Google Speeds Up Travel Searches, Annoys Travel Search Sites

Google
Using Google, we simply typed "IAD to LAX" into the search box and immediately (or, as Google would prefer, in 0.22 seconds) got the results in the familiar Google format -- paid ads on the top, then the results, then more results for other pages related to the topic.

As on the other sites, we simply select the flight we want and hit "Book." Unlike Kayak, Google didn't try to direct us to Expedia.com, Cheaptickets.com or any other third party; it took us right into the United Airlines reservation system and brought up a final purchase screen confirming the itinerary and price.

Like Kayak's pages, Google's pages contain advertising, which remains Big G's primary revenue source.

Consumers complain about advertising, of course, but it is the basis of the free press that is in turn the basis of American democracy, so perhaps the less said about that the better.

The problem?
So what's the problem? Well, the other travel sites say the problem is that Google will in short order put them out of business by "favoring" its own searches. It's what they've been saying since Google bought ITA Software Inc. last year.

ITA is the mother lode of flight data. It supplies the information used not only in Google flight searches but also in nearly all of the competing searches, including Kayak, Expedia, etc.

The Justice Department allowed the purchase to go forward after Google promised that it would "build tools that would drive more traffic to airline and online travel agency sites." The other sites are now complaining loudly that Google isn't doing that.

Proper role
The question comes down to whether Google must forever more be nothing but a passive search engine, combing through data posted on the Internet by others or whether it should try to live up to its mandate to "organize the world's information."

Providing comprehensive, impartial flight data quickly seems to fit into Google's mandate and also, just in passing, would seem to be a benefit to consumers. Google is not obligated to think first of consumers, of course, but publishing has traditionally been a public service business -- providing information that meets consumers' needs in a reasonably impartial manner.

If other businesses are damaged by that, it may be what in other venues is called collateral damage. It wasn't many years ago that the online travel agencies were being vilified for running bricks-and-mortar travel agents out of town.

Some of those traditional travel agents found ways to adapt and survive. The Expedias of the world may have to do the same.

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Google Travel Site Doesn't Strike Fear Into Competitors

News flash: Google doesn't have all the answers.

At least that was the response from travel search-engine sites as they caught their first glimpse of a competing product launched by Google last week.

It's never a good sign for your business when one of the world's largest companies buys your chief supplier and seeks to muscle in on your turf.

So it's understandable why many travel engines — including Travelocity, Expedia and Kayak — suffered angst when Google proposed last year to buy ITA Software, the company that developed and provides their fare-search technology.

After the acquisition was approved in April, they were resigned to waiting to see what competitive threat Google Travel would unleash. But when the tech giant finally released its airfare search tool last week, the competitors were left underwhelmed and perplexed.

"We believe our flight search technology is superior," said Robert Birge of Kayak (which has a business relationship with USA TODAY).

Bloggers at FairSearch.org, an anti-Google organization funded by travel search sites, wrote that the new product "raises a lot of questions," including whether Google will favor flights from its advertisers or mix sponsored ads with other search results.

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Nokia Joins Forces With Microsoft to Challenge Apple, Google; Shares Slump

Nokia Oyj, the world’s largest maker of mobile phones, said it’s forming a software corporation with Microsoft Corp, betting that together the two companies can challenge Google Inc. and Apple Inc.

Nokia fell as much as 12 percent, the biggest fall in a almost 10 months, after its plan to make Microsoft’s Windows its primary software was seen as a sign of the extent of its troubles taking on Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platforms.

“It’s a clear admission that Nokia’s own platform strategy has faltered,” told Ben Wood, a London-based analyst with CCS Insight. “Microsoft is the big winner in this deal, but there are no silver bullets for either company given strength of iPhone and Android.”

Google in Talks to Save Travel Deal

Google is negotiating with the U.S. Department of Justice in move to head off an antitrust lawsuit against its acquisition of ITA, a leading travel information aggregator.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company freshly agreed to pay $700 million for ITA, a travel service that powers an estimated 65 percent of direct online flight bookings, including sites like Kayak, SideStep and travel results at Microsoft's Bing search engine.

Should the agreement go through, some travel companies like Expedia fear that Google's rankings could be skewed to favor of the its travel service, prompting the Justice Department to look into for possible antitrust violations.

Google nears $600

Shares of Google opened up 10% Friday morning, and came within striking distance of $600 for the first time in more than nine months, after the company posted solid quarterly earnings that impressed investors.

Google's (GOOG, Fortune 500) stock rose as much as $58.42 to $599.35 a share in early morning trading, before sliding back a bit. It was the stock's highest level since January.

Late Thursday, Google reported a third-quarter profit that rose 32% on the back of stronger search ad fees from advertisers. But the company's results were also buoyed by its non-core businesses, like YouTube, display advertising and mobile.

Google defied skeptical investors and analysts who feared that the search giant would never find a a significant new revenue stream besides search advertisements. In the past, the company has been tight-lipped about the financial details of its non-search businesses, leading some analysts to speculate that those product lines were insignificant to the company's overall revenue.

For instance, Google has made tremendous headway in mobile. Its Android operating system will command 17.7% of the global mobile device market by year's end, according to a Gartner forecast, making it the second best-selling smartphone operating system, behind Nokia's (NOK) Symbian OS and ahead of Apple's (AAPL, Fortune 500) iOS. That's stunning, considering it entered the market just two years ago.

Google said its mobile advertising business was doing sales of $1 billion on an annualized basis. Display advertising, which includes images rather than textual ads, is on pace to be a $2.5 billion business annually. The company said its display business is likely the third largest in the world, behind AOL (AOL) and Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500).

Investors had slammed Google's stock this year, sending it down by as much as 30%. Shares started to rebound in September, but were still down 13% before Friday's market open. But Google's impressive quarterly numbers sent shares soaring, and the stock is now down just 4% for the year.

Bing vs. Google: Bing holds its own in search-off

Talk about an iron grip on search. To research this column comparing Google's venerable search engine with Microsoft's upstart Bing, I Googled "Google versus Bing." It did not even occur to me to Bing the search.

In a nutshell, that's Microsoft's problem. The company recently unveiled a fresh and attractive search alternative to Google. It is just darn difficult to change habits, including my own.

Google's is the search box affixed near the top of the Web browsers I use. And way more often than not, Google delivers the thorough search results I'm seeking and does so with expediency: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

But give Microsoft props. Bing, launched about a month ago, is really impressive, in another league compared with the Live Search engine it replaces.

Bing bests Google on aesthetics. The Google home page is clean and sparse with the familiar Google Search button and links at the top for images, maps, video, shopping, news, Gmail and more.

Bing's home page adds pizazz, with a stunning travel-oriented photo posted daily. An image of manta rays in Mexico graced Bing.com one day this week. Mouse over the image for factoids — "These curious creatures are sociable, gentle and playful." Such brief digressions are fun. From the home page, you can click on images, news,shopping, videos, maps and travel.

Of course, there's more to search than sending you on a wild, um, manta chase. You want fast, comprehensive and relevant results, a Google strength. Microsoft more than holds it own, especially in the areas Bing is initially concentrating on — health, travel, finding local businesses and shopping. There's even a cash-back program on certain items you buy through Bing.

Type "New York Mets," and the team's most recent scores and upcoming schedule are shown at the top of the results. Google displays the score of the last game and lets you know when the next game will be played.

Type a company name in Bing, and its customer-service phone number appears near the top. Bravo. Such numbers are hard to uncover through Google.

Throughout the Bing experience, you can access snippets of information that may satisfy what you are looking for without leading you elsewhere. If you move the cursor to the right of a Bing search result, a summary window opens with excerpts lifted from the underlying site. You can quickly determine whether to navigate to the full site.

When you hover over a video thumbnail with the cursor, it starts playing, though I hit an occasional snag. You don't have to click "play" or go to the video source (Hulu, YouTube, etc.). Clicking a thumbnail lets you watch in a larger window, often without leaving Bing. Hover over an image, and it jumps out in a somewhat larger window.

Another plus: the "quick tabs" that appear down the left side of the results pane to help you refine a search. Enter "Charleston, S.C.," and you can categorize results by real estate, hotels, restaurants, weather, etc.

On Google, you must scroll to the bottom of a page to see "related searches," though you can also summon a side panel, by tapping "show options."

Bing is also dabbling in real-time search. For example, if you search for an influential person and add Twitter to the search, such as "Al Gore Twitter," you will get a list of their recent tweets.

Here's how Google and Bing handled a few sample queries.

•Cataracts. Listed at the top of a Bing query on this eye condition was a description of cataracts culled from a Mayo Clinic article. Google's top result was a sponsored advertisement from a lens manufacturer called Transitions. Overall, both Google & Bing delivered several excellent listings, many from the same sources. Google reported about 3.3 million results compared with about 2.3 million for Bing.

•Hilton, Paris. An intentionally vague query. Google started with a sponsored listing for Hilton.com, followed by a news result for the socialite. Bing also had a hotel link at the top (for hotelreservations.com). The Hotels by Hilton site came next, followed by the "official" website for Paris Hilton.

Bing is big on travel. Clicking "Travel" brings up a site that resembles Expedia. You can search for cars, flights, hotels, etc. Bing will predict whether airfares will rise or fall for certain cities, helping you determine to buy now or wait.

•Michael Jackson. Google & Bing posted news stories first. Google put links to the Wikipedia entry for Jackson and the official michaeljackson.com site, above images and videos. Related searches (jokes, songs, kids not his) were at the bottom. Bing listed similar sites but put videos and images higher up. The pane to the left of the Jackson search on Bing let me narrow the search by news, songs, biography, merchandise, downloads and more. Bing claimed 101 million results compared with 85 million for Google. I didn't count.

•Ford Fusion. Bing delivered helpful stats near the top — price range, fuel economy and user ratings. The side panel categorized searches by dealers, forum, reviews,recalls, manual and images. You have to poke around a bit to uncover that information on Google.

You rarely go wrong Googling something. But for a search that sings, you may want to Bing it.

The bottom line:

Google

www.google.com

***1/2 (Out of four)

Pro:Fast, comprehensive — you rarely go wrong with a Google search.

Con:Some powerful search tools are buried.

Microsoft Bing

www.bing.com

***1/2 (Out of four)

Pro:Attractive. Gives you a lot of information without the need for you to navigate elsewhere. Plays videos inside Bing. Excellent on travel resources. Good on presenting related searches. Has cash-back discount shopping program when you buy through a link.

source: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=7983055&page=3

Google sued for trademark keyword advertising

MOUNTAIN VIEW - Google is facing a new lawsuit over its advertising system.

Google makes the majority of its money on keyword advertising.

The system allows people to buy ads that run alongside Google search results whenever people search for particular words.

For example, searching for the word 'auction,' brings up an ad for eBay, running along the right-hand side of Google's page.

A company called Firepond sued after Google allowed one of the company's competitors to run its ads whenever someone searched for the word 'firepond.'

It's not the first time Google's faced a lawsuit like over trademarked keywords, and the company says it plans to fight this lawsuit as well.

source: http://kliv.com/Google-sued-over-trademarked-keyword-advertising/4396971