Searching for an improved online shopping experience? Google has a new plan

Google offered this example of how an online store using Google Commerce Search could look, with searchable products sortable by category, color, size or price. Credit: Google.

Just in time for the holidays, Google Inc. took the wraps off a new business, one designed to help big online retailers make their websites easier to search.

With Google Commerce Search -- a service that will cost retailers $50,000 or more for an annual subscription -- the Internet giant will set up a search function on an online retailer's website, which Google says will dramatically improve user experience and drive sales. The product represents a challenge to Google's archrival Microsoft Corp., as well as to Oracle Corp., Endeca Technologies Inc. and other firms that run retailers' websites.

The main selling points are that everything that has made Google a dominant company -- vast computing resources, algorithms that provide right results, and even the ability to fix your typos and find what you're looking for -- will help people navigate clunky retail websites that cause a major stumbling block to sales.

"Search was the most important aspect of an e-commerce experience," said Nitin Mangtani, a lead product manager at Google. People go to a website looking to buy, say, a laptop, and they search the site for the item they want. "If the users are able to find that laptop easily, they are more likely to buy the product," Mangtani said. "If it takes them eight to 10 seconds, and they can't find it easily, they leave the website."

Whereas people have high expectations, websites weren't delivering, so Google saw an opportunity, the company said.

Search engine analyst Greg Sterling said...

Google co-founder Sergey Brin wants more computers in schools

Sergey Brin. Credit: Google.

High school dropout Sergey Brin has a few ideas on how the educational system should be improved. Not surprisingly  from a guy who co-founded Google, where he still serves as president of technology and one of the company's three key decision-makers, a lot of those ideas center on computers.

"It's important for students to be put in touch with real-world problems," Brin said. "The curriculum should include computer science. Mathematics should include statistics. The curriculums should really adjust."

He advocated putting all textbooks on computers, to make for easier access, and for putting high school students to work -- writing Wikipedia articles, and teaching technology to senior citizens and middle school students. In teaching, they will learn.

Brin spoke today at a conference on Google's campus, Breakthrough Learning in the Digital Age, which the tech company is co-hosting with Common Sense Media and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop. By and large, speakers passionately spoke of the advantages of equipping schools with the latest in digital technology, and of engaging students on their home turf -- computers.

Google has been relatively quiet in the field of education, but the company is starting to make a splash. For the last three years, it has given schools the premium version of its Google Apps, enabling schools to run their business and provide teachers with e-mail and other tools that it typically charges corporations for. In part, the giveaway helps advance Google's plan of...

Microsoft dumps 'Family Guy' variety show

Seth MacFarlane. Credit: FOX One.

It was pretty exciting and edgy when Microsoft Corp. said it would team with "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane on a variety show airing next month.

The software giant was going to be the only advertiser on the show and would collaborate with MacFarlane and his partner in laughs, Alex Borstein. The pair would write jokes and skits into the show that would promote Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows 7, which came out last week.

Now comes word that Microsoft has pulled out. Apparently "the content was not a good fit," according to a statement the company e-mailed out this afternoon:

We initially chose to participate in the Seth and Alex variety show based on the audience composition and creative humor of Family Guy, but after reviewing an early version of the variety show it became clear that the content was not a fit with the Windows brand.  We continue to have a good partnership with FOX, Seth MacFarlane and Alex Borstein and are working with them in other areas.  We continue to believe in the value of brand integrations and partnerships between brands, media companies and talent.

The show will go on, Microsoft said, but without help from Redmond. Maybe Jerry Seinfeld is as edgy as Bill Gates wants to get.

-- Dan Fost

KaChing aims to shake up the mutual fund industry

Venture capitalists love to use the Internet to disrupt traditional businesses. But surely by now no business is left undisturbed.

Not so, says Andy Rachleff, a founder of Silicon Valley’s Benchmark Capital. He thinks he’s found a big one, what he says is “a $10-trillion market that has not had any innovation in the last 25 years and has not been affected by the Internet.”

It’s the mutual fund industry. And some valley heavyweights have joined Rachleff in his bid to rock that world: Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, Hewlett-Packard executive Ben Horowitz, Open Table CEO Jeff Jordan, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers partner Kevin Compton.

This team believes that mutual funds take investors’ money, but only tell them what their holdings are on a quarterly basis. The funds also charge all sorts of hidden fees. The Internet is famous for bringing transparency to a variety of businesses, but mutual funds, Rachleff says, are as opaque as ever.

Enter kaChing, a start-up that Rachleff has not only backed but has joined as its chief executive. KaChing has been around for about 18 months, accumulating 400,000 users with a Facebook application, but is now ready to unveil its business model.

The company offers up a website that any investor can use for free. The investors – some professional, some amateur – state their philosophy and show their stock picks. KaChing will then rate those investors, using a formula akin to the one that Ivy League universities use to evaluate their institutional fund managers, and anyone with a rating of 140 or more will be tabbed as a “genius.”

Any other investor can log onto the site and see what the geniuses are picking. But if you decide you like one of them, you can plunk your money down – minimum $3,000, which Rachleff says is far less than the institutional level typically required for such services – and invest like the genius of your choosing. Every time the genius makes a trade, you make the same trade at the same time, and get an e-mail alerting you to it.

To be sure, other companies out there have similar ideas. Other so-called social investing firms include Covestor, Cake Financial and PersonalRIA. Plenty of people have an eye on that mutual fund disruption.

And success is far from guaranteed. KaChing will have to persuade people to put their money behind stock-pickers who, while the site may call them geniuses, don't have the backing, brand names or Morningstar ratings of Fidelity, Pimco, Vanguard or other big funds.

-- Dan Fost

Microsoft and Windows 7: A Family Guy affair

Seth MacFarlane and friends. Credit: Fox ONE.

Microsoft is trying a new spin on an old method to promote its new Windows 7 operating system this fall.

Taking its inspiration from the old Texaco Star Theater -- television's first big hit, in the 1950s, with Milton Berle hosting a variety show and becoming a fixture in U.S. living rooms -- the computer giant is teaming with "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane to sponsor a variety show to air on the Fox network on Nov. 8. 

The show will run without commercials, and instead promises to feature "unique Windows 7-branded programming that blends seamlessly with show content." Although Microsoft would not give away any specific songs or gags, look for MacFarlane and his “Family Guy” co-star Alex Borstein to offer up jokes, songs and cartoons that include clever references to Windows, and maybe even Microsoft's PC guy.

Gayle Troberman, Microsoft's general manager of advertising, said MacFarlane offers what is so rare these days: an opportunity for a mass marketer like Microsoft to appeal to a wide mix of demographics.

In addition, Troberman said, the diversity of the variety show -- mixing comedy, music, animation and live entertainment -- represents "a great opportunity for us to integrate the brand in a fresh and interesting way. It brings to life the power of what Windows can do for consumers."

The show, which has a working title of “Family Guy Presents: Seth & Alex’s Almost Live Comedy Show,” is scheduled to air Sunday, Nov. 8, at 8:30 p.m. EDT and PDT. Although producers clearly have to tread carefully in the world of product placement,  viewers may be growing more comfortable with the concept and may even prefer these intrusions to commercial breaks.

Troberman wouldn't say what Microsoft was paying for the privilege, but Fast Company reported last year that "Family Guy" charged $200,000 for a 30-second spot. Since Microsoft is taking the whole 30-minute show, it's probably spending a pretty penny.

Still, Microsoft has to be careful. While about the only thing Troberman could remember about Texaco Star Theater was the sponsor, Microsoft doesn't even get its name in the title of MacFarlane's show. But at least it will probably keep other names out of the show -- like Microsoft rivals Apple and Google, who distributed MacFarlane's "Cavalcade of Comedy" online.

-- Dan Fost

Huffington Post wants to help

 

anna Huffington. Credit: Huffington Post.

UPDATE: The section will go live at 8:00 a.m. Pacific Tuesday (not 12:01 a.m. as originally reported below.)

You've got to love the left. Even when they're running capitalist enterprises, they want to find some way to help the downtrodden.

Arianna Huffington is adding a new section to her eponymous A-list blog site the Huffington Post, and calling it Impact. She's partnered with Causecast, a Santa Monica venture that has both nonprofit and for-profit arms, and which will provide both articles and, more important, technology to make the section work.

The section will go live at 12:01  8 a.m. Tuesday, and will feature stories on a variety of subjects, including gay issues, helping the homeless,  stopping bullying in schools and flooding in the Philippines. Each story will come with a Causecast "widget" that will help a reader plot a course of action.

"We want to document the hardships and to provide the means and the tools for direct action, money and service," Huffington said.

Ultimately, every article -- not just those in the Impact section -- could feature a Causecast widget. A sample of the widget, seen at right, shows how it could be used with a story on this past weekend's National Equality March in Washington, D.C., for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights. The widget is just a small box that runs with the stories containing buttons a reader could click to take them to a Causecast page that promotes other websites, such as the Trevor Project, a nonprofit that helps prevent LGBT youth suicide. 

"Every article has a cause behind it," said Ryan Scott, the founder and CEO of Causecast. "We’re going to show the actions that people can take to effect change on whatever that is. Say it’s a flood or a tsunami. Can they donate? Volunteer? Make calls? Make personal fundraising pages?"

Huffington said ads will run on the site, and the Huffington Post and Causecast will split the ad revenue. Any money donated to any cause goes directly to the cause, with nothing coming out of it. 

Her site continues to expand, reinvesting its proceeds in the product. "We’ve had a very, very good advertising year," she said. "We would be in the black if we were not expanding. Whether you are profitable or not depends whether you're standing still or expanding. This is a window we need to take advantage of."

In addition to Impact, the HuffPost started a Technology section and regional coverage in Denver in September, a Books section earlier this month, and new sections on Sports and Giving planned for November and December. Local news in Los Angeles is also planned for November, and a San Francisco Bay Area section could start before the end of the year, although it's more likely to hold off until early 2010.

Huffington said her audience is highly engaged, with 27 million people visiting the site each month and leaving 2 million comments. "We want to tap into that longing out there to give back," she said. "That was a big part of the success of the Obama campaign, when Obama promised to make service central. That has been slightly derailed with all the problems in the economy but we want to make it central. This is not the icing on the cake. It has to be baked into the cake."

-- Dan Fost

U.S. getting out of the Internet management business -- sort of

It sounds almost silly to say it, but the Internet is going global.

Of course, it's already global. But the underlying technology that makes the Internet run was developed by the U.S. Department of Defense 40 years ago, and the federal government continued to have a dominant voice in how the Internet was run.

Eleven years ago, as the Internet took off as a consumer medium and global force, the U.S. turned over some of its governance to a nonprofit group, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. ICANN is based in Marina del Rey, where 70 of its 100 employees work, and it oversees what its vice president, Paul Levins, called the "unique and highly technical addressing system" that enables people to surf among 183 million domain names.

The U.S. has kept some authority over ICANN, including regular reviews, but the agreement between the government and ICANN was due to expire today.

The two entities have signed a new agreement that eliminates the U.S. reviews. ICANN now will be reviewed by a broader-based group of stakeholders from around the world.

"One thing this is not is Independence Day," Levins said. "We were independent the day we were established. This is not somehow slipping nooses of accountability or cutting ourselves loose from the U.S."

Instead, he said, the agreement marks a further weaning from U.S. control. The Internet is a public resource that is increasingly managed by its users. "We’ve become an organization accountable solely to the Internet community," he said. "We will have review teams made up of people from all over the globe, not just a government sitting on Pennsylvania Avenue, although they will continue to play a crucial part."

One sign of increasingly international influence to watch for: Domain names such as .com, .org and .gov currently are rendered only in the alphabetic characters we're used to seeing on Western keyboards. ICANN is working on setting up domain names in non-Western characters, such as Chinese or Arabic. And when that happens, Levins said, watch for Internet growth to really take off.

-- Dan Fost

ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom discusses the new agreement. Credit: ICANN.org.

Multimedia messages come to the iPhone

AT&T has finally enabled multimedia messaging for the Apple iPhone 3G and 3GS. Credit: Chris Ratcliffe / Bloomberg.

IPhone users, rejoice. Or stop griping, at least: AT&T Inc. has finally enabled multimedia messaging, or MMS, on devices in the U.S. Now you can send photos and videos along with your text messages.

The feature was announced when Apple Inc. unveiled its new operating system for the iPhone 3G and 3GS in June, but AT&T wasn't able to make it immediately available in the U.S. The iPhone's popularity has been a boon for AT&T, which is the exclusive carrier of iPhones, as well as a burden because of all the smartphone users taxing AT&T's network.

The feature can be activated with a simple process outlined on Apple's website. Just update the carrier settings while syncing with iTunes, then restart the phone. The feature does not work on original iPhones, only the 3G and 3GS models.

Commenters on the MacRumors blog celebrated -- but were quick to add their complaints as well. And high on the list is the next service that Apple has enabled on iPhones, but which AT&T has not yet offered: tethering, the ability to use the iPhone's Internet access to get your laptop online.

-- Dan Fost

TechCrunch50: SeatGeek advises you when to buy tickets to the big game

It's the ticket-scalping conundrum: Will it be cheaper to buy seats in advance of the event or will prices drop as it gets closer to game time and the sellers want to unload their wares?

SeatGeek, a new company that showed its stuff at the TechCrunch50 conference in San Francisco, aims to take the guesswork out of that decision.

"We have an algorithm that can forecast ticket prices," said Jack Groetzinger, co-founder of the company. He compared it to Bing's FareCast, which does something similar with airline tickets.

SeatGeek aggregates tickets on sale from most of the major re-sellers, like StubHub, RazorGator, TicketsNow and others.

Say you're interested in getting tickets to Oct. 4's showdown between the Dodgers and the Colorado Rockies. (See the screen grab at right.)  SeatGeek searches available seats, and says you can get cheap seats for below face value, but you should wait -- the price will probably go even lower. But if you want the medium or expensive seats, buy them now, as those prices will probably rise. (Perhaps the conclusion is that if Dodger fans can't get close to the action, they'd rather stay home.)

Groetzinger, 25, and co-founder Russ D'Souza, 24, sold their earlier company, Scribnia (which D'Souza called "Yelp for authors and bloggers") four months ago, and immediately started SeatGeek. They were living in Boston at the time, where Red Sox tickets are hard to come by and only available on the secondary market.

"We see this as a huge opportunity for a change-the-world type of business," D'Souza said.

-- Dan Fost

TechCrunch50: Dot-com dreams

At the TechCrunch50 conference in San Francisco, the focus is clearly on start-ups with solid business plans. Some are even making money already.

But that’s not to say entrepreneurs have given up on the attention-getting gimmickry that often characterizes such trade shows.

Redbeacon, which is offering ways for local businesses to get customers, demonstrated its service by ordering 500 cupcakes -- and then delivering the cupcakes throughout the conference hall.

IMo, a two-person company based in India, nearly bombed when it blasted the song “Eye of the Tiger” and then the demonstration failed. But iMo co-founder Himanshu Baweja bounced back later, in what was probably the best demo of the show. For one thing, he didn’t utter a single word in showing how he’s developed an application that makes an iPhone work like a joystick -- in conjunction with any PC-based video game.

Baweja dressed first as a motorcycle rider and played a racing game. He stripped the jacket and helmet, dressed as a pilot, and showed an airplane game, to the tune of "Danger Zone." The pilot hat and jacket dropped, and he picked up a baseball bat, playing an urban street-fighter game to the tune of "In Da Club." In the question-and-answer period that followed, he said the app would sell for 99 cents.

-- Dan Fost