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Wavii Distills Information Overload Into Plot Points

Liz Gannes in Media on April 10 at 9:00 pm PT

Wavii tonight opens to the public an ambitious Web site and iPhone app with personalized news feeds of what’s going on in the world.

Former Powerset CEO Leaves Microsoft After Natural Language Job Search

John Paczkowski in News on September 7, 2011 at 8:00 am PT

Another departure at Microsoft.

"Beyond the Search Box": The White Pleather Honeypot Smackdown

Kara Swisher in News on February 1, 2011 at 11:53 am PT

Perusing AOL’s leaked damn-the-journalism-full-speed-ahead business plan, BoomTown was a little late to the Microsoft Bing event this morning called “Farsight: Beyond the Search Box.” But things had certainly been cooking with gas when I walked into the meeting room at the University of San Francisco, including allegations of cheating, honeypot stings and a whole lot of insulting of the hosts. Schweeet!

Exclusive: Seeking Better Search Results, eBay Finds Experts at Bing and Facebook

Tricia Duryee in Commerce on January 31, 2011 at 1:00 pm PT

EBay has hired two search experts away from Facebook and Microsoft Bing as it prepares to roll out new features on its site, we have learned.

Salesforce Buys Small Contact Management Start-Up Etacts

Liz Gannes in Social on December 21, 2010 at 11:59 am PT

Salesforce has bought Etacts, the contacts management tool, according to a source familiar with the matter. Etacts informed users today that it will shut down as of January 31 in order to “pursue other opportunities.”

As Microsoft Warily Eyes Google Buying Spree, Will It Jump In or Play the Regulatory Card?

Kara Swisher in News on December 22, 2009 at 4:57 am PT

With Google in the market for pretty much, well, everything, in the Web 2.0 space of late–using its fat stock price and copious cash reserves–it stands to reason that Microsoft would be in the same market too. But will the software giant enter the fray as a rival bidder to the search behemoth or will it seek battle on the regulatory battlefield? In other words, if you don’t bid, do you block?

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer: Bing!

John Paczkowski in D7 on May 28, 2009 at 8:10 am PT

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer introduced the software giant’s relaunch of its search offering, dubbed Bing, onstage at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference. Bing is Microsoft’s biggest and priciest attempt yet to catch archrival Google and Yahoo in the search business. It is a market where the typically dominant Microsoft is a mouse in comparison. But, no surprise, that did not stop Ballmer from doing some roaring about Bing.

A Sneak Peek Look at Microsoft's New Kumo: A Spidery Cloud? A Cloudy Spider?

Kara Swisher in News on March 2, 2009 at 5:07 pm PT

Here are three screenshots of Microsoft’s internal test of a new search product called Kumo. The long expected upgrade to Live Search from Microsoft is being tested for a public rollout later this year. Sources at Microsoft said the company has not yet decided whether it will keep the Kumo name, which sounds a little too much like that crazy dog from the Stephen King novel. Maybe that’s the point, at least related to Google. (Chomp!) In Japanese, actually, Kumo has two definitions–cloud and spider.