Engadget has Creative Zen Vision about Microsoft "breaking some new ground" with a… Battlebot (?!) walking around with Sony Ericsson's new W600 Walkman Phone and chatting up how the Nintendo Revolution won't support HD.

AdJab covers AutoTrader's attacks, on Heinz one-liners, marooned on Gilligan's Island and then

He says he believes the society is changing very quickly, and he says that the people there have a tremendous amount of hope and confidence that didn't exist there ten years ago. As a society he thinks they have started down a one-way street, in that they have to give people more education, technology and a free market. He thinks those things will drive freedom of speech.

He asks all the time if he is helping a good or bad regime and that he doesn't always believe in, and that they have that issue in Germany too.

He believes that by being there and providing infrastructure that they are going to have a positive influence. He says that is what he is investing in, creating a dialogue now.

When asked what his one regret was in business Jerry Yang just told John Battelle that they went public too early!

Other insider info: Jerry dropped his baby on their head for the first time—ouch! :-)

Mp3 of the interview to follow.

I'm taking some notes on the search panel at Web 2.0 conference, but I thought I would give you the MP3 file and some photos first. Here is part one in MP3 format, and here is part two. This page will be updated with the second MP3 file and some more notes.

Search is a Platform. Where is it Going?
Steve Berkowitz , Udi Manber , Louis Monier , Christopher Payne , Jeff Weiner

so, i finally got word from Yahoo re:
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1883446244611980/

—————————————-
Hi Jason,

This is a licensing agreement through our marketing department.  It's
just another component of a licensing program that we've had in place
for several years for a variety of items such as computer peripherals
and we're now extending to additional items such as those you see in the
photograph.

The manufacturer is Diamond Electronics and we will be providing our
branding and logo.  The manufacturer is working to sell these products
into major retailers.

It's an exciting extension of the Yahoo! brand, but it won't be a
significant announcement for the company as the blog suggests.

Thanks,

YAHOO PERSON'S NAME DELETED

If true I think this is the biggest story of the year, right up there with the Google IPO! Engadget has a lot more pictures and details.

The new version of Yahoo Messenger (version 6) came out today and it is is really slick—lots of new features.

However, I just installed it like four times and it keeps crashing my machine. Anyone else having problems? Anyone know how to install version five?

This is a realy problem because I live on Yahoo IM!!!

My Yahoo mail and Yahoo IM just went off at the same time. They have been down for about 10 minutes. Anyone else down?

PC Magazine breaks down the features of GMAIL, Yahoo and Hotmail.

As you can see GMAIL has some great features but they really need to get POP Mail supported to take it to the next level. However, I don't know if Google will ever allow POP mail (i.e. being able to download your email to a desktop email client like Eudora, Outlook, Outlook Express, etc). The reason? If Google allows POP mail it will make it hard, or impossible, for them to include their targeted advertising in each email message. Ads would probably have to be at the bottom of the message in order to fit into the typical three-pain design of email, and ads would loose their formatting if the person had HTML email off.

Bottom line: The targeted advertising is how Google justifies the free 1GIG of email. POP mail makes it hard to maintain the advertising.

My guess? Google charges $19.95 a year for POP email and creates their first, large scale paid relationship with their customers (Adsense and Adwords are a small population of people).

This could get very interesting.

According to this silly article a lot of folks are starting to get concerned about Google New free email service because it contains targeted ads.

These people are clearly misinformed about the service being proposed (I have not seen it of course): 

1. The advertising in Google Email (GMAIL) will be targeted to you by a *computer* — not a human.

2. Google would get in serious privacy trouble and their soon-to-be public stock would crash like a ton of bricks if they invaded people's privacy in any way.

3. You don't have to sign up for free Google email—it is optional! If you don't want targeted ads get Hotmail or Yahoo mail, or pay AOL for an email account.

So, can we nip these unfounded "Google's GMAIL invades people's privacy" stories in the bud please? I know they sell papers, but they are really stupid.

Google is offering the best value proposition since Urban Fetch (a Kozmo competitor) gave away pints of ice cream for half price—delivered to your door!

I for one am totally psyched to get one gig of free email space. Dang, I'm paying like $30 a year for 25 megs of space at Yahoo!

I was speaking with a real insider in the social software space and they told me yesterday that Tim Koogle, the former CEO of Yahoo!,  is considering taking the CEO slot at Friendster and morphing the company into a search engine (this rumor has been around for a while.) Koogle is on the board of Friendster and is an early investor.

The concept is that all the data you and your friends put into Friendster would be the starting point for your searches. So, if you knew that me and my friends went to the follow tech related schools (i.e. MIT,) worked at the following tech companies (i.e. Yahoo, AOL, etc.,) and had computers and Internet in our interests field then you would tailor the search towards those verticals.

Google Personalized Search is obviously heading in this direction, and their launch of Orkut and failed attempt to buy Friendster makes this rumor believable to me.

I saw Tim Koogle at PC Forum last week and he was talking about Friendster a whole lot and he was chatting up a storm with people.  Hmmmmm…....

Update: David had the story first two days ago.

As we mention here months ago, Google is launching a free email program called "Gmail."

Amidst rampant media speculation, Google Inc. today announced it is testing a preview release of Gmail — a free search-based webmail service with a storage capacity of up to eight billion bits of information, the equivalent of 500,000 pages of email. Per user.

The inspiration for Gmail came from a Google user complaining about the poor quality of existing email services, recalled Larry Page, Google co-founder and president, Products. "She kvetched about spending all her time filing messages or trying to find them," Page said. "And when she's not doing that, she has to delete email like crazy to stay under the obligatory four megabyte limit. So she asked, 'Can't you people fix this?'"

The idea that there could be a better way to handle email caught the attention of a Google engineer who thought it might be a good "20 percent time" project. (Google requires engineers to spend a day a week on projects that interest them, unrelated to their day jobs). Millions of M&Ms later, Gmail was born.

Alan Meckler posts today about the wave of new dotcom acquisitions. Meckler has made a business of buying up small sites to make something big. At WIN (The Weblogs, Inc. Network) we're making small sites every day to make something big—two paths to the same place: niche b2b advertising dollars (not to mention brand extensions like conferences).

Alan and I are good friends and have breakfast every six months or so. A lot of people have "Meckler" stories, but I've always liked his brash "this is who I am and this is my view of the world" style. At least you know where you stand with Alan.

Last Friday brought news of two Internet deals. First, Yahoo purchased Kelkoo, a French company that runs online shopping comparison sites in nine countries, for approximately $575 million in cash (about 16x Kelkoo's yearly revenues). And Infospace announced its acquisition of Switchboard (an American localized search company) for $160 million in cash and stock (paying 15x yearly revenues).These acquisitions hammer home the trend that Internet shopping and search information are two hot commerce areas. We are also seeing a rapid consolidation of properties in these sectors.

The large multiples being paid (in excess of 15x revenues) further indicate that the whole Internet sector is getting white hot. Some pundits are saying that the excesses of the 1990s bubble are erupting again. But 2004 is different than a few years ago because companies being acquired today are solvent, profitable and grabbing market share.

Trying to figure our who's doing what with whom in the search space is like trying to follow the Julia Roberts Love Chain. So, save yourself some time and visit the Search Engine Decoder where a slick Flash App will let you figure out who's doing who in the Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, DMOZ, AOL, and Ask Jeeves crowd.

In a very clear story today Saul Hansell at the New York Times details Yahoo's plan to let you pay for inclusion in search results. Now, this is not their expedited service for getting your listing into the hierarchical directory. No, this is pay us to show up in the search results and we'll dance your site every three days as opposed to every month.

Really Yahoo—what are you thinking?! Just because Microsoft does it, that doesn't mean it's right. In fact, if Microsoft does it, well, you might want to think about it a little more! Also, don't do what Ask Jeeves does—there is a reason why they are so desperate for revenue: Google kicks their butt.

Here is Yahoo's sneaky press release which buries their sneaky program in the bottom of the release. That is doubly evil Yahoo—what, you think we're not going to read past you lamenting how you're giving NPR a free ride?! That is so insulting.

Saul gets a great quote from Google. Larry takes Yahoo to task (right on Larry!) on this horrible practice: 

Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, argued that such disclosures were not enough. He compared search results with the news articles in newspapers or magazines, which are independent of advertising.

"Any time you accept money to influence the results, even if it is just for inclusion, it is probably a bad thing," Mr. Page said.