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Google Renews Firefox Search Royalty Deal

Liz Gannes in News on December 20, 2011 at 10:49 am PT

Mozilla is about to announce that it has signed a new three-year agreement for Google to be the default search option in its Firefox browser.

YouTube Adds Personalized Channels to Lengthen Living Room Sessions

Liz Gannes in Social on December 1, 2010 at 5:30 pm PT

YouTube today is launching a personalization update to its “Leanback” viewing mode, which is meant to be played on televisions. YouTube users who watch through Leanback already spend on average 30 minutes per session, two times longer than sessions on the Web.

Twitter Firehose Too Intense? Take a Sip From the Gardenhose or Sample the Spritzer

Liz Gannes in Social on November 10, 2010 at 11:21 am PT

Twitter is well-known for carefully metering out access to its Firehose, or the real-time stream of all its users’ tweets. Last year, Google reportedly paid $15 million for access to the Firehose, Microsoft $10 million, and Yahoo joined later with a cash and revenue-share deal.

Liveblogging the Bing-Facebook Bromance: "Underdog" Search With a Little Help From Your Friends

Kara Swisher in News on October 13, 2010 at 11:46 am PT

BoomTown motored on down to the Microsoft campus in Silicon Valley on a fabulously sunny day to liveblog the latest Bing event. The software giant is updating its search service, announcing deep integration–part of a deal announced last year–with Facebook. The theme, according to Microsoft SVP Yusuf Mehdi, quoting the Beatles, search with "a little help from your friends."

Microsoft Talking to Apple About Being a Search Option on the iPhone, Not Google Replacement

Kara Swisher in News on May 28, 2010 at 4:52 pm PT

Correcting yet another too-early rumor, sources tell BoomTown that–as has been previously reported many times in many places–Microsoft and Apple are in long-term talks about adding the Bing search service as a prominent option on the iPhone and not as a replacement of Google. But sources added that talks are not complete. Currently, Google is the default search on the popular mobile device, although you can easily go into its settings and switch the search option to Yahoo.

Facebook’s New Privacy Settings an Improvement Over the Old–Which Isn’t Saying Much

John Paczkowski in Social on May 26, 2010 at 4:20 pm PT

Announcing Facebook’s newest set of privacy controls this morning, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, “We are really going to try to not have another backlash.” If backlash is the metric for evaluating the company’s approach to member privacy, it seems to have done okay, at least at this early juncture. Within hours of Facebook’s announcement of new privacy controls, four of its most outspoken critics weighed in on them. And all had positive things to say.

Facebook’s New(est) Approach to Privacy

John Paczkowski in Social on May 26, 2010 at 10:47 am PT

In a Washington Post editorial Monday, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg pledged to simplify the privacy tools that have so befuddled the social networking site’s members and sparked complaints from privacy advocates and lawmakers. This morning, we found out just how he proposes to do that.

Saved! Terra Firma Keeps EMI Out of Citigroup’s Grasp (For Now).

Peter Kafka in Media on May 11, 2010 at 8:30 am PT

Breathing room for Guy Hands and company. Bigger question: Does it matter whether a private equity group or a bank owns one of the big music labels?