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REPORT: Google Search Share Slips as Baidu Gains

Google’s dominant position on the global online search market slipped slightly in the second quarter, as it retreated from the Chinese market, research firm Strategy Analytics (SA) said on Friday.

Google’s market share fell to 69.7 percent in the June quarter from 71.1 percent in the previous three months.

“Google’s search revenue growth continues to slow down as the Western search market reaches maturity and Google struggles to gain share in the fastest-growing Asian markets,” said Martin Olausson, analyst at Strategy Analytics.

“As a company, it will become increasingly more important for Google to find significant new revenue streams in order to offset decelerating growth in search,” Olausson said.

Google unexpectedly warned in January it might quit China over censorship concerns and after suffering a hacker attack it said came from within the country, but eventually terminated its Google.cn search service and started rerouting users to its unfiltered Hong Kong site.

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Pandora Announces Milestone: 60 Million Registered Listeners

Pandora announced today that they’ve reached an impressive 60 million registered listeners. The news comes from Joe Kennedy, Pandora’s CEO and President, as he took the stage at the New Music Seminar in front of some of the music industry’s most influential players.

If there’s one thing the Internet has taught us about music, it’s that the demands for delivery are always changing. The music industry’s share of the market quickly depleted when iTunes emerged on the scene and ever since, the face of consumable media, especially music, has been evolving alongside technology. And, as people are increasingly turning to satellite radio and streaming services like Pandora for their daily delivery of tunage, this milestone marks an important shift in the way consumers prefer to get their music.

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last update: May 22, 2013

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How To Explain the Internet to the Elderly

While many take modern technology and its incessant and exponential advances for granted, older generations often find keeping up – or merely skimming the surface – to be an arduous and daunting task. Fortunately for them – and often unfortunately for us – we the experienced and all-knowing are forced to manage the task of educating those less informed. While it is in some ways flattering to feel that your ability to distinguish between a web browser and a word processor is rather exceptional, it often becomes a rather pain-staking process. The following serves as a brief tutorial, highlighting the dos and don’ts, key points and points of notable confusion.

The Internet Browser

It’s important to explain to your elderly person that the internet browser is both separate from the rest of the computer, as well as unaffiliated with any particular website. As most people have their homepages set to Google – and most old folks are aware of the term “to Google” – a common misconception is that the internet is Google. They’ll refer to the browser as Google, new tabs as “new Googles” and in general be confused by anything that isn’t Google. It’s often easy to go along with this; call the Home button in the taskbar the “Google Button” as they will inevitably want to return to Google before navigating to any other webpage. If at all possible, don’t let them find out about multiple tabs, as they will most assuredly forget how to navigate them, as the Pacman lady recently taught us.

Facebook

My grandmother has Facebook. Its primary function for her is to play Scrabulous online with friends. Nonetheless, however, Facebook has achieved such a level of popularity that even elderly people are interested in getting involved. Don’t bother explaining the address bar, simply tell them to plug Facebook into Google and hit “I’m feeling lucky”. You’ll want to set them up an account and make sure the browser remembers their login details as chances are they won’t. If you explain how to upload photos, you can only blame yourself when embarrassing photographs of you as a child begin springing up online, so I’d warn against it. Don’t bother explaining events, as they will never be invited to anything by anyone ever. In fact, they don’t really need to know how to do anything whatsoever: they’re only getting it so that they can brag to their friends and relatives that “they are on the Facebook.”
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The Don’ts (and Dos) of Google Change

Google recently “Binged” itself out with the addition of a background image feature, which leads one to believe that Google may be conforming to match competitors. However, there are several avenues which – if they were to follow – would only take away from it’s simplicity and efficacy. Too, though, there are a couple which I wouldn’t mind seeing Google adopt.

Don’t: Display Popular or Trending searches

Honestly? Is it necessary that I know what the top 10 most useless searches of the day are? Pat F*%#ing Benatar? We already have suggested searches when we type even one single letter into the search bar, do we really need encouragement and recommendations before we even begin to contemplate searching? Seeing the most popular current searches simply serves as a stark reminder of the apathetic simple-mindedness of our culture.

Don’t: Advertise on the search page

Be it a subtle plug as the one pictured above or the more obvious and typical advertisements seen on several other engines, it just isn’t visually appealing. For whatever reason, advertisements on the front page suggest that the engine has an external agenda influenced by advertisers which will have an affect on my results. While I’m aware that Google’s result page’s are full of sponsored results and advertisements, advertising on the front page produces an odd sense of dishonesty.

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Google to Launch Music Service to Rival Apple

Google Inc is planning to launch an online music downloading service tied to its search engine, the Wall Street Journal reported, a move that would pit it against Apple Inc and its popular iTunes site.

Google’s plans are still vague, but it has been “stepping up conversations” about offering music services online as well as over mobile phones that use its Android operating system, the Journal said, citing people familiar with the company’s talks with the music industry.

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Geekiest Knuckle Tattoo Ever?

We’ve all seen some crazy and geeky tattoos, some that work, and some that just… don’t. This tattoo just might take the cake for the geekiest yet, or at least the geekiest knuckle tattoo yet. Well, Google it up!

Makes you wonder what was going through this person’s mind. Either “I’m totally gonna win that award for geekiest knuckle tattoo,” or “The next time someone asks me a question, I’ll just show them my knucks.”

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5 Ways Online Registration Has Become Too Difficult

The Internet is becoming too difficult. There, I said it. As technology advances, it enables us as users to accomplish and experience a variety of new and exciting things, but at what cost? I’ll tell you: everything becomes more of a pain in the ass. One example of this is in something that we do more and more frequently: website registration. Here are 5 ways that I find registration to be annoying. Sure, you can harp on me for complaining about what could easily be deemed insignificant, but if people can vomit Lost speculation all over my Internet, I’m allowed to give a little bit back.

Captcha

Good god almighty, I suppose I’ll start with one of the worst. These things have become increasingly difficult over the past few years, but for what reason? Look, I understand that these are used to prevent automatic computerized registration, I get it. But are there people out there constantly writing new code to crack these? Is there an underground battle between hackers and captcha programmers that rages on beneath our noses? They’ve reached the point that I can rarely crack them myself. Half the time, my efforts bring me back to a page bluntly indicating my failure. Let me get this straight: a computer is breaking the news to me that I’ve failed at a test which is supposed to only stump computers. It doesn’t make me feel any better that I’m forced to use the speech feature which is meant for the seeing impaired.

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How to Get a Job Using Google

Landing a job isn’t that hard, heck, passing out fliers is a job, but landing the job you want, now that can be tough, especially with the economic woes of late. With more people in the job market and less jobs to hand out, creativity just may be the only edge up you’ve got.

So, when Alec Brownstein went job hunting, he added 1/2 cup of creativity and ended up with exactly what he set out to get, thanks to Google.

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