Search Engine War: AOL, Google, Yahoo, and Bing
Search Engine War: AOL, Google, Yahoo, and Bing
I use AOL and I am a big fan of Google. If you use AOL, you may have noticed the search screen says: AOL Search Enhanced by Google.
AOL and Google have a continuing relationship that they have extended for another 5 years. Part of that relationship includes:
- Google provides AOL with additional features and enhancements to improve their search function.
- Google provides AOL with ad formats.
- AOL and Google work together to focus on mobile apps.
- This relationship allows AOL to have a content partnership with YouTube
- This relationship improves the international scope of AOL’s audience.
I was curious to see if there was a big difference between the results by searching within AOL vs. going to Google to search. AOL included a few local addresses at the beginning but otherwise the results were similar.
I have to admit I don’t use Yahoo and Bing very often. I noticed when searching for my press releases, that Yahoo and Bing do not pick up the information nearly as well as Google and AOL do. However, I am interested to see if their future relationship may change things. Today’s Wall Street Journal had an article about how Bing and Yahoo were going to join forces. Google may have some competition with that. WSJ stated, “With the integration of Yahoo’s and Microsoft’s search businesses now well advanced—Yahoo searches are using Microsoft’s Bing engine and its search ads will increasingly go through Microsoft’s adCenter platform—the duo have a better chance to take on Google.” Google is hardly hurting though, “Digital-marketing firm SearchIgnite estimates Google’s share of U.S. ad spending rose nearly two percentage points to 80.2% in the third quarter, with Yahoo dropping two points to 13.4%. Bing had 6.4%.”
The search engine war and capturing unique visitors continues to be big business. Check out the following chart to see how the search engines and social networking sites compare in terms of revenue per unique visitors:
Top 50 Online Buzz Words Explained
If you are considering taking an online college course and feel intimated by the terminology, here are 50 of the top buzz words and terminology you will hear in the online environment. If you are wondering what a rubric is . . . you are not alone. I have alphabetized them to make definitions easier to find. To find information like this plus a whole lot more, check out The Online Student’s User Manual by clicking here.
1. Accreditation – Quality of the education provided meets the U.S. Dept. of Education standards. There are nationally recognized agencies that the U.S. Dept. of Education recognizes that accredit universities.
2. ACT – American College Testing Program – test given to high school students to measure education and ability to do well in college.
3. APA Format – American Psychological Association Format is a guide for formatting students’ papers, including how margins, fonts, citations, etc. should look.
4. Asynchronous – Not at the same time. In college courses, if a course is asynchronous it means that everybody does not have to participate at the same time.
5. Attaching Files – When submitting assignments, attaching or uploading is similar to sending an email with an attachment or an uploaded file.
6. Attendance – Usually a student is considered in attendance on any given day should they post anything to any area of the classroom to show they were there.
7. Blackboard – Software that many schools use to access the classroom.
8. Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence – Learners express themselves through movement.
9. Chat Room – An area in the online classroom where students can talk about things as if they were in a hallway or relaxation area in a regular school. Topics must be clean but do not have to be related to the course.
10. Critical thinking – According to the Foundation for Critical Thinking (2010), critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.
11. Curriculum – Educational courses offered.
12. Diploma Mill – A higher-education institution that gives diplomas based on less-than-quality education for a financial return.
13. Discussion Board – Area in the online classroom where students post responses to questions posted by the professor.
14. Doc Share – An area within the software program eCollege where students can upload their documents so that others within the course can see and respond to them.
15. Dropbox – An area within the software program eCollege where students can upload their documents so that only the professor can see them.
16. eCollege – An online learning software platform used by colleges.
17. Emoticons – A group of characters used to convey intended tone, e.g. a smiley face.
18. e-Portfolio – An electronic way to assemble a collection of work you have done, including writings, pictures, blogs, etc.
19. Extension – In software, the extension is the part of the filename that comes after the period. For example, if a file is named “Sample.doc” then the extension is “.doc”.
20. Feedback Area – An area in software platforms such as Blackboard where students can see input from the instructor as to how they are doing in the class.
21. Font – The typeface that is chosen for a document.
22. Forum – An area within certain software packages such as OLS, which is like a classroom or place that a student will go to find information.
23. Grade Scale – Explanation for what percentages equivocate to certain grades. For example, 90% may be an A, 80% a B, and so on.
24. Grant – A way to finance your education, unlike loans in the fact that they do not have to be paid back.
25. Header – The area at the top of your paper where you might include details such as page numbers or other information about the assignment.
26. Logical-Mathematical Intelligence – Prefers to think with logic, reasoning and numbers.
27. MLA – Modern Language Association. A style of writing that schools may use. Most commonly, they use APA.
28. Musical Intelligence – When music and hearing help with learning, a student is said to have musical intelligence.
29. Naturalistic Intelligence – When being around outdoors, plants and animals helps with learning, a student is said to have naturalistic intelligence.
30. Netiquette – Combination of “Internet” and “etiquette”, meaning how to behave properly and not be rude in the online environment.
31. OLS – Online Learning System software offered by universities to allow students to access their online classes.
32. Participation – Posting something of substance in a course, usually in response to discussion questions posted by the instructor. Unlike attendance, there must be quality to the posting.
33. Peer-Reviewed – Peers of the writer of an article have reviewed the document.
34. Plagiarism – Taking someone else’s work and trying to submit it as your own.
35. Platform – Software that universities use for online courses to enable students to have access to classes.
36. Retention – The ability to retain or remember things.
37. Rubric – Rules for how one will be graded.
38. SAT – Scholastic Aptitude Test given to high school students to assess intelligence and readiness for college.
39. Search Engine – Software that searches the Internet for specific things. Examples include Google, Yahoo and Bing. Educational examples include ProQuest and EBSCOhost.
40. SQ3R – Stands for Survey, Question, Read, Recite and Review. It is a process that students can use to study and have better retention.
41. Syllabus – A summary of course requirements or expectations.
42. Synchronous – Attending class at the same time as your fellow students and instructors.
43. Thread – A posting in class where students and the professor continue a conversation.
44. TOEFL – Test of English as a Foreign Language – Test to evaluate English skills.
45. TurnItIn – A software platform that colleges often use to test students’ papers for plagiarism.
46. Verbal-Linguistic Intelligence – When spoken or written words help students learn better they are said to have verbal-linguistic intelligence.
47. Virtual University – An online university.
48. Visual-Spatial Intelligence – When pictures or visual aids help students learn better they are said to have visual-spatial intelligence.
49. Wiki – A software platform that allows multiple users to input information.
50. Wikipedia – An online encyclopedia site where students can go to discover basic information. It is important to note is that this is a good place to start looking for information, but not a good source to use when you start to cite references. Because it is a wiki (see definition for wiki), the information on it can be manipulated by numerous users, and therefore can be unreliable.
Network Neutrality Explained
Repost from Mobydisk:
Diane checks the internet. Her home page is Google, which is her favorite search engine. Today however, Diane’s system can’t connect to google.com. So she tries her next favorite search engine, MSN. msn.com seems to be working, but it is very slow. Diane has a DSL connection through her local phone company, Edison Telephone. Thinking there is a problem, she calls Edison Telephone’s tech support. They inform her that they have partnered with Yahoo as part of their “preferred portal program” so her connection to Yahoo should be twice as fast as it used to be. However, she will no longer be able to access Google, and other search engines such as msn.com and askjeeves.com will only be offered at a reduced speed. When Diane asks why this is, she is offered a $10 per month upgrade to Edison Telephone’s “universal” system which gives her full-speed access to any site on the web. As a bonus she can also stream podcasts to her iPod at high speed. When Diane points out that she was already able to stream audio just fine, they inform her that Apple has not paid for high speed access, so podcasts may skip or have lower quality.
Infuriated, Diane cancels her service and chooses to switch to another provider. Ooops! There is only one telephone company in her area, and the cable internet service provider also has a “preferred portal program” that does the same exact thing.
Does this sound silly? Until recently, this scenario was not possible. Telephone companies, internet service providers (ISPs), and transportation companies were defined as common carriers under U.S. law, which means that they must be neutral to whatever they carry. That means that UPS can’t prioritize packages sent by large companies or delay delivery to packages to smaller companies or individuals. It means that telephone companies can’t send higher-quality audio to customers who also use their cell-phone service. And internet service providers can’t insert ads into competitor’s web pages or slow-down data to competitor’s customers.
Now this is all at risk. DSL service providers are no longer “common carriers” and the FCC rules on network neutrality allow loopholes that the telecommunications companies want to exploit. No one ever intended companies to start breaking the internet into pieces. Be aware that this only affects the U.S. – everyone else will have free and clear internet access.
What is Network Neutrality?
Network Neutrality is the basic idea that anyone carrying network traffic must treat all the data the same. They should not filter, prioritize, or alter the content in ways that are not desired by the customer.
Network neutrality is fairly simple, but it has become a highly politicized issue since the telecoms have an opportunity to charge customers more for less. Fake grassroots efforts have been confusing the issue, making it difficult to see what network neutrality is, and what it is not.
What isnt Network Neutrality?
This is very important because there is significant misinformation on Network Neutrality.
- Network Neutrality is not new:The entire world currently has a neutral system in place today. The telecommunications companies want to change to a non-neutral system.
- Network Neutrality is not price fixing:Various articles have claimed that network neutrality involves fixing prices. This is not true.
- Network Neutrality is not regulation:Network Neutrality currently exists, and doesn’t require any special bodies to enforce, measure, or regulate it. There is no organization that checks to make sure there aren’t ads in your phone calls, or that call quality is the same. It just isn’t necessary.
- Network Neutrality has nothing to do with competition:Some phony grassroots organizations claim that the issue is neutrality -vs- competition. Competition is not affected by neutrality.
- Network Neutrality is not about a “tiered” network:Networks are already tiered. Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc. each pay more for their internet access than any individual person does. They have special high-speed connections because they they serve so many more customers.
- Neutrality is not evil just because Microsoft supports it:Some articles point out specifically the Microsoft supports network neutrality as a way to draw people to emotionally conclude that neutrality is evil. Any company or individual that has a site on the internet is threatened if net neutrality is taken away.
- Network Neutrality has nothing to do with taxation:One organization hints that network neutrality involves some sort of taxation, which is not true.
Who do I trust?
Telecommunications companies do not want network neutrality. Neither do those companies that produce the telecom hardware. Both these groups stand to gain from eliminating network neutrality. On the other side of the issue is everyone else: consumers and corporations big and small. Anyone who has a web site wants the internet to remain neutral. The inventor of the world wide web, Professor Tim Burners-Lee, strongly supports network neutrality as summarized in this CNET news article.
Be aware that there are some organizations that try to get people to write to their representatives against net neutrality. They are creating fake grassroots campaigns to confuse people. But it is easy to see who is involved by looking at their list of supporters which includes every major telecom company in the United States. The site even sports a big “Say no to government regulation” slogan, even though network neutrality is not regulation. Another such organization is netcompetition.org which is run by a telecom lobbying group who states their mission is to “…exploit emerging opportunities…”
For accurate information, try some of the links below.
References
- The FCC rules on network neutrality
- Detailed article on Network Neutrality
- Summary of network neutrality by Craig of Craigslist.com
- Network Neutrality FAQ by SaveTheInternet.com.
- List of organizations supporting ItsOurNet.org. No telecoms!
- For some real human opinions, try the discussions on Slashdot.
Examples
Network neutrality violations are happening today. For example, NextGenTel in Norway limited the bandwidth of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation.
Confusion in the press
Even the press is very confused on network neutrality. Here are some examples of articles that fall for some of these myths:
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun Times article on network neutrality makes some of the mistakes cited above. They believe that network neutrality might be a good thing, but that we don’t want government regulation unless absolutely necessary. They want to rely on the free market and wait until there are some real violations before imposing government regulation. They don’t want to stifle the telecom companies ability to provide higher speed access.
Their reasoning is logical, but the authors are misinformed. They have fallen for some of the network neutrality myths listed above.
- The mistaken belief that network neutrality is new and that network neutrality is a form of government regulation.
“…but we don’t think the government should get involved until there is clear evidence that involvement is needed…”
The authors want to wait until network neutrality violations happen to confirm that the market cannot fix them before imposing the law. This would make sense except that we previously had network neutrality, and it was removed under pressure from telecoms who have publically announced plans for non-neutral features. The groundwork is already set, and violations have begun.
“…the market itself under existing laws, will provide the best solution to the problem…”
How many high-speed internet providers exist in most areas? Usually there are two: The local telecom company, and the local cable TV provider. Since both are arguing against network neutrality, there are no alternatives for people to switch to. Since there is no free market, the free market cannot solve the problem.
“…If some companies, such as a seller of downloadable movies, want to pay an Internet provider more to guarantee speedier delivery, shouldn’t that be allowed?”
It certainly should, and this is allowable under network neutrality. But telecom companies want to eliminate network neutrality because they are not speeding-up internet movies, but slowing down everything else, then requiring customers to pay to speed them back up. The situation is similar to telecoms selling a service that blocks telephone solicitors, then selling the ability to get around those blocks back to the telecom solicitors.)
With all of the talk about Net Neutrality in the news, I thought this site (Mobydisk.com) gave a pretty simple explanation. Also check out http://bit.ly/bIFgFv, the article titled How the FCC Bungling Led to Google-Verizon Net Neutrality Deal.
Most Popular Products in the US
Yahoo Finance posted an interesting article by Bloomberg Businessweek recently about popularity of items we purchase. In my marketing courses I teach, we often discuss what makes a product more or less successful. Do you ever look at products out there and think . . . Who would buy that? I often see a strange color car and wonder what the buyer’s thought process was with that! I tend to have more bland and simple taste when it comes to colors. I guess I am not alone.
In the Bloomberg article, they state, “Fully 17.8 percent of cars sold in North America last year were white—the No.1 choice, according to the annual DuPont Global Automotive Color Popularity Report. Black, the No.2 color, scored a close second with 17 percent, having climbed six points since 2005. Silver, the global favorite, placed third in North America, totaling 16.7 percent of sales.”
Here are some more interesting statistics mentioned in the article about popular products:
Wal-Mart sold more bananas than any other single item in the store.
The growth of Honey Nut Cheerios is largely due to a growing Hispanic population who is targeted in their ads.
Hungry for a potato chip? The highest sales, by far, were for Lay’s brand.
Americans ate 4.1 pounds of shrimp in 2008.
If you are looking to buy a dog . . .Labradors are the number one choice.
If you are considering traveling . . . You’ll probably see a lot of Americans in France as that is the number one travel destination.
One third of all cosmetics are sold by Revlon.
Looking for the popular sneaker? Check out Nike’s Air Force 1.