ArticleSnatch Blog

You are browsing the search results.

Blogger has released a cool new feature that lets readers offer quick responses. It’s called Reactions, and it allows bloggers to create a variety of responses for their readers to choose. One possible implementation of the feature looks like this:

You’re not limited to “LOL” or “Fail.” You can set your own annotations:

To use the feature, go to Layout > Page Elements. Click the “Edit” link under the Blog Posts element. Check the Reactions box and enter words, separated by a comma. Hit Save and you’re ready to go.

Related Reading:
Blogger Releases Two Updates Regarding iGoogle and Commenting
Google Upgrades Blogger With Privacy Features & More

No, the two are not related, as far as I can tell. But Congratulations to Firefox (my personal browser of choice) for reaching 20% of market share. They reached the number for 2 out of 4 weeks in October. For a browser that doesn’t come pre-installed on most computers, that’s quite impressive.

The new privacy feature is included in a pre-release version of Firefox 3.1. It’s called “Private Browsing” and you can turn it on via the Tools tab. When you do, it won’t store data such as history, cookies, and cache. But it only prevents such storage for the browsing you do when the feature is turned on. To store that info again, just turn it off.

What Private Browsing does NOT do is keep you anonymous on websites or your ISP. It also is not a security tool to prevent spyware downloads and such.

A good use of the tool is if you’re looking online for Christmas gifts but you don’t want your husband to find out what you’re getting him! (Just make sure to take note of the things you want to remember.)

Related Reading:
Yahoo’s Inquisitor Plugin Now Available for Firefox and Internet Explorer
Download Firefox 3 Today: Firefox Download Day to Set a Guiness World Record

Ok, this is isn’t search related, but it’s too much fun not to cover. Gmail has released another Labs feature. This one is called Mail Goggles and it’s intended to help you avoid sending those late night or weekend emails that you’ll regret later.

When the feature is enabled, you have to answer simple math problems before an email will send during those most vulnerable emails-I-will-later-regret times.

Of course, if you’re having a perfectly sane moment but math isn’t your strong suit, you’ll need to break out your trusty calculator (or enter that math problem into Google search).

But at least now there’s technology that has your back in those weak moments.

Related Reading:
Google Responds to Gmail Privacy Concerns
Gmail and Search/E-Mail Integration

After a year of slow but steady growth, Ask.com has redesigned, incorporating Google, Yahoo and Microsoft design elements along with it. Changing things up has helped Ask in the past, so we’ll have to keep an eye on whether this gives Ask.com a nice little boost.

The first noticeable change is the front page. It’s minimalist in nature, but you can change the skin to create a different background.

In the results, the dualing sidebars are gone, and only one on the right remains. The organic results are flush with the left, similar to Google and Yahoo. And there are related searches similar to what you’ll find on Microsoft.

An interesting feature is the AskEraser. It addresses privacy concerns that people have about search.

What do you think of the changes? Give us your first impressions in the comments.

h/t Rafe Needleman @ CNET

Google has made it optional for AdWords users to place the “Google Site Stats” logo on their conversion pages. Originally, the logo was designed to let customers opt out of conversion tracking. But advertisers told Google that the logo was often a redundancy of their site’s own privacy policy.

If you want to remove the logo, it will require action on your part. Click here to learn the steps to take.

What do you think about the change? Are you planning to remove the logo? Let us know in the comments.

Related Reading
Google AdWords Separates Content and Search Network Stats - FINALLY!
Google AdWords Now Provides Geographic Performance Report

comScore has released display ad data for June 2008. Microsoft was the top display advertiser, while Fox Interactive Media, with its ownership of MySpace, was the top publisher.

180 million unique visitors were exposed to display ads in June. On the publisher side, Yahoo reached 130,680,000 and Fox reached 83,714,000. On the advertiser side, Microsoft reached 126,367,000 of them. Ask Networks advertised to 102,565,000, coming in as the 10th top display advertiser.

Here are the charts:

Related Reading:
Online Publishers Turning to Ad Networks to Sell Unused Inventory
Google, Microsoft and Facebook to Testify to U.S. Senate about Online Ad Privacy

New Article - Checklist for Home Based Business Start-Up Posted By : Ben Needles: Many.. http://tinyurl.com/6ypeae #
Ways Of Overcoming Your Problem Posted By : Ben Needles: Those who are dealing, or have dealt with .. http://tinyurl.com/58n53q #
Checklist for Home Based Business Start-Up Posted By : Ben Needles: Many people are thinking about .. http://tinyurl.com/5tmtwh #
The [...]

Yahoo has announced that it will be offering an opt-out function for customized advertising to searchers by the end of the month.

The announcement comes as Yahoo has responded to a Congressional letter seeking information about data collecting and online advertising practices. You can read Yahoo’s full response here.

Google has also responded to the letter with features expected to be rolled out in the future. One feature is ad capping, which allows advertisers to limit the number of times a user sees a targeted ad. Ad capping is a DoubleClick feature that Google will be integrating to their Content Network. They say this will benefit users, since they won’t be seeing the same ad over and over again. You can read the full context of Google’s response here (pdf).

Microsoft is still working on their response, and it will be largely based on Mike Hintze’s testimony before congress last month.

This morning Google VP Marissa Mayer appeared on the Fox Business Network. She talked about what’s next at search, privacy, working at Google (including 20% time), being a woman in tech, and how mobile is the next hot thing.

Check out the video below to see the interview.

Cuil, pronounced “cool,” has officially launched.

All the kool kids are talking about it. The question is whether anyone will use it.

As a new search engine, Cuil is a longshot. It’s no Google Killer.

Check out Cuil.com. Google needs the competition. But don’t expect a revolutionary search experience. The results page looks very much like Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop.com.

Cuil was created by former Google engineers Anna Patterson, Russell Power and Louis Monier, who picked up $33 million in venture capital to launch the search engine.

So how is Cuil different than Google? They’re claiming bragging rights for search index size: 120 billion Web pages. While Patterson says that’s 3X the size of Google’s index, most people acknowledge that size doesn’t matter.

As Google’s official blog notes, many pages not indexed either point to similar content or would diminish the quality of its search results in some other way. T

Of course, Cuil can’t use PageRank to organize results. So Cuil apparently assesses the actual content of a page.

Cuil’s results are most similar to universal search, displaying photos horizontally across the page. Sidebars can be clicked on to learn more about related topics.

In a nod to privacy, Cuil promises not to retain users’ search histories or surfing patterns.