Following yesterday’s rumors of rekindled talks between Yahoo and Microsoft, Yahoo execs have sent a letter to shareholders basically begging to keep their jobs while saying nothing new.
The letter emphasizes the fact that the Google ad deal “does not prevent Yahoo from pursuing other alternatives that could increase stockholder value” and even goes on to […]

Google has named a former Bell Canada exec as its new senior VP and CFO.
Patrick Pichette — most recently president of operations at Bell Canada — will join Google on the first of August and officially start overseeing the company’s finances about two weeks later.
Pichette’s background is largely in telecommunications, having worked previously with McKinsey […]

Google is making its Maps utility a bit more Wikipedia-like.
The G-Team has unveiled a new Google Maps feature called MapMaker. Once logged in, you can actually edit any existing Google Maps result — at least, if you’re looking up locations in Iceland.
The feature is currently limited to maps showing areas in the following countries: […]

Just a day after announcing its acquisition of location-based social network Plazes, Nokia has another new property under its belt.
The mobile maker has bought out cell phone software developer Symbian — a company of which it already had a 48 percent ownership. With Symbian fully in its control, Nokia has opted to switch its […]

The New York Stock Exchange is now offering real-time data online at no cost to the user.
NYSE Realtime Stock Prices launches today with instant info being made available at Google and CNBC. Both sites pay NYSE a flat monthly fee for the service.
The move follows a similar online option introduced by NASDAQ last month.

Google is set to reveal a new comScore competitor called AdPlanner, according to information obtained by the New York Times.
The Times discovered a mistakenly posted page at the Advertising Research Foundation — a group hosting a conference on audience measurement in New York Tuesday — that listed plans for Google to reveal the service at […]

Google now claims everything is on track with the release of its much-hyped Android mobile phone platform, just hours after a Wall Street Journal report indicated quite the contrary.
The Journal report suggests significant delays in Android’s launch that could result in many carriers not getting their models out until next year. Focus on a […]

Now that Google has entered the Alexa space with Google Trends for Websites, the general public has some access to hidden traffic data from Google’s vaults. The service get its numbers from a combination of sources including search traffic, anonymous Google Analytics figures and other third party marketing data.
The emphasis is mine, but the Google […]

You can now track web site stats with Google Trends, thanks to a new toolset called — fittingly enough — Google Trends for Websites.
The utility lets you chart out traffic for any site and even break down visits by geographic region. You can also compare multiple sites on one line graph. Perhaps one […]

Free 411-style directory service is now available in Canada.
Google has just expanded its GOOG-411 service to the country. Canadians can get in on the action by dialing 1-800-GOOG-411 from any phone. The number will look up business listings for free and then connect you, all via a simple-to-use voice recognition system.
The Canadian version […]

If headlines are to be believed, there is a massive exodus of staff from Yahoo at the moment. The flight of the Yahooites (Yahoos…what’s the collective noun for Yahoo employees??) started before the Microsoft takeover bid, but has actually accelerated post the bids failure. Now no rational company would want to lose talent like Caterina […]

Users who type the word “gay” into Google are being presented with a little extra in their search results: a rainbow flag between the results and ads.
The rainbow flag (also known as a gay pride flag) represents an open statement of support for the LGBT community, and can commonly be seen in businesses or […]

Google has added PDF support to its Docs utility.
Users can now upload, view, and share PDF files within the program — something that had not previously been available. While you can copy and paste text, there is not any option to edit the files.
Google does, however, make use of the word “yet” […]