A veritable crazy quilt of items:
Barry Schwartz posts about local information ("live answers") now being included in Windows Live Local results. (It's not clear to me how this is differentiated from basic local listings information however.) Related MSFT: AdCenter seeks to be a multi-platform play (including offline).
Hitwise UK portal/search data: Google is dominant in search but, as with the US market, not in other verticals (although doing well with Maps and to some degree with shopping). Hitwise says Google is now 60% in the US. Here's a comparison of traffic data for April.
I've been meaning to write more about this for days: TiVo's increasingly interesting "multi-platform" strategy. The deal with Brightcove allows Web content to be available via TiVo and your TV set. Combine this with TiVo's AdSearch and the company becomes more and more interesting. Yahoo!, MSFT and Google are going to pursue similar offerings.
In the realm of sci-fi/believe it or not, TechCrunch reports on a new Google product prototype using "a home computer’s internal microphone to listen to the ambient audio in a room, determine what is being watched on TV and offer web-based supplemental information, services and shopping contextual to each program being watched." SiliconBeat has more.
IPTV victory for telcos; from the WSJ (sub. req'd): "House lawmakers took a step toward the first major rewrite of the nation's telecommunications laws in a decade, approving a bill that makes it easier for phone companies to get into the cable-television business . . . a national video franchise that would allow phone companies including AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. to bypass local governments when seeking to offer pay TV service. It extends similar rights to cable companies. It also authorizes the Federal Communications Commission to enforce "net neutrality" principles, which require Internet providers to allow consumers to use the Internet as they choose."
Newspaper vendor and local search/shopping enabler HarvestINFO announced and launched a local shopping portal at ClickitSA.com that features integrated search results. This is similar to a product that the Gannett-owned Planet Discover offers. Conceptually, this approach is right though the implementation isn't always optimal.
Screenwerk 