Industry News

My twitter stream is alive with people celebrating two important victories for gay rights today. They’re also noticing that searches for things like “gay” on Google are bringing up a rainbow-colored search box. That’s not Google celebrating the news, however. It’s Google’s traditional celebration of Pride Month for those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT).

The US Supreme Court overturned the Defense Of Marriage Act today and chose not to reverse a lower court’s ruling...

In 2002, the US Federal Trade Commission issued landmark guidelines to search engines, to ensure they were make a clear distinction between their paid and unpaid listings. Now, the FTC has updated those guidelines, saying it has seen a “decline in compliance” since they were first issued.

The FTC posted the news today on its site, along with letters that were sent to over 20 general-purpose and specialty search engines. The move comes just over a year since I wrote to the FTC noting that...

James Fallows interviewed Linda Stone on Maintaining Focus in a Maddeningly Distractive World. This part, in particular, reminded me how destructive our technology use can be:

We may think that kids have a natural fascination with phones. Really, children have a fascination with whatever Mom and Dad find fascinating. If Mom and Dad can’t put down the device with the screen, the child is going to think, That’s where it’s all at, that’s where I need to be! I interviewed kids between the...

For the past week or so, I've been seeing a lot of chatter around a Google updating happening. The thing is...

In Ford gives up on turning its cars into smartphones Zachary Seward shares a story on how adding seemingly cutting-edge features to everyday products can do more damage than good:

But it seems people have no patience for touchscreens when a simple knob will do. Raj Nair, head of global product development, tells the Wall Street Journal (paywall) that knobs and buttons will return to the dashboards of new Fords for functions like tuning the radio and changing the volume. The company said...

Google is now inviting webmasters to try out the new Webmaster Tools structured data error reports.

I signed up for the beta a few weeks ago and was invited yesterday to check out the reports. Fortunately for me, but unfortunately for you...

Look out, Google! Duck Duck Go is on the rise, posting a 50% traffic increase in just eight days. Is this proof people want a “private” search engine, in the wake of allegations the PRISM program allows the US government to read search data with unfettered access? Nope. Google has little to worry about. People don’t care about search privacy, and Duck Duck Go’s growth demonstrates this.

Don’t get me wrong. If you ask people about search privacy, they’ll respond that it’s a major issue. Big...

One of the reasons why Twitter works so well is its high information density, enforced by the 140 character limit. All the information is immediately visible in your stream. There is no need to read a subject line and then click through to the content, as with email. In fact, there’s very little clicking required at all — only scrolling. Sure, you can click on a link or a photo if you’re motivated to do so, but only if you believe what you’ll find at the other end of the link is going to be...