Search

Squrl, the app that surfaces video recommendations for users, rolled out its redesigned iOS app on Monday with promises of a smoother viewing and browsing experience, private messaging, and even better recommendations.

The updated app, which also works on Apple TV, features a new home screen with bigger text and larger icons to display Squrl's functions, which include creating video playlists and viewing channels that are organized by subject matter.

It's all about the content, said Squrl CEO Mark Gray. That content can range from full-length movies on Netflix to Internet clips on YouTube.

The new recommendations take … Read more

Facebook is removing sponsored results from search less than a year after the ad unit's introduction.

"In keeping with the goal of streamlining our ad products, starting in July advertisers will no longer be able to buy sponsored results," a Facebook spokesperson told CNET.

The failed unit, which let marketers target users during the search process, suggests that the company is still struggling to understand how best to monetize search attention, something that competitor Google mastered long ago. Sponsored results seemed to be modeled after Google's sponsored search ads. As a user typed in a query … Read more

Yahoo continues to clean house as CEO Marissa Mayer charges on to revamp the struggling company. It announced Wednesday that it's resetting all Yahoo IDs that have been inactive for at least a year, leaving them up for grabs.

But there will be a process, of course. Users will be able to request the IDs they want starting in mid-July, but won't find out which one they got until mid-August.

"If you're like me, you want a Yahoo ID that's short, sweet, and memorable like albert@yahoo.com instead of albert9330399@yahoo.com," Jay … Read more

Microsoft's Bing carved out a 17.4 percent slice of the U.S. search engine market in May, according to the latest ComScore data provided by investment firm Macquarie Capital.

An investors note released today by Macquarie analyst Ben Schachter revealed that Bing's share in May rose only 0.10 percentage points from April. But that slow but steady rise showed an ongoing gain that's held relatively firm for the past three years.

Still, Google remains the search engine champ, well ahead of the other contestants. Its May market share showed an increase of 0.20 points … Read more

The Vine is pretty clever. It shows, in six rapid seconds, how to quickly and easily put up a simple bookshelf.

Done in the stop-motion technique that has been the hallmark of most of the best Vines to surface so far, the video is an ad for Lowe's home improvement stores, and is part of a series called, appropriately, #lowesfixinsix.

Published more than three weeks ago, the video got a fresh life today when Twitter featured it as the inaugural poster child for its new #CreativeFavorites program, an initiative that aims to celebrate the best work being done on … Read more

If smartphone users have problems with your site, here's some incentive to fix them: Google said Tuesday it plans to punish problematic sites with lower placement in search results.

"To improve the search experience for smartphone users and address their pain points, we plan to roll out several ranking changes in the near future that address sites that are misconfigured for smartphone users," said Yoshikiyo Kato, a mobile search team programmer, and Pierre Far, a Webmaster trends analyst, in a blog post.

The pair gave some examples of common problems:

• Redirecting visitors trying to use assorted PC-optimized … Read more

Yahoo has revamped its search results page as part of an ongoing transformation.

Rolled out Wednesday, the design changes display the actual search results higher on the page without some of the clutter that appeared in the older version. A new navigation bar at the top offers links to other Yahoo pages, including the home page, Mail, News, Finance, Weather, and Flickr. That bar will also eventually wind its way to other Yahoo pages.

Yahoo also said the page loads faster thanks to some behind-the-scenes enhancements, while the overall design is a bit more in line with that of its … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- Instagram is not a photography company.

That message, which might shock some of the 100 million-plus people who have uploaded more than 5 billion photos to Instagram, is what co-founder Kevin Systrom made clear during a discussion tonight among him and co-founder Mike Krieger and Digg founder and Google Ventures partner Kevin Rose.

The discussion, part of the Commonwealth Club's Inforum series, was an opportunity for hundreds of Instagram fans to hear first-hand a bit of the history -- and perhaps some of the future -- of the popular photo-sharing app. Even if that's not … Read more

Ever wondered how many calories are in a burrito? How about grams of fat in a donut? Or, carbs in a potato?

All of these food and nutrition stats, and more, can now be found on Google Search. The Web giant announced Thursday that it was introducing detailed nutrition information for more than 1,000 fruits, vegetables, meats, and meals in both its desktop and mobile search.

"From the basics of potatoes and carrots to more complex dishes like burritos and chow mein, you can simply ask, 'How much protein is in a banana?' or 'How many calories are … Read more