators with the Federal Trade Commission have received an extension to review the controversial $3.1 billion Google-DoubleClick megamerger, according to sources. The FTC faced a Thursday deadline to either challenge the deal or allow it to go through. But the commission is now expected to stay quiet for …

With Google’s recent crackdown on Web sites the sell PageRank–which really means selling links–a new era has begun for backlink building. In Google’s eyes, links coming into a given Web site from external, quality sites increases that site’s PageRank, and therefore its standing in the search engine’…

Google has demonstrated experimental technologies to the Federal Communications Commission in an effort to pressure the agency to open up unused wireless spectrum between TV channels for broadband Internet use. Google, Microsoft, Intel, Dell, and EarthLink formed the White Space Coalition earlier this year to lobby the FCC and Congress …

Google has optimized its applications for the iPhone so they are integrated into a single interface and operate faster. Now, if you go to Google’s home page on your iPhone you’ll see the Web search box and links to Gmail, Calendar and Reader up at the top of …

Google is planning to release an application programming interface for its Google Trends program, according to Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google. During the question and answer portion of a Webcast demonstration of Google Trends on Tuesday, Mayer said the company would eventually release …

Gmail and Google Talk users can now chat with their AOL Instant Messenger buddies through the Gmail interface, Google announced today. Rolling out to all English-based users by the end of the day, the new feature will let you seamlessly jump from chatting with a Google contact to an AIM buddy without having to use two separate chat clients. …

Google Android It’s been an interesting week for America’s second-largest cell phone carrier. First, Verizon Wireless announces it would support unlocked handsets and third-party applications on its CDMA network, and yesterday the company’s CEO said the carrier may support Google’s new Android platform. “We’re planning …

At this point resistance is futile so I just try my best to limit the amount of personal information Google knows about me. The updates to my Blackberry are actually pretty useful, eliminating the need for several clicks into Google properties I would likely go to anyway. I would beg for mercy but they would just slap an ad on my screams. On to the mobile apps…
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Now that Google has officially announced that it will bid on the 700MHz spectrum, most of us are speculating about the possibilities. And while I have my own beliefs about where Google will go with the spectrum, I’m sure many of you have your own. But regardless of where you stand on this issue, one thing remains certain: the future of the technology industry is curr

Update 10:45 a.m. PT with Google comment. Google is experimenting with a new Web search interface that allows people to influence the results they get by indicating whether or not they like particular results. According to a page of instructions for a test feature on Google Experimental Labs …

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.–What is the best way to make money with ads tied to online video? And how can traditional advertising models benefit from new methods pioneered online? Those were major topics of discussion during the morning keynote today at the Dow Jones Consumer Technology Innovations conference here. And …

Google is adding support for Google Gadgets in its Google Desktop for the Mac software. Google Gadgets, as you probably know, are mini applications with dynamic content that offer quick access for things like newsfeeds and to-do lists. Mac users can now run Google Gadgets side by side with Apple …

Google is set on Wednesday to launch a new feature in its Google Maps for Mobile program that automatically sets your location even in phones that lack a global positioning system (GPS) device. Until now, if you were in a cafe and you wanted to search for a nearby photocopy …

On the positive side Google announced a new effort the “Highly Open Participation Contest” to get young people involved in open source development. They’ve teamed with a bunch of open source projects to get kids involved early. Big thumbs up! Less good…
Google has provided the IP address of …

Google Maps now has terrain maps. You can see mountains, valleys, and buildings.(Credit: CNET Networks) Google Maps has added a new view layer to its repertoire today. It’s called terrain view, and as the name suggests, it lets you get a detailed look at geographical features both natural, …

An article in yesterday’s New York Times cites recent surveys challenging the notion that smartphones are ready for primetime: Similarly, surveys by Yankee Group, a Boston research firm, show that only 13 percent of cellphone users in North America use their phones to surf the Web more than once …

Google’s much-rumored online storage service should be available in a few months, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal late on Monday that cites unnamed sources. The service would allow people to store any kind of data on Google servers and access it from any computer with …

A letter from the top two ranking members of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, Democrat Herb Kohl and Republican Orrin Hatch, seeks to chill Google’s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick on antitrust grounds: Antitrust regulators need to be wary to guard against the creation of a powerful Internet conglomerate able to extend

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama made an impressive showing at the Googleplex on Wednesday, joking about the casual attire of the audience and correctly answering a standard Google engineering interview question. Asked by Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt what the most efficient way to sort a million 32-bit integers is, …

Paula Abdul doesn?t have anything on Marissa Mayer. Mayer, Google’s vice president of search products and user experience, will be on a panel of expert judges for YouBeTheVC.com, where people vie for venture capital funding though an online contest. The contest is something like American Idol meets …

In this interview, Mozilla’s technology strategist Mike Shaver responds to and rejects recent claims that Firefox and Google are getting a bit too close for comfort. Mozilla is independent, he says, with or without Google’s $56 million. I received a fair bit of criticism for a blog post that I wrote last week …

The New York Times is reporting that iGoogle and Yahoo Mail could be at the core of social-networking plans for the two search companies. “Web-based e-mail systems already contain much of what Facebook calls the social graph–the connections between people,” Saul Hansell writes in his blog posting. “Yahoo and Google …

So, what could Google execs be talking about with the man who created American Idol and X Factor? The United Kingdom’s Guardian online reports that Google has been in discussions for about a year with Simon Fuller. Fuller worked with the Spice Girls and managed David Beckham in addition …