Microsoft to acquire search start-up Medstory (C|Net News.com)

The part of this story that caught my attention wasn't the fact that Microsoft bought a health-field specific search engine.  Instead, I thought the allusion to the idea that Microsoft might use the company's technology to power search engines on other "complex" topics.  What's more complex than the entire Internet.  Wild speculation?  Yes.  Possible?  Based on how well their home-grown search algorithm is working… I'd say anything is possible.

  Panama's Effect on Yahoo's Click-through Rates [summarized title] (comScore)

As Matt predicted, Panama appears to be having a positive initial impact on Yahoo's search advertising platform.  And we shouldn't think we've seen the last of good news for Yahoo because of Panama.  But Matt is predicting that  those positive benefits won't last much longer than a few quarters.  It should be interesting to see comScore's reassessment of the situation at the end of the system's first full quarter.  For now… congrats Yahoo!

  Google AdWords Editor Version 3.0 Available (Search Engine Roundtable)

The word on the street is that this newest version of the stand-alone AdWords Editor is worth the upgrade.  It's sporting several new features, including support for site targeting and exporting campaigns to HTML.  The official announcement has more details.  The AdWords Editor is available from Google's site.

  Turn Gmail Into Your Personal Nerve Center (Micro Persuasion)

A lot of folks use Gmail to archive and store things that aren't email.  With nearly 3 GB of storage space, most would be hard-pressed to get that much email.  Steve Rubel has detailed several ways to take Gmail to the next step and turn it into a mostly automated hub for all your information.  The techniques Rubel talks about can very easily be used to create custom solutions for a lot of your information gathering and management needs.  Excellent read!

  A Visit to Apple (Official Google Mac Blog)

I think the idea of folks at Google being awed by another company and it's "rock star" heavyweights was just plain interesting to me.  I'm sure visitors to the Googleplex feel this way quite often.  And even though it doesn't have a cool name like "Googleplex", I've heard that Apple's campus is quite impressive (I see volleyball in the background of a linked picture… I'm jealous).  As an avid Mac user (despite Matt's repeated jabs and my recent purchase of computer #3 - an HP notebook), I always like breaking up the usual Google and Yahoo news with a little something from my favorite company.

  Is Google Apps Domain Verification Asking For Trouble? (Search Engine Roundtable)

To be totally honest, I've often wondered about this when dealing with Google Webmaster Tools.  The Webmaster Tools asks you do the same thing.  So when I had to upload the verification file as part of our ongoing test of Google Apps Premier, I wasn't surprised.  The chances of exploiting this are slim to none.  Other than being able to identify sites using Google Apps (which isn't really a big deal), the small .html file does nothing else.  But who knows.  There's always a chance that something more is being done with those verification files that we don't know about.  And that could mean exploitation.

  Poll: Was Google Apps Premier The Web Office Tipping Point (Read/Write Web)

I like the options here for this poll.  There are four, simple choices:  "Yes, Microsoft watch out", "No, but the tipping point is coming soon", "No, the tipping point is still years away", or "No and Microsoft has nothing to worry about".  As of the writing of this post, the option stating that the tipping point is "coming soon" is in the lead with 45%.  What do you think?  Is Microsoft in trouble?  Or is Google delusional?  They can't both be dominant.  Can they?

  Top 20 Domains ranked by Attention Share (Compete)

Compete has compiled a list of the top sites with the most "attention share" - a metric recently created by the company to address shortcomings in the pageview measurement. According to this data, only 5 of the top 20 sites saw increases in their attention share for January:  Yahoo, Craigslist, YouTube, Runescape, and Adultfriendfinder.  Not surprisingly, Runescape saw the biggest increase (it's an online game… of course people are going to spend a lot of time there).  What do you think about this metric?  Is there a place in the standard portfolio of measurements for the "attention share"?

Better badware notifications for webmasters (Official Google Webmaster Central Blog)

Google has added a couple of new ways to help website owners better deal with being flagged as a badware site.  Google started flagging sites that contain badware some time ago.  In addition to notifications through Google Webmaster Tools, website owners will be given a list of specific URLs flagged as containing badware.  Google is also going to attempt to contact website owners by email to alert them.  The plan is to send email to "likely" webmaster@ or admin@ email addresses.  In the future they plan to let website owners provide a preferred email address through Webmaster Tools.  Call me crazy.  But I thought that oh… I dunno… the email address used to sign up for the Google account would be a good place to start?