Microsoft Live Search

Bing: Is That an Acronym for “Bing Is Not Google”?

John Paczkowski in News on June 1, 2009 at 7:14 am PT

Microsoft’s new search engine Bing unexpectedly went live this morning ahead of its scheduled June 3 launch date and it’s already done much to distinguish itself from Microsoft’s previous efforts in search. Certainly there’s far more verb potential in Bing than “Microsoft Live Search,” the service it’s replacing. And — beyond all this silliness about Bing’s prowess in adult entertainment queries — there’s a lot to impress.

Google Outage Caused by Asian "Traffic Jam"

John Paczkowski in News on May 14, 2009 at 12:23 pm PT

If the Web has a single point of failure, you’d think it was Google, given the outcry over the the outages suffered by some of the company’s services Thursday. Something went wrong at the company this morning and whatever it was had widespread effects on a broad spectrum of Google services. The source of the disruption? A system error that sent a bunch of Google Web traffic to Asia, apparently.

Google Outage Caused by Asian “Traffic Jam”

John Paczkowski in News on May 14, 2009 at 12:23 pm PT

If the Web has a single point of failure, you’d think it was Google, given the outcry over the the outages suffered by some of the company’s services Thursday. Something went wrong at the company this morning and whatever it was had widespread effects on a broad spectrum of Google services. The source of the disruption? A system error that sent a bunch of Google Web traffic to Asia, apparently.

Yahoo Search Market Share: From Worse to Worse…

John Paczkowski in News on April 10, 2009 at 3:00 am PT

Yahoo claimed 20.6 percent of all U.S. search queries in February, according to comScore. A year from now it will claim just 17.51 percent or less, its share gutted by the loss of deals that once made Yahoo’s the default search toolbar on new HP and Acer PCs. Who got those deals? Microsoft and Google, of course.

Web Searches That Really Bear Fruit

Katherine Boehret in The Mossberg Solution on January 13, 2009 at 4:18 pm PT

There’s nothing more frustrating than a fruitless Web search — or one that returns results that distract you from your original goal. This week I tested two free tools that attempt to make your Web searches more relevant by learning from users’ reactions to search results.