iGoogle

The Summer to Go on a Power Diet

Katherine Boehret in The Mossberg Solution on June 15, 2010 at 3:40 pm PT

Katie runs down ways to keep your energy bills down this summer.

Google Buys LabPixies

John Paczkowski in News on April 27, 2010 at 4:45 am PT

Google has acquired its first Israeli company, Web and mobile applications outfit LabPixies. Among the first companies to build gadgets for iGoogle, LabPixies ranks as the personalized homespage service’s top developer.

First M&A of 2010: Flixster + Rotten Tomatoes

Peter Kafka in Media on January 4, 2010 at 10:08 am PT

Here’s the Flixster/MySpace deal Kara Swisher sussed out on Christmas Eve: News Corp. is handing over its Rotten Tomatoes movie review site, previously owned by its IGN unit, to the movie-centric social network and will get an equity stake in the combined company.

BoomTown Decodes Google CEO Schmidt's Shut-Up-You-Whiny-News-Folk Op-Ed (So You Don't Have To)!

Kara Swisher in News on December 3, 2009 at 1:30 pm PT

Google CEO Eric Schmidt did one of his patented throat-clearers in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal today and it pretty much begs for translation. Well, BoomTown shall not tarry from the task of decoding the extra-long rumination from the head of Google, who was responding to the recent spate of aggressive attacks by traditional media publishers. They have blamed the search giant for everything from their current business woes to the destruction of journalism to Tiger Woods’s dicey marital troubles. Okay, not that! But the rest for sure.

Voices

Google: Pretty Pictures? Sure, We Can Do That

Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily in News on June 18, 2009 at 5:01 am PT

Hmmmm….I wonder where they came up with this idea…. Google announced that “to kick off the summer season,” it has launched a new collection of nature themes for iGoogle, its personalized home page service.

How Is Yahoo's Massive "Metro" Homepage Redesign Going? It Depends on Who You Ask.

Kara Swisher in News on February 14, 2009 at 1:38 am PT

Late last night, Yahoo’s Tapan Bhat posted an update on the ongoing redesign of the Internet giant’s homepage, a massive undertaking given that 300 million people visit it each month. Bhat, who is SVP of Yahoo’s Front Doors, Communities and Network Services, said the company was completing the first phase of its “bucket testing” and collecting feedback, but that, “Bottom line is we’re getting closer to the final design, but we’re not quite there yet.” Indeed not, according to several sources at Yahoo, who said that the massive underhaul of the homepage has been a much more complex, much dicier effort and was taking a lot longer than expected to launch. And, more importantly, new CEO Carol Bartz is also giving it the once-over.

The First Look at the New Yahoo Homepage Redesign: Apps Rule!

Kara Swisher in News on September 17, 2008 at 9:00 pm PT

Yahoo will begin testing out versions of its new main homepage to a minuscule number of users starting tomorrow, employing a design that more significantly allows users to customize the starting page in a way that essentially amounts to a kind of My Yahoo-lite for everyone. Making such a shift will also be a big perceptual deal for Yahoo, which needs to prove it has remained current and open, especially compared to faster-growing rivals like Facebook. Thus, making a success of its new design is critical, and Yahoo’s CEO Jerry Yang has been touting the idea that Yahoo must be the “starting point” to the Web for users.

SnagFilms Finds Virtual Theaters for Documentaries

Walt Mossberg in Personal Technology on July 16, 2008 at 6:02 pm PT

SnagFilms is a great idea for getting documentary films in front of more people, writes Walt Mossberg. It’s a new service that allows anyone with a blog, a Web site, or even a page on a social-networking site, to open a virtual movie theater and show these documentaries, free.