Maybe this is all a joke; although I’ve never met him, I gather that Wales is a nice and funny guy.  Or maybe his graphics department just pulled a prank.  But at an event in South Africa, Wales showed a screenshot of what is supposed to be a new search engine, and actually looked a heck of a lot like a well-known social network.

On the one hand, well . . . there’s no denying that it’s Facebook with a few different terms and a bit of light green.  On the other . . . we know this layout has the potential to be successful.  And regardless of the design, Wales’s basic idea – people-powered search – remains as good or bad as it was before.

In any event, credit goes to Nic Haralambous for both attending the event in South Africa and taking the hard-to-believe pic.  Matthew Buckland also provided coverage.

"Google, Yahoo Vie For India’s Attention"

The reason behind these talks is, as you might have guessed, search.  Neha Kohli and Joji Thomas Philip of the Times News Network write that the NIC is interested in “improving its search facilities across government websites.”  And for those of you who didn’t know, Kohli and Philip add, “NIC . . . is a network provider to state and Central governments, and currently hosts over 5,000 websites which offers different search engines.”

A quickly-formed guess (mine) would have given Google favorable odds of getting selected.  After all, we tend to hear a lot more about their operations in India than Yahoo’s; Google has shown interest in both urban and rural life.  But then again, we tend to hear more about Google than Yahoo in every part of the world, and it looks as if the NIC may have found a problem with the Mountain View-based company.

“We are examining what Yahoo has to offer, and so far Google only supplies search engine hardware outside the country,” one unnamed NIC official told Kohli and Philip.  Yet there’s still hope for Schmidt, Page, Brin, and the gang: “We are asking Google if they would consider selling their products in India,” the official continued.

It seems that the NIC’s current search provider is satisfactory – just not great – so it may be some time before this matter is concluded.  In the meantime, India’s a popular place to be, and both companies are surely fighting hard for the NIC’s affections.