Yahoo! has decided to update its fraying search engine by launching what it says is "the first in a series of enhancements that will bring you more news and more entertainment in one place".
Yahoo! Search has long been a distant second or third to Google in the search engine wars, and the launch of Microsoft's latest search engine offering Bing was seen by many in the industry as Yahoo! Search's death knell.
There were agreements signed between Yahoo! and Microsoft to combine their search offerings, particularly in the paid search area, to try and remain relevant against the Google juggernaut.
Now Yahoo! Search is apparently improved as per the video they released below.
Just like Bing was improved.
But the question remains... how many are ready to stop 'googling'?
I have been testing Google Instant - the new way to search on Google.
Google Instant expands results under your search as you are typing your desired keywords. It is intelligent search as it suggests what you should be searching for and it is search with the user in mind, which is typical of Google's philosophy.
See video below for more information, then read on:
Much of the commentary since the launch of this new service has centred on how it will affect online businesses and businesses that advertise online.
Very little coverage has focused on the end user experience, which is delightful based on the reasons stated above as well as the speediness of it. Any argument to the contrary would be flawed.
From the moment twitter co-founder Evan Williams (aka @ev) announced to the Twitter world that he was about to "send 10 things about Twitter", the internet community braced for a big announcement from the micro-blogging giant.
It was the beginning of the launch of the New Twitter.
Twitter.com, the website that houses Twitter, was about to undergo a significant redesign which would bring its features more in line with Facebook and other such networks that encourage users to spend hours and hours at the single domain.
A problem Twitter was encountering was that Twitter users were using Twitter.com as a secondary way to access Twitter, as other clients (such as Tweetdeck, Seesmic and even Facebook) gave users more variety, with a bit of Twitter on the side.
The new design will change all that, and make Twitter.com the home for any Twitter buff.
The ALP won government due to its National Broadband Network (NBN) policy rather than the rumours of popularity in the 2 party-preferred stakes, rather than its supposedly more shrewd negotiation skills, and rather than the mooted offerings of billions to regional Australia.
Both key independents - Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott - mentioned the NBN as a key reason for swinging the result Julia Gillard's way instead of the technologically illiterate Tony Abbott.
Even the key sweeteners for these Independent MPs had to do with the NBN. Regional Australia will get it first, and good on them.
Now... what about the debate and its future direction?
Mark Jones presented a very good edition of his The Scoop radio program on this very topic.
The free calls to US/Canada deal will continue for the remainder of 2010, after which the only free calls will be available for those with Gmail accounts at either end of the phone.
Those who know me would attest that I would have been following the 2010 Federal Election very closely regardless of what was topical on the policy front. I am a political tragic and a lover of the much-criticised 24 hour news cycle - and my wife is the authority to affirm that fact.
However, regardless of the result this weekend, all of us in the internet industry have to be delighted that for five weeks, our world and our concerns were shared with the masses.
Fibre, wireless, megabits, open internet, filters, etcetera became part of the vernacular of politicians who don't even know how to turn on a computer, let alone Tweet or use Facebook.
Due to the broadband debate, more Australians now know that parts of the world have connection speeds up to 100 times faster than we do here downunder.
Most also understand that this is due to fibre-optic cabling; something no commercial enterprise has decided to build in Australia due to our small population and the unlikelihood that they will ever make a buck from a $43 billion outlay.
Most Australians also now know that an internet filter designed to censor offensive content from the internet (such as child paedophilia and how to join Al Qaeda) sounds nice, but is unlikely to work and could be abused by a group of legislators sooner or later.
If it did miraculously work and wasn't abused, the geek community that rules the online world will not stand for any censorship on the 'open internet'.
Here is my summation of these two topics - National Broadband Network (NBN) and the Internet Filter - which served the internet industry brilliantly by raising internet to the very top of the policy pile, ahead of Health, the Economy, Industrial Relations, Immigration and Climate change...
NBN
The Australian Labor Party (ALP), led controversially by Prime Minister Julia Gillard, has decided it will fork up to $26 billion of taxpayer money to team up with commercial enterprise for a total $43 billion national broadband network to deliver a minimum speed of 100 megabits per second (up to 1000 megabits [or 1 gigabit] per second) to 93% of Australian households.
The Liberal and National Coalition (LIB), led by Tony Abbott, say no. It says Australia is in too great a debt to afford this. It says "we shouldn't put all our eggs in the fibre basket" and "explore wireless, etc", which are more new-fashioned technologies.
The Coalition policy only guarantees speeds of 12 megabits per second (up to 100 megabis per second).
When I asked some industry types on Twitter what they think of the NBN, nobody said they don't want it.
Those who leaned 'no' gave reasons such as they are not sure if it would be deliverable by this government on time and on budget. Or they said the cost is too great and other priorities, such as Health and Education, should be worked on first.
I personally feel while Australia is now more educated on the potential of speeds we could have using fibre, the debate has been a poor one.
Of course we should have fibre! Of course the government should spend since enterprise won't!
I wish the Coalition matched the ALP policy of delivering a NBN, but found its differentiation by providing a more efficient way to deliver it to Australian households.
This would have meant both parties are offering us progress, and the debate will not have focussed on whether we needed progress, but rather on who can deliver progress better.
While former Coalition leader Malcolm Turnbull has obviously towed the party line on this issue, I feel if he were their leader, we would have had the debate I wish we were having.
Abbott's claims that he is "no tech-head" in a community filled with internet users made him seem like a leader going backwards. See below video satirical of this from The Chaser of the ABC:
NET FILTER
Then we come to the net filter. If the ALP and Gillard loses this election, I wonder how many will blame it on this monumental stuff-up.
Some in the community clearly want net filters. Why the ALP did not alter this policy when Gillard took over from Kevin Rudd is beyond me.
Instead the ALP split the internet vote by continuing to send very 'hard-to-like' filter champion Stephen Conroy to keep trying to sell the unsellable.
The Coalition, through one of its more tech-savvy members in Joe Hockey, announced they would abandon the filter.
But it was not lost on the geek community that it wasn't because the Coalition didn't want the net filter. Because they do want it. It was because they felt it couldn't be implemented.
CONCLUSION
As the title of this blog suggests, the 2010 Federal Election will be remembered as the campaign in which the internet crawled up the policy pile.
But it will also be remembered for two major parties who argued the net-related policies - NBN and NET FILTER - very poorly.
It is the election where the internet community feels:
a vote for Labor is a vote for speed;
a vote for Liberal is a vote for open internet; and
a vote for Green ... well ... is a vote for pretty much anything!
Traditional media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and his company News Limited's attacks against every giant in the 'new media' are becoming too obviously cringing to let pass.
Skype has been around for many years - I have been using it for over 5 years - but Murdoch has chosen to wage his war when Skype is about to float on New York's NASDAQ for an estimated US$100 million.
I'm no lawyer. I am an avid user of products and services Murdoch has a hand in (especially Foxtel). But his suggestion that he owns the 'Sky' sounds comical. It sounds desperate.
Rupert should be ashamed and realise that his position as a filthy rich billionaire is safe. It is safe despite the fact that his title of 'media tycoon' is now officially revised to 'traditional media tycoon'.
Enjoy your life and leave Skype, Google and other 'new media tycoons' to be.
We jumped so high that we credited it for what it was - the most revolutionary communications tool since the email was invented all those years ago.
The keyword (forgive the pun Google) in the above sentence is 'was'.
That's right... Google has ditched Google Wave.
On their Blog, Google acknowledges that when it launched at its Google I/O Developer Conference in 2009, "we showed character-by-character live typing, and the ability to drag-and-drop files from the desktop, even "playback" the history of changes-all within a browser. Developers in the audience stood and cheered. Some even waved their laptops".
But Google concedes "Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked".
Google, long considered the company that turns to gold whatever it touches, has now registered numerous consecutive failures with Google Wave and its Nexus One phone the most spectacular so far considering their very popular releases.
Is the failure of Wave a hint to Google to give up on Social?
Google Buzz, which is Google's answer to Twitter and Facebook, could be next for the chopping block as it too has had a disappointing take-up.
Despite being embedded in Google's hugely popular email client Gmail, Buzz has failed to dent Facebook's and Twitter's growing market shares around the world.
What Google must be wary of is that every shutdown in the Social Web arena results in the loss of loyal fans; many of them developers who spruik Google and the coportate torchbearers of their innovations.
If Buzz is headling downhill, I suggest Google pulls the plug as soon as possible to avoid disappointing more people who land on it, begin thinking about developing apps and extensions for it.
Many did this with Google Wave, and their initial "jumping for joy" is now a sombre version of Michael Jackson's moonwalk backwards to place their ideas and developer tools back into the cupboard.
I believe Google released Google Wave too prematurely.
At the time, Microsoft was about to launch its latest in a long line of search engine offerings in Bing; this time with a mass advertised release designed to take market share off Google's online search empire.
Google panicked and shot early with a buggy version of Wave to dominate trending topics on Twitter and Facebook, as well as dominate water cooler discussions among developers.
Next time, I hope Google reconsiders.
Because Google Wave is an outstanding product. Unfortunately, it is just a bit early for mass adoption.
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard launched the Google Student Voice initiative from the internet giant's Pyrmont offices, while also taking the opportunity to announce the Australian Labor Party's 'political social network', Labor Connect.
The first video below is Gillard's announcement, while the second is a typical Google introductory video to its new initiative.
Latika Bourke was an up-and-coming journalist in the Canberra press gallery until her combination of youthful energy and knowledge of micro-blogging via Twitter made her lead the nation's coverage of the Liberal Leadership spill in late 2009.
Bourke was a mad Tweeter prior to the spill which saw Tony Abbott win the Australian Opposition leadership battle against incumbent Malcolm Turnbull and fellow challenger Joe Hockey.
Her tweeting took career significance on that day.
Bourke was one of a few Canberra journos that I highlighted in a tweet at the time as "ones to follow" if you want to know what's the latest with regards to the spill.
Her efforts helped the hashtag #spill attract global significance as it rose to "trending topic" status on Twitter.
And Bourke picked up a large chunk of new followers who knew she was the one to follow for the latest on this, and future stories, coming out of Canberra.
Bourke's efforts in using Twitter was described as "pioneering" as she received the Walkley Award for Young Australian Journalist of the Year.
Her video interview is below and you can follow her on Twitter @latikambourke.
Haig Kayserian is an internet business consultant with clients across Australia, the United States of America and Asia.
The company he founded - KAYWEB - has offices in Sydney, Melbourne, New York and Manila, providing premium websites and apps solutions to businesses, organisations, government and individuals.
