Google continues to dominate the search business and keeps its market share at 64% while Yahoo’s share is about one third of Google way down at 22.9% and MSN Live is at 8% as per the press release of hitwise. Ask.com comes fourth with a market share of 3.5%.

Here is the chart from the Search Engine Land

But watch out for Cuill, a search engine startup started by ex-Googlers which is currently in stealth mode and plans to reduce the cost of indexing by 1/10th.

Just read a while ago on Adams’s post on Mashable that Google has quietly launched a new Social Bookmarking Service which lets you share your stuff with others. Google is providing a small bookmarklet which you can install on your browsers toolbar which creates a Share button. When you click this share button, it lets you post this page to your profile or email it to your friends or bookmark it with other popular book-marking services, and also posts it to most popular shared stuff page.

Digg dominates the Social News bookmarking space which StumbleUpon is a social recommendation service which is essentially Social Search. Google entry into this space may effect Digg and StumbleUpon in the long run.

However the ‘Share’ logo in use by Google Bookmarket is the same as in the ‘ShareThis’ Wordpress plugin by Alex King from the Share Icon project. Functionality provided is also the silmilar to Alex King’s ‘Share This’ plugin.

We will keep an eye on Google’s Social Bookmarking moves to build upon Social Search and keep you informed.

Google is on track to launch Gphone as per the digitimes market rumors. Google is most likely to launch its own OS for the Gphone, in contrast to the popular mobile phone OSes in the marketplace which are Symbian and Windows Mobile. Apple has opted the custom route as well launching iPhone with its own custom OS and controlling all aspects of user experience.

Here are the things to keep in mind for coming Gphone:

1. Google launches Gphone with custom OS, and also makes Gphone OS available to mobile handset and mobile device providers.

2. Google decides not to use inferior 2.5G (Edge) technology to Gphone (unlike iPhone) and ships 3G, this will instantly put Apple under pressure and will make Gphone a superior product winning over customers.

3. A 3G phone will take longer to develop and launch and will likely push the launch of the Gphone into 2008.

Further Reading: Gphone rumors at Mashable

Google announced Google Gadget Ads, available as beta only that means a few select AdWords advertisers can test drive this Google offering now. Advertisers and marketers would now have more options to engage the customers and to interact with them in a meaningful way.

As per Marketing Pilgrim:

* The ads are interactive
* Google Gadget Ads can incorporate real-time data feeds
* Different targeting options - contextual, site, geographic, and demographic
* Built on an open platform - open to anyone
* They can be placed on any web page, including iGoogle
* Detailed interaction reports - track dozens of actions within each ad unit

Ad in this new Google Widget format are interactive and are available in both CPC (Cost per click) and CPI (Cost per impression) pricing and could be build using html or flash both.

See also: Good articles at Business Week and Google Blogoscoped

Robert Scoble posted an interesting tid-bit last night which is resonating and echoing in blogosphere. In this multi part video, Robert builds the argument that future of the search is dependent on the social fibre.

Both of these videos are a must watch. Here is the link to Part 1 and Part 2. And bonus Part 3 (six minutes)

Robert points out how techmeme started by Gabe, works by watching the chain of conversations in blogshphere and by understanding the fabric of trust between the blogger and blog posts. Robert explains the basics of how Google search determines which pages to show you and though Google’s algorithm are resisitant to SEO tactics, but they are still prone to SEO manipulation and their is whole SEO industry dedicated to pushing your page into search results of Google. In contrast to Google, the search result returned by Mahalo are edited by humans, Mahalo being a human powered search engine.
Further, Mahalo creates high quality search results, just like Wiki, focused, detailed and accurate. In contarast to algorithms, the humans involved in Mahalo search result content are highly motivated and also use Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other searh engines to locate and distill the content and building on top of that. As opposed to a search engine like Google, where you have to visit multiple site to get the information you are looking for, a Mahalo result gives you everything in one place.

In the second part of the video Robert argues that since the Google’s algorithms are almost cast in iron and Google is a big company, it will be difficult for Google to turn around and respond to social change and threats from new human powered search engines like Jasons Mahalo and Techmeme. Robert also points out the Google can’t see the Video, and can’t understand what’s inside. Robert also brings in Facebook, and how Facebook so far been able to keep the SEO and junk out of the system by tapping into the social fiber.

I think Reobert is underestimating Google here. Why? because we don’t know what Google has in the works in its secret labs which we have not seen. Mahalo is doing a good job today, but we can’t assume that Google does not have something similar in the works and is not watching the Mahalo’s model of human powered search engine. There is nothing stopping Google from understanding the audio to text and understanding the context of the content in any video. If Mahalo’s really starts to take-off and sounds promising, Google can build on top of that model and start their offering. Wiki community creates great content and Google includes Wiki content in the search results it returns. What’s stopping Google from returning the Mahalo results in search results if they are high quality?

You did mentioned Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL, but Google was in your cross-hair throughout. And Robert why are you singling out Google?

So far Google’s track record has been great. They came late to the party and have beaten Microsoft and Yahoo in the email game and snatched the market share in Search. Why? I think because Google’s product offerings are customer driven instead of being market driven. Anyways, there is lot more in the videos, lot of talk of social fibre and it impact on search.

Though Mahalo holds potential, I do not completely agree with Robert. Why don’t you watch the video’s and draw your own conclusions on social search.

Update:

Ethan Stock has interesting take on Google on his OneTech blog
And reation from the SEO community on Roberts arguments and detailed analysis
Jeremiah on his Web Strategy its suggested that Google is dead. Go figure.

Update 2:
Dave Winer joins the conversation and has his usual no-nonsense take on the subject

In a previous post, I talked about giving simplicity the focus. There are, of course a number of references elsewhere on this topic. John Seely Brown has done a lot of work on this. In his book Bringing Design to Software, he eloquently says, “Context and content work together efficiently as an ensemble, sharing the burden of communication. If the relationship between the two is honored, their interaction can make potentially complex practices of communication, interpretation, and response much easier for designers and users alike. This relationship is the essence of keeping things simple.”

And here, both Sergey and Schmidt of Google talk about the need to emphasize on simplicity.