Is Microsoft Waging a Proxy War on Google for Antitrust?

Well, if the shoe isn’t on the other foot. Once upon a time, Microsoft seemed to be the biggest threat to free trade in the computer world, facing suits across the world. And now it’s Google’s turn—and coincidentally, Microsoft certainly looks like the man behind the curtain. In fact, two thirds of voters at the Wall Street Journal think it’s Microsoft’s machinations throwing the gauntlet down at Google:

How is Microsoft doing this? Certainly not directly (pot, kettle). No—it would have to be through backroom puppetry, which Microsoft of course denies. The evidence does appear highly coincidental. The WSJ outlines one instance where Google filed a two-sentence suit against a small site owing them $335,000 for AdSense—and got a 24-page antitrust countersuit, with Microsoft’s chief outside antitrust council listed as one of the litigants.

Note, though, that this is Microsoft’s outside council: he doesn’t work for Microsoft and Microsoft alone. It’s entirely possible that the small website searched out someone who was familiar with antitrust law and actions against Google.

Meanwhile, Google is facing scrutiny in Europe, including an antitrust suit from a Microsoft subsidiary which has prompted a European Commission investigation.

Naturally, many companies and individuals are concerned about Google’s dominance. Accusations and suits seem to be coming from all quarters, including the US government. Microsoft has used a few more open tactics to wage an antitrust war. These latest volleys might not be orchestrated by Microsoft—or are they? What do you think?

Holy 1999: MySpace in Google Search (Oh, with Real Time)

Buzzy buzz buzz. Google would really like to keep us from thinking about PAY NO ATTENTION Buzz TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN, and old pal MySpace is here to help: the real time search deal the two discussed in December is now live. Oh boy, oh boy, real time updates from that cutting edge social MySpace right in Google!

Hm? What’s that? Is 2010 and Google’s had real-time results from social networks including Twitter and Facebook for months?

Oh. Much less cool .

Yep, as they said a while ago, Google’s using MySpace’s real time API to import real time updates (they do that on MySpace?) into selected SERPs. I’d go out looking for these results in the wild, but somehow I think they’re pretty hard to find. Even when I look for updates on news and current events in Google, I seldom see the real time results (or maybe I just don’t scroll down). Luckily, MySpace provides a few examples for me:

I love the Olympics. Every (other) year, I think, “Meh, I don’t really care about the Olympics,” and then I get sucked in and watch them obsessively. (“Go, go, person I’ve never heard of, representing a country I don’t care about, in a sport I’ve never seen before! Win!”) And I’m super glad that I can see what MySpacers think about the events. (Not. Did you read those comments?)

Um, anyway, I like that MySpace’s integration with Google is so flawless that the best way to get their real-time results is to actually include “MySpace” in the query. I suppose that’ll keep extraneous social results from showing up in my SERPs, though, so I’m happy .

On the other hand, it is convenient if you want to know what people are saying about a topic on MySpace. I can’t imagine a scenario where I’d want to, but . . . you know, it could happen.

What do you think? Are you looking forward to oh-so-pertinent results from MySpace coming to a SERP near you?

Yahoo: Pay No Attention to the 10 Year Search Deal: Look at What’s New on Delicious!

Not to be all Wizard-of-Oz on us, but Yahoo really doesn’t want us to pay attention to the man behind the curtain (Steve Ballmer). No, they want to focus us on their new SERP and their new Delicious search tools and fresh bookmarks.

Don’t you worry—don’t think for one moment that I, the paragon of journalistic integrity, could be distracted so easily from decrying Yahoo’s abdication of control over its search—ooh, shiny emailing and tweeting tools!

So Delicious does have some cool new stuff to show off—and maybe it’s not just a distraction ploy. Maybe it’s a ploy to remind us that Yahoo can still do cool new stuff.

Anyway, Delicious has a new search tool to help its users find bookmarks (theirs and others’) more easily. Yahoo says “with advanced timeline and tag filtering controls so that you can search within a given date range or filter the results by tag. We’ve also enhanced the search results page to display rich content including YouTube videos with inline playback, Flickr images, and Yelp local data when applicable.”

Delicious has also added a feature to highlight new and popular bookmarks—but not on the Delicious site. The Fresh Bookmarks tab on the homepage features up-and-coming bookmarks (gee, no other social site has ever done that )—the bookmarks that are most popular on Twitter (as opposed to the most popular bookmarks on Delicious, which are under the Popular Bookmarks tab).

On this new feature yesterday, the Delicious blog quotes Wired, who touted the predecessor app, TweetNews, as possibly “the best mashup we’ve ever seen.” Hopefully the Delicious version gets the same positive reception.

Finally, Delicious also added more social features to the add bookmark page. You can add recipients in the Send field—and get the option to email or even tweet bookmarks.

Delicious looks to be doing a good job of adapting to the most popular social site with the media today, instead of decrying Twitter as a poor man’s competitor.

What do you think? Will these new features be enough to keep Delicious users happy—and relying on Delicious? Or does this just push more users toward Twitter?