SiliconBeat

Twitter clearly views Google’s new social search features, which highlights postings by the searcher’s Google+ friend connections, as a direct threat to its bread and butter - - serving as the default place on the Web where people go to learn about breaking news, whether it comes from an individual or a news organization.

Tuesday, within hours after Google announced its new “Search - Plus your World” service, Twitter complained in a written statement released to the media that:

Search example from Twitter general counsel, Alex Macgillivray

Macgillivary’s Tweet linked to an example of a Google search. He is saying, essentially, is that a person searching  Google for “@wwe”, the Twitter account of the professional wrestling organization, will instead now be steered to Google+ content.  The Twitter account result was there, but it was well down the page.

It will be interesting to see watch whether Twitter takes things to the next level and files a formal complaint with the FTC. Twitter spokesman Matt Graves declined to comment Wednesday afternoon.

Google tossed another $2.6 million into its investment in 23andMe, the privately held personal genetic testing  company co-founded by Anne Wojcicki, who is married to Google founder Sergey Brin. The investment was part of a second round of funding in the company’s Series B preferred shares that included New Enterprise Associates, which negotiated the terms of the investment, according to a filing Google made today with the SEC.

Brin, who invested Read the rest of this entry »

Somewhat lost among the news about Google’s first sales decline ever in its 2009 first quarter and the decision of the company’s first salesman, Omid Kordestani to step down — he’ll continue on as an advisor to the company’s chief executive and co-founders — was news of the filing of an amendment to the company’s innovative “Transferable Stock Option” program.

The program, first unveiled in April 2007, was designed to let workers auction off their Read the rest of this entry »

Shareholders at Google have put forward three proposals of their own to be voted on at the company’s annual meeting, according to the search-engine’s proxy filed today with the SEC.

One,  offered by the Teamsters, proposes that the company Read the rest of this entry »

Search behemoth Google’s board of directors paid out bonuses to several top executives, and no, none of them were named Larry, Sergei or Eric.

Four other senior executives — who between themselves sold about $60 million worth of Google shares last year — along with the company’s new chief financial officer were given a total of Read the rest of this entry »

Google offered its employees the chance to exchange their underwater options (the company estimated that 85 percent of its employees hold at least some options where the current strike price is higher than where its shares are now trading, rendering them worthless at the moment), according to Read the rest of this entry »

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said the current economic slowdown put advertising budgets “under stress,” according to an interview he did with Bloomberg TV in New York. “There’s no evidence that we’re immune,” Schmidt said. “We’re being cautious.”  Schmidt says the wariness has made the world’s most popular Internet search site slow its hiring rates.

Schmidt made other, perhaps more-widely followed news Monday when he was reported to be ready to endorse Read the rest of this entry »

The Nasdaq stock market said it would cancel some trades of Google stock executed Tuesday in the minutes just before and after the stock markets closed. The cancelled trades were triggered by erroneous orders that were routed to Nasdaq from another market center.

Google’s stock, which fell $50 Monday, or 11.6 percent, to $381.00, reportedly fell another $60.50, or 15.9 percent, to $320.50, prior to Nasdaq’s decision to cancel certain unauthorized trades. Google’s official closing price for Tuesday will now be pegged at $400.52.

“Participants should review their trading activity for potentially erroneous trades outside the above referenced times,” Nasdaq said.

“It’s disturbing to watch the number of these things and there seem to be more and more,” said Laszlo Birinyi in an interview with Bloomberg News. His firm, Birinyi Associates of Westport, Connecticut, oversees more than $350 million. “We’re watching trades more closely.”

Stanford President John Hennessy, who sits on the board of directors at both Google and Cisco Systems, added his voice to the rising chorus calling for resolution sooner rather than later to the credit crisis enveloping the U.S. economy, in an interview with Bloomberg News. Read the rest of this entry »

Nielsen Online released its U.S. search share rankings for August this morning. Depending on your point of view, the failure of the Microsoft bid for Yahoo may have been a blessing, at least in the short term. Yahoo Search handled 1.3 billion queries in August, down 16.5 percent year over year, and representing 18.1 percent of all search requests in August.

And Microsoft? Even worse, Read the rest of this entry »