Search and Social News Bites

Is it just me or did anyone else find it tough to stay up on search industry news with SES San Francisco flying by? Now, going through my feed reader, a number of important news bites are jumping out. Thought these might be worth sharing.

Google Streaming Search Test

Evidence of a test within Google search engine results shows the displayed results changing as a query is entered into the search box. One user reports that the Google home page automatically shifts from a search box on the predominantly white page to a results page with ads as a query is entered. Such instant preview search technology is also called “incremental search.”

Facebook Places + Bing Maps

Facebook has launched a location-based check-in service called Facebook Places, challenging services like Foursquare. Some see the feature as a potential privacy concern for users following a stream of service updates that rose questions of data security during the last several months. Bing Maps powers the maps and location information for Facebook’s new service.

ComScore Updates Search Share Methodology

Since changing the way it collects data for search market share reports, comScore reported a drop of traffic to Yahoo! and Bing last month. According to the new methodology, combined market share for Yahoo! and Bing dropped from 32.7 percent to 28.1 percent. However, according to both the previous and the new methodologies, Google lost market share to Yahoo! in July.

Google Acquires Like.com and Visual Shopping Technology

Like.com, a visual search and shopping comparison site, will continue to operate separately from Google following the acquisition. A Google spokesperson said that Like.com and Google’s commerce team would be working closely together. Like.com’s parent company, Riya, was the first visual search shopping engine, and analysts view the move as a way to compete with Bing’s strong shopping search vertical.

Virginia Nussey is the director of content marketing at MobileMonkey. Prior to joining this startup in 2018, Virginia was the operations and content manager at Bruce Clay Inc., having joined the company in 2008 as a writer and blogger.

See Virginia's author page for links to connect on social media.