7 posts and columns on relevancy

Did Facebook’s Redesign Just Bring Back Viral Spam?

in Commerce on August 11, 2011 at 7:29 pm PT

Facebook has launched a major redesign for games, bringing back some viral components that were turned off after users complained that random alerts were cluttering their news feeds.
LOLapps_Ravenwood_Fair_Facebook_redesign

Liveblog: Is Yahoo Still in Search? Indeed and It's Answers Not Links!

in News on March 23, 2011 at 10:20 am PT

At least once a day, BoomTown gets a call from investors, analysts or other troublemaking types–you know who you are!–wondering why Yahoo is still plugging away in search. With a declining market share in the arena and a search technology outsourcing deal with Microsoft, it’s not a bad question to ask. But Yahoo begs to differ, introducing a new feature called Yahoo Search Direct at an event in San Francisco today.

New Digg CEO Calls Previous Launch "a Tragedy," Commits to Community

in Social on February 2, 2011 at 5:30 am PT

Five months after becoming CEO of Digg at a time of much turmoil, Matt Williams is finding a voice of his own, separate from founder Kevin Rose’s. Williams had what seemed to be a largely successful discussion with the Digg community, posted this week.

Federated Media Makes Another Buy: Foodbuzz

in News on November 17, 2010 at 6:00 pm PT

Federated Media Publishing, which recently bought a community platform aimed at parents, announced tonight that it was making another buy. This time, it is a food blog community site called Foodbuzz, as FM seeks to create large networks of niche content to better sell premium advertising. According to the site, it has exclusive deals to sell advertising for 4,400 independent food bloggers, making it a top food property.

Yahoo's M&A Strategy–Maybe Local Commerce Rather Than Content (Hello, Groupon!)

in News on October 8, 2010 at 10:08 am PT

It’s no secret in Silicon Valley dealmaking circles that Yahoo has been looking at what insiders have called a “transformative” acquisition to jumpstart the company. And while many think that has to mean grabbing one of the big content companies–such as AOL or Demand Media–right in Yahoo’s wheelhouse, sources said it is actually training its attention on, drum roll, commerce. That would be local commerce, most specifically, companies such as the hot start-up Groupon, which dominates social couponing.
logo

Meet Flipboard: Mike McCue Talks About Stealth "Social Magazine" Start-Up That Just Nabbed $10.5 Million in Funding

in News on July 20, 2010 at 8:56 pm PT

Say hello to an innovative new social magazine concept called Flipboard, which is attempting to make the social networking universe more accessible, consumable and, perhaps most importantly, visually arresting via a rich app on the Apple iPad. Co-founded by longtime Silicon Valley entrepreneur Mike McCue and former Apple iPhone engineer Evan Doll in January, Flipboard decloaked itself tonight, announcing both a $10.5 million funding from top Silicon Valley power players and also the acquisition of Ellerdale, a relevancy search engine for the real-time Web.

Analyst: Bing’s Nice, but Google Still Works Better–Unless You’re Booking a Trip or Have a Rash

in Media on July 7, 2009 at 9:30 am PT

An endless ad barrage may be enough to get you to sample Bing. But it can’t ensure you’ll like the results once you try it. That’s the conclusion Citigroup’s Mark Mahaney reached after taking Microsoft’s new search engine for a spin and comparing it to Google’s and Yahoo’s. The result: Google still delivers better results most of the time. In 71 percent of searches, Google either supplied the most relevant answer or tied with other engines. Bing did that 46 percent of the time.
bing