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Facebook announced on their blog yesterday that they have now integrated searches on Live.com into the Facebook search box for all US residents. This is a further extension of thepartnership Facebook has with Microsoft that dates back to 2006 when Microsoft first started displaying their ads on the social networking site.

We’re always working on innovative ways to make your experience on Facebook more useful. Toward that goal, today we’ve added Microsoft Live Search to your Facebook search experience (for people in the US). This is the first step in giving you the ability to find content from across the web while using Facebook.

By integrating web search into Facebook, you can increase the information available to share with your friends, family and coworkers on the site. For example, your friend may invite you to an event at a new restaurant. Without leaving Facebook, you can check out the details of the restaurant on the web. Or, say you see photos in your News Feed about a friend’s recent trip to Dubai. Inspired, you can search the web for more information about travel without having to leave Facebook. Along with your search results, you may also begin to see ads for products, services or other things that are relevant to your query.

The feature means that when a users starts typing a search term into the search box they are given the option of searching Facebook or searching the web - meaning users can search without leaving the site. When doing a search of Facebook itself, the results page will have an extra tab of “web” results that a user can click to regardless. Of course relevant ads from Microsoft Adcenter are also displayed with the search results.

The feature is working on my profile also, however the results are very different to those I would recieve searching through NineMSN.

Valleywag reports that Microsoft is going to drop Seinfeld from any future ads - calling it part of “phase two” of the advertising campaign. The spin is that it was always planned that Seinfeld would be dropped, however many sources are claiming it’s simply an epic fail, as the first two ads seemed to be about nothing and simply portrayed how out of touch Microsoft is. Word is that there is still “potential” to use Seinfeld in future commercials but it is not on the cards at this stage.

We previously posted the first two commercials here and here.

One area Google’s search algorithm doesn’t really consider at the moment is user opinions of its results. With other Web 2.0 products that soley rely on user feedback (StumbleUpon, Digg, etc), Google at present relies on mathematical formulas and its PageRank alogrithm to chose the position for its results.

However, recently they have been testing user feedback with select groups and with the data they have collected, considering whether to push this live across its search engine. What that will mean is that users will be able to comment, report links and - the most interesting of all - re-rank and remove search engine results. What implications this could have is anyones guess, with the key concern is whether or not certain individuals will be taking advantage of this and actively hurting competitors results. Matt Cutts, a Google Enginee, commented that “I’m very excited by it and I hope that it does work out,” (source).

It will prove very interesting if Google does choose to implement this across their search engines around the world and definitely move their engine to the next level.

Yahoo has created a new position of Senior Vice President, U.S. Revenue and Market Development and filled it with a former MSN executive, Joanne Bradford.

“My decision to come to Yahoo was simple, because there is no other company that combines one of the world’s most recognizable brands with unparalleled reach, industry-leading products and programming, and a full spectrum of advertising offerings for marketers,” Bradford said in a statement. “I am convinced that the very best days for this company are ahead, and I want to leverage my experience in programming, distribution, and selling to help Yahoo! take this business to the next level.”

Bradford, who makes the move from Web TV startup, Spot Runner, was head of Microsoft’s MSN for 7 years prior to joining the startup 6 months ago. The role is effectively a replacement for the soon to be empty role of Senior Vice President of U.S. Sales held by David Karnstedt who will leave Yahoo in the next week or so.

An article on Bloomberg MUSE on the 7th of May discusses a new method of monetisation Google is looking at launching based around display advertising on it’s image search results.

Matching graphical-display ads with image searches “represents a large opportunity, and there’s lot of potential for advertising revenue there,” Marissa Mayer, a Google vice president, told Bloomberg Radio today. At the same time, the company must ensure such ads don’t drive users away, she said.

Mayer says the reason Google has not launched something like this to date is that they have yet to master an effective method of delivering the ads whilst not damaging the user experience of the image search engine. Apparently back in 2006 the figures were around US$200 million in potential lost revenue for Google simply from leaving the sponsored ads off of image search results - they gave up on this revenue stream after finding it drove users away.

The recent purchase of DoubleClick opens the doors to leveraging the company’s existing display advertising management software to serve display ads on image search results pages in an effort to show adverts that fit in much better with what the user expects to see on the page. No launch date has been concreted butthere have already been mock ups of what these pages may look like - the next step being user testing before a quite possible (and most likely) launch.

The NY post has reported that Microsoft CEO - Steve Ballmer and CFO Chris Liddel have offered to sweeten the deal of the Yahoo! merge should Yahoo! formally accept the offer of entering formal negotiations.
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Google have released a new direct answer query function in its algorithm, showing WHOIS data when requested. Some users state they cannot see it, while others are seeing it non stop. This will be because Google are trialling the service for a little while before its release.
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The Yahoo! using Google Ad’s deal is getting close sources say. It is believed the small trial of Google Ad’s has yielded positive results for the Yahoo! camp.

The anti-trust problems that would occur with a Yahoo! and Google combination are yet to be discussed, but would be very interesting if the powers that be would let it work out.

This deal is reported to be helping Yahoo! get away from the hostile Microsoft takeover that is getting closer.

IF Microsoft were to acquire Yahoo!, one would assume anti-trust problems would surely arise regardless as they both have similar interests and 2nd and 3rd market share positions in the game of search and online marketing.

Time Warner’s AOL are in talks with Yahoo! for potential mergers. It is reported that this is to thwart the attempts of Microsoft to purchase Yahoo!

In related news, it is reported that NewsCorp are in talks with Microsoft to get together and buy Yahoo! as a collective, potentially making the worlds largest consortium for online advertisers.
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A European Commission advisory body has stated that the data holding of search engines is getting out of control.

It has warned users that entities such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN hold user data behavior and statistics for around 18months, a long time to hold details of almost all online habits of registered users.
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