Monday Search Collection: Test the New Google UI, New Yahoo Publisher Features, More
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Written By Reprise Media | March 27, 2006 | Share This
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We ain’t gonna have honky tonk great and erstwhile Hee Haw host Buck Owens to kick around no more - he left us over the weekend - but we know he’d want us to push on with this news from the world of search, so slip into your nudie suit and enjoy these rollickin’ search hits.
Just Act Naturally with Google’s test UI You’ve seen the screenshots, now take it for a drive yourself. Only a few beta testers could mess around with Google’s experimental user interface, until this post at Neowin let the cat out of the bag. You’ll have to go to Google, enter the appropriate javascript command in the address bar (there’s different ones for US, UK and NL users, listed at Neowin) and enter a search query. No one’s sure when or if this UI will go live, so this might be your only chance to play with it yourself. Among other differences (check the lefthand sidebar links for News, Images, etc.), it moves organic listings way up the page, cutting down on ads and paid search listings big time; that seems to run counter to some of the things Google’s been trying lately (like adding a Google Base box to some results pages).
Yahoo! Publisher Network and new features, Together Again Over the weekend, YPN added three new goodies for publishers - Jen Slegg had the scoop. Search Engine Roundtable has a screenshot of the messaging feature in the YPN interface, billed as a way to deliver account specific “tips and information” as well as “announcements and notifications of new features” relevant to all publishers. They also tweaked elements used for managing reports; there’s now a pop-up calendar for selecting report date ranges, and users can edit or delete Reporting Categories.
While Yahoo!’s at it, they also announced some new Toolbar features on the Yahoo! Search Blog. Yahoo! Toolbar users with Internet Explorer 5 and 6 can now enjoy a tabbed browsing experience, and there’s a new del.icio.us button for easier web content tagging. Loren Baker wonders “which bookmarking, tagging and social search umbrella Yahoo will put its mass tagging efforts under - del.icio.us or Yahoo MyWeb?…is there room for both of them in this town?”
I’ve Got a Tiger Lycos By the Tail The old dog is apparently up and barking with its own VoIP service, according to ClickZNews. Making and receiving calls would be ad-supported and free for the first 100 minutes; after that, users would either pay or participate in a ‘lead generation’ program - they’d earn credits by soliciting information from sponsors or signing up for their services. The VoIP service will also be packaged with audio and video entertainment, including movie trailers and content from global broadcast providors like Bloomberg and Reuters.
Topics: Search: News |