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From Speed Bump.

Looks like Google has found another market in which this powerhouse can dominate: politics. In an attempt to sway various immigration reform proposals Google’s VP of People Operations; Laszlo Bock, provides his testimonial on the effect immigration laws has on Google. For full details of their political escapades visit The Official Google Blog.

In his testimony, Laszlo said that, due to limits on the number of H-1B visas, Google is regularly unable to pursue highly qualified candidates. This year, an estimated 133,000 visa applications were filed by H-1B candidates in the first two days of the filing period for only 65,000 available spots. Over the last year alone, the artificially low cap on H-1B visas has prevented more than 70 Google candidates from receiving H-1B visas. Therefore, Laszlo said, “We would encourage Congress to significantly increase the annual cap of 65,000 H-1B visas, to a figure more reflective of the growth rate of our technology-driven economy.” He also urged Congress to address the backlog of employment-based green cards for highly skilled workers.

Looks like big business rears its money hungry head into government once again. I wonder what kind of incentives Google will offer Congress members in attempts to persuade their decision. Maybe a $400 credit towards their Adwords account, higher page ranking or a life time supply of Google brand socks.

Ahhh, Google.com…. I could go on and on about the wondrous tools that Google has pumped out over the years for the tech-savvy (and you have to be, if you want to succeed in the world of online marketing). If you are like most decently aware Internet users, you probably have Firefox installed wherever you go. Perhaps you even have a tool like Foxmarks syncing your bookmarks so you have up to date bookmarks wherever you go. But lets say you want not just your bookmarks, but your password, your history (and all encrypted to protect your privacy along with a password), and tabs session all to follow you wherever you go. Intrigued?

Enter: Google Browser Sync.

This incredible extension for Firefox,

Continuously synchronizes your browser settings – including bookmarks,
history, persistent cookies, and saved passwords – across your
computers. It also allows you to restore open tabs and windows across
different machines and browser sessions.

Connected Ventures has released this fantastic video of their working environment, located in NYC. Connected Ventures is a part of InterActive Corp (or IAC), which also happens to own a variety of sites including Ask.com, Chemistry.com, CollegeHumor, Evite.com, Match.com. But seriously though, after watching this video, and looking at their offices and the unbelievable perks (and attractive people), wouldn’t you want to work there?

Ask.com has just relaunched their search engine interface Ask3D and I have say that Ask.com really has hit the mark with this innovative update. Users can get refined search query suggestions, search results and categorized results on the same page which really provides a more through and inviting feel compared to the older SERP models. In addition to this they offer a new “binocular” feature that allows users to view a page without clicking on the link. Ask.com provides a full description of their new update here.

After spending some time using some of the new features I have to say that I am really impressed with what I’ve seen so far. I was a bit skeptical about the cleanliness and ease of use for the new features particularly the clutter that I expected to see with all this information packed into one SERP. However, I am really surprised at how intuitive and user friendly the new features feel. The SERP is organized in a very clear cut manner and with multichannel search results displayed it makes searching so much easier and quicker. The only pivotal difference that I saw, in terms of sponsored and organic results, is that there seems to be less emphasis on the sponsored results. Although it seems like this would have a negative effect the sponsored results have less of a paid advertising “feel” to them and may attract users who are wary marketers aggressively advertising irrelevant sites.

It really looks like Ask.com has got a winner here but let’s just wait until Google gets wind of the idea and makes it better.