+ Marketwatch along with a post on the JotSpot site (the wiki, web collaboration folks) reports that Google Has Acquired the Company.
The deal has officially closed but financials are NOT being disclosed. Also, new registrations have been closed to the public. In other words, if you want to try it, you’re going to need to wait. Similar to Writely, stay tuned. Those paying for access to the service will no longer be charged. More here and here.

+ Ask.com, Yahoo, and Google Offer Special Halloween Logos and Home Pages.
Note how the Ask.com logo offers up direct links to a wide range of info about the holiday and even costume ideas.

+ Ask.com’s Revenue Increases 62 Percent (via Bloomberg)

Google Fined $43 Million in Belgium
(via e-media Tidbits, Google Blogoscoped, and Digital Inspiration)

+ Another Company for Google to Acquire?
This time in the online maps world. Gary share some facts on Google Blogoscoped.

+ French publishers join Google booksearch lawsuit (via IDG News Service)

Searching on Zotspot could earn users a 10 spot
From the article:

Start-up Zotspot is set to officially launch on Tuesday a site that pays people to search, and pays them even more based on how many other people they refer to the site.

“To give you a sense of the earning potential, we estimate that each referral who uses Zotspot as their primary search engine will generate between 10 cents and 50 cents for you per year. (We can’t guarantee those estimates, but we hope to continue to increase member earnings and even pass those numbers in the future!)” the Web site says. “If you refer 10 people, they each refer 10 people and so on, you could earn over $250 per year.”

It’s not a pyramid scheme because it doesn’t require people to pay anything to participate, the site says.

More via the Zotspot FAQ.

As Chris Sherman points out paying people to search is not a new idea. The article lists several current and past services:

+ GoodSearch.com
+ Blingo.com
+ MSN’s Search and Win
+ iWon

Zotspot results pages list 10 results per page and at times seems to have issues with collocating the same page with differerent urls. A results page also includes two sponsored links at the top of the results page and nine or ten sponsored links in the right rail. Their are no cached pages or an advanced interface.

Source: News.com

Weekend Google Roundup
Two great blogs and bloggers with the big Google news of the weekend past.

1) Google Base 2
Philipp has a rundown of Garret Rogers’ possible discovery of a Google Base “2″.
Gary comments in this post that Microsoft Live Expo has been offering maps since day one and that some of the search limits (like gender) when searching for an ice cream maker seem a bit odd. He also points out other issues with Google Base metadata here.

2) Google Blogoscoped also points out that a new prototype version of Google News might be in the works. Coming soon. Lenssen writes:

One more specific objective Google outlined as company goal earlier this year in another paper** available to me was to internally test a Google News prototype during the fourth quarter. This “radically improved” prototype should allow “other news sources, and organizations and individuals mentioned in news stories to debate specific points.”

Sounds interesting yet vague. Worth noting that Topix.net with a publicly announced database larger than Google’s has been offering the chance for users to comment and debate any post from their massive compilation of news sources and top blogs for many months. Here are two examples. 1 ||| 2 .