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Technorati gets another makeover

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Technorati has redesigned its site once again in its desperate effort to regain the stronghold they once enjoyed. The site hopes to bring back the focus to its core audience – the bloggers and advertisers.

Armed with such aspiration, Technorati CEO Richard Jalichandra has done what every struggling players do – imitate. Three months after the last redesign of its Front Page, it is now in news aggregator format just like TechMeme and New York Time’s Blogrunner.

technorati makeover

Moreover, it has also new offerings dubbed as Blogger Central and Today in Photos. TechCrunch describes the former as a resource page for bloggers while the latter shows popular news via photos and news items included in those news items.

While it is premature to predict if these new features can help resolve the dwindling page views and monthly visitors of Technorati, the effort to revamp its strategy and develop new features is a big step forward.

Via TechCrunch

Originally posted on December 5, 2007 @ 8:43 am

Yahoo! Releases Top Trends in Search in 2007

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Compiling billions of searches worldwide, Yahoo has released its Top Trends in Search in 2007 to capture the “fascinating portrait of a culture on the brink”.

To understand better these search trends, Yahoo has segmented the top searches in different categories from news to product recalls.

yahoo top trends

“Searches can give us insight into a culture in motion and Yahoo!’s Top Trends in Search in 2007 reflects the world’s fascination with crossroads and breakthroughs. People weren’t just buzzing about celebrity. More than ever they sought to be environmentally responsible, were using the Web to find out about food and product safety and getting the scoop on the latest gadgets,” said Heather Cabot, Yahoo! Web Life Editor.

Since Google is a more dominant search engine, its top searches offer a better grasp of a “culture in motion”. While its list of top searches is expected to be released this month, Google has compiled a list of its fastest growing search terms. These are:

  1. iphone
  2. webkinz
  3. tmz
  4. transformers
  5. youtube
  6. club penguin
  7. myspace
  8. heroes
  9. facebook
  10. anna nicole smith

Via TechCrunch

Originally posted on December 5, 2007 @ 7:06 am

Universal Music to offer free downloads on new Nokia handsets

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universal musicAs a way to promote mobile phones as media devices and generate additional revenues for the music industry, handset manufacturer Nokia and recording company Universal Music have agreed to offer free music downloads on selected Nokia phones.

According to the New York Times, both companies agreed to let users download Universal Music’s entire catalog to their cellphones for 12 months free of charge.

Well, this is still a business deal so don’t ever think Universal is doing this for the good of mankind. Though details of this deal are not clear, Universal is reported to receive a portion of the profits generated from the sales of new handsets.

“It’s one thing to have people downloading free music illegally,” said Mark Mulligan, an analyst at Jupiter Research. “What is bold and strategically important about this is that they are tacitly accepting that they will never get digital youth to pay for music.”

Nokia’s strong interest in the music business is becoming more apparent these days. Recently, it launched Nokia Music Store to compete with Apple’s iTunes and just this week it officially released Nokia Internet Radio in selected handsets.

Originally posted on December 5, 2007 @ 12:15 pm