We’re picking from a bounty of Google news today, leading off with Google’s new Chinese name. Google Blogoscoped has pictures of the two language characters being used (reportedly pronounced “Guge”), which roughly translate to, uh, “corn song.” Doesn’t really seem that catchy, but still pretty (apologies in advance) a-maize-ing.
In case you’re still reading… ClickZ ran a story today about various businesses that are giving Google Base’s free listings a try, after disappointing returns from fee-collecting sites like Monster.com and Cars.com. And some verticals, including Cars.com, are also starting to feed their listings into Google Base, hoping to drive some additional traffic. The ubiquity of the Google brand could give it a quick leg-up getting into the online classfieds game, as luxury car dealers and other sellers whose customers skew older might think that their target demographic won’t know what Craigslist is. But Google Base still faces challenges, like keeping its listings up-to-date and combatting the kind of fraud attracted to free services.
“Fine. Take your network and go home.” That’s what some analysts think the likes of Google, eBay and Amazon will say to the telecom companies if they try to charge an extra fee for high-bandwidth, higher-speed broadband access to consumers. Since legislation to enshrine the concept of net neutrality died on the vine last week, Investor’s Business Daily (via NetworkingPipeline and Digg) writes that big internet firms could build their own network to circumvent AT&T, Verizon, et al., by buying up two large swaths of wireless spectrum going up for auction, one in June, the next whenever TV broadcasters give their non-HD frequencies back to the federal government. File it under rampant speculation; building a new network from scratch would come with its own set of expensive headaches. But buying up the spectrum could at least give internet giants a bargaining chip in hashing out a deal with the telcos.
“Riddle me this, Jesus” More from Philipp Lenssen: Google and Sony Pictures are joining forces to promote the latter’s Da Vinci Code film, based on the best-selling religious thriller. By adding a module to their personalized Google homepage (anyone with a gmail account has one), users can embark on what’s described as a “24-day online puzzle adventure” starting April 17. Solving Da Vinci themed brain-teasers gives players a chance to win trips to some of the movie’s filming locations (Paris, Rome, London) or “a collossal Sony Electronics package.” Sony wins more publicity for the movie (not that it needed much more), and Google wins the chance to plug their personalized homepage service.
