Matthew Hicks

Microsoft stepped further into Weblog publishing late Wednesday by making its MSN Spaces service generally available. The companys MSN division also released MSN Messenger 7.0, an update to its instant-messaging service that provides ties into MSN Spaces. MSNs blogging effort has focused on reaching a mass audience, and on closely tying MSN Spaces with IM […]

Yahoo offered both financial and technical backing Thursday to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia written and maintained by volunteers. Yahoo Inc. is donating hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment and resources to the nonprofit group behind Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation, a Yahoo representative said. Yahoo Search also is integrating Wikipedia content directly into its […]

America Online Inc. introduced its Internet phone service on Thursday, focusing the initial release on AOL subscribers and on connecting consumers traditional phones into voice-over-IP networks. The AOL Internet Phone Service is available in more than 40 markets in the United States and will expand to additional cities over the next few months, AOL announced. […]

Google is heading skyward with its online maps, providing users with a birds-eye view of a state, city or street corner. The search company late Monday incorporated satellite images into Google Maps, its beta mapping service released in February. Beyond viewing more traditional topographical maps of an area, users now can choose to see an […]

SAN FRANCISCO—In one of his first appearances since taking the helm at the Federal Communications Commission, Kevin Martin encouraged cable executives to deal with the issue of indecency on television as an industry. Martin, who was appointed FCC chairman two weeks ago, spoke Tuesday during a session at the 2005 National Show, a cable conference […]

Startup Blinkx on Monday updated its desktop search client by combining search results into one view and adding new security features. The San Francisco-based company released Blinkx 3.0, an update that revamps the way the client displays results for keyword searches. The software integrates results from a users hard drive with results from the Web, […]

SAN FRANCISCO—Google is ready to expand its experimentation with video search this week by allowing individuals to submit video to the search engine. Google co-founder Larry Page on Monday disclosed the companys plan to begin accepting video submissions during a session here at the 2005 National Show, a cable industry conference and tradeshow. The move […]

On the one-year anniversary of Gmail, Google is doubling the storage limit on e-mail accounts to 2GB and keeping the service as an invite-only beta. The increase, going live on Friday, is the first of a number of storage bumps that the company is planning in the coming weeks and months, said Georges Harik, product […]

In a trend that could transform the way consumers find and book travel online, travel search engines are gaining increased backing from some of the Webs most heavily visited sites. Yahoo Inc. has begun promoting travel search following its acquisition last year of FareChase Inc. On Friday, Yahoo started displaying a link to FareChase from […]

One of the most popular Weblog-publishing tools, WordPress, is stirring a controversy over search-engine gaming because it included thousands of articles related to popular search terms on its Web site while largely hiding them from site visitors. Bloggers and search-engine marketers are accusing the open-source WordPress project of spamming the major search engines, while at […]