How about: Firefox is the new Google? (Say that like you're from the "old country.") In other words (and nevermind that full page ad in the NY Times), is Firefox demonstrating the kind of grass roots traction that made Google what it is today?

Eh?

There wasn't much mainstream press fanfare (just a couple of pieces) about the launch of self-described next-generation shopping search engine Become.com (you have to register to use the beta).

Behind it are the folks that started MySimon, which has been squandered by CNET. Jason Dowdell thinks pretty highly of what they're doing from a technical standpoint.

What I find interesting is the way in which they're aggregating ratings/reviews and related contextual (not advertising in this case) information to help consumers do research before buying.

Recall we said that this type of information (ratings/reviews) is going to be an important local search/IYP product feature on those sites that want repeated research-oriented consumer usage (as opposed to White Pages lookups).

Ads are from Google. This will be an interesting one to watch; it's a different kind of shopping search. And I expect local to make it into the mix somehow before too long (based on the fact that offline is where the buying is happening).

AOL's new and improved feature set for local will be on display starting today. AOL has revamped local in much the same way it stripped down and souped up its general Web search. There's lots of interesting new stuff to bring content and context together for users in an effort to improve the local experience.

AOL is using its own assets as well as those of third party content and technology providers (e.g., Topix.net, FAST, Ingenio, ShopLocal) to try and move to the head of the class amid increasing competition on the local front.

We'll more thoroughly examine and try out some of the new tools and functionality in a longer piece very soon.

Missed this one when it came out. But the NextSearchSurvey folks found that when they asked online respondents "If you were to choose one search engine out of the four major ones, which one would it be?"

Eighty-seven percent of something in excess of 3500 respondents said . . . Google. The survey was taken before the formal launch of MSN's new search. But the results were pretty dramatic and seem to fly in the face of other studies showing the market tightening.

USAToday has an overview of cable companies working on delivering more targeted local advertising. Is it going to be a reality or simply more hype?

We're going to explore this, as well as Internet TV and video search, on April 20 at Drilling Down on Local.

Most every traditional medium today faces challenges from new technologies. Yellow Pages and newspapers, the primary print directional media, are being affected mostly by the Internet. Radio faces the double whammy of iPod and other portable digital audio players and satellite radio. The former is a much more significant threat to radio, and Ad Age correlates digital audio players with the decrease in radio ratings.

In many respects the Yellow Pages and newspaper industries are in a much better position than radio. As an advertising medium, radio can't adopt audio players or satellite delivery and generate ad dollars.

Yellow Pages and newspapers have already begun to generate advertising revenue from the Internet. People need directional media; the question is will the current players be the ones who provide it in the future.

The Interactive TV revolutionâ€"long on hype, short on executionâ€"may not be "televised." It will be online instead. Yahoo!'s announcement that it will stream the full Showtime-produced "Fat Actress" is a milestone and ups the ante for Web companies doing video. The Web is starting to take away TV viewers, as well as ad dollars. In the not-too-distant future, it may take the content too.

In the future, I may be watching my favorite show, but the source of that "broadcast" may be a search engine or portal, rather than a traditional cable channel or broadcast network. As a viewer, it won't matter to me what the source of content is. I have no loyalty to NBC or Comcast or HBO. Even though I get my Internet from Comcast, I don't pay attention to their content or their portal advertisers.

I just want to see "Curb Your Enthusiasm" or "Desparate Housewives" when I want to see it.

And there are lots of interesting contextual/directional ad possibilities via the Internet. Notwithstanding "video on demand," cable will be playing hurry-up to match the full range of functionality available online. Also the telcos are seeking to get into TV. Clash of the Titans, eh?

Very interesting story in the NYTimes today re Philadelphia becoming one big wireless hot spot. Many implications . . .

There are implications for ISPs (although the regulators seem prepared to protect the economic interests of corporations vs. the public), and for telcos and possibly mobile phone carriers, as Vonage and soon others will be offering VoIP in wi-fi hot spots. So if the entire city is a hot spot, I certainly don't need a landline (and maybe even a mobile carrier, though that's much less likely).

So the telcos could take a double hit if more cities got on the bandwagon. Look for the Feds to prevent this from happening. But what it confirms beyond a shadow of any doubt is that broadband is gonna be absolutely everywhere ultimately and so will all the broadband consumer behaviors.

Eniro is a very progressive directory organization operating in several very progressive markets (including Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland) as well as some developing markets like Poland and Russia. It is probably fair to say that the company made too early a transition from a print company with an Internet business to an Internet company with a print business, particularly in Sweden, its largest market. Eniro has paid for this with a dramatic drop in Swedish print revenues.

New CEO Tomas Franzén (there for less than a year) quickly grasped the problem and went into full turnaround mode. The full results will not be known for another year, but he deserves credit at least for generating a lot of activity that appears pointed in the right direction. Eniro has redesigned its Yellow Pages product, retrained its sales force, adjusted compensation to stop motivating the wrong behavior, and it has attacked inefficient processes that led to sky high rejections rates on new contracts.

In some respects, Sweden, given its position as an early adopter of new technologies, is positioned to be a canary in the coalmine for the eventual erosion of printed revenues. But Eniro had proved a poor early warning system to date, since many of the declines were the result of self-inflicted wounds and came much earlier than necessary.

Now that Eniro is improving its operations and looks to be on the road to stabilizing its print revenues in Sweden, perhaps it can once again become a harbinger of the future course of printed directory usage and revenue. For now, the company deserves credit for attacking its problems aggressively and, it appears, with measures that are customer focused.

Google is offering more people the chance to open gmail accounts. Formerly this was a viral affair (which was very very smart marketing). Now, Google appears to be seeking to leverage gmail as the basis for an expanding relationship between the search engine and user (consumer/advertiser).

This is one way in to obtaining more personal information from users. Next steps could well include location information for better ad targeting and local search results.