SeekingAlpha follows PredictAd's model for AutoComplete ticker..

SeekingAlpha - a financial site dedicated to stock market news, opinion & analysis has taken notice of the value present in their site's autocomplete stock ticker, and has begun displaying sponsored listings within the suggestion menu. As any advertiser will notice, the sponsored listing gets a lot of attention and is not susceptible to "banner blindness" - leading to a higher CTR (click through rate) and a better branding experience than those annoying flash banners that are prevalent on most websites. In fact, I wrote about PredictAd's similar offering on SocialPicks some time ago. It seems as if someone took notice..

Google Porn Search

I was checking Quantcast out to find some interesting search-based sites and noted a certain site called askjolene.com. This is a porn search engine that seems to have caught some traction as Quantcast projects them to have 1.4 million unique users in the US. What is more interesting than askjolene.com is the fact that if you type askjolene.com into Google than Google will update your search landing page with an in-line search box so that you can search directly into askjolene.com. Wow!

I'm assuming that Google automates this process, and askjolene.com probably designed their site in a way to avoid the Google porn censors, but you have to admit that it raises an eyebrow for Google to offer a direct search box into a porn search engine. It's no secret that adult-related searches are probably amongst the top searches performed throughout the web, but an in-line search on Google for porn is a little much if you're asking me - especially considering that Google is amongst the most trusted brands not only on the web, but in general.

Google Suggest graduates from Google Labs - going live on homepage!

Since I first started writing this blog in late 2007 I've mentioned Google Suggest quite a few times. I suppose I should have seen the writing on the wall once Google implemented its Suggest feature on YouTube. Low and behold, Google has finally caved into the pressure from this high-powered blogger and decided to add Google Suggest on a default basis to its homepage ; )

In my humble opinion Google would rather have not added the Suggest feature - I mean, they've had the feature in their labs since 2004! But with all the wannabe competition popping up with neat autocomplete menus - Google began to seem a little Web 1.0ish without the feature (see Yahoo!, Cuil, Mahalo, etc.). Not to mention that there's actually a firefox plugin that adds Google Suggest on a default basis.

It has been my contention that Google will probably see less clicks on their Adwords listings as a result of going live with Suggest - the reason being that users will enter more accurate search queries, which will ultimately lead to better Adwords listings and more efficient clicks. So while I believe that this could hurt their bottom line in the short-term, the long-term payoff will be there simply because it's a much better search service.

Now the only search goliath that is without an autocomplete feature is Microsoft Live. But after speaking with a few Microsoft product developers at SES San Jose I can assure you that Live will be live with autocomplete soon. As per these product managers, "Microsoft has been following Google's experimentation with Suggest closely, and plan to unveil a feature of their own within a couple of months". Should be interesting to see what the fallout is from Google's announcement - although Google is one of the innovators of Autocomplete its hard not to say that they're simply following the pack with this decision.

E-commerce monster Ebay tweaks search..

I was wondering how long it would take Ebay to catch on to the hoopla and add some new search functionality to its offering. I confess that I'm not an Ebay user but I found myself on their site today and decided to test the search when I noticed a cool and accurate autocomplete menu drop down and offer me some great search suggestions. I checked out Ebay's blog and noticed the following update on the tweaking of its search engine (as per August 8, 2008)

Two new features are coming to search: search suggestions and a new Refine Your Search.

Search suggestions means that the search box will offer suggestions to help you complete your query as you type. The search suggestions feature will make searching faster and easier than ever. If you don’t like it, though, don’t worry, you can always turn suggestions off.

The changes to Refine Your Search will make it easier to find and select options like 'Search including Title & Item Description' and show only 'Auctions'.

More detail on the changes will be available soon.

Who knows? Maybe Ebay execs have been reading this blog and noting how helpful search suggestions are to the overall search experience, and how it is an especially helpful feature for e-commerce sites (see this post, or this one, or this one ; ).

Yahoo! Search Assist flexes muscles on special Olympics page..

Yahoo Search Assist, long championed by this blog as the authority on autocomplete functionality, has done its users another favor by adding a really cool & effective autocomplete menu to its special Olympics section. The menu instantly searches athletes, sports and countries as users are typing, and has a really cool look & feel. I like how Yahoo! continuously adds new functionality to its search assist and am really fond of how they've taken this technology to the next level with uber-customization to its different features and sections.

Yahoo! continues to set the bar in terms of search assist and there par excellence is something that helps them retain their stronghold as the #1 portal in the world.

TradeVibes, the best way to discover, find and share opinions on cool startups via autocomplete..

TechCrunch's Michael Arrington started a very successful new trend of wikis when he launched Crunchbase in October 2007. Since then a handful of new web 2.0 wiki communities have popped up - with notable success. One of the latest and most interesting of these is TradeVibes, a site that provides a community for people interested in startups, allowing users to share opinions, ratings, and discussions about them.

Although they're both very impressive sites in their own right, this article isn't about TradeVibes or CrunchBase as web portals (although it would be interesting as is seems the negative vibes have been flowing about the startup through TechCrunch itself - watch out!), but rather about the cool autocomplete menu that TradeVibes has embedded into its search box!

There's no doubt that just by adding a pretty simple yet engaging autocomplete menu TradeVibes has found a way to make their portal a little more lively than its competition. Personally, I think the menu looks good and is functional enough to pass my rigorous 8-point test - even if it sucked (which it doesn't) than it would still be better than having nothing at all (CrunchBase).

I mean, these are startup companies, meaning there names range from Zwinky to Xangati (those names aren't made up!)- so like, an autocomplete menu helps me find them a lot easier than not having an autocomplete menu. TradeVibes gets that, hence they get this blogger's endorsement as a useful resource for the world of web 2.0 ..

PredictAd now reaches over 800,000 monthly unique users in the United States..

The latest stats on PredictAd's rapidly-growing network. For more information about PredictAd's search assist technologies visit www.predictad.com.