It’s like a Yahoo Questions that works. It’s much better than Yahoo Questions or any other public forum, because Aardvark looks for people who call themselves experts on a topic. It does what Yahoo Answers doesn’t: Bring relevant answers to the people who ask them, and make these answers searchable for later answer-seekers, specifically patching up the gaps left in Google’s knowledge. TechCrunch says that Google just bought Aardvark for $50 million. What the hell is Aardvark (vark.com) ?

The product development team behind Yahoo's news site, Yahoo News , has reportedly been moved to Taiwan , AllThingsD reported this morning. Yahoo's editorial team remains in Santa Monica. The move is the second one for product development at Yahoo News, which was previously located at Yahoo's media operations in Santa Monica. Yahoo had pulled development of the service out of its LA location in February, moving the UI and engineering design back to Sunnyvale. ...Tags: Tags: yahoo news taiwan overseas media santa monic

Los Angeles-based SodaHead.com , an online site focused on a combination of news discussion and questions and answers, announced today that the firm has connected the site to Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo. According to the site, it has added the ability for users to automatically distribute questions and news articles to their online friends and followers, by providing login information to their social ntweorking accounts. The new integration allows users to automatically post questions from the site to a Twitter feed and Facebook status updates, or distribute them to Yahoo's contact lists.

Los Angeles-based SodaHead.com , the social question-and-answer and polling startup headed by former MySpace VP of Operations Jason Feffer, is morphing its focus towards the social news area, saying last night that the company is looking to become a "social newspaper." According to SodaHead.com, the site is looking to create a forum to discuss breaking news and "hot topics" which are important to users on the site. The site--which originally started as a question-and-answer site along the lines of Yahoo Answers--said it now has a community of 2.5 million people who visit

And the pain continues:  Yahoo recently “upgraded” their Maps application with a bunch of new user interface gimmicks.  The question is, if Yahoo wants to make a new version, why not let the existing version remain unchanged, or at least ensure that all the old features make it through?  Well, more bravely than Yahoo Webmail (see earlier post ), the Yahoo Maps team actually posted their changes in a blog , for which they have received By trying to add new features, they slowed down the site, dropped functions real people had been using, made the site less intuitive, and probably frustrated a good chunk of their 29 million existing Maps users. 

Microsoft's MSN, and Santa Monica-based media firm BermanBraun Interactive said today that they have rolled out a new celebrity news site called WonderWall , which will feature information on what the companies described as the "hottest" pop culture stories, personalities, and trends. Braun is the former head of Yahoo's Media Group, and was also Chairman of the ABC Entertainment Group. According to the firms, the new, stand-alone site will also be featured throughout the MSN network, and is designed to have the look and feel of a magazine. Financial details of the link between

Big news today for Verizon today, announcing the latest Google Android phone . You know, the team that tries to put Yahoo out of business . Tags: Articles google techmeme twitter yaho Good evening, everyone! Got a great show on Techmeme tonight. Got Michael Arrington, Jason Calacanis, and Leo Laporte.

7.) Solve a Personal Compelling Need Search Engines – Google, Yahoo, MSN, ASK redirect billions of searches everyday. One of the best examples was when social news aggregator Mixx.com landed its deal to have its links on all of CNN’s online articles, likely one of the main factors that helped their traffic skyrocket . “If You Build It…They Will Come” may work for historical baseball ghosts, but it’s not a strategy you can rely on when starting an internet company. Driving traffic to your website is a formula that can be reverse engineered.

Today's announcement of the 10 year partnership between Yahoo! and Microsoft has effectively ended Yahoo! Remember early 2003 (see picture below) - back then Yahoo! The company then made moves to invest in the core search technology, acquire Overture (for its search monetization solution) and immediately drive shareholder value (as the stock price went from ~$15 to ~$39 over the course of 2 years).  Today's deal may very well grand experiment in search.  had still not rolled out it's own algorithmic search and was outsourcing it's paid search to Overture. 

Companies like Google and Yahoo have fought almost to the death to dominate various International locations and spaces there. Tags: News birddi mexico twitte For Southern Californians heading down to Mexico is a time honored tradition. Do donkey shows really exist? What happens when you put an M-80 firecracker in a trash can?