Yahoo!

As part of the Senate Judiciary hearings today, former former FTC official (and new Google employee) Suzanne Michel, testified under oath today that Google, Microsoft and Yahoo all bid to become the default search engine on iOS’s Mobile Safari Web Browser.  As we know, Google won, and as we can infer, Apple get’s some revenue from Google for making it its default search engine.  As we know from Apple being Apple, the quality of the search results was probably as big a part of the decision as the relatively small bits of revenue.

But as part of the testimony, Michel said briefly (before she was cut off) that 2/3rds of mobile search comes from Apple iOS devices.  That’s pretty interesting considering the share of Android devices in the market.  But not altogether surprising considering the web browser market share which includes those millions and millions of iPads.

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AllThingsD is reporting that along with Amazon, Yahoo, and Dish Network, Google has made a bid for the free video streaming service Hulu. AllThingsD doesn’t provide any details quite yet, but we can imagine Google’s bid is in the range of $1.5 – $2 billion — just like the other three companies are offering. AllThingsD can’t confirm if Google has made a definitive bid, or is just offering a sum of money.

Google chariman Eric Schmidt said at a conference in Europe last month that Google isn’t ready to give up on Google TV. He cites possible Google TV downfall is due to the scarce amount of set-top boxes rather than full television sets.

The acquisition of Hulu would sure be a break through for Google TV. Currently, almost every large television network is blocking streaming to Google TV, making the content lineup almost non-existent. With Hulu and its partners, Google could open up a whole new realm of content to the service.

AllThingsD has indictated that Google has made clear to Hulu that they are ready to offer a large sum of cash for the product, and we know they’re not scared to do it. Hulu isn’t exactly sure what their stance is on selling quite yet, but we’re sure to hear more in the coming weeks.

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Google’s Android Market, Amazon’s Appstore for Android and other lesser known outlets, specialized websites and carrier-specific app bazaars are all nice venues to discover software for your Android device, but they’re far from perfect – especially if you access them directly on your device.

Not surprisingly, Google and Microsoft wouldn’t drill through their index in order to create a dedicated search page for mobile warez so Yahoo! took it upon themselves to fill the void (after all, they don’t have a mobile platform of their own to protect). Today, Yahoo! unveiled new search tools that help seek apps for your Android device easier than ever before. The initiative consists of a dedicated search engine called Yahoo! App Search and a mobile app dubbed Yahoo! AppSpot which is so far available only for iOS devices (Android version is in the works)

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