Industry News

Keeping tabs on Google, Yahoo modifies home page
Yahoo altered its home page this weekend to showcase specialised search features, a bid to drive traffic to the new tools and recapture ground from rival Google. [CNET]

Amazon jams print feature on book search
Amazon.com has stopped allowing users of its "Search Inside the Book" feature to print pages of online books they find via its weeks-old service, after some authors complained that it threatened sales of their works. [ZDNet]

Microsoft forgets to renew hotmail.co.uk domain
Microsoft was busy covering up an almighty cock-up last night after forgetting to renew its hotmail.co.uk domain name. [The Register]

Lycos Overture Break-up Scandal
Paid search is hot, but it's getting to be a bit too Sex-and-the-City hot, with promiscuous couplings and high-drama break-ups. [Internet News]

Web searches without web browsers
The toolbar puts the Google logo on your desktop. Not on your desktop as an icon where you'll have to minimise all your windows to see it and where it really wouldn't be that helpful anyway but on your Taskbar at the bottom of the screen.

BBC portal of the people
A new BBC site hopes to transform politically apathetic members of the public into single-issue activists. [The Guardian]

Jakob Nielsen's ten most violated homepage design guidelines
There are ten usability mistakes that about two-thirds of corporate websites make. The prevalence of these errors alone warrants attention according to Nielsen. [UseIt.com]

Search engines face drug test
A major U.S. pharmacy trade group is pressuring Web-based search engines to ban advertisements from unlicensed drug dealers, highlighting growing pains for the Net's newest marketing powerhouses. [ZDNet]

Keyword search emerges as dominant online ad format
If there was any doubt that search engine marketing has become the hottest aspect of the online advertising marketplace, it should be put to rest by today's release of the latest edition of the PricewaterhouseCoopers' Internet Ad Revenue Report.[MDN]

The latest from the Google vs MSN battle
Charles Arthur: 'Microsoft thinks search engines are the key to internet use: it's building Google-style functionality into its next operating system'[The Independent]