Date: Sun, 18 Aug 1996 18:45:55 -0400
From: [log in to unmask] (Keith Dawson)
Subject: TBTF for 8/18/96: Like Wildfire
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Your Host: Keith Dawson \ j
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To read this issue of TBTF on the Web see
<http://www.atria.com/~dawson/tbtf/archive/08-18-96.html>
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||| Search from your browser's URL window |||
It's not been widely reported that Netscape shook up its developer com-
munity and sent shockwaves through the Internet search industry when it
released an unannounced "browser search" feature in beta 5 of Navigator
3.0. If you have this beta software, type a quoted phrase into the URL
window and a CGI script running on a Netscape server will invoke one of
its five primary search engines to process the search. The five search
companies (Lycos, Excite, Yahoo!, Infoseek, and Magellan) were reported-
ly greatly upset by the appearance of this unheralded feature that could
reduce the number of hits delivered to their main pages by Netscape's
Net Search page [1]. Each company paid Netscape $5M for prime placement
on this page. The browser search feature has been pulled from Beta 6,
according to some reports because the search companies generated so much
heat. Netscape denies this and says that browser search was intended only
for focus-group testing -- which is why it was not documented -- and was
dropped because testers found it confusing.
Microsoft, which labors under no revenue constraints from partner search
companies, has included a browser-search feature in the final release
of Internet Explorer. It's called AutoSearch, and it launches a Yahoo!
search that comes up including an Internet Explorer logo.
I read of this development in an exclusive story carried by Interactive
Age Daily in its 8/8/96 edition.
[1] <http://home.netscape.com/home/internet-search.html>
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