Info on Longhorn, Microsoft’s planned file system: Longhorn will finally allow you to search a single Windows machine with similar ease to the way you can already simultaneously search hundreds of thousands of other computers, via a web search. But, as Danny Ayers points out on RSS-dev, Longhorn is based on a relational file system, something which is perhaps obsolete for the purpose. An XML or even better, a graph based model would be more suitable. “Perhaps a little unimaginative of them to use a relational store (a graph model would be a better match for the networked computer environment IMHO), but I suppose they’ve already got the code. I guess at least it will mean that “Find File” will take days rather than months…”

This is huge– ok, perhaps overstating, but remember, search ads are a 1.5 billion dollar business and the following extends Google in the general ad space alongside companies like DoubleClick. The first signs of what the Google/Blogger combination will yield are shown with Google’s latest Adwords initiative. Google has just launched adverts which are based upon the content of a web page, for an example see the old Industry Standard website. This is a major new direction for Google since it extends their main revenue source from adverts on their own and affiliated search sites to any website. It also marks a trend away from the banner ad – in fact web advertising will increasingly consist of targeted text advertising and rich media adverts. The key to the targeted ads is that they change according to the content of the page (Google continually spiders the pages and serves different ads…

So I was wrong last week, but correct originally. Overture have indeed bought FAST. Despite the drop in their share price, this is a good move by Overture. Google has not yet raised cash from an IPO and so can only offer stock. Overture is mopping up the loose ends in the search landscape by offering cash and is covering itself against longer term weaknesses. Overture to buy search services | CNET News.com