Search Briefs: Lycos and BlinkxTV Announce Deal; Yahoo Adds Mortgage Shortcut and new Look at Yahoo Real Estate
+ Lycos and BlinkxTV Announce Deal
BlinkxTV (a variety of video content, video blog content and more) will power the new video channel on Lycos. Blinkx also maintains its own site. Look for the video search option linked from the Lycos search box on their home page. Here’s a sample video search. Btw, video news on Lycos comes via a feed from the Associated Press.
+ Yahoo’s New Mortgage Shortcut
The Yahoo Search blog points to a new “shortcut” that offers current mortgage rates for any city in the United States. Simply enter [city names] mortgage rates. For example, Seattle mortgage rates. You’ll also find links to STATE mortgage trend graphs from Yahoo Real Estate. More real estate shortcuts:
+ [city] real estate; San Mateo real estate
+ Also, Yahoo Real Estate has a new design that takes advantage of Yahoo Maps.
NOTE: We’ve noticed that for some cities the mortgage rate shortcut doesn’t work. For example, Springfield, IL mortgage rates does not offer a shortcut but Springfield, MA does. Simply entering, Springfield mortgage rates does not trigger the shortcut or offer a list of cities named Springfield where mortgage rates are available. Another example, mortgage rates for Kansas City, MO are available but no help finding mortage rates for Kansas City, KS is available. Searching for Kansas City, KS mortgage rates turns up nothing.
UPDATE: You can also use Zip Codes to trigger this shortcut. Note: While we couldn’t find rates for the Kansas City, KS search we did find them using a Zip Code search.
Thanks to Barry for the info
+ Testing Windows Live Search (via MSN Search Weblog) `
Make sure to browse the Live.com Collection of Search Macros.