The Social Media Minute: Yahoo, Google Go Beyond Plain Search

By Barb Mosher | Published Nov 21, 2008

Social Media moves so fast, its hard to keep up. Here’s the week’s top stories, in scan-friendly format.

This week:

Yahoo Glue Comes to the US
Using Tarpipe to Unclog the Social Media Pipe
Google's Getting a SearchWiki
Get Yer Free Blog on TypePad

Yahoo Glue Comes to the US

Yahoo Glue has been coming to a theater near you since May of this year and now it has finally arrived in the US. It's a twist on a typical search page showing results like news, video (including YouTube), images, wikipedia, Yahoo Shopping and more.

First launched in India, Yahoo Glue for the US is a little different starting with showing only two columns of search results instead of three. You can also search only on a limited set of topics.

According TechCrunch, Glue will not replace the traditional search page for Yahoo, instead, it will be just a “useful content page that brings in data from lots of different sources on topics”.

Check it out for yourself: glue.yahoo.com

Using Tarpipe to Unclog the Social Media Pipe

Tired of updating all your social networking sites one at time? Having trouble organizing and keeping track of where you are socializing? A new service offering says it can help.

Tarpipe is a workflow tool that helps you organize workflows for all your content. It's an alternative to services such as Ping.fm, SocialThing and PixelPipe and it looks pretty slick.

We did a quick review of Tarpipe's features which include organizing and publishing content, publishing to a number of different services at once, backlogging and tagging photos. And to top it off, Tarpipe has an extensive API library.

Still in beta, we recommend you take a closer look.

Google's Got a SearchWiki

Just released yesterday, Google launched SearchWiki, a new way to customize your search results. As long as you are signed into your Google account, you can re-rank, delete, add and comment on your search results.

These changes are only viewable by you, but you can also share your changes with other searchers. Check out the “See all notes for this SearchWiki” link.

Bottom of Google Search

You have to look really closely to see some of the functionality, like moving a result or deleting it. Yes, look very closely…

Check out the arrow and x at the end of the result link

It will be interesting to see how much this new feature will be used. Want to know more? Watch this video:

Get Yer Free Blog on TypePad

Six Apart, the company behind Movable Type and TypePad is sticking behind journalists of all walks of life. They are offering a free TypePad blog to journalists who have lost their job or are in fear of loosing their job.

Lovingly, and jokingly, called the TypePad Journalist Bailout Program, this is a free offer to anyone who writes. Some of the goodies included in the offer:

A free TypePad Pro blog account (normally US$ 150/year)
Participation in the Six Apart Media advertising program
A listing on Blogs.com, and lots more

Use it to showcase your talents, start a freelance career, whatever you want — there are no restrictions.

Interested? Send an email to bailout@sixapart.com or read more about the program on their site.

Goodbye Google Lively

And in sad news, we regret to inform you that Google has decided to shut down Google Lively. Lively was first launched in Google Labs last June. It was similar to Second Life and supposedly very popular.

Unfortunately, Google has decided to focus all their attention on their core offerings of search, ad, and business applications. Hmmm, maybe a good thing considering the downtime problems they have faced lately.

Anyway, except to see Lively.com gone by the end of December, so take some screenshots, because those funking rooms will be no more.

Rest in peace.