Last month saw a subtle but important change in how Google handles the world’s search requests. The company launched a new indexing approach, called Google Caffeine, which is designed to produce far ‘fresher’ search returns than its previous index. Among the benefits of Caffeine (hey, we all love a little caffeine) is that Google indexes new online content far sooner than before. This makes an even stronger argument for companies to keep their online news and content regularly updated. Further details about Caffeine are available on the Official Google Blog.

On 9 February Google launched Buzz, its new social media portal, integrated within Gmail. Since its announcement Buzz has been the topic of a multitude of blog posts, and it seems the jury is still out on whether this Twitter rival has the potential for success. (more…)

“I’m not comfortable that Google gives our content away. There has to be a compromise if good quality journalism is to continue.”

That’s the opinion of Patience Wheatcroft, editor-in-chief, Europe, of ‘The Wall Street Journal Europe’, speaking in London this morning. (more…)

Hot on the heels of our item last week about Murdoch taking on Google, today there’s news of an apparent concession by the latter. Presumably fearful that any deal done between Bing, News Corporation and other publishers could cost it valuable content, Google has announced a new way for news organisations to limit the amount of their stuff that can be viewed for free via the search engine. (more…)

A seismic shift is underway in the media world that could safeguard the future of imperilled news publishers and sever the umbilical cord between you and Google. (more…)