Matthew Hicks

Neither Microsofts news of an upcoming Internet Explorer upgrade nor reports of potential Mozilla security holes appears to have dampened user enthusiasm for the Firefox browser. The open-source Web browser has gained one more percentage point in U.S. user share against Microsoft Corp.s IE browser during the past two months, reported WebSideStory Inc. on Tuesday. […]

A search startup known for replacing lists of search results with visual maps has released a free Web version of its tool. Groxis Inc. on Monday launched Grokker.com, an online version of its desktop software that organizes search results into related groupings that appear as circles within circles. Grokker.com, so far, focuses on Web search […]

Googles effort to speed the pace of Web browsing quickly aggravated some early users, who say that the software is delivering them Web pages under other users logins and breaking Web applications. Google Inc.s Web Accelerator application, launched as a test on Wednesday, uses a combination of local and server-based caching and preloading of Web […]

In their attempts to make the content of digital video and television searchable, search engines are increasingly racing to form partnerships with content providers and to bolster their indexes of video content. Yahoo Inc. joined the partnership race on Thursday as it made its video search engine generally available. The company announced a series of […]

Users of AOLs popular instant messaging services can now turn their chats into Weblogs. America Online Inc. on Thursday opened its AOL Journals blog-publishing service to members of AOL Instant Messenger members, letting them create and manage blogs using their AIM screen names. By tying AOL Journals to AIM, AOL is expanding the blogging service […]

America Online Inc. is bundling its own Web browser into the newest versions of AOL Instant Messenger in an effort that is likely to expose a wider swath of users to the browsing features it has built atop Internet Explorer. The recently renamed AOL Explorer browser is included as part of an upgrade to AIM […]

Google has taken its first step to tie its recently acquired Web analytics service more closely to its pay-per-click advertising program. As part of a price cut for the Urchin On Demand software announced Tuesday, Google Inc. also added a feature that allows users to import data about the costs of pay-per-click ads directly from […]

Macromedia Inc. launched an updated version of its Web conferencing and communications software on Monday in a bid to compete against products from IBM, Microsoft Corp. and WebEx. With Breeze 5, Macromedia has introduced a wide range of features, including connectivity into traditional audio conferencing, more options for presenting content and meeting-room customization options. But […]

Microsoft Corp. has released an update to its enterprise instant messaging and presence servers for free, a move that makes good on its promise to interoperate with the three major IM networks. The Redmond, Wash., software maker on Thursday shipped Service Pack 1 for its Office Live Communications Server 2005. One of its key features […]

Google isnt alone in inching into the banner advertising space. Yahoo also is beginning to test new ad formats as part of its search marketing offerings. A Yahoo Inc. spokeswoman confirmed this week that the companys search-marketing division, formerly known as Overture Services, plans to start testing graphical banner ads displayed based on their relevancy […]