If Barry Diller is looking for somewhere to unload IAC’s Ask.com search engine, he’d be wise to consider Microsoft–if he doesn’t have that in mind already. Analysts reflecting on Diller’s recent remarks about Ask’s “speculative future” say Microsoft is the most likely buyer if IAC is truly serious about dumping the little search engine that couldn’t.
Well, there it is. Barry Diller would rather sell off IAC’s Ask.com search engine than brave a fiercely competitive market with a property whose future he describes as “speculative.”
According to comScore, Web traffic to Amazon in the U.S. rose 14.8 percent, far outstripping that of overall U.S. Internet traffic, which grew just 3.5 percent. “It appears that Amazon is gaining share the old-fashioned way,” ThinkEquity analyst Ed Weller noted last week, “by acquiring more and more customers…and selling more to each of them.” Judging from the nice gain in third-quarter earnings the company posted after Thursday’s closing bell, that would seem to be the case.
Microsoft’s efforts to bolster Bing’s market share are no longer paying off as well as they have been. After months of slight but steady increases in market share, Bing’s percentage of the search market in the U.S. and abroad fell in September for the first time.
Palm’s Pre may compete with Apple’s iPhone on a feature-to-feature basis, but judging from the latest search stats from comScore, the Pre has some way to go before it matches the iPhone in mindshare. According to the research house, Palm Pre search activity, which more than doubled in late May thanks to Sprint’s “Now Network” advertising campaign, suffered a significant decline in mid-June, right around the debut of the new iPhone.
MySpace has extended its war on bloat overseas. This morning the company announced plans to close at least four of its offices outside the U.S. in a bid to reduce costs. Some 300 of the company’s 450 international employees will lose their jobs as a result.
More sad data points in Microsoft’s Sisyphean battle for the search market. ComScore released May 2009 core search volume and market share metrics for the U.S. this afternoon and they show what search metrics always seem to show these days: Google’s share of the domestic market growing at the expense of its rivals.
The ax has finally swung at MySpace. This morning the AOL of social networks announced plans to sack 30 percent of its workforce. All told, 420 workers will lose their jobs, reducing the size of the company’s staff to 1,000 employees. CEO Owen Van Natta’s all-hands memo, after the jump.
Early gains do not guarantee a long-term increase in search market share, and thanks to its experience with Live Search and Live Search Cashback, Microsoft knows this better than anyone. That said, Redmond’s new search engine, Bing, does seem to be making some solid progress.
Microsoft’s recently unveiled search engine, Bing, has piqued Google’s interest, but the search sovereign isn’t losing any sleep over it–or it would like us all to think that, anyway. In an interview with Fox Business Network Tuesday, Google CEO Eric Schmidt dismissed Bing as the latest in a string of feeble search efforts at Microsoft.
It’s not clear yet whether Bing will help Microsoft make any long term gains in the search market, but it’s certainly shown that it’s possible. According to early data from from market researcher comScore, Microsoft’s new search engine boosted its share of the search market to 11.1 percent from 9.1 percent in the last week.
The long-awaited upgrade to Microsoft’s search engine will soon make its debut. Sources with knowledge of the situation said the company is expected to demonstrate it at our D: All Things Digital conference next week.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is scheduled to appear onstage at the event, a three-day event that hosts top players from the tech and media industries in interviews by All Things Digital Co-executive Editors Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.
Code-named “Kumo,” the search engine is Microsoft’s effort to raise its hand to table stakes in the battle for search market share with Google.
Yahoo claimed 20.6 percent of all U.S. search queries in February, according to comScore. A year from now it will claim just 17.51 percent or less, its share gutted by the loss of deals that once made Yahoo’s the default search toolbar on new HP and Acer PCs.
Who got those deals? Microsoft and Google, of course.
Just as the mobile Web and the wired Web are converging, so too are their audiences, which are destined to reach parity in size–and sooner, rather than later. According to the latest metrics from comScore, day-to-day mobile Internet usage in the states doubled over the last year.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
Spectacular in the bellowing Russian sailor sense of the word …
“If you spell something wrong on your insurance claim, do you really deserve surgery? I don’t think so …”
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