Search Headlines & Links: June 27, 2006

Below, a recap of stories posted today to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along
with other items we’ve spotted but not blogged separately:

From The SEW Blog…

  • Daily
    SearchCast, June 27, 2006: School Upset Over Student Data In Google; Is GBuy
    GooglePal?; Microsoft adCenter Gets Promoted; New Travel Search Engines; The
    Matt Cutts Doll & More!
    Today’s search podcast covers a school district’s student social security
    numbers getting into Google; Amazon.com going missing on Google; Google’s
    PayPal-like system about to launch; Microsoft promotes adCenter with
    advertisements and lab tools; new travel search engines to try; dress up Matt
    Cutts and more!

  • Microsoft Demographics Prediction Tool Interactive Review
    We posted about Microsoft Center Labs once again, but this time I wanted to
    show you, my eight-minute review of the demographics prediction tool at the
    lab. I created a movie of my running through the tool and uploaded it to
    YouTube. Now, before you watch the video, keep in mind that the percentages I
    discussed in the video may be determined as a “confidence” ratio and not a
    simple flat percentage — you will see what I mean. In any case, there is no
    way that google.com has predominantly a female audience, with a confidence
    ratio of 1.00 and.
  • Image
    Database To Fight Online Child Porn
    The AP reports that AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft, EarthLink, NetZero and Juno are
    teaming up to fight child pornography. They are pooling together $1 million to
    build a database of pornographic images of children and software to match the
    image database with similar matches on their own networks. So Yahoo may scan
    email attachments, Yahoo Groups images and other places in the Yahoo network
    where images may be. If any of the images match an image in the database, it
    can be flagged and sent to the authorities. The exact details of the software
    and how it will be used have…
  • New
    Players in Travel Search Threaten to Disrupt Status Quo
    Travel search has improved enormously over the past several years, but serious
    travellers still find themselves checking multiple web sites to make sure
    they’re getting the best deal. That may change with the launch of two new
    services that use historical and predictive data to not only find the best
    prices for specific flights, but also to suggest the best dates on which to
    purchase your tickets. Brian Smith has more about the new services in today’s
    SearchDay article, New Players in Travel Search….

  • Microsoft Re-Launches adCenter Labs Again
    Been hearing about the “new” Microsoft adCenter Labs tools this week? That’s
    because Microsoft has done another round of publicity on them after initially
    launching them earlier this month. Our past recap is here and here….
  • Still No
    Results Found For A Google Search on Amazon.com
    John Battelle asked why Google was/is returning no results for a search on [amazon.com]
    at 9am (PST, I think) yesterday. At the time, I felt it wasn’t a huge deal,
    these things happen on occasion at Google, normally not for such a large
    brand, but it happens, nevertheless. What is a bit surprising is that Google
    is obviously aware of the issue, based on John telling us Google contacted him
    with a confirmation of the issue, but Google has yet to fix the issue, almost
    a day later. LeeAnn Prescott at the HitWise blog provides some value
    statistical insight into…
  • Google’s
    PayPal-Rival GBay Looks Set To Launch This Week
    We’ve had rumors that Google would launch its own PayPal-like payment system
    this week. Widely reported as GBuy, the Wall Street Journal has a few further
    details of what looks to be coming any day now….

Other Things We Read, Didn’t Blog But You Might Want To Read…

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