SearchEngineUpdate with Vanessa Zamora - 03-20-2008 Part II
Abstract: 1. Verizon & AT&T Big Winners In Airwave Auction, 2. Search Engine Mahalo Launches Reviews and Ratings, 3. Opera Mini Partners With Helio's Ocean, 4. Yahoo Runs Advertising Radio Spots To Lure Google Users
Vanessa Zamora
Video Content Producer, SearchEngineWorld
9:58 pm on Mar. 20, 2008 (utc 0)
Transcript
Thursday March 20, 2008
Verizon & AT&T Big Winners In Airwave Auction
The Federal Communication Commission has announced the winners of the U.S. governments auction of wireless licenses, and as expected Verizon Wireless and AT&T came out on top. Verizon Wireless, a joint venture with Vodafone, won the coveted, nationwide "C" block of the FCC spectrum auction, giving it maximum control to tap into the growing wireless mobile Internet market. AT&T won 227 licenses from among the “B” block of national licenses. Frontier Wireless, a partner of television company EchoStar, gained airwaves in the “E” block of the auction, spanning most of the United States.
The Chief executive of Mahalo, one of the growing numbers of so-called human powered search engines, has announced the addition of product and service reviews and ratings available to users on Mahalo created pages, covering music, movies, books, and local merchants. The new Mahalo additions hope to combine the appeal of a social networking site tied to a search engine with reviews appearing in a box to the right of the search results. By downloading the Mahalo toolbar, searches conducted on Yahoo and Google will return information on available reviews and ratings, which could attract visitors otherwise going to Yelp or Amazon for a review. Reviews and ratings are implemented based on a persons trust score, which determines how much weight it will carry in the Mahalo system.
Helio Ocean Smartphone mobile users have been accessing a hacked version of the Opera Mini browser since last August, making it the most popular application among its users. As a result, Helio and Opera forged a partnership to make Opera mini an official download available for Ocean phones starting Wednesday. Under the agreement, Opera Mini will also now ship on Helio Ocean phones. This marks the first time Norway-based Helio has partnered with a U.S. mobile service provider.
Yahoo Runs Advertising Radio Spots To Lure Google Users
Using a media far from its usual high-tech methods, Yahoo is running advertising spots on local radio stations in the San Francisco Bay Area to try to lure more Google web searchers, specifically pointing out where Google fails while Yahoo prevails. Yahoo hopes to remind people that there is an alternative to Google, encouraging searchers to try Yahoo for the first time or to return, especially since Yahoo introduced improvements last October including search assist, short cuts, and multimedia results.
9:58 pm on Mar. 20, 2008 (utc 0)