March 25, 2004
MSFT & Search: Europe, Ballmer
CNET reports that MSFT CEO Steve Ballmer got animated when the subject of search came up at the company's recent advertising forum.
"People say that Microsoft does it all, but this is the case where we didn't do it all," Ballmer told an audience of marketing and media executives on Thursday, here at the software giant's fifth annual advertising conference. Then, like an eager football coach pumping up the team for the second half, Ballmer reasserted that Microsoft is still in the game and plans to win.
"You'll see a lot of good competition in the area," he said emphatically, at one point throwing his pen.
In other news, the Merc reports that the recent EU ruling against MSFT may stymie the company's plans to integrate search into Windows.
Shopping.com IPO Is A Search IPO...
How? Besides my own bias that all of ecommerce is driven by search, see this excerpt from a story on Shopping.com's $400 million IPO:
Shopping.com's biggest customer, responsible for 38% of its revenue, is Google. Shopping.com's agreement with Google is expected to continue, although the market is highly competitive. The Yahoo! (Nasdaq:YHOO) e-commerce site has launched a new price comparison service, and Google is planning to launch its own price comparison service, Froogle.
And, ahem, let's not forget Amazon...
Here's the Shopping.com filing....(BTW, they filed in 2000 but never got out...)
Early April Fool's Post at MediaNews...We Hope
Matt over at The Standard points me to this parody of Yahoo's CAP program, which gets just about nothing right in terms of the presumptive pay for performance approach that it parodies, but is a pretty funny riff on what would happen if News Search was opened up to any bidder...
Organizations that are willing to spend the most will achieve the most prominent positions on the news pages, remaining in place until they are outbid by competitors. Although there will be no revenue payoff for news stories that rank high up the pages and gets lots of clicks, the program is certain to touch off a "share of mind" battle among news organizations--and, for the first time, allow the man on the street to tell his story without interference from editors.....
...Historically, professional journalists who were trained to separate wheat from chaff and remain utterly objective have decided what constitutes news stories and which ones deserve the most prominent "play" in newspapers, newscasts, and increasingly, online. That is, when they are not making up news stories, because it is easier than gathering the facts--and with some creative flare, can lead to prestigious journalism prizes. The Yahoo! "News Search" program essentially eliminates editors as gatekeepers to what constitutes news.
The piece includes some funny false headlines:
GIRLS SMARTER THAN BOYS - A study today released by Wellesley College is said to provide the first incontrovertible evidence that..
AOL REVENUES PUSH TIME WARNER STOCK HIGHER - Time Warner today announced that its America Online division was performing beyond all expectations and that Wall Street had finally taken notice as the parent company's stock price soared..
PEEWEE GOALIE TURNS AWAY 12 SHOTS - the son of billionaire George Soros yesterday turned away 12 shots on goal in a 23-4 loss to the..
UPDATE: It's Brandt's Bomb
Someone over there (I assume) is having fun at Google's expense - check out the top result for a search on "Out of Touch Executives" on Yahoo's Search page...
UPDATE: The Register has a story on this bomb, which clearly affected Google as well as Yahoo, and was perpetrated by Daniel Brandt, of GoogleWatch (and now Yahoo!Watch as well...he's a busy guy).
(thanks, Phillip)
Yippee! Jeremy Rants Again!
This time, it's his employer's travel service (that'd be Yahoo) that gets the honors...who hasn't had this experience online?
WaPost On TV: Shift Coming
Good to see major papers getting on board with the "broadcast is dead" meme: Media Giants Need To Learn to Sing A New Tune (reg req'd).
Excerpt:
....it is only a matter of time before millions of consumers will be doing things like creating custom concert videos of their favorite artists. They'll mix and match video from TV shows and DVD recordings which they (hopefully) will have acquired legally -- much as music fans have been creating custom music discs and tapes for years.
Record companies and Hollywood studios may not willingly cede control over how future fans watch stars perform, but it's hard to imagine how they could lock down digital video so tightly that clever youngsters won't eventually find ways around them. Already, the Internet abounds with freely available software that lets consumers circumvent copy-protection systems used on commercial DVD movies and concerts.
But as with music, it's also possible that the rip-and-mix generation will actually wind up buying more recorded video than before, all the better to fuel their digital creativity.
Upcoming WWW Conference: Loads O Search
Resourceshelf has culled the upcoming WWW conference for selected references to search. There's also a whole track on the Semantic Web.
The complete list is a Who's Who of search stars and a telling map of who's doing interesting research in the area. Included: Intel, University of Washington, IBM, Yahoo (Understanding User Goals in Search), National University of Singapore, MIT, Microsoft. A9's Udi Manber (who I did meet with, but can't go into our talk quite yet) is giving a keynote.
OK, I think I have to go to this.
March 24, 2004
Silverstein Rides Again
Interviewed in ZDNet, Craig suggests that voice-activated search is not so far away. Recall that his model was, at one point, Star Trek. Google Labs has a rudimentary application based on this idea here. And, as I noted yesterday, Opera has integrated it already into a version of their browser (using IBM speech technology).
Silverstein said he believes that within a few years Google could have a voice interface for everything from driving directions to help you finding the aisle for a particular food in your local supermarket.
"That's something you would never think to ask a search engine. You're not likely to be using your laptop in a supermarket, but in the future I think search will be far more accessible -- you won't be tied to your desktop, you will be able to do it from your mobile phone or PDA -- and you'll start to see search used in fundamentally different ways. The kinds of things people want information about when they are walking around or sitting in a bar is very different to what they want while they're at home," he said.
Thanks, Beal...
There Are Two Primal Forces In Comic Parody...
Sex, and....this. (Warning, not for the feint of stomach).
(You will thank me for NOT including an image, as is my custom).
(hat tip to Phillip)
Kanoodle News
Kanoodle announced that is has snagged MSNBC.com distribution today, here's the press release. Earlier it announced "ClickFactor" - a new ranking system for its ContextTarget paid search system. Forgot what Kanoodle's deal is? Here and here....
NewsJunkie
Microsoft is readying its own entry in the news search game, according to this Mercury News piece on "Newsjunkie," the latest purposeful leak out of Microsoft's research labs. Features sound cool, and certainly point to some common themes I've heard cropping up in discussions of next generation search engines.
Using principles of artificial intelligence and information retrieval, NewsJunkie keeps track of what a reader has already seen. It reorganizes news stories to rank those with the most new information at the top and push those with repetitive information to the bottom, or filter them out entirely.
NewsJunkie can help improve news alerts beyond key words to offer only new information, the researchers said. Dumais is working on a similar project to make search happen behind the scenes to recognize what you're working on, search your hard drive and automatically present related files. ``In this day and age there's such replication around,'' Horvitz said. ``As Google's news site says, `There are 1,400 other news articles on this topic,' but there's no guidance for what you might look at next. You have to say, `How can I cut to the chase?' ''
The Newsjunkie research paper will be presented at the 13th annual WWW conference in NYC in May. Yow, cool agenda. I want to go.
March 23, 2004
The future Google IPO Con Man Profiled...
Following on my earlier post: Two classic NY Post fame and foible stories, with photos, on the man who conned many into giving him money allegedly earmarked for purchase of "pre-IPO" google shares.
GuruNet Founder Interviewed
EMarketer has an interview with Bob Rosenschein, founder of GuruNet, which bills itself as an "answer engine." GuruNet has been around a long time, as these things go, and is worth a trial. It works by organizing licensed information into some 700,000 topics, which are accessed via a keyword-activated desktop application. In essence, any word or phrase you see - in an email, web page, Word doc, whatever - can be Alt clicked on to produce a GuruNet answer (as opposed to a list of SERPs, as with a search engine). Since it has a Mac OSX trial version, I plan to try it out....
Future of Commercial Search, Cont: Yahoo Autos
If you want to track the commercialization of search, watch Yahoo. Yahoo has created new commercial search attachments around the theme of cars. MediaPost reports.
After nearly a year's worth of consumer and advertiser research, Yahoo! has relaunched its Autos section, aiming to build loyal audiences throughout the entire car-buying process and offer advertisers more refined ways to target them....
...One big change: consumers will be able to drill down deeper than before within particular vehicle categories. For instance, a potential SUV buyer can search for and compare autos within the luxury category, and can also drill even further by price or gas mileage. The site will also begin recommending auto comparisons based on what users compare most often...
...After nearly a year's worth of consumer and advertiser research, Yahoo! has relaunched its Autos section, aiming to build loyal audiences throughout the entire car-buying process and offer advertisers more refined ways to target them....
From what I can grok, seems Yahoo has taken a page from Amazon's book and will create a deep and rather intimate portrait of your car buying preferences, and make suggestions along the way. I plan to use this service as I happen to be in the market, if I learn anything, I'll let you know...
March 22, 2004
Toolbars De Mundo...
There are a lot of new toolbars out there, and I can't keep up (especially since I am on a Mac). But Gary Price can....here's his review of HotBot's new toolbar. It has local search...and RSS search...
And, speaking of RSS, Dogpile launched an RSS enabled toolbar as well this week...
AP Story: Google Invades Privacy
Not sure the issues discussed in this piece are Google's problem alone. In fact, I'm quite sure they are not. But, often the press can't tell the difference. In any case, the set up of the piece:
"Google kind of makes it easy to connect all the dots together," said Richard M. Smith, former chief technology officer at the Privacy Foundation. "I think Google is the biggest privacy invader on the planet, no doubt about it."
But interesting and good to hear Larry quoted in this piece responding to the privacy concerns thusly: "We're not experts on all possible topics," Page said. "These (privacy issues) are hugely controversial, and I don't think it's a good idea for us to set policy." And...
"Do you not want Google to make information available that's available to other people?" Page asked. "I want to know it's out there on the Web. I don't want Google to censor it."
T'rati Goes Live With New UI
Check it out, new UI, and more features....congrats to Dave, who is sitting behind me (a bit bleary eyed) with a grin on his face.
Dan R, Jonathan Miller at PC Forum
Dan Rosensweig (COO Yahoo, at far left) and Jonathan Miller (head of AOL, near left) have joined Eric onstage. A pretty lengthy discussion of the role of social networking in their businesses, including Orkut. Eric acknowledge that Orkut was strategic to Google's ability to know more about its users so as to provide better service to them, and when it comes out of beta, it'll be integrated in some way into Google. Miller says he sees social networking as not having its own business model, but rather as BASF - making other businesses better. Dan (and later Eric agreed) said that social networking is a way to make sense of a world that has 10-20 billion pages that are all indexed and available - providing a context for better and more intelligently filtered information. The entire conversation is pitched in the context - provided by Esther, who is very engaged this year so far - that these companies are playing in a market that is several orders of magnitude larger than the IT business - what Eric called the information/media business. Architecting the information space is their main product, they agreed, and that is a huge business which is in the early innings.
Eric S. At PC Forum
Listening to Eric speak here at PC Forum. He's already made a few interesting comments. First, he dodged the IPO question. Then, in response to a question about Google's business model, he made an interesting declaration: He went on a practiced riff about the media business, how large it is, and how many "platform players" can thrive and no one approach will win. In other words, Eric views Google as a media company, or at least that's the take I came away with. That is new, last time we spoke, Google was a technology company driven by media revenues...
Eric also told an anecdotal story about the "Don't Be Evil" mandate at Google. Early in his tenure, when he still felt it was a bit odd for a company to be run by such a rule, he was in a meeting where a (unspecified) idea was tossed out, and one of the employees yelled out "That's Evil!!" A lengthy debate ensued. Eric pointed out that Google's culture has built in DNA around what is and is not evil, and when something comes up that might be evil, employees bring up an "evil alert." I dunno. I still think it's potentially dangerous for this kind of ad hoc, socially driven morality to drive cultures within large media companies.
March 21, 2004
Osama Bin Laden Is My Local Doctor
At least, that's what Google Local Search says, according to Gary Price....(see this link...I live in Kentfield...)
Update: More less than ideal results from Cambridge...
All My Covers Are Google
Newsweek couldn't help themselves. In fact, I think there are more Google covers this past year than Jesus covers. Jesus!
Steven Levy (a friend) does a fine job summarizing that which we already know from reading the last dozen or so articles. And Sergey and Larry play along, giving him lots of time at the 'plex. The angle: Google has competitors now. Google isn't that worried. Best quote: From Anna Patterson, late of the Internet Archive, new to Google:
"(MSFT search engineers are) a bunch of people at the first grade," she says. "Eight junior programmers who don't know anything about search."
Yow.
March 20, 2004
Vanity Googling Ends With Libel Suit
This is interesting: Man 'Googles' Himself, Sues for Libel
His lawyers blame PageRank...and want it taken offline.
LOS ANGELES -- An accountant who said an Internet search engine returned "alarming" information about him and his firm sued Google, AOL, Time Warner and Yahoo! Friday for libel.
March 19, 2004
Just Announced: Microsoft Will Clean Up Its Search Act
This just in, from the folks at MSFT PR: Today MSN will announce that beginning July 1, MSN Search will clearly delineate paid ads from organic search results, with the result being that organic (or algorithmic) results will be above the fold (the top half of the page) for the first time since...well since recent memory.
This is clearly an opportunistic announcement (timed as it is in the wake of the Yahoo CAP dust up), but I must say, it's a welcome one. Bravo, Microsoft, and I hope the execution lives up to the context and timing of this release. I've complained over and over about how crappy MSN search is, mainly due to the fact that you can't see the organic forest for the commercialized trees. According to an email I received from MSFT PR informing me of this, "The changes are being made to allow better positioning of sponsored links based on relevancy. These changes are a result of a series of consumer testing to determine user satisfaction and search relevancy with various UIs."
If I'm reading this right, MSN tested the idea that clearly labeling ads equates to more ads being clicked on and a better overall experience for the consumer, and found out - Holy Shit! - the hypothesis proves out.
Other highlights (again, quoting the email):
- MSN’s Search Featured Sites (SFS) and other paid listings will be outlined and the background shaded, and designated at “sponsored.”
- The number of paid links in the SFS will now number up to three (reduced from up to 4).
- MSN will now have up to one Editor’s Featured Site (EFS) below the SFS
- The right rail will continue to include up to 5 Overture paid search links.
- Overture continues to have sponsored links in the right rail
March 18, 2004
Lite Day Friday: Off to LA
I'm off to Pasadena Friday to spend the morning with Gary Flake, who runs Yahoo Labs (he was Chief Scientist at Overture prior to the acquisition).
Posting will be light, I suspect, till the weekend. Sunday I head to PC Forum, where I'm meeting a whole lotta folks. If any readers are coming out that way, ping me at jbat at battellemedia.com.
Finally, a reminder. If you want to receive the next copy of "Re-Find", the treble entendre-entitled newsletter that summarizes a whole week of Searchblog in one simple email, put your email in the box to the left of this post. Thanks to all who got last week's first issue and bothered to send me "Hey I Like It" emails. Much appreciated.
Happy Weekend!
