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New Media News Every Morning

Sprint, Microsoft deliver mobile search innovations

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sprint.jpgAs part of the strategic alliance between Sprint and Microsoft Corp., the two companies are providing Sprint customers with the industry’s first fully integrated GPS location-aware mobile search service in the U.S. with entire Internet search on Sprint phones. Voice search with visual results by Live Search for mobile using Tellme technologies will also be available on select Sprint phones as a separate download. The new services enable people to find web, local, and phone content easily using traditional input methods or voice.

Additionally, Sprint is the first mobile operator in the U.S. to launch GPS-enabled voice search capabilities, which are powered by Live Search for mobile. Customers can simply say the business listing and then see the search results on the screen. Speaking rather than typing makes it even easier for customers to find the results they are looking for. This feature uses award-w

The enhanced Sprint mobile search experience powered by Live Search is immediately available at no additional cost to Sprint data subscribers on most data-enabled Sprint phones. On select Sprint phones, voice search will be available to customers as a free download.

Originally posted on September 18, 2007 @ 1:25 pm

blinkx and Utarget partner to bring video advertising for UK audiences

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utarget.jpgblinkx announced that it has partnered with Utarget, the leading UK online video advertising network, to place video advertising around its video content for UK audiences. Utarget will focus on monetizing blinkx’s video inventory.

Utarget launched the UK’s first video advertising network, UtargetTV, in June 2006. It has grown the network to more than 125 sites and delivered 9.6 million video ads in August 2007 including major TV-advertiser brands such as Coke, Halifax, Shell and Smirnoff.

“blinkx is leading the way in developing options for content owners to monetize and manage their output,” explained Suranga Chandratillake, founder and CEO of blinkx. “Working with Utarget offers our partners the simplest way of getting in touch with the right advertisers.”

Originally posted on September 13, 2007 @ 10:08 am

Truveo partners with Kosmix to help consumers find health videos

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truveo.jpgTruveo announced that the company’s video search engine is being used by Kosmix to present topic-relevant videos on its health site giving users a starting point to explore any health topic they might want from the common cold to diabetes to autism. Kosmix is also using Truveo’s capabilities on its sites focused on autos and travel.

Kosmix takes advantage of Truveo’s search APIs to automatically select and present relevant and up-to-date videos to consumers. For instance, a search on osteoarthritis will display videos of the latest news and science segments on the topic. Truveo’s search APIs enable developers and website operators to build applications with powerful video search and discovery features that access Truveo’s extensive index of tens-of-millions of online videos.

Kosmix is building a home page for every topic on the web. The company’s core technology is its categorization engine which delivers algorithmic-produced home pages with no human intervention enabling it to scale to vast amounts of Web content and deliver the most relevant content results to consumers. Kosmix’s flagship products are Righthealth.com and Rightautos.com.

Originally posted on September 6, 2007 @ 1:45 pm

Facebook to open user profiles to search engines

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welcome_3.gifFacebook announced through a blog post that a new feature will open user profiles to search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Philip Fung, a Facebook engineer, said that “the public search listing contains less information than someone could find right after signing up anyway, so we’re not exposing any new information, and you have complete control over your public search listing.”

The move is seen to boost trafic and advertising revenues.

Originally posted on September 5, 2007 @ 12:55 pm

Local.com renews search marketing distribution deal with Yahoo!

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local.jpgLocal.com today announced that it has renewed a multi-year agreement in which Yahoo! will continue to deliver its sponsored search results to Local.com, including Local.com’s recently expanded local search network.

“Yahoo’s considerable base of high quality local advertisers complements Local.com’s highly relevant search results. The result is even more relevant content that helps visitors to Local.com and our network of local publishers find the businesses and services they are looking for,” said Heath Clarke, Local.com CEO. “Yahoo! is a partner of choice and we value our relationship with them. We look forward to delivering additional quality search traffic and unique, targeted opportunities to Yahoo’s advertisers.”

Originally posted on September 4, 2007 @ 12:29 pm