Google Holds Search Query Lead

A rise in the use of image search drove the query increases on Google, Yahoo and AOL, the research firm said. News search was the main driver behind Ask Jeeves's increase. Even though MSN saw a drop in queries, the number of image searches quarter to quarter rose 90 percent.

For the month of June, Google captured 47 percent of all search queries to hold on to its No. 1 position in the market, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. Yahoo was a distant second with 22 percent, followed by MSN, 12 percent; AOL, 5 percent; and My Way Search, 2 percent.

That fact that My Way, a search aggregator that displays results from Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves and LookSmart, came in ahead of Ask Jeeves in June was interesting, but no conclusions could be drawn, Cassar said.

"This could be just a hiccup," he said.

A9.com Adds Calculator

MSN Launches Virtual Earth

YouTube is a Video Sharing Resource

ElfURL Shortens URLs and Provides Stats

Enter your giant URL and our elves will make it elfin size. These elfin-sized URL will not break in emails, nor will they expire.

Google Reports Record Searches

Google's 5.65 billion U.S. queries placed it at the top of the Web ferret pack for the quarter, followed by Yahoo, with 4.65 billion queries and a 30.4 percent market share; MSN, with 2.39 billion queries and a 15.6 percent share; AOL/Time Warner, with 1.41 billion queries and a 9.2 percent share; and Ask Jeeves, with 934 million queries and a 6.1 percent share.

While Google's market share increased from the first quarter, when it was 35.9 percent -- as did Ask Jeeves' share, which climbed from 5.3 percent, and AOL's, which jumped from 9.1 percent -- Yahoo's share dropped from 31.2 percent and MSN's from 16.3 percent.

Study: Just 53% Use Search Engines Frequently

Over half (53%) of all US online adults use search engines most or every time they are online, trailing only e-mail and general surfing

Researching specific topics is the #1 search activity (by 88% of search engine users), followed by getting directions/maps (75%) and looking for news/info about current events (64%)

56% of internet users do not know the difference between natural and paid search listings; males are more confident in reporting they know the difference - over 50% of males say they know, compared to about one-third of females

54% of frequent Google users report knowing the difference between natural and paid listings; the next closest group is Yahoo! users at 42%

Urban Dictionary is a Slang Goldmine

This is something that is good to use in either a crowded room full of geeks or in an IRC chat.

Originated from sparticus...

You: "I am sparticus!!!!"

Everyone else: "No, I am sparticus!","I am sparticus", "He lies. I am sparticus" and so forth.

Whenever I hear about what a great community-edited, user-contributed site Wikipedia is, I think about the unsung site that's just as much of a success: Urban Dictionary. Where else can you find definitions for meh and cool beans and thousands of obscure sexual practices of varying degrees of debauchery?

Webshots Launches Community Photo Sharing Service

Musipedia's Melody Search

Shadows is a New Social Bookmarking Site

U.S. Workers Busy Surfing the Web

U.S. workers say they squander over two hours a day at the workplace, with surfing the Web, socializing with co-workers and simply "spacing out" among the top time-wasting activities, according to a survey released on Monday. Most U.S. companies assume about an hour of wasted time, but workers admit to actually frittering away more than twice as much time at a cost of $759 billion in annual paid salary that results in no apparent productivity, an online survey conducted by America Online and Salary.com showed.

Judy's Book Combines Yellow Pages With User Reviews

Judy's Book has local recommendations from most medium-to-large size cities in the U.S. The site is free to browse; to add a post or ask a question you need to register, but registration is free.

The site was inspired by a "little green book" of trusted sources kept by "Judy," the mother of one of the Judy's Book founders. The book contained a list of the best service providers in the Seattle area, according to Judy.

Blog Covers Google Maps Hacks

Yahoo Launches Text Message Search

Both the SMS Web search and the Yahoo Search on Mobile services use shortcuts that take less time for users to input their queries.

For example, a user would send a text message to shortcode 92466, which spells Yahoo on a telephone keypad, with the text "pizza 94104" to retrieve a list of pizza restaurants near that Zip code.

Unlike Google, however, White said that once a user retrieves a reply from Yahoo's text message search service, they can refresh it without having to retype the query. That could be useful, he said, for retrieving the latest stock quote on a company.

DMOZ Top Listed Domains

Google Also Planning Subscription Content Search

Yahoo announced its own Yahoo! Search Subscription this month in an effort to surface normally restricted content. "This enables consumer to access their personal subscription content in one place via Yahoo! Search," a Yahoo spokesperson told BetaNews.

In contrast to Yahoo, Google has kept its efforts shrouded in secrecy. "We are under a strict confidentiality agreement. We've been told several times by Google that we are not allowed to share this information with anyone outside the involved organizations," a source close to testing told BetaNews.

Sources said that Google's Premium service creates a full sitemap of the paid site and then clears the Google IP block and Spider agent to show protected content. Publishers will be made aware that there was a Google referral.