Recently, the 3 major North American web players – Google, MSN and Yahoo! – have come out with new, "innovative" web searches and tools in an attempt to appeal to an ever-changing market. Some releases, such as Google Talk and Yahoo! Messenger with Voice, have had some hype and/or media coverage. Others aren't promoted at all, and users almost have to stumble across them.

Many new tools are very media and communications based. Currently, "the next great way to stay in touch" is a major drive for technology. Companies such as Google, MSN and Yahoo! are constantly developing new tools to "help" customers/users stay connected – to each other, entertainment, and the Internet. These tools fall into 3 general categories: media, communications, and mobile.

Media
Media tools are mostly online media searches. For example, a user visits a Video page from one of the major web companies and can select a video from the videos presented on the entry page, or can enter a search term to find all related videos. All three companies offer a video search, but each behaves differently. MSN's video search is very advertising and news-media based, whereas Yahoo! searches all videos that have been submitted by users, plus some from the Internet, as well as from traditional media outlets. In addition to video searches, Yahoo! offers an audio download site, podcasts and streaming radio through Yahoo! Music (LAUNCHcast), and all three offer a simple way to get movie listings from the search engine.

Compare video searches: video.sympatico.msn.com, video.google.com, video.yahoo.com

Get movie listings: movies.msn.com. With Google or Yahoo!, type in the name of the movie you want to see (such as "Ice Age 2") – the first listing in your Google results will be showtimes for your location for that movie, and the third link on the first line of Yahoo! results is a "Showtimes & Tickets" option.

next page