Microsoft’s Second Try at Search

Several years ago Microsoft realized that there was a computer related market that they did not dominate: search.  They immediately moved to unseat the ruling and undisputed leader in search, Google.  They introduced Live Search and the Windows Live suite of products to do just that.

Overall, Live search has a 8.5% market share of US searches (Jan 2009)  and 1.73% international market share (Feb 2009).  Not all that great.

Recently, news has come out that Microsoft will rebrand and re-release it’s search engine.  The name, sources discovered, will be Kumo.  In fact, Microsoft Netherlands released a screenshot.  They also stated that Kumo would work with the Web Slices function in IE8.  (I will comment on this at a later time.)

It will be interesting to see what actually comes out of this name change.  Hopefully it goes better than Microsoft’s attempt to buy Yahoo for it’s search capabilities.

Facebook tops MySpace

Down through history there have been many rivalries, especially during recent years in the tech world. For example Tesla vs Edison, Ford vs GM, Jedi vs Sith, Windows vs Linux, Windows vs Mac, and Microsoft vs Google.

In the ream of social networking, the biggest rivalry has been between MySpace and Facebook. From the beginning MySpace has been in the lead, but recently Facebook took the lead as the graph above shows.

To give you some background, MySpace was founded in 2003 and Facebook went live in 2004.

MySpace has many features that make it a hit with the young generation. First of all, it is a place for those who create music to meet those who enjoy music. Another nice feature is MySpaceTV, which allows people to publish their videos much like YouTube.

One of the BIGGEST problems with MySpace is the volume of friend requests that you recieve. I have not had a MySpace account in several months for that very reason. I got tons of friend requests everyday from accounts that end up getting deleted because they were "spam accounts". I call them "spam accounts" because they are fake accounts created so that the owners can say they have a large number of friends.

Now I like Facebook better because I think it have a better look. To me Facebook have a higher, more mature class of people. (If you have a MySpace account, I'm sorry if I offend you, but this is my opinion.)

The biggest problem with Facebook is the number of application you can waste your time . I should know, I've waste enought time playing them myself.

For me Facebook is the better site, hands down, and people seem to be agreeing with me.

Firefox 3 is Final Here for Everyone

Firefox 3, the long awake update to the second most popular browser, has finally hit the web and its making a big splash.

"Firefox 3 is spreading fast, claiming more than 4 percent of the share of Web browser usage less than 24 hours after its release.

According to Net Applications, which monitors browser usage at major Web sites, Firefox 3 rapidly ascended to what I'd call force-to-be-reckoned-with status, something Web designers shouldn't be ignoring. For comparison, Apple's Safari had 6.25 percent share in May, and Opera had 0.71 percent.

Undoubtedly, most Firefox 3 activity is from existing Firefox users, but it's still a notable achievement, given that software companies constantly struggle to get users to adopt the latest products.

Mozilla, which sponsors and oversees development of the open-source Web browser, released Firefox 3 for download on Tuesday. It primed the publicity pump with an effort to set a 24-hour download record, and interest by the abundant Firefox loyalists brought Mozilla's servers to their knees for nearly two hours Wednesday."

I've been using Firefox 3 since the first Release Candidate and I love it. The new design is great. Most people have been knocking the all new "Awesome Bar", but I think that is is just fine. In fact, it take less effort to type in URLs.

Another feature that I love is the fact that if asks you when you close if you want to save the tabs. This is something that was lacking in other browser or was buried within the option.

The updated Add-ons windows is also great since it allows you to search for and install new add-ons without having to open a new tabs.

Overall, I would give the new Firefox 3 5 out of 5 stars