Sunday, January 25, 2004

Microsoft Justifies Its XML Patent Moves. Redmond claims its decisions to open its XML schemas, while seeking patents for elements of its XML implementations, are not as contradictory as they appear. [Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley] 4:50:21 PM    comment []

Paid Search Trademark Case Settled. A major case threatening to rain on the paid search party has been settled out of court by the parties - AOL/Netscape and Playboy. Terms were not disclosed. This takes some air out of the issue, but Google still has action pending.... [John Battelle's Searchblog] 4:47:34 PM    comment []

Google Alert - Pointing Toward Search As A Platform. This application, built on the (rather limited) Google API, gives an inkling of the services and innovations which might prosper on the web should Google decide to become a true platform for developers. (To learn more on Google Alert, read SEW's write up here). In the FAQ, for example, the developers of Google Alert note that "Google Alert is a free service but bandwidth and CPU time cost money. Google's API terms prohibit commercial use so you can't even pay Google Alert for more results. In the future, Google Alert hopes to launch a premium commercial service with much greater capacity. Negotiations are currently under way with Google to arrange a license for this. " My guess is that a quick witted developer over at Yahoo might just decide to open up their API for this kind of service, and the thousands of others which might flourish if they put a couple of big brains and some developer evangelizing behind it.... [John Battelle's Searchblog] 4:47:22 PM    comment []