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Filed under: Business, Internet, Web services, Microsoft

Microsoft buys shopping comparison engine JellyFish

Microsoft buys shopping comparison engine JellyFish

Microsoft has just acquired JellyFish, a comparative shopping engine.

The team in Redmond Washington has been working on shopping and commerce components for Live Search, and the recent addition of JellyFish to the Live team could mean some new improvements for the MSN Shopping space.

Jellyfish calls itself the "internet's first buying engine". The service pieces together the shopping puzzle with information and content relating to the particular item you might be interested in and presents you with trusted merchants to take your pick from. Jellyfish makes money by taking a share of the revenue associated with the purchase and actually split it with the buyer. Advertisers in the JellyFish marketplace compete by paying more to get higher on the listings. This in turn makes the end price lower. Everyone's happy. Customer got their product cheaper, and merchant got a sale.

What does this mean for users of Live.com search? We're sure a few more highly targeted and relevant product links will be appearing in the search results. But the real question is, will Microsoft continue the JellyFish revenue sharing model, or keep all that cash for themselves?

Filed under: Business, Internet, Web services, Yahoo!

Leaked Hot Scoop: Yahoo buys Rivals.com

yahoo buys rivals.comIn a recently leaked story on a PR news site, Yahoo has announced its first deal since the CEO swapping fiasco. GigaOm's Liz Gannes caught sight of this timing error on an Associated Press story that could have Yahoo in the front of the line for the online obsessive sporting fan.

Under Jerry Yang's command its business as usual, and Yahoo is moving along by acquiring the hard core sporting site Rivals.com. The company charges between $10 and $100 per month to over 185,000 subscribers for their subscription based service, and with 2.57 million visitors last September alone, this site will be racking some coins in for Yahoo.

The Yahoo sports section is second only to ESPN.com's, and it looks like this move could be the one they are looking for to push them over the top in this vertical. The purchase price for Rivals.com is not being disclosed.

Filed under: Business, Developer, Web services, Google

Google buys Panoramio to use with Google Earth

google buys PanoramioGoogle is all about buying companies. Not just any company, companies that help with their mission to organize all of the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Well, they have done it again with a site we profiled late last year, Panoramio.

Panoramio was built as a Google Maps mashup that lets users map photos based on geographic locations. The company is based in Spain and connects digital photographers with the ability to geo locate, store and organize photos in Google Earth. An API is also available with Panoramio that lets developers embed functionality into websites.

Google has already been using Panoramio's images in Google Earth as a default layer since early this year.

Filed under: Business, Developer, Internet, Security, Google

Google goes Green(border) with another acquisition

google aquires greenborderGoogle has another aquisition under its belt and this one is a little green. Not in the environment sense, but in a secure sense.

GreenBorder, based in Mountain View, California, has developed a way to isolate each internet session from the rest of a users PC. This way threats like viruses, spyware, trojans and malware can be secluded and tossed when users close down their browser window instead of potentially infecting machines. A green border displays around safe pages, and files that are downloaded from the internet can be opened in a virtual environment so as not to infect the rest of the user's machine.

The application is available for use in both Internet Explorer and Firefox. With over 100,000 downloads since October 31st 2006, the Windows version of the software is currently available on Download.com for $29.95, but knowing Google, this will be down to free in no time at all.

There is no word yet on the final purchase price of GreenBorder.

Filed under: Business, Google

Google buys the in-game ad startup, Adscape

google buys adscapeThere have been lots of rumors and buzz circulating the past few weeks on whether or not Google was pursuing Adscape, a startup -- only officially launched in February 2006 with $3.2 million in funding -- that specializes in in-game advertising. After a brief quiet period, details are starting to emerge about an agreement to acquire Adscape Media for $23 million. Could this be the next big thing for Google?

In-game advertising insiders say that it will most likely will not do much for the search giant but, I highly doubt that. With this being a potential new advertising category, and with Microsoft already in the mix, there is serious potential for Google to open new doors and show smaller businesses the opportunities they could bring. With all current generation gaming machines having some form of internet connectivity, locally focused in-game advertising could find a whole a new level.

Google specializes in online, and if the ads are kept online in Adscapes dynamic advertisements for video games, all should do just fine. Don't expect and major deals to be worked out yet, as I'm sure Google has a lot of development to do on the project.

Filed under: Business, Internet, Office, Web services, Google, Social Software

Google has acquired JotSpot

google aquires jotspot

Joe Kraus of Jotspot, has announced today that they have been acquired by Google. Jotspot is a leader in hosted wiki application development. Jotspot was founded in 2004 as the first company to offer this type of hosted wiki solution. Jotspot's goal was to make wiki websites that anyone could update and add to, without knowing coding. Jotspot had a simple WYSIWYG editor, with advanced search and email integration components. Jotspot was not only aimed at smaller personal projects, it was also aimed at corporate intranets, project management, and help desks.

Jotspots hosted plans once sat from a $199 month for 5000 hosted wiki pages with unlimited users. To a simple Personal account with 5 users, 10 pages, for free. Could we possibly see the integration of one giant free plan from Google?

Currently, Jotspot is offline to users. The Palo Alto based company says to stay tuned to regain access to the system. Google is most likely merging all data and transferring the Jot system over to Google's servers. This is an exciting move by Google, again, in the online application environment, adding to their online suite of applications with the likes of Documents, Calendar, Gmail, Spreadsheets, and Apps for your Domain.

Check out some Jotspot screenshots after the jump...

Read more →

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