Directories and Search Engines

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 1, 2006 – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced the launch of Google Romance, a new product that offers users both a psychographic matchmaking service and all-expenses-paid dates for couples who agree to experience contextually relevant advertising throughout the course of their evening.

“Our mission, as you might have heard, is to organize the world’s information,” said Jonathan Rosenberg, Google’s senior vice president, product management. “And let’s face it: in what area of life is the world’s information more disorganized than romance? We thought we could use our search technology to help you find that special someone, then send you on a date and use contextual ads to help you, ya know – close the deal.”

Google Romance Beta

Be the first to Post Your Google Romance Profile

Read more about Google Romance: Official Google Blog: Cupid’s algorithms

Nice to see you’ve still got a sense of humor!

I didn’t think it would happen but it has. LookSmart has shutdown Zeal.com.

We thank you all for being a part of the Zeal community and contributing your time and knowledge to the Directory. LookSmart has decided to focus internal resources on objectives that are more central to our business strategy and Zeal.com has been shut down. We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you again for contributing to the Zeal community.

We think avid Zeal users will appreciate the large and vital community at Furl.net. Furl is an online book marking service that helps save information that’s important to you, share it with friends and see what others are saving.

Wonder if LookSmart could no longer afford to commit the resources necessary to maintain the directory. I don’t know of anyone that actually used Zeal, and I can count the referrals on one hand. I have a feeling that we’ll be hearing less and less about LookSmart.