msblogs

The Microsoft / Yahoo! Search Alliance is in full swing, with the consolidation of the organic search results completed and paid search expected to be combined by October.  So with that news, as reported by Nick Eaton at the Seattle PI, we can begin to combine Microsoft/Yahoo! US search market share numbers, and the latest results from Experian/Hitwise show the combo at nearly 25%.  comScore has the combination at nearly 30%.

However Experian/Hitwise provides a glimpse behind the scenes at the numbers as well.  Although the totals are small, Microsoft and Bing are gaining in the key verticals of Health, Travel, Shopping, and Automotive:

(via the Microsoft Blog, SeattlePI.com)

In other words, in the key areas most likely to make money, Bing is experiencing impressive growth, gaining 65% in Automotive, 24% in Health, 66% in Shopping, and 47% growth in the Travel vertical over last year, according to Experian/Hitwise.

The nature of the Microsoft/Yahoo! partnership won’t mean doubling up on these numbers, probably, as they are directly related to the work Bing has done on the look and feel of the Bing verticals, positioning Bing as a “decision engine”.  Yahoo! still has full control over the presentation of the search experience and search results.  However it’s still positive news for Bing, and we’ll be watching how these numbers change in the months to come.

LiveSide.net

Hunch.com co-founder Chris Dixon has some advice for big venture capital firms: think more like, and behave more like, the startups you invest in. In a blog post, the startup CEO listed suggestions for how major VCs might want to approach their business — based on how he would approach it if he was running a big VC firm — including “have fewer meetings” and “have everyone at the firm blog/tweet.” Dixon’s post comes amid an ongoing debate about the benefits and virtues of so-called “super angel” investors and the flaws and weaknesses of traditional VC firms — not to mention the question of whether there is a seed-funding “crash” looming.

Dixon has multiple perspectives on the venture-capital scene: one comes from his day job, which is running the New York-based startup that he founded with Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake: an attempt to create a recommendation engine that learns from users’ answers to a series of questions. The second perspective comes from his side gig as an angel investor, and as one of the partners in a seed investing firm called Founder Collective, which includes a number of other startup founders and angel investors such as Vimeo co-founder Zach Klein, Mark Gerson of Gerson Lehrman Group,  and Fake.

One of the main takeaways from Dixon’s post is the idea that venture firms should act more like the startups they invest in, right down to his suggestion that they “have offices that look and cost like startup offices — or better yet, don’t have offices at all [and] spend your time visiting companies.” He also recommends that VCs should not “talk/tweet/blog about your vineyard, yachting, golfing etc. while you tell your CEOs to work non-stop and be frugal.” Whether anyone on Sand Hill Road or elsewhere takes Dixon’s advice remains to be seen, but there are bound to be a lot of struggling startups who will be cheering his recommendations. Here are a few of the other suggestions from his list:

• “Lower management fees so that they cover necessary expenses an reasonable salaries [and] basically be like a startup and only make real money when your investors make money.”
• “Stop kidding yourself that you add a lot of value beyond recruiting/intros/governance/financing/selling companies.”
• “Change the accounting so you can start caring about IRR more than just amount of money returned.”
• “Say no to companies. Saying “come back later” feels like a free option to you but actually hurts you and the startup in the long run.”

Om recently spoke with Dixon about his perspective on startups and venture capital, and part two of that interview is embedded below:

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d): What the VC Industry Upheaval Means for Startups

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user vlauria

GigaOM

As expected, Apple today came through with a few major device updates it will be shipping this fall. It revised its entire iPod line, and gave the iPod Touch many features previously only available on the latest iPhone, such as FaceTime video chat and the highly detailed Retina display. The company also added a social dimension to iTunes called Ping (available today) that will help the music software’s 160 million users share songs and artists.

These announcements touch on many of our GigaOM channels, so we had much of the team contributing. Here’s our full coverage:

• GigaOM: Blow-by-blow live blog by Om
• GigaOM: Akamai Powering Apple Live Stream (And I Can Prove It)
• JKontherun: Half of Macs Sold in Apple Stores to First-Time Buyers
• TheAppleBlog: Apple Challenges Android On the Numbers
• TheAppleBlog: iOS 4.1 Update Next Week, 4.2 in November
• TheAppleBlog: Apple Announces New iPod touch
• TheAppleBlog: iTunes 10: Out With the CD, In With the Social Network
• NewTeeVee: Tiny New Apple TV Costs $ 99, 99-Cent TV Rentals Confirmed
• GigaOM: Why Apple’s FaceTime Is a Huge Opportunity
• NewTeeVee: How Could Cheap iTunes Rentals Change Television Online?
• TheAppleBlog: Apple Updates iPod shuffle, Brings Buttons Back
• TheAppleBlog: The New Nano: Camera for Touchscreen, Good Trade?
• NewTeeVee: Comparison: Apple TV vs. Roku vs. Boxee Box

GigaOM

Freelance work is on the rise, according to a new survey by Elance — a service that helps freelancers connect with employers for part-time employment — and more workers are choosing to live the life of a freelancer, as opposed to finding themselves in the position while looking for a “real” job. The Elance report, which will be released in full next week, found that 70 percent of freelancers surveyed are happier working independently than when they were full-time employees, and more than 60 percent said they would prefer to remain a freelancer rather than take a full-time job. Over 60 percent also said their income has increased in the last year.

According to the Elance report, the economic downturn is no longer the primary force driving professionals to start a freelance career. Less than 5 percent of those surveyed said they were working as a freelancer until they could find a full-time job, and less than 25 percent said they became freelancers after a layoff. Over half of those who responded to the survey said they began freelancing to be their own boss and work on projects they loved, and almost 80 percent of respondents said the ability to have control over their own work schedule was their favorite part of working independently.

The typical online freelancer is between 25 and 54 years of age, Elance says, and is more likely to be female and educated. About 80 percent of freelancers surveyed by the company have a professional degree or designation of some kind, while just 4 percent have only a high-school diploma. About half of those who took part in the survey (which sampled more than 700 freelancers who have connected with employers through Elance) said freelancing was their sole means of income, while about 30 percent said they do part-time work online in addition to other full-time or part-time employment.

Related posts from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d): Career Opportunities in the New Net

GigaOM

Microsoft’s Kinect for the Xbox 360 is only a few months from launching, and already many consumers and gamers are worried about the add-on being limited to two players.

However, there is good news for gamers, as Kinect will be able to support more than two simultaneous players at any given…

Neowin.net