Walmart’s Homegrown Search Engine Already Paying Dividends

Typing the word “house” into Walmart’s search engine used to deliver results for doghouses and dollhouses. Now the refined search also shows results for the hit TV series.

Voices

Google Gives Search a Refresh

Google Inc. is giving its tried-and-true Web-search formula a makeover as it tries to fix the shortcomings of today’s technology and maintain its dominant market share.

News Byte

Six Major Hotel Companies Launch a Hotel Search Engine Called Room Key

Here’s something novel: A new hotel search engine founded by companies that own hotels. The joint venture, called Room Key, is an effort to gain independence from some of the large online aggregators, like Priceline and Expedia or even Google. Room Key was founded by Choice Hotels, Hilton, Hyatt, InterContinental Hotels, Marriott and Wyndham Hotel, and acquired its technology from hotelicopter in an asset deal last year.

eBay Adds Former Microsoft Employee Ken Moss to Its Executive Team

EBay has appointed Ken Moss to the position of VP of technology and science, responsible for developing the back-end buyer and seller experience.

Jack Ma Takes His Own Advice for Yahoo: Alibaba Splits Taobao Into Three Parts

In an interview I did with him at the recent ninth D: All Things Digital conference, Alibaba Group CEO Jack Ma suggested that Yahoo would be better off splitting itself up into smaller pieces. Today, he did that for one of the key units of the Chinese Internet giant, splitting its Taobao e-commerce unit into three new companies, which Alibaba made sure to say its fractious board was okay with.

Voices

Yandex to Debut After Pricing Above Range

Shares of Russian search engine Yandex NV will begin trading Tuesday after its initial public offering was priced Monday night at $25 a share, above its expected range.

Voices

Google Penalizes Overstock for Search Tactics

Google Inc. has penalized Overstock.com Inc. in its search results after the retailer ran afoul of Google policies that prohibit companies from artificially boosting their ranking in the Internet giant’s search engine.

App Way to Gripe (or Praise) About Service

Katie looks at Tello, a new website and mobile app that encourages users to chime in on their customer-service experiences, good or bad.

Bing's Search Share Is Growing? Must Be All Those "Hiybbprqag" Searches, Eh Google?

Some encouraging new search metrics for Bing. Experian Hitwise data for January shows Microsoft’s search engine with 12.81 percent of the market, up from 10.6 percent in December–-a 21 percent gain. Add to that the 14.62 percent share claimed by the now-powered-by-Bing Yahoo, and Bing’s got more than a quarter of the U.S. search market.

Working With AirPrint

Bing Hearts Android

As Promised: Here Come the Twitter Ads