A lot to chew on today. Here are some things that have caught our eye:
Bill Gross, founder of the Idealab incubator, is riding pretty high these days. He's got a new search engine called Snap, he recently sold Picasa to Google, and yesterday we find out that another company that Idealab incubated, X1 Technologies, is helping Yahoo develop its desktop search tool. Tony Gentile reminds us that it wasn't long ago that a dark cloud hung over Gross and his company.
Danny Sullivan seems to suggest deep in this blog posting that Copernic will power AOL's desktop search tool. We can't wait to see what Ask Jeeves has to offer next week. (via Andy Beal) UPDATE: Copernic CEO David Burns tells us he can't confirm whether his company will power AOL's desktop search, in part because Copernic is being acquired by Mamma.com, which is in the "due dilligence'' phase of the deal. "Danny saw what he saw,'' Burns said. "That's a fact. As to what it means potentially, I can't comment.'' But he added, "We've closed some deals with major portals and and we'll be closing more of them.'' In fact, Copernic's long-term strategy is less about direct sales to consumers and more about "private label distribution'' of its technology through business partners.
PayPal tells us that Apple's iTunes store now accepts PayPal payments, further mainstreaming that type of transaction. The Rueters story is here.
Google is testing a new auto-complete, query-refinement function in its labs. It's called Google Suggest, and it "suggests queries as a user types what he or she is looking for into the search box,'' according to Google. The full announcement is in the extended entry.
And finally, regarding the Google item Matt posted below, is there any doubt now that Google's serious about wanting to "organize the world's information?" In fact, look for more news on that front on Monday.
The Google Suggest announcement:
In our ongoing effort to create innovative technologies that enable users to search more of the world's information, Google today released an experimental search service on Google Labs called Google Suggest. This new web search service suggests queries as a user types what he or she is looking for into the search box. By offering more refined searches up front, Google Suggest can make searching more convenient and efficient, because it eliminates the need to type the entire text of a query. In addition, the service can connect users with new query suggestions that are useful, intriguing, and fun.
Google Suggest is similar to Google's "Did you mean?" feature, which offers users alternative spellings for a query. But, Google Suggest works as the user types in a query in real-time. For example, if a user types "bass," Google Suggest might offer a list of refinements that include "bass fishing" or "bass guitar." Similarly, if a user types in only part of a word such as "progr," Google Suggest will offer query refinements such as "programming," "programming languages," "progesterone," or "progressive."
Suggested queries are displayed in a drop-down menu below the search field and users can scroll through and select queries using their keyboard arrow keys. Google Suggest draws from a wide range of information, including the aggregate popularity of Google.com searches, to predict the queries and URLs users most likely want to see. An example of this popularity information can be found in the Google Zeitgeist. Google Suggest does not base its suggestions on the searches of an individual user or searches conducted from a particular computer or browser.
Google Suggest is available via Google Labs at http://labs.google.com/suggest. This is an experiment, and as always, we welcome user feedback. Questions and or suggestions can be sent to labs+suggest@google.com.
The Google Suggest Team