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Stories Discussed In The Show

• Google Releases 2006 3rd Quarter Results
  Google has released their earnings for the third quarter of 2006. You can find the earnings summary at Google's press center. Bloomberg summarizes the reports showing how profits almost doubled and revenue increase seventy-percent. Google's net income is $733.4 million, or $2.36 a share, up from $381.2 million, or $1.32, a year ago. Google's revenue rose to $2.69 billion...
• YouTube Deletes 30,000 Japanese Media Files & Deals With Record Labels
  Reuters reports that YouTube erased 29,549 films and media files after receiving a complaint from "Japanese media companies over copyright infringement." Around the same time, the NY Times informs us that Music Companies Grab a Share of the YouTube Sale. The article says that the $50 million earned from this deal "should help to shield Google from copyright-infringement lawsuits." Universal Music last week sued two smaller video sharing sites but not YouTube, for distributing pirated music and videos. Techdirt feels that the last minute deal with the music companies before Google buying them was YouTube basically handing over to "the labels Google's cash before any official deal was completed."
• Google Finance Adds Compare, Timeline & More Features
  Nathan Weinberg reports that Google Finance Gets New Features. Google has added personalized chart settings that include News Flags, Dividends, Splits, or Volume on your chart and Zoom levels. Google has also added dividends flags that are plotted on the charts. You can see some of the new features flagged at Google Finance FAQs as "new."
• Yahoo Finance Adds New Web 2.0 Stock Charts
  Gary Price reports that Yahoo has upgraded their charting software to offer new web 2.0 like charting features. By visiting a stock summary page, like yhoo and clicking on "charts" on the left, you will load a new AJAX like stock quote chart for that stock symbol. The interface is nice and quick, allowing you to dynamically add competitors like GOOG to the chart. For complete features on using Yahoo charts, see the Yahoo charts user guide.
• Google Tries To Streamline Hiring Process
  The Wall Street Journal reports that Google has begun trying to improve their well-known hiring process. They have currently reduced the number of interviews from 6.2 to 5.1 people. They have also set up deadlines for when the interviewer has to submit their assessments (within one week now). Google is also trying "short questionnaires for applicants and different interview formats" and "abbreviated hiring process" consisting of just two interviews.
• Google Checkout Doesn't Allow Donation Payments
  Sam Harrelson reports that Google Checkout has dropped Gimme Some Candy promotion that enabled his video readers to donate money to the site. Basically, Google said they dropped the site because the users did not actually buy a real product, instead they donated money to the guy. Many people are upset with this because what is to constitute a intangible product in this case? Paypal clearly allows this type of payment method. Google obviously does not at the moment.
• Google's NetPAC Begins Donating Money
  Mercury News reports that Google's NetPAC has begun handing out small $1,000 donations to three different Republicans. Google has given to Reps. Heather Wilson of New Mexico, Deborah Pryce of Ohio and Rep. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin. Google also gave two donations to Democrats, Rep. Anna Eshoo of Palo Alto and Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.
• Yahoo India's CTO To Join Google As R&D Lead
  Steve Bryant reports that Prasad Bhaarat Ram, Yahoo India's CTO, has been hired by Google to lead the research and development office in Bangalore. Dr. Ram said, "It is a great opportunity to join Google and be involved with a company that places such great value on innovation and creativity." Dr. Ram is to begin immediately at Google.
• Yahoo Japan's Profit & Sales Grow 20+ Percent
  Market Watch reports that Yahoo Japan's net profit rose 22-percent in Q3 of this year. Net sales rose 36% to 21.20 billion yen from the previous quarter. Projected net profit is between 13.65 billion yen and 15.20 billion yen in the fiscal quarter through December.
• Yahoo Resigns Ad Deal With Guardian Unlimited
  Guardian Unlimited has renewed their advertising deal with Yahoo. Guardian is to keep the keyword ads (named hotspots) on the site and also keep the Yahoo search box through the site. A future possibility for Yahoo and Guardian Unlimited is to integrate Yahoo Answers into Guardian Unlimited's web site.
• Google Definitions In Dutch?
  Threadwatch reported that a search on [what is executive search] in Google brings up a Google web definition result in Dutch. The question is why does a question asked in English, bring up an answer in a different language? The answer is because that is the only definition available in Google's index for that specific question. Still, is it more relevant to show an answer in a different language or not to show the answer at all?
• Grayboxx: A Better Local Search Engine?
  I hear lots of claims from startups about how they'll improve upon or do better than the competition. Most of the time, those claims don't prove to be true in practice. Of course if you didn't believe your own PR, why would you even try? Now a new San Francisco-Bay Area startup called Grayboxx is making similar claims about local search.
• WebFetchPro
  WebFetch Pro is a multi/meta search engine creted by InfoSpace and it promises to give you the 'best search results available on the Web'. It attempts to do this by combining the results of the leading search engines (such as Google, Yahoo, Ask MSN and specialised engines for other options) and displaying them for you. It offers tabbed searching for the Web, Images, Audio, Video, News, Business Finder and People Finder, with an option for limiting results to the UK or running an international search.
• SpaceShipOne Replica Lands At GooglePlex
  Techcrunch reports that Google has acquired a replica version of SpaceShipOne. The replica is to be housed at building 43 at the GooglePlex. Why did Google do this? I honestly don't know that yet. More pictures and video at Techcrunch.
• Google Earth Helps Cops In Drug Bust
  The Journal Times reports Sheriffs in Racine County used Google Earth to pinpoint the locations of marijuana fields in the County. Officials arrested Dean Brown last Friday, when they arrested him, they found a GPS device with coordinates in saved memory. Drug agents plugged those coordinates into Google Earth to view satellite imagery of the location and pinpoint the exact area of the marijuana fields. Brown now faces six criminal charges including "possession of marijuana with intent to deliver, possession of drug paraphernalia, and four counts of manufacturing marijuana."