But over the past few months, Google has also been secretly testing a new UI and look for the Google Search engine, which has essentially not changed much since its inception. Do you want to be one among the secret testers, to have a sneak peak of the new design?

To get this Hack Attack to work for you, you need to be using the international version of Google i.e. http://google.com/ncr and not the localized version that you are redirected to usually.

Once you are at the Google Homepage, copy the following text and paste it in the address bar as it is…

javascript:void(document.cookie=”PREF=ID=20b6e4c2f44943bb:U=4bf292d46faad806:TM=1249677602:LM=1257919388:S=odm0Ys-53ZueXfZG;path=/; domain=.google.com”);

Once you are done, press enter and reload the Google Homepage. You Should now be looking at an all new design for the homepage. Perform a search and you’ll see a new search results page with an always visible Sidebar.

So Do you like the new look? I do quite like it, at least the sidebar is useful to perform searches more rapidly. But I’m not quite sure if it will be well received by all the people because it is quite a departure from the Google we are all used. However they could tone down the Blue a bit because at times I feel am at the MSN of yesteryears rather than Google.

Or you never know Google may never release it in the wild…

However if you aren’t a fan of the new design, you can remove the corresponding cookie from your browser. Here’s how its done in Chrome

Leave your comments, as to what you feel about the new Design?

Via Google Blogoscoped | Google Caffeine Update | Image Credit : ientu

Finally Yahoo decided to cave in and has decided to partner with Google to display relevant alongside its search results in the US and Canada. This surely is the beginning of the end of the ambitious Panama project.

If you remember Yahoo had announced a similar deal a couple of months back that was more of a test to see the returns from the ads by Google. From what I’ve heard, Yahoo was extremely satisfied with the returns and that’s why this deal is happening today.

Yahoo has spent a lot on Panama, the advertising platform that was built to compete with Google Adwords. But somehow Google managed to stay on, and Yahoo has seen less ad dollars compared to Google on its search advertising front.

You can read the Google blog post about the deal, but here is the main gist of the deal.

• The deal is non-exclusive. Yahoo will be able to run Google ads alongside Yahoo ads or other ad providers.
• The deal is expected to add $800 million a year in revenues and $250 million to $450 million in operating cash flow.
• The deal only applies to paid search and contextual ads, not to algorithmic search.

On a related note, Yahoo also has concluded all talks with Microsoft and decided to focus on its core business. I have no idea who’s going to benefit in this race of Internet domination that Microsoft, Yahoo and Google are vying for.

At the end of the day its Google who is playing the smart moves. Simply put this deal will start the decay of Yahoo Search, and who knows one day they might even outsource search to Google. Who wins? Google obviously.

As someone said, this deal is more like Ford signing a deal to have its cars built by Honda. By any means its an admission of failure, a failure by Yahoo to monetize its assets effectively and a complete failure in the search game.

I now wonder what does Microsoft get by buying a sinking Yahoo? Simply put Microsoft is a sinking ship too, and two sinking ships don’t make a cruise that is Google.

I have virtually have no interest in this deal, since this is the beginning of another round of internet domination by Google. But even otherwise I’d never want Yahoo to go into Microsoft’s hands. The big three are BIG only when they are left on their own, not when Yahoo becomes a mouse to Google or Microsoft.

On a slightly retarded note, I love the press release headline of Yahoo. “Yahoo! to Strengthen Competitive Position in Online Advertising Through Non-Exclusive Agreement With Google”

Really? Yahoo

Google’s press release is a better read though. Sound off your opinions of the deal in the comments.

Consider this as a rant, but with today’s announcement of Live Search Cashback program Microsoft has stooped itself to new lows. I cannot believe  that Microsoft is actually trying to be the number one search engine ahead of Google, Yahoo by actually by paying the users in return for visiting their advertisers. Doesn’t sound like a good idea to me though.

More like the proverbial, “If you can’t get users to your site, buy them!!“.

If you are wondering how this scheme actually works, head over to the detailed explanation by Microsoft. Basically you search for deals using Live Search; when you find deals with a special coin shaped icon like above, it means you’ll receive a small amount of money after you’ve bought something. When your balance reaches $5, you can claim your cash.

I know you feel this is some kind of cool idea, but let me take some time and explain why this program simply doesn’t cut it, why it’s a chock-full of failure…

According to the FAQ, to be eligible for the program you have to be U.S. citizen or legal resident, and at least 18 years of age. Everyone else, forget about it. Moreover, Microsoft does not guarantee you’ll receive cashback bonuses if you use an alternative payment method when purchasing items, such as PayPal or Google Checkout. Seriously Microsoft are you kidding me?

I personally feel that Microsoft is running out of ideas on how to improve the effectiveness of its advertising system in comparison to Google Adwords that continues to grow steadily. By changing from a Cost Per Click model to Cost Per Acquisition model, Microsoft is giving out higher returns to the advertisers for sure, but it doesn’t show good faith in its advertising platform.

Another point is that the payouts are set to a pretty low amount and are pegged at 5$. I know what I’m going to say next might sound like crazy talk but try thinking this way. Why on earth would Microsoft keep the payouts so low, if they have faith their initiative and they think there is quite a bit of money to be made by shoppers. I know you could say that are trying to attract more users, but another way of attracting them would be stating something like earn atleast 1$ for every complete transaction.

I’m skeptical if this program will work or not, but I’m sure paying the users in pennies isn’t going to help much when they are purchasing products worth tens or hundreds of dollars.

Google has a superior product search engine and way ahead of Microsoft at the moment. I’m sure Microsoft will be able to attract buyers who enjoy saving a buck here and there but these are not the kind of people that are advertisers are looking for. Advertisers are looking for people who are high spenders not the kind who save pennies.

Throwing away goodies at both searchers and advertisers isn’t a good long term strategy if you ask me. This initiative of Microsoft is no way going to help it beat Google or Yahoo in the search game. Come on Microsoft show some real stuff, not all this throwaway goodies. It ain’t going to help much.

Do you feel that Live Search Cashback program is chock-full of failure, or it has the potential to be a big success?

photo credit: RossinaBossioB

Music sharing has been of the most common file sharing activities on the internet. There are many ways you could find the music you were looking for by using tools like Limewire, BitTorrent etc.. But most times nothing beats a Google search does it? Yes you heard that right.. Google may as well be your best friend if you are looking to find music freely on the Internet.

Just follow the instructions below, and you will be on your way to find the music that you otherwise won’t find on P2P networks. The hack simply involves the major search engines revealing their vast indexes to you so that you can find what you are looking for.

I’m going to give some modified special search strings that will help you find hidden stuff from Google, Yahoo and MSN.

How to Accomplish the Hack

Click on the links below for your favorite search engine. Modify the details according to your liking (for example replace Linkin Park with Radiohead or just the song name). Change the “wma/mp3″ tag to other format such as “ogg” if you wish to download the music in other not so popular formats.

• Google

“parent directory” mp3 OR wma OR ogg OR wav Linkin Park -html -htm -download -links

• Yahoo Search

“parent directory” AND (Linkin AND Park) AND (mp3 OR wma OR ogg) AND NOT(”download”) AND NOT(”links”)

• MSN Search

“parent directory” AND (Linkin AND Park) AND (mp3 OR wma OR ogg) AND NOT(”download”) AND NOT(”links”)

Using the major search engines should help you find any kind of music you are looking for, but there other alternative music only search engines also available that deserve a mention. Check out Alltheweb Audio (mp3), mp3realm and espew

So that was it. I hope this guide will help you find the music you have been looking for quite some time now.. Have a musical day ahead. Do drop in a comment with the song/artist/band that you found with this hack!

Special Credit to Blog Anything

Hot on the heels of the 3days ultimatum given to Yahoo by Microsoft, Yahoo is doing everything it can to subvert the deal. Yesterday it acquired analytics startup Indextools and today it has announced a search advertising deal with Google.

Here’s the press release :

Yahoo! Inc. , a leading global Internet company, announced today that it will begin a limited test of Google Inc.’s AdSense for Search service, which will deliver relevant Google ads alongside Yahoo!’s own search results. The test will apply only to traffic from yahoo.com in the U.S. and will not include Yahoo!’s extended network of affiliate or premium publisher partners. The test is expected to last up to two weeks and will be limited to no more than 3% of Yahoo! search queries.

Looks like Yahoo has finally given up on Panama. A report from last year shows Google’s RPS (Revenue Per Search) at $25, versus $16 for Yahoo. So if the RPS has remained more or less the same for the past year, this deal could mean more cash in Yahoo’s registers. Google’s earning atleast 30% more than Yahoo, and considering that Yahoo’s major source of income is from advertising, this deal could help the company deliver a better than expected Q2 earnings call.

Microsoft’s reaction to this deal was on the expected lines, saying that it would give Yahoo+Google an unprecedented market share of nearly 90% in online advertising, which it thinks isn’t good for the internet.

Eventhough Yahoo has mentioned that this is a test run and will last for only two weeks, at the moment it looks like Yahoo is looking for a long term relationship with Google rather than being acquired by Microsoft.

The evil side of me thinks that, Google will give higher quality ads than usual so that it could win the confidence of Yahoo, and in turn stop the Yahoo – Microsoft merger from happening.

What do you reckon will be the implications of this deal in the trilogy of Google-Yahoo-Microsoft?

Google has been evolving beyond its search roots in the recent past, and has been adding services at a pace that very few would dream off. The latest in line is an Identity Management system that will build a profile on the basis of your activities on all Google Services. While still in development, the current version of Google Profiles is accessible from Google Reader, Maps and Shared Stuff. For example, in Google Maps you’ll find the link to your profile at the top of the page.

Well here is how Google defines Profiles,

“A Google Profile is simply how you represent yourself on Google products — it lets you tell others a bit more about who you are and what you’re all about. You control what goes into your Google Profile, sharing as much (or as little) as you’d like.”

Well I decided to create a profile for myself from Google Reader (”Settings” and then “Friends” will take you there). Here is a screenshot oh how it looks :

I’m not sure as to what Google plans to do with Profiles. But it looks like is moving into the Human Search arena by building up a profile based on a variety of factors, and who knows Google might one day be able to tell you who the Girl Next Door is?

Welcome 2008, when Google will move over boundaries that have long been restricted to technology and humans and conquer the world of communication..

Well Google has always been a believer of the KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid) principle, and that is the reason why almost everything from the Google stable has a minimal design. Well if you have got yourself bored of the default Google search layout, then get yourself ready for a completely different Google Search page thanks to an amazing Greasemonkey script, Google Search Makeover.

Click on the screenshot above to see the various modifications that have been made to the default search layout. The script organizes the results into two columns, numbers them, grabs each website’s icon, and much more. The new look is not visually appealing, but also does away with the need to scroll vertically to see the results. The results have been organized for quick access. The most notable feature has to be the absence of Page numbers from the bottom. It has instead been moved onto Upper Right corner of the screen.

Well the Script really is feature rich, and I would like to highlight some of them :

• Google Suggest
• Two column results [Optional]
• Custom colored Snap Shots Previews [Optional]
• Result Numbers
• Custom logo
• Layout change [Optional]
• Embeds videos right into the search results. You can easily change the colors of YouTube videos. [Optional]
• Re-titles the page to easily identify what you are searching for and the page that you are on.
• Google Search Filter
• Adds PageRank after each link [Optional]
• Scans each result with SiteAdvisor
• Add favicons to all links [Optional]
• Add a clear button [Optional]
• Add sidebar menu [Optional]
• Open links in new tab [Optional]
• Turns off SafeSearch Automatically

Well the script does come with its own bugs and problems. For eg. Site advisor often defaults to the “unsafe” status for me. That’s why you see all those cross marks in the Screenshot. Another bug is the time it takes to format the layout. This is considerable in pages with a large number of results, say 50 or more. Other than that, the script has been a pleasure, and I just love it.

Grab yourself a Google Search Makeover. You will need to have Greasemonkey installed.

Via CybernetNews

If you are aware every year Yahoo releases a Top 10 list of searches for that particular year, and last year Britney Spears topped the list. This time around Yahoo decided to something different.. Read on to find out more..

This time around, Yahoo has presented the trends in a different fashion, by grouping the Top Trends for 2007 in different categories. The topics include not only top news stories (led by Saddam Hussein) and tech trends (no surprise over here, YouTube), but also trends in fields like environment, pet food, kids’ search trends, and searches on Yahoo’s Delicious bookmark sharing site.

In the tech category, behind YouTube, was: Wikipedia; Facebook; an Apple with super hits iTunes, iPod, and iPhone; the massively popular game console Wii; Microsoft’s Xbox 360; Sony PlayStation 3; and Guitar Hero, the simulated rock-guitar computer game that has become a sensation right now world over.

The company got its sense of humor into action by creating a “Celebrity Downslides” category, topped by none other than Britney Spears, who seems to be  busy between shuffling here life between shops, courthouses, and rehab these days.

Have a read  on more the Yahoo Top Trends for 2007

Take for example Problogger which was PR6 and now its PR4 or take Copyblogger which was also PR6 and now is PR4. Both of these sites do no indulge in Text Link Ads as far I know, so the exact reason for the drop is not known. Well I have built up my own logic for all this but before I tell you about that here are a few popular sites that have lost Pagerank.

• Engadget (from 7 to 5)
• AutoBlog (from 6 to 4)
• Problogger (from 6 to 4)
• Copyblogger (from 6 to 4)
• Search Engine Journal (from 7 to 4)
• Quick Online Tips (from 6 to 3)
• Search Engine Roundtable (from 7 to 4)
• Blog Herald (from 6 to 4)
• Weblog Tools Collection (from 6 to 4)
• JohnTP (from 6 to 4)
• Coolest Gadgets (from 5 to 3)
• CyberNet News (from 6 to 4)

Well quite a few of these sites do indulge in Text Link Ads so a drop in Pagerank is perfectly normal for them, but for the others its a different story. Well here is my theory,

By dashing out a major Pagerank update of this kind to popular blogs, a lot of people who read these are surely going to think if they buy/sell Text Links they are gonna get screwed and indirectly reduce the Text Link Ads market by a considerable extent. This means much less spam for Google to handle. I am quite sure that the drop in Pagerank shouldn’t be a problem, because I am pretty much sure that the Pagerank that you see is not an actual measure of how important your site is to Google. So if you loose some Pagerank on your blog, then you must be happy because Google noticed among those popular blogs crowd. Cheers!

On a related note the Pagerank of the homepage of dailyApps continues to remain 0, so no decrease for me so far. If you have noticed 4 seems to be the new Pagerank for a lot of blogs, so I wonder if the scale of Pagerank is now 0-5. Drop in your comments to let us know what you think about all this…

FlickrStorm is a better search for Flickr! It works by looking for more than what you enter to find related and more relevant images… Be suprised!

When you search for pictures on FlickrStorm a super cool AJAX interface brings up the search results. The interface allows you to directly download the pictures, keep track of pictures you’ve seen and ofcourse a very nice way of sharing photos with your friends is also thrown in. Here is a small screencast that I did while using FlickrStorm :

If you have not been impressed with the simplicity of FlickrStorm and its beautiful and attractive design, here’s another service that just doesn’t search Flickr, but also searches Amazon, eBay, Youtube etc.. Yes I am talking about oSkope.

oSkope is a visual browser that lets you search and organize items from different web services like Amazon, eBay, YouTube or Flickr in an intuitive way.

Here is a screencast that I did with OSkope. Pretty Impressive..

So this is it. Some cool new ways to browse and explore Flickr, Amazon, eBay and Youtube. Go ahead and try out FlickrStorm and oSkope today.