By Jeff Bertolucci
February 18, 2009

By David Coursey
December 7, 2009

Google‘s decision to expand personalized search to all users should be a wake-up call to those concerned about what the company knows about them and how it is used.

Now Google has begun using a cookie placed on users’ machines to track their search behavior and offer personalized recommendations, even when they are not logged into a Google account.

“Previously, we only offered Personalized Search for signed-in users, and only when they had Web History enabled on their Google Accounts. What we’re doing today is expanding Personalized Search so that we can provide it to signed-out users as well. This addition enables us to customize search results for you based upon 180 days of search activity linked to an anonymous cookie in your browser,” wrote Google’s Bryan Horling, software engineer and Matthew Kulick, product manager.

The change was announced late Friday on Google’s Official Blog.

“For example, since I always search for [recipes] and often click on results from epicurious.com, Google might rank epicurious.com higher on the results page the next time I look for recipes. Other times, when I’m looking for news about Cornell University‘s sports teams, I search for [big red]. Because I frequently click on www.cornellbigred.com, Google might show me this result first, instead of the Big Red soda company or others,” the two wrote.

Beyond better search results, the technology can also deliver more targeted advertising, However, Google may already have been doing this, just not offering the benefit of better search recommendations to users.

At one level this is a win-win: Fewer bad recommendations and fewer off-target ads. Privacy advocates, however, see it differently. Google used to require users to sign-in to get personalized recommendations, but now delivers them to anyone who doesn’t opt out.

Because recommendations sent to users not signed-in are shared by everyone who uses the PC, they could potentially reveal unintended information about one user to the others.

This is another of those issues that how you respond to it will be determined by whether you trust Google or not.

If you are willing to accept cookies from the sites you visit, then any of site can collect information about you. Google collects more information than most, but offer more free utility in return.

Privacy activists, however, see this as just the latest example of Google encroaching on its customers’ personal information.

“The key point is that Google is now tracking users of search who have specifically chosen not to log in to a Google account,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, quoted in the New York Times. “They are obliterating one of the few remaining privacy safeguards for Google services.”

That may be a bit of hand-wringing, however, as major search sites have long saved this kind of data. Google is now simply being more obvious about it uses information and offering a benefit to the users themselves, albeit whether they’ve asked for it or not.

Google offers a page that describes the differences between “signed-in” and “signed-out” personalized search, including a table showing the major distinctions between them (below).

By Jeff Bertolucci
November 12, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO – Given undistinguished history of Microsoft‘s late and unlamented Live Search engine, the predecessor to Bing, it’s easy to dismiss Redmond as a hapless also-ran in the search market. But given the vast sums of money and resources that Microsoft is investing in its fledging Google challenger, this could change in a hurry.
Launched in May, Bing initially received a tepid response; some critics essentially called it Live Search with a new coat of paint. But Microsoft is nothing if tenacious. (Old-timers will recall how badly the early versions of Windows stank before Redmond finally found success with version 3.0.) The company has been steadily upgrading Bing since May, including some pretty useful innovations announced Wednesday.

One new and noteworthy upgrade is the inclusion of search results from Wolfram Alpha, an oddball, “computational knowledge” search tool that’s probably too geeky for the average user. When integrated with a mainstream query engine, however, Wolfram Alpha algorithms prove their mettle by returning actionable data rather than just a page of links. Microsoft provides a few examples on its Bing blog. Search for “bmi,” for instance, and Bing displays Wolfram Alpha’s body mass index calculator at the top of the results page.

It’s debatable whether Bing is gaining market share, however, or simply spinning its wheels. According to online data service Experian Hitwise, Bing’s share of U.S. Web searches rose to 9.57 percent in October 2009, up from 8.96 percent in September. Of course, Bing was still a distant third behind Google (70.6 percent) and Yahoo (16.14 percent).

Flash back to May, and Microsoft Live Search had 9.9 percent of the U.S. search market, according to Nielsen Online. Not a lot of improvement there, despite Microsoft’s extensive and expensive Bing marketing blitz.

If you’re a diehard Google Search fan, don’t hate Bing. Embrace it. Because Microsoft’s nipping at Google’s heels will only make the world’s dominant search engine that much better. In fact, it appears that Google is already playing catch-up. Last month it launched a new tool called Similar Images, a feature that’s very much like one first seen in Bing and Live Search. (To be fair, Similar Images was first launched in test mode in Google Labs in April.)

Bing hasn’t amazed anyone yet–and it may very well have to if it hopes to grab significant market share from Google. And let’s not forget that Google has the resources and determination to match and surpass any of Bing’s enhancements.   This fight should be fun to watch.

By JR Raphael
Artwork by Luis Anthony G. Oliveros
October 27, 2009

Google is pouring personalized social data into search results with its new Google Social Search, launching in experimental mode today. Google Social Search, announced at last week’s Web 2.0 Summit, adds content from your friends right into your Google searches.

Unlike Microsoft‘s Bing-based Twitter search, Google’s Social Search uses your own lists of contacts from various services to build up a network, then features content specifically from the people whom you know. And, while it does include Twitter, it also includes FriendFeed, shared Google Reader stories, and other social content from around the Web.

Getting to Google Social Search
Google Social Search is currently considered part of Google Labs, so it’s not enabled by default. To try it out, just visit Google’s Experimental Labs page and click the button to “join the experiment.”

(Note: Google Social Search is launching on Monday, so it may or may not be available to all users immediately. If you don’t see the option on that page, try back again in a few hours.)

Once you’ve joined, you’ll immediately start seeing social information at the bottom of your search result pages. You can also click on the “Show Options” text at the top left of the page — or click on the “Results from people in your social circle” link at the bottom of the page — to filter the results and see only the social information.

Using Google Social Search
To test the Social Search system, I tried searching for the term “Apple.” Google’s first social result was a satirical story — “Apple Sues God, Says Fruit Too Similar to Logo” — pulled from my Google Reader RSS subscriptions.

Below that were links to blogs a couple of my colleagues had posted regarding Apple; Google cross-referenced them from e-mail addresses in my Gmail contacts list and uncovered their stories. There was even an Apple-related tweet sent by one of my Twitter friends – PC World‘s Robert Strohmeyer — grouped together with an Apple tip he had posted on his personal site and an option to see more of his related content.

Understanding Google Social Search
So where’s Google getting all this information? The answer, not surprisingly, is through Google. The main venue for culling your social content is your Google Profile. It’s an easy-to-create page about yourself that allows you to add links to your various online profiles: your Twitter stream, personal blog, FriendFeed page, you name it.

You have to decide to create a Google Profile and manually add these details in for Google to be able to build your “social graph.” Doing so, explains Google engineer Matt Cutts, also authorizes Google to associate that info with your name within other users’ social searches.

“Once you’ve created a Google Profile and added links to your various online social services, you’ve signaled a very clear choice that you’re comfortable with the world knowing that information, including that you’re a part of the other social networks you listed,” Cutts explains. “Based on this opt-in decision, Google can start building a broader social graph.”

In addition to your Google Profile connections, Google Social Search uses data shared by your Google Chat buddies and within your Google Reader account to build its results. It’ll also branch out further, pulling publicly shared social data from friends of friends — say, someone whom your Twitter buddy is following but you aren’t — then including that data within your Social Search results.

All of the indexed content is publicly shared, and you always have the option of removing any services from your own Google Profile.

More About Google Social Search
Want more info on Google Social Search? Below are a couple of videos that might be helpful. You can also check out the official Google Social Search features page, now live on the Google support site.

By Chris Brandrick
October 3, 2009

Google has come a long way in its eleven-year history, from its humble beginning as a Stanford University research project in 1998, to the global, multi-billion dollar online presence Google enjoys today.

Earlier this week, the company celebrated its 11th birthday and choose to mark the occasion with an all new Google Doodle, a fun take on their colorful identity. The unique logo illustrated Google’s eleven years in operation by adding an extra L to the company’s name to form a number eleven.

Google’s actual founding date is subject to debate. There are those who think that Google should bring out the cake on the September 4, the day in 1998 that Google filed its incorporation papers and officially became Google, Inc. Still others think that Google should recognize September 15, 1997 as its founding date, as that is when Google registered the google.com domain. But despite the debate, Google has celebrated its anniversary on September 27 for the past few years now, making the date somewhat official.

Any birthday offers the perfect opportunity to reflect on the past, so just what has Google been up to in the last eleven years?

Early Days: 1998
With 1997 behind them, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin dropped the original BackRub moniker in favor of Google, a play on the mathematical term “googol.” With the Google.com domain registered and a healthy $100,000 investment from Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim, the two Stanford students rented out a $1,700 a month garage space in California’s Menlo Park.

With a makeshift office in place, Google made it official and filed for incorporation as “Google Technology Inc” on September 4, 1998. As the rest of year played out, Google began to receive positive support in the press, and the company also hired their first employee, Craig Silverstein.

Money And Moving: 1999
Thanks to its growing workforce, the fledgling company moved twice in 1999. Google outgrew its modest garage and relocated briefly to a more suitable location in Palo Alto. In June, the company released its very first press release, detailing how the firm had secured $25 million of funding.

During the second half of the year, as the company reached forty employees, Google moved once again to offices in Mountain View, with an in-house chef included. This year also saw Google drop the exclamation mark from their logo and settling with its now world-famous branding.

Growth & Expansion: 2000
2000 was a year of growth, as along with the search engine reaching a milestone of one billion pages indexed, the website also expanded to support over fifteen languages including Chinese, French, German, Japanese and more.

How things change. This year (2000) also saw Yahoo! reveal that they will be using Google as their default search provider. At the time this was a big deal, as Yahoo! was once one of the darlings of search, which Google had originally set their eyes on to compete with; mission accomplished? Of course today paints a very different picture as now both Yahoo! and Microsoft are collectively attempting to compete with the search giant that Google has become.

Before the year was out Google also found time to launch the immensely successful AdWords program, and their Toolbar browser plug-in. With the year drawing to a close it was pretty clear that the search engine was on a meteoric rise, as Google was now handling nearly 100 million search queries a day.

Going Global: 2001
With the search engine now available in over twenty-five languages, it only seemed right that the company would expand on a global level with the opening of its first international office in Tokyo. 2001 also saw Google hire ex-Novell chief executive Eric Schmidt, who started at Google as the Chairman of the Board, before quickly moving on to become the CEO.

With the Google search index approaching three billion webpages, it seemed the perfect time to tackle a new type of search: Images. Google launched its Image Search service in July, and initially had an index of over 250 million images.

Getting Geeky: 2002
The year 2002 saw Google launch a range of new products, including the shopping tool Froogle, the experimental Google Labs, and the popular Google News service, a product of the company’s so-called “twenty percent time“. Geeky Google also decided to offer a Klingon translation of the site for all those Star Trek fans out there, bringing the total number of supports languages to over seventy. Spiderman, Warcraft 3 and pop star Shakira were amongst the most common search terms of the year.

The Written Word: 2003
2003 was one verbose year for the search-engine giant. It began in February when Google acquired Pyra Labs, creators of the Blogger service, which allowed the masses to publish their thoughts online with ease. Soon after the acquisition, Google’s company name was announced as a recognized verb, to “google it” had become synonymous with search, however Google strived to steer clear of dictonaries and protect their strong brand.

In December the controversial Google Print was launched: Now known as Google Book Search, the service allows users to view excerpts from thousands of books in digital form. Classic books and their film adaptations, such as Lord Of The Rings and Harry Potter, were some of the most searched for terms on Google in 2003.

Email, Google Style: 2004
Without a doubt 2004 biggest Google news was the introduction of Gmail. The beta launched on April Fools Day, but Google made sure that Gmails was no joke, offering a then-unheard-of 1GB of storage along with a speedy user experience and the beauty of Google’s search technology built right in to your inbox. The service launched as a strictly invite-only affair, which resulted in an online gold rush of those hoping to land an invitation. After five years, Gmail finally disposed of its beta status early in June of 2009.

2004 also saw Google move to its Mountain View, California “Googleplex” headquarters, where the company still resides today. In addition, Google opened a research and development center in Tokyo and a European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. With over three thousand employees, a range or products under its belt and over eight billion items in its search index Google’s growth continued to amaze.

Page 1 of 2

NEXT >>

By Chris Brandrick
October 3, 2009

Mapping The World: 2005
In 2005, Google’s ongoing effort to organize the world’s information continued as they released Google Maps. Since then, Google has continually improved the mapping service, adding new features such as satellite views and directions, as well as increasing the number of new searchable locations. Google Earth, a 3D satellite photography-based mapping application, soon followed, further complimenting Google’s range of location services.

2005 also saw the release of the iGoogle customizable home page, Google Reader RSS feed manager and Google Analytics. Optimized mobile versions of Gmail, Blogger, and Search were also released.

Oh, and could you imagine naming your newborn baby “Google”? It happened.

A Message From Chad & Steve: 2006

Ending months of speculation, in late 2006 Google finally revealed that they had bought online video site YouTube in a massive $1.65 billion stock transaction.

The Growth Continues: 2007
The year started with Google expanding into new territories once again, with Google Maps making its way to Australia and the Google Docs suite of tools being made available in several additional languages. Gmail was also made available to all, no longer requiring an invitation.

The biggest innovation from Google in 2007 was the addition of street level photography to Google Maps. Dubbed Street View, the service lets you view and explore a number of US locations at street level. Naturally, Street View’s introduction caused some controversy as it raised quite a few privacy concerns.

Popular search terms in 2007 included the iPhone, Facebook and Second Life. Since Google acquired YouTube in 2006, the popular video site has grown into an outright juggernaut: Even the Queen of England has her own YouTube channel.

Going Full Circle: 2008
Last year Google celebrated their tenth year in operation, and showed no signs of slowing down. The company released its first iPhone application, expanded Street View’s coverage to include a number of additional countries, revealed a new version of its Picasa photo management app, and launched Knol, a Wikipedia-type service.

In its biggest move of the year, Google announced that it would enter the browser wars with its own take on the humble Web browser. The open source Google Chrome appeared in September of last year, and featured a minimalist interface and home page with shortcuts to frequently visited pages–features that have made their way into other browsers since then.

Later in the year, Google’s foray into software continued as the first ever cell phone to use Android, Google’s open-source mobile OS, hit the scene.

Google At Present: 2009

2009 has been a busy year so far for Google, and it isn’t over yet. So far Google has added offline access to Gmail, introduced its Latitude location service, taken you to Mars with a new version of Google Earth, and re-launched the GrandCentral phone service as Google Voice in the US, to name but a few things.

Google also unveiled its Wave service in May of this year. Wave combines a range of communication and social networking activities into a single web application and is expected to be available to the masses later this year.

The biggest news from Google this year came when the firm announced that it plans to release an operating system. Google Chrome OS is expected to land next year, and will initially be aimed at low end devices such as netbooks. Several hints at what the OS could look like have leaked online, but Google have yet to comment on any supposed screenshots.

A rumored screenshot of Google’s Chrome operating system.

What Does The Future Hold?
With eleven years behind them, Google is still innovating and tweaking. What we can expect next from the search giant is anyone’s guess, but in the immediate future we can look forward to taking Chrome OS for a spin, trying out new versions of Android, and watching countless videos on YouTube.

Just be sure to remember this, Google: Don’t be evil. Please.