AllThingsD » search engines

Apple Plots Reboot of iTunes for Web

Ethan Smith and Yukari Iwatani Kane — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:00:56 +0000

Apple Inc. (AAPL), the company that restructured the music industry around its iTunes service, is exploring an overhaul of the way it sells and stores music that is aimed at extending its influence to the Web, according to people briefed on the strategy.

The key vehicle for the move is Apple’s newly acquired music-streaming service La La Media Inc. for which Apple paid $85 million, according to people familiar with the matter. Where Apple’s iTunes requires users to download music onto a specific computer, Lala.com lets users buy and listen to music through a Web browser, meaning its customers can access purchases from anywhere, as long as they are connected to the Internet.

Apple is considering adopting that same model for songs sold on iTunes, a change that would give consumers more ways to access and manage their iTunes purchases–and wouldn’t require them to download Apple’s software or their purchases.

That new business model extends Apple’s grip on the music business, giving it the ability to sell music through search engines and other Web sites and broaden its reach beyond people who come to its virtual store.

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AT&T Dead Last in Consumer Reports Survey

John Paczkowski — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:00:15 +0000

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Google Tries to Get Smarter, More Useful

Jessica E. Vascellaro — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 20:27:45 +0000

Search engines are pretty good at finding Web pages closely related to exact terms users type in. They’ve had less success finding results that are conceptually related to what a user is looking for. For instance, a search for “abstract expressionism” may have missed certain results for the related artistic movement “surrealism.”

Google (GOOG) took a step toward cracking that nut Tuesday, releasing an upgrade to its technology that better understands associations and concepts related to search. The feature is based on technology called Orion that was developed by Ori Allon while he was a Ph.D. student in Australia. Google acquired it in 2006.

Mr. Allon, who now works at Google, said in an interview that the technology–-which seeks to understand the context around a query–is a key part of Google’s effort to provide more useful and trustworthy results beyond matching keywords with Web pages. Eventually, Google wants to be able to provide trustworthy answers to questions like “What is good pain medication after eye surgery,” he said.

It’s starting slow, by using it to suggest conceptually related searches at the bottom of the search result page, where it already highlights related searches the user might to try. So a search for “principles of physics” will recommend “physics angular momentum” as well.

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