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.

Following the live online coverage yesterday of the iPad’s launch, it was easy to get the sense of anticlimax. This product had been rumoured long enough to acquire mythical status, but what Steve Jobs proudly unveiled looked, in the words of many, “like a big iPhone”.  (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…)

Microsoft has been out on the message offensive, driven by a lukewarm stock market response to its new partnership with Yahoo, which we blogged about on the day the news broke. (more…)