Yahoo and Google take center stage this week with new and upgraded products
Written on December 15, 2006 – 10:27 pm | by admin
This was a busy week for Yahoo and Google as they continue to fight for dominance in the online world.
First, Yahoo celebrated the one year anniversary of Yahoo Answers outliving Google Answers that was shutdown last week after a dismal performance during its existence. Yahoo Answers clearly dominated the market with 60 million users and 160 million answers. At the same time, Yahoo Music released Video 3.0 in beta offering higher resolution videos and compatibility with all popular platforms using the Flash media player. TechCrunch was allowed an early look with a number of screenshots showcasing the video platform. Finally, Yahoo also rolled out Panama for users in the U.S. This upgrade of Yahoo’s search marketing platform was highly anticipated. Those who were able to test drive the system during the closed beta testing phase consider it as good as Google’s AdWords with much better targeting than the old version. Yahoo plans to make the platform available to all markets soon.
In the meantime, Google decided to start selling domain names establishing a partnership with GoDaddy and eNom. Domain name registration will be part of Google’s Apps for Your Domain program and it will cost $10 for a year including private domain registration. It is a good deal when you consider that to buy the same domain with all the features offered by Google would cost nearly $15 at GoDaddy.
Last but not least, I want to mention that StumbleUpon has introduced a new social browsing application only for video. The new site is called StumbleVideo and it allows you to channel surf videos in a category of your choice coupled with the rating system and social aspects that we all love from the original StumbleUpon toolbar. StumbleVideo does not require a browser toolbar; users have to go to a particular website that serves videos from YouTube, Google Video and Myspace. The videos shown are tailored to user preferences derived from their online habits and friends in the StumbleUpon network.
