Search player LookSmart has taken a significant step forward on what it expects to be its comeback trail, launching 161 new vertical search sites.

The move came as the company announced a third quarter net loss of $4.3 million, which was better than the $5.5 to $6.5 million loss it expected when it last reported earnings. Revenues for the quarter were $9.2 million, higher than the $7 million to $8 million it had predicted but lower than the $10.2 million in brought in last quarter.

LookSmart has been fighting for its life since losing MSN as a distribution partner back in 2003. Since that time, when its main products were paid inclusion listings, the company has made cutbacks, shaken up its management and refocused around three initiatives -- a paid search and contextual ad network, vertical search sites, and technology licensing.

"We've gone from a company that everyone had all but written off, to a company where no one is saying our success is assured -- including ourselves mind you -- but they're saying that maybe we can build an audience," CEO Dave Hills told ClickZ News.

The company unveiled a large piece of its vertical search strategy Thursday, launching 161 vertical search sites in 12 categories including automotive, cities, food, health, home, sports and travel. It had previously built 20 vertical sites in the education and money categories as part of the same effort. The model of a vast array of topic-specific sites is similar to what Hills oversaw when he was COO and president of sales at About, but, in the LookSmart case, the content is brought together technologically rather than by human editors.

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With Google and book publishers embroiled in a legal drama, Microsoft Corp. is entering the plot with an approach more likely to be found in a romance novel. Microsoft's MSN unit is working on its own service for searching the contents of books online -- trailing rival Google once again, but hoping this time to avoid a major challenge encountered by the Internet search leader.

Microsoft says its MSN Book Search project will differ from Google's by scanning copyrighted books only after working out deals in advance with the copyright holders.
The Microsoft project, announced Tuesday night, puts the Redmond company on the side of traditional book publishers in one of the key conflicts of the emerging digital age.
Google, under a deal with several major libraries, plans to scan and index copyrighted books unless the copyright owner opts out. Google defends the Google Print Library project as legal and says the search service -- displaying only small snippets of text from copyrighted books -- will actually encourage book sales.

But many book publishers and authors aren't convinced that the Google initiative is a good thing in the long run. Two groups have sued Google over the project, alleging that the plan infringes on their rights under copyright law.

It remains to be seen whether Microsoft's alternative approach will be successful. For starters, the company hasn't yet reached any deals with publishers. However, Yahoo is taking a similar approach, and publishers appear to be far more open to the concept Yahoo and Microsoft are proposing.

"The author or the publisher can decide if what Microsoft is offering is good for them," said Pat Schroeder, president of the Association of American Publishers, which represents five publishing companies that filed suit over Google's initiative last week. The Authors Guild had previously filed a similar lawsuit.

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As one industry insider stated in an email, Froogle’s new layout is “very comparison engine-esque!”

Froogle quietly updated its site yesterday. Scroll down for before and after pictures. There are a number of changes, but here are the basics:

1) The sponsored links (Google AdWords) are no longer flooding the right side of the page (note to Froogle: you need to update your About Us section to reflect this change), but rather have been more elegantly placed across the top of most Froogle pages (the ads do not show up on Merchant Ratings pages). This simple change makes the site a hell of a lot cleaner.

2) Search result pages and product pages have been streamlined and now look more like the pages of other comparison engines. See pictures below.

3) Google has moved beyond text links! Froogle is using a ‘Compare prices’ button as opposed to the standard text link.

4) If you type in iPod, an iPod actually comes up first. This is a major improvement. In the past, iPod accessories would show up above iPods. Hmmm…maybe Froogle has finally worked out some relevancy issues.

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If you ever thought about initiating a sponsored search campaign with Yahoo!
Search Marketing, but were somewhat hesitant to start one because of required minimum spends, worry no more.

We've eliminated the $20 monthly minimum spending requirement for Sponsored Search. Previously, all Sponsored Search advertisers were required to spend at least $20 a month in click-through charges. Now, whether you are considering becoming an advertiser or are currently an advertiser, you can choose to spend as much or as little as you like, with no minimum to meet.

We appreciate your business and hope this change makes advertising with us even easier. As always, we value your feedback, so if you have any questions please contact us using the support request form within your account.

John Slade
Sr. Director, Global Product Management, Yahoo! Search Marketing

For a recent comparative literature class paper, Brendan Draper wanted to quote a phrase from a novel he'd read, but he couldn't remember what page it was on.


He typed "nervous condition" into Internet search giant Google's index of books. Within seconds, he found the phrase and page number of the book. "It was extremely helpful," says Draper, 20, a student at the West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

Situations like his are exactly what Google had in mind a year ago when it unveiled the Google Print project at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany. Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, on hand for the event, told publishers they wanted to scan their books, at no cost, to make them searchable online and to help sell copies to consumers.
Google returns to the fair Tuesday to tout the program — and to announce searches in French, Spanish, Italian and German. But it is no longer reaping the initial positive glow from publishers. Instead, it finds itself in the position of having to defend itself to the industry.

How it works

The Google Print homepage —www.print.google.com— lets users search for a phrase, character or other term to turn up a link to a related book title. Clicking on the book title generates an image of the page of the book, along with other information about it and advertising links to online bookstores. Google splits the revenue from those ads with publishers.


The entire contents of public domain books are available for viewing; for books under copyright, just a few pages or in some cases, only bibliographic data and brief snippets.
Content in Google Print comes from two sources: publishers and libraries. Google infuriated publishers after it announced an alliance last December with five libraries, including Harvard and the University of Michigan, to scan their entire collections. Google said its objective was to build the world's largest online card catalog.

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Google Inc. has quietly patched a potentially dangerous security flaw in two of its business-facing services after a private security research outfit warned that malicious hackers could exploit the bug to hijack sensitive user information.

The vulnerability was flagged—and fixed—in the Google AdWords and Google Services subdomains.


Because both sites use data from the Google Accounts username/password system, security experts said the flaw presented a major identity theft risk.
The bug was reported to Google by Israeli IT security services firm Finjan Software Ltd. on Sept. 22. Two days later, Google corrected the flaw and made it clear that no user data was compromised.

"[We were] alerted to this issue a little while ago and we worked quickly to fix the problem, which has now been resolved. No user data was compromised and we applaud Finjan for following industry best practices for vulnerability disclosure," a Google spokesperson said in a statement.

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An Internet security specialist says a new threat forces computers to install faked Google software, which then goes phishing.

Phishing is where e-mails, IM (instant messages) or Web sites parody a legitimate company, and try to get users to provide personal information or financial account numbers and passwords.

The latest cases involve bogus Google software spread via IM, and appear to be a variety of the infamous CoolWebSearch phishing scheme, according to Foster City-Calif.-based FaceTime Security Labs. CoolWebSearch has never been spread via IM before.

In the recent cases, IM users unwittingly download a rogue tool bar, which is installed on a Web browser and provides easier access to an Internet search provider.

Tool bars also contain measures to block pop-up advertisements.

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Yahoo's news search tool now indexes blogs and photos from Flickr, as well as more traditional media outlets.



Yahoo has revamped its news search tool to grab material from thousands of blogs in addition to headlines from 6,500 newspapers and magazines.The company launched a test version of the new tool on Monday, saying it aims to give consumers a more complete view of the news.

"Our expanded news search dramatically increases the consumer's ability to find events that matter to them, from major news stories, citizen reporting, commentary and pictures that might not be covered by the mainstream media," Neil Budde, general manager of Yahoo News, said in a statement. The move was largely expected ever since the company began testing a blog search feature on its Korean blog site in August.

The search tool unveiled on Monday separates blog headlines from other headlines, displaying them in different columns. By clicking on "all blog results", users can find photos related to their search from Flickr, Yahoo's recently acquired photo-sharing service. They may also find relevant material from Web sites they've marked as favourites via user-generated tagging.

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Yahoo Inc. on Monday launched in beta a podcast search service, heightening the web portal's competition with Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes music service.

Yahoo Podcasts enables consumers to search a directory of 10s of thousands of the audio programs.

In launching the service, Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., adds capabilities that strengthen its position against Apple. The Cupertino, Calif., company lets consumers search and subscribe to podcasts through its iTunes music service, which is a downloadable desktop application.

Through Yahoo search, consumers can choose the podcast player that they want to use, including the Yahoo Music Engine, iTunes and the Windows Media Player. Podcast files can also be saved and downloaded to a digital music player, such as the Apple iPod, iRiver, Dell DJ and Creative Zen.

Podcasting leverages a technology launched by former MTV VJ Adam Curry, who began distributing the iPodder program he wrote with AppleScript on an open source basis in November 2004. The software launched a cottage industry of amateur podcasters.
Now, thousands of podcasts are available on the Web with content ranging from talk to music in all manner of formats that can be easily saved on iPods and other portable MP3 players. Several public radio and college radio stations have also begun distributing shows via podcast, as well as many professional news and entertainment companies.
While most podcasts today are commercial free, many companies are looking at the possibility of inserting advertising in the future.

The new Yahoo service allows consumers to contribute ratings and reviews to podcasts. One difference from iTunes is the ability for consumers to contribute their own tags to the podcasts. Tags are words used by the Yahoo search engine in finding listings. Tagging is an easier method than searching through audio files.

Yahoo also lists the most popular podcasts on its service and the highest rated, and also offers editor's picks and browsing by categories. During the testing period, Yahoo plans to add publishing tools that would enable people to create and publish their own podcasts.

Rival America Online Inc. has said it plans to add podcast search to its general search engine this fall. The Dulles, Va., company said it plans to integrate TVEyes Inc.'s Podscope search technology to AOL Search. TVEyes's technology creates a spoken-word index for every word in audio and video files, making them searchable in the same manner as text pages on the Web, the Fairfield, Conn., company said.

What's the next big killer app from search companies? Quickly and easily searching telephone calls for a particular word or phrase—in essence, to Google your calls—is a likely candidate. And it isn't as far off as it might seem.

In the past two years, a number of customer service calling center operators for hire, some with thousands of employees working at the phones, have invested in the technology to identify inept operators and other measures of quality control.

While that's far from a mainstream scenario, these pioneering commercial applications are nonetheless an important first step toward a future in which phone calls will be among the Web pages available by visiting Google, Yahoo and other search engines.

Indeed, Ferris Research analyst Richi Jennings said, leading search engine giants like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN could introduce rudimentary searchable voice services right now.

"The big three of search could all do a good enough job of it to be of some value," Jennings said. "I do see adding into the search universe the ability to search what you said in phone calls." ...

Instant Search gives you answers as you type -- no more waiting!

A new worm modifies the infected PC so attempts to search using Google are directed to a spoofed site that looks like the real thing, but with different sponsored links to drive traffic to sites the hacker's designated, a security firm said Friday.
Panda Software's analysis of the P2Load.a worm showed that after compromising a PC, it modifies the Windows HOSTS file so all attempts to reach google.com -- and even mistyped addresses, such as "googel.com" -- are redirected to a site actually served from Germany.

"The page is an exact copy of Google and supports the 17 languages of Google," said Panda in a statement. Searches run on the spoofed version of Google return results similar to the real Google, but in some cases, the sponsored links -- top-of-the-page and right-side links to e-commerce sites that have paid for the placement -- are different.

"The creator of this worm has taken advantage of the importance of a company appearing among the first few links in the search results of an Internet browser,” said Luis Corrons, director of PandaLabs, in a statement. “Its aims are none other than to increase visits to the pages linked by the creator of this malware or earn an income from companies that want to appear in the first few results in computer where the identity of Google has been spoofed…in both case, the motivation of the author of this malware is purely financial."

Because the new HOSTS file is downloaded from a Web site, not embedded in the worm's code as is the usual practice, Panda warned that P2Load.a, or similar threats, could spoof other popular sites by simply changing the content of the file downloaded.

Google has been targeted by hackers before. In March, for instance, a widespread DNS cache poisoning attack redirected traffic from Google and other popular URLs to hacker sites. In another case, phishers and spyware creators downloaded software, including bank account theft software, to PCs when their owners mistyped google.com and ended up at a malicious site hosted by servers in Russia.

Google has removed a direct competitor, Thunderstone Software, from its index. Thunderstone markets an enterprise search appliance that competes directly with Google's own appliance. Neither Yahoo! nor MSN have blacklisted the company. As of Monday, 05 September, the following queries yielded no hits from Google for the Thunderstone website at thunderstone.com: