Tableau: Google for Structured Data?

Gary points me to this Stanford-originated startup, I'm ashamed to say this is the first I've heard of it: Tableau. The company was slashdotted about four hours ago and the site appears to be down. Ah, fame.

The Seattle PI has a write up here.

Started as a government research project on the Stanford campus seven years ago, the team behind Tableau worked down the hall from Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. In fact, the two companies share more than a common address, co-founder and CEO Christian Chabot said.

The difference is that Tableau's software creates a graphical interface for "old-fashioned" databases such as Oracle, SQL Server and Excel while Google's technology is built for unstructured data on the Internet, he said

Slashdot thread here.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:37 PM
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Q: What's the State of Web Question Answering?

A: Gary's post on the subject.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:35 AM
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Thinking About Ads on Searchblog

So I have been noodling with the idea of putting ads on Searchblog. Why? Well, I spend a fair amount of time working on the site, and a little beer money would be not a bad thing. Also, it helps me understand a market in a much more personal way. And thirdly, I'm genuinely interested in how various ad systems work. I've taken a look at a lot of ad systems over the past few months, many of which I have also reviewed in my role as "band manager" for boingboing.net.

I've looked at Henry's BlogAds, but find them too narrow - there's no real market of search related companies there, and I don't want to be in the business of building it up. Of course there's AdSense, but I prefer to not take checks from Google while I write about them. Then there's Kanoodle, which is getting some buzz lately. And the stealth MarketBanker, which I've found less than ideal to communicate with (they are in something of a quiet phase - no they are not going public, just...reworking some stuff, from what I hear). There are others, and if you loyal readers care to suggest from among them, or to comment on the choices I outlined above, I'm all ears.

Then there's the idea of simply selling sponsorships one by one, which is what Boing Boing decided to do, at least to start. But the problem with that is I don't get to learn what it's like to work with the ad networks. So this is my lazyweb request: What do you think I should do?

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:12 AM
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New Copernic Desktop Search

For all you Windows users out there, another search tool for your desktop. Sigh. When will the Mac crack 5% market share and merit a good desktop search tool?

Gary posts a review. Reuters runs a piece.

From his review:

I've been using a beta version of the product for the past few weeks and I'm very impressed with its ease of use and overall effectiveness finding material on my computer quickly and easily.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:59 AM
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What To Do With All The Money, Part 2: Nothing

So says The Motley Fool's David Meier, roughly. Avoid the portal/diversification meme, he counsels.

I have to say, the more I stare at Google and the other players (and I'm doing a lot of staring lately), the more a strategy of differentiation-by-not-diversifying seems to make sense for Google. And in fact, Google's halting on-the-one hand, on-the-other-hand approach to portal-like apps (mail, orkut, froogle, commercial search integration) belie a persistent case of Strategic Indecisivitis. The problem: it makes no sense for a public company to focus only on Search, as it hitches your revenue wagon to a one trick pony. No wonder the debate about going pubic was so contentious, and the ultimate framing around it so tortured.

(tip to Andy and IDentity and Greg Linden.)

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Good Overview for the Non-SEM/SEO Person...

Ever wondered what is going on with the wild, messy, wonderful world of search-engine optimization/marketing? This piece, posted last week in Media Post, does a fine job of providing a concise first person overview.

Suddenly, venture capital firms are looking at search marketing technology with stars in their eyes. It's beginning to seem that a few people are going to make a lot of money in this industry. And we've even got internal politics. All signs of an industry that's finally ready for a run at the main stage. All of the signs became more apparent at the recent Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose this month.

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Google as Net Hard Drive

Jeremy points out that the new GmailFS hack makes it possible to turn Gmail into a giant hard drive, Slashdot chews through the implications....

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:16 AM
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What Google (And Alot of Other Companies) Knows About You

On the Ephemeral to Eternal Beat: a listing of what Google Knows. I'd add that it ain't just Google that knows this, and, what they know, the government can know, with a simple court order. (Via Phillip)

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:12 AM
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Another Yahoo/Google Comparison Site, Jux2 Update

Reader Thomas Hawk points me to googleguy.de, which compares Yahoo and Google results side by side. Meanwhile, Aaref's Jux2 has implemented my suggestions and will soon add a "what am I missing" button. From his email: Say you do a search on Google for "happy mutants". If you then click our browser button, it would take you to a jux2 page showing you the unique results from Yahoo and Jeeves (ie, the non-Google results).

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:53 AM
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Interesting Data

I've been reviewing a lot of data lately for a chapter in the book I'm calling "Who What Where Why When, How, and How Much." (OK, it's a working title.) And the folks at Majestic Research, who do investment-related analysis of the internet space based on data from Comscore and many other sources, have been particularly helpful. They've agreed to let me lay some of it on you, which is quite kind. Here's some of their findings in the search space - it's pretty interesting. The data is based on Comscore's tracking methodology.

* More than 80 percent of all searches on the internet are based on 4 or less search terms. The average search term is three words.
* Total number of paid search clicks trended flat to marginally up in Q2.
* Average Price Per Click on Google and Yahoo has trended slightly down over the past two quarters.
* Across the Google Network in Q1 of this year, approximately 50% of results included a sponsored ad, and 53% of all searches resulted in a click of some kind. Of those, 13% were a sponsored click. For Overture, the numbers were 36%, 66%, and 14%. Net net, Overture had more sponsored clicks (about 160mm) compared to Google's roughly 135mm.
* MSN was one of Overture's highest performing network partners in Q1. One wonders how MSN's recent moves to clean up its act will change this.
* For Q2, about 73% of bids on Overture were for less than 20 cents. Ag. PPC however is hovering at 41 cents.
*Worldwide, Google received 28 searches per searcher while Yahoo received 18.5 searches per searcher in June. Within the US, Google received 23.5 searches per searcher while Yahoo received 19.5.

Thanks, Seth and Gian.....

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:27 AM
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Gary Finds a Google Patent on Client Side Ads

Very interesting.

The full text of the patent.

The short of it: the patent describes a system whereby contextual ads are delivered on a user's computer using software that lives on that computer - ie a toolbar, a browser, an aggregator, etc.

While the patent is not filed by Google per se, many of the engineers named are employees of Google. This is sometimes done by companies who wish to obscure their intent. No idea if this is the case in this case, but seemingly, this patent covers a potential expansion of Google's advertising revenue model. It may be, though, simply a way of covering their current model as well. The timing, given the recent settlement with Overture, is interesting in any case.

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:14 PM
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Skrenta: Intent or Content?

Rich Skrenta, he of Topix and Web OS posting fame, is turning feed searches over in his mind. This is a neat conversation, referencing our pals Jeremy, Rafer, and others. In essence, why have all the majors punted on the presentweb - the fresh stuff that's being discussed *right now* via blogs, feeds, and pings?

He sets up the question: But still it seems odd, that with the biggies supposedly in cutthroat competition for search, that they've left the field for Feedster as the best resource for this class of searches. Why?

Then asks a bigger one: Feeds & Blogs: Fad or something big?

He points to usenet as the precursor to the current blogosphere, and notes that many are skeptical of the current "wild eyed enthusiasm" w/r/t same. (He also pokes two well known bloggers in the eye with the links he chooses, but I'll let him deal with that fight!) He wonders if Google is not just waiting and seeing - will this thing just be another search tab, like usenet became?

His conclusion: nope. Content is king, search is the king's phonebook (or index...). I certainly agree, but the two are entirely intertwingled. Google et al do well when content does well, otherwise, what is there to index? The big question, however, is whether Google wants to start playing in the content aggregation space - the new model of "search, find, subscribe" that Jeremy discusses. Yahoo has already decided it does (and the buzz is that more is coming...). So has MSN and AOL. But at the end of the day, the tail is far too big on this beast, and no one place can own the conversation.

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:24 AM
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Sell Side Advertising: A New Model?

A while ago I read Ross Mayfield's post on "Cost Per Influence" advertising and thought to myself "That feels important, but I don't get it." Something was missing, or, put another way, I was missing something. So I gave Ross a call last week and we hashed through it. What I realized during our talk was that the premise for how he got to the idea of CPI was, to my mind, far more interesting than CPI itself, at least in the near term.

Allow me to explain. Ross's musings on CPI turn on the concept of "transitive advertising" - a very interesting idea that flips current advertising models upside down. In essence, this new model for online ads reverses the relationship between publishers and advertisers.

In traditional advertising models, the advertiser holds all the cards. They decide what they want to spend, and most importantly, where they want to spend it. But the rise of pay-for-performance networks like Overture and AdWords/AdSense has changed this relationship in significant ways. First, advertisers are only paying when their ad performs - this alone is a huge shift in media. But as I've pointed out repeatedly, these networks also disaggregate advertisers from publishers. The advertisers are no longer choosing the publisher with whom they are doing business, they are instead choosing keywords, concepts, context. OK, but not very good for publishers nor for audiences, in my opinion.

But here's the heart of Ross's transitive advertising model, or what I'd like to call Sell Side Advertising. Instead of advertisers buying either PPC networks or specific publishers/sites, they simply release their ads to the net, perhaps on specified servers where they can easily be found, or on their own sites, and/or through seed buys on one or two exemplar sites. These ads are tagged with information supplied by the advertiser, for example, who they are attempting to reach, what kind of environments they want to be in (and environments they expressly forbid, like porn sites or affiliate sites), and how much money they are willing to spend on the ad.

Once the ads are let loose, here's the cool catch - ANYONE who sees those ads can cut and paste them, just like a link, into their own sites (providing their sites conform to the guidelines the ad explicates in its tags). The ads track their own progress, and through feeds they "talk" to their "owner" - the advertiser (or their agent/agency). These feeds report back on who has pasted the ad into what sites, how many clicks that publisher has delivered, and how much juice is left in the ad's bank account. The ad propagates until it runs out of money, then it... disappears! If the ad is working, the advertiser can fill up the tank with more money and let it ride.

I love this model because it's viral and it's publisher driven - it lets the publishers decide which ads fit on their sites. Publishers won't put ads on their site that don't perform, and they'll compete to put up ads that do. Now when I say "publisher" what I really mean is "blogger" - in particular the kind of blogger that uses AdSense - or would if it worked well enough. Bloggers like, well, me, and Rafat, and Om, and loads of others who provide a service that readers appreciate. This allows us to proactively vote for ads we think fit our site, that we think work for our readers. It's also a big win for advertisers, as their downside is protected by pay for performance, and upside is that the market is optimizing the ads through both the network effect, as with AdSense, as well as honoring the crucial endemic relationship between publisher/author/blogger and reader. Publishers are, in a very real sense, endorsing the advertiser, and that publisher's endorsement carries weight with the reader. (Publishers who endorse lame ads, or ads that take advantage of the reader, will be punished by the readers voting with their feet...)

Now, here's how CPI comes into play. The ad tracks not only where it is at any given time, but where it came from. So when I copy an ad from, say, Om's site to my site, Om gets a piece of the action for being the referring site. The ad reports that I got the ad from Om, and then if the ad performs on my site, he gets a bit of the juice for that. Presto - you are getting remunerated for your network of influence.

Certainly there are any number of major issues and problems with this model, and I Iook forward to hearing what you think they are. But in the end, this idea is no crazier than the PPC model itself, and, to my mind, worth figuring out how to implement. Thanks Ross, for propagating this neat meme. What do you all think?

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:34 AM
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Craiglist+Adsense

Rafat notes that craigslist's execs are tempted by Adsense....a billion pages makes for a lot of beer money...

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:12 AM
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A Clear Sign GOOG Is Drifting....Or...Maybe Focusing on The Right Things....

Customer complaints about the Green Google Lava Lamps....

The problem is that the liquid that the Green Lava Googlets float in is a murky, cloudy yellow
...as opposed to the Blue Google Lava Lamp, which is crisp and clear and really lets the Blue Lava Googlets flow freely.

Meanwhile....the Google Store announces a makeover...

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:34 PM
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Google Browser

Talk in the blog-o-sphere about a Google browser - Jason weighs in.

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:04 PM
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Search Engine Belt Buckle

Joi finds someone who has created a belt buckle that displays streaming search queries. Now that's...odd.

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:00 PM
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Quigo a Go Go

Spent some time on the phone with Michael Yavonditte, the CEO of Quigo yesterday. I've been getting smart on many of the new innovators in the advertising space, both for my book, as well as for my other role as band manager of Boing Boing and whatever might come next. Man, there's a lot going on in the online marketing space right now - a lot of innnovation, a lot of cool new shit, and a lot of potential.

According to Yavonditte, Quigo has perfected a relevancy algorithm that does AdSense one better - far better, to paraphrase his words. Quigo is focusing on picking off the high-brand-value publishers who use AdSense but are looking for a network solution that pays them more for what they believe is significantly better inventory than the lowest common denominator AdSense approach. Great quote: "Advertisers are saying to me 'I don't want the Guadalupe Times, I want ESPN!'" He's already stolen some business - he's got USA Today, National Geographic, the New York Post, and several others signed up, and reportedly has some major equity-for-distribution deals in the works, akin to what Google and Yahoo did in their early days.

While I am sure his algorithms are good, in essence, Yavonditte's secret sauce is vertical categorization. He's come up with a handful of major categories - Travel, Health, etc. - that advertisers self select into. Then he applies his contextual algorithm within that category, yielding what he claims are major improvements in CTR and PPC.

I've always suspected that Google will build vertical categories into AdSense, so I asked Yavonditte, given how exciting his claims seem to be, why Google won't simply swoop in and verticalize AdSense. "I'm trying to build a $200 million business," he responded. "Google needs to focus on finding the next billion dollar one."

Yes, but...$200 million is a hell of a lot more revenue than, say, Orkut is providing at the moment...

Yavonditte is limiting his company's focus to big and/or high quality publishers and big categories, for now, but he didn't rule out scaling the business to AdSense like proportions. He's also got a killer product in the works that - without tipping his hand too much - uses his algorithm to aid marketers make decisions about the right keywords to use for any given URL. Cool.

Quigo is nearly breakeven and has 70 employees, most of them in New York. They are backed by Bob Davis, of Lycos fame, among many others.

Marketing Vox interview with Michael here.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:57 AM
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Up and to the Right

Recently ran across this (a bit dated but still worthwhile) graph from Pew on broadband penetration for all your Powerpoint presos on why your (company, idea, marketing spend) is justified...

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:28 AM
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Fifteen Minutes...

I was just interviewed on Search Engine Radio - who knew there was a Search Engine Radio!? I have no idea how I sounded, but here's the link...

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:06 AM
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What to Do with All That Cash, Part 1 of 1mm...

Gary points to analyst Steve Harmon's musings: Google might well buy Monster.com and/or Doubleclick...

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:47 AM
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Google Gives Bloggers AdSense Choice

Google recently pulled its mandatory ads from Blogger, and the expected next step has arrived. From the announcement:

This may shock you at first so steel yourself for the idea. Ready? We are going to start paying bloggers. Soon you will be blogging for dollars. That's right people, chocolate is to peanut butter like AdSense is to blogs. Or is it the other way around? Either way, we've got something big here folks.

You may have noticed that we recently removed our ads from Blogger powered blogs. We were making money from those ads but you weren't getting any of it. Now, we're inviting you to set up your own Bloggerized AdSense account so that you make the money.

I think they are setting themselves up for a fall though, by pointing to Matt Haughey as the exemplar. His PVRblog is great, but it's in no way a typical blog. Nor is Metafilter for that matter.

In any case, this is clearly Google cleaning up its AdSense inventory. By letting bloggers self select, they are getting rid of the crap....

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:51 AM
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More Playboy Goodness

Seems Hef knows a good thing when he sees it. Given that the SEC ruined his Google interview scoop, he's posting outtakes from the interview on Playboy's site, the NY Post reports. And this time, the interview is in a pop up box, forcing you to the home page, (which is not worksafe):

Page: "We don't have as many managers as we should, but we would rather have too few than too many," he said. "We want a thin structure. It could be too thin. The downside is that people don't get the attention they need, especially the more junior people. " ...

Page: We have pushed hard to automate many of the normal management tasks. For example, we have good systems for employee reviews. All of them are collected together so when our managers need them they have all the data written up. We also have systems that automate and track the management of all our projects. This allows an enormous amount of freedom. One time an engineer told me, "I'm not working on what you think I'm working on." He explained that his work had evolved into something extremely relevant and important, but there was no place to track it in our system. I said, "Why don't you enter it into the system?" "I can do that?" he said. I'm like, "Yeah, who else is going to do it?"

Update: Here's a direct link, thanks Gary...

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:39 AM
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Do You Care About IM and Search?

Then read this thread over at Slashdot. "How Google Could Overthrow AIM."

Classic line: " I don't think that "Gim" is going to fly -- I failed it in high school, and don't want any more to do with it."

But seriously, there has been a fair amount of talk about what Google might do next. And IM is not exactly a bad idea. I'd wager it's made their Top 100 list.

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:24 PM
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Lycos Makes People Search Official, Launches Discussion Search

Lycos has launched People Search and Discussion Search. For a full review I'll point you to Gary's post. Thank God for Gary - when I'm taking most of the day off trying to write, he actually is writing...

(Press release in extended entry)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:        

Contacts:
Kathy O’Reilly                                        Anthony Loredo
Lycos                                                    Weber Shandwick
781.370.3454                                        212.445.8225
Kathy.O’Reilly@corp.terralycos.com                aloredo@webershandwick.com
               

LYCOS UNVEILS FIRST IN A SERIES OF PERSONAL CONNECTIVITY VERTICAL SEARCH PRODUCTS

Lycos People Search & Discussion Search Deliver on Connections Strategy, Leverage Lycos’ Search Heritage

WALTHAM, Mass. – August 23, 2004 – Delivering on its promise to connect people to individuals and things that matter most to them in their lives, Lycos U.S., part of Terra Lycos (NASDAQ: TRLY), the global Internet Group, today unveiled its Lycos People Search and Lycos Discussion Search products. The new products, two key components of the company’s personal connectivity strategy announced earlier this year, are specifically designed to help users search and find people and topics that are most significant and relevant to them.  Lycos’ new tools are unique given their aggregating, one stop search convenience. The company will leverage its critical mass of 37 million monthly unique users to generate use of the products and fuel the revenue stream behind the business model.

“We are pleased to unveil Lycos People Search and Discussion Search, the first in a series of Lycos connectivity products,” said Mark Stoever, CEO of Lycos U.S.  “We are pursuing a focused path where we know we can add value to our user and advertiser audiences by building on Lycos’ core strengths in the areas of search and subscription personal publishing services.  The emerging personal connections and publishing space is poised for dramatic growth, and our new connectivity products position us to capitalize on the current environment.”  

Lycos People Search – tools to accelerate search and retrieve information about people you know, whether you’ve lost touch with them or just want to find out more about them.  People Search aggregates information available in numerous online databases including alumni directories, professional profiles and public records.  

Lycos Discussion Search – tools to help you locate what others are saying, writing and posting on the Web about topics of interest to you.  This search tool retrieves information from some of the Web’s most popular public community boards and forums, collecting information in one place for easy use.  

Lycos People and Discussion Search product launches will be supported by on-line advertising campaigns and extensive site integration kicking off later in the year.   To rapidly establish a solid user base for its People and Discussion Search products, Lycos will heavily market to its 37 million monthly user base.

“The new Lycos aims to help users find people and share their passions. These products are a first step in realizing that goal,” Stoever added.

 About Terra Lycos

Terra Lycos is a global Internet group, with a presence in 40 countries in 19 languages. The group, which resulted from Terra Networks, S.A’s acquisition of Lycos, Inc. in October of 2000, operates some of the most widely visited Web sites in the US, Europe, Asia and Latin America, and is the largest access provider in Spain and Latin America.  Terra Lycos’ network of Web sites includes Terra in 18 countries, Lycos in 22 countries, Angelfire.com, Atrea.com, Azeler.es, Educaterra.com, Gamesville.com, HotBot.com, Ifigenia.com, Invertia.com, Lycos Zone, Maptel.com, Matchmaker.com, Quote.com, RagingBull.com, Rumbo.com, Tripod.com, Uno-e.com and Wired News (Wired.com), among others.   Terra Lycos, with headquarters in Barcelona and operating centers in Madrid and Boston, as well as elsewhere, is listed on the Madrid stock exchange (ticker: TRR) and on the NASDAQ electronic market (ticker: TRLY).        

###

©2004 Lycos, Inc. Lycos® is a registered trademark of Carnegie Mellon University.  All other product or service marks mentioned herein are those of Terra Networks, S.A., Lycos, Inc. or their respective owners.  All rights reserved.

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:02 PM
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Money It's a Flowin'...

Via Om and Ross:Technorati and SocialText get some VC fuel...

• Posted by John Battelle at 6:18 PM
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Web 2.0: Program Highlights, Your Input Wanted

Every once in a long while I'll use this space to baldly promote something I am involved in, and Web 2.0 certainly qualifies for that treatment. Back in May I announced I was going to be Program Chair for the event, which I am also co-hosting with Tim O'Reilly, but I've been pretty quiet since. But I'm way too proud of the lineup we've assembled not to plug it here.

Our theme is "Web As Platform," and we've built a program around the idea that we're in a far more robust second generation era of the web, one that has become a platform for innovation and business growth. We've got an incredible lineup of folks coming to discuss this theme and all its permutations. In addition, we'll have a ton of time for self-organized BOFs (birds of a feather meetings), workshops, and networking.

The conference is this October 5-7, in San Francisco at the Hotel Nikko.

Some highlights:

On the first day we're going to kickoff with a series of workshops focused on interesting trends/opportunities in the web platform space. These are going to be free form conversations moderated by an expert (or two) in the field. We will probably have two or three going at the same time, from 9 am till the main program starts in the late afternoon.

For example, Dick Costolo of FeedBurner is going to moderate a conversation on business models around RSS. Rafat Ali of paidcontent.org is going to do the same on the subject of, well, paid content. And Ross Mayfield of Socialtext will run a workshop on wikis and social software for business. In addition, we'll have workshops on search marketing, using eBay's developer platform for business, and much more.

This is where I want to solicit your advice and input. We have a limited number of these slots still open, and I'm very open to suggestions on topics and topic leaders. If you'd like to run a Web 2.0 Workshop, or co-lead one I mentioned above, let me know via email: jbat at battellemedia dot com.

Also, if you want to debut a new product or company at the event, ping me. We already have half a dozen new companies and/or products debuting for the first time at the event, but we're game for more!!

Once the program gets going, you won't want to miss a single session. We're limited the attendance to about 500 or so, first come first served. We kick off with a Q&A with Jeff Bezos, then move into my favorite element, the High Order Bit. These are short, solo presentation (between five and fifteen minutes) by an industry leader that compels, stuns, astounds, and/or baffles the audience. Often High Order Bit presentors will take a contrarian position on a major issue of the day, or will show extraordinary images or datasets. On day one, we'll have three HOBs, from Mitch Kapor (on politics), Bill Gross (introducing a new search company in real time on stage), and Gian Fulgoni (what Comscore knows).

If that's not enough, we'll then have an interview with John Doerr, who recently cemented his reputation as one of the world's most successful VCs (he invested in Google and sits on the company's board). Interviewing him is John Heilemann, who is perhaps the most accomplished interlocutor I have ever had the pleasure of working with.

JH is also going to interview Mark Cuban later that night at dinner. If you've never listened to Mark tell a story, watch your wine. His one liners will have you snorting it out your nose if you're not careful. After dinner, Google is sponsoring a late night party/lounge on the top floor of the hotel.

Highlights from Day Two include another new company introduction, this time from Excite co-founder Joe Kraus. We'll hear HOBs from Brewster Kahle, Mary Meeker, and James Currier, who runs Tickle and will give us some insights on what online dating profiles tell us about the human condition. We have sessions on the mobile internet, geolocation, and finance, as well as a killer discussion around music featuring Danger Mouse, Hank Barry, and Mike Weiss, the CEO of Streamcast/Morpheus (fresh off his big win for P2P in the 9th circuit...). Mike will also be showing/announcing his next generation P2P network at the event. And we're working on an absolutely killer evening event, but I can't talk about it quite yet.

We'll also have an interview with Marc Benioff, who couldn't be boring if we paid him to be.

Also, for you Searchbloggers, we're going to have a stupendous search session, with the heads of search at A9, eBay, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Ask. Where's Google, you ask? Well, they want to wait till the quiet period to announce who is speaking.

On Day Three, we'll have HOBs from Cory Doctorow (on Web 2.0 as AOL 1.0), Dale Dougherty (the book as a platform), Craig Newmark and his CEO, Jim Buckmaster (a billion pages a month and still not evil), Bill Gurley, and Larry Lessig. We'll also have some amazing sessions chaired by Tim, including the Architecture of Participation, a riff on the idea of having your customers build your business for you (think oFoto, Amazon, Six Apart. In fact, we have top execs from all those three in this session!). I'll chair a discussion about the future of media in a platform world, featuring Martin Nisenholtz of the NYT, George Conrades of Akamai, Mike Ramsay of Tivo, and Shelby of Cnet. And Om Malik is chairing a killer discussion on the telephone as platform. Not to mention the top research guys at IBM and MSFT will be there, showing off stuff directly from the labs.

We'll end with a conversation with Jerry Yang. Did you know Yahoo turns ten years old this year?

Well, those are some highlights. I have to say, I've been doing this conference thing for a while now, and this is the best lineup I've ever had the pleasure of assembling. There's a real energy this year, a sense that if we can keep our focus and remember what matters, we might just execute on some of those dreams we had back in the Web 1.0 days.

So take a look over at the site, and register to come. As readers of Searchblog, you're entitled to a special discount. If you didn't get the invitation the first time around, email me and I'll send you the code. Registration includes a booklet that Tim and I are putting together with pages and pages of metrics and highlights on the state of the internet industry. And you'll have access to the Web 2.0 Wiki, where we're taking input on every single session so as to incorporate your questions into the onstage dialogue.

Also, please give me feedback on the program and especially the workshops. We still have time to make last minute changes and additions. See you there!

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:26 AM
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Google Guy Responds

Down here, we had a bit of a debate about what was going on with Blinx, Feedster, and Google. Seems the problem has been solved, Google Guy showed up in the comments with what seems to be an explanation. Thanks, Google Guy!

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:20 AM
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Whoops.

ZDnet: MoveOn.org subscriber-data leaked through search.

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:29 PM
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Google Breaks Into Original Range

GOOG closed today at $108.31, thirty one cents above the low end of the range within which Google originally valued itself. (It was $108-$135). It was up nearly $8 from its first close yesterday.

• Posted by John Battelle at 5:55 PM
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This Is Odd

I very much doubt this was intentional...at least, I hope it was not, but it seems Feedster and Blinx have been taken out of Google's results in one way or another. Read up on it here and here....

• Posted by John Battelle at 3:27 PM
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Advice from Gillmor

Dan has some advice to Google on its coming out day....

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:11 AM
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Broadband Pushes Past 50%

From Neilsen/NetRatings via Yahoo. More than 50% of US net users are now on bband. This is up from 38% last year. Of course, compared to Korea it's really just middleband, but this is a significant milestone nonetheless.

(Hat tip to Gary)

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:00 AM
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GOOG Opens Up

Latest quote shows it opened up 15% at nearly 100.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:21 AM
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GOOG To Open Shortly...

I can't get a price for it yet, but AP says soon.

UPDATE: CNBC claims the pre-open buzz is that the stock will trade up, FWIW.

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:22 AM
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Yow. WSJ Tears Google a New One...

The headlines sum it up:

Engine Trouble
How Miscalculations and Hubris
Hobbled Celebrated Google IPO
Euphoria Ebbed, Tech Stocks
Sagged, Till Firm Cut Size,
Priced at a Low $85 a Share
Blow to Dutch-Auction Method

I'd love to link to it, but it's paid sub. This is on the front cover of the Journal the morning the stock will open on the NASDAQ. Get the sense the banking community is pissed yet?

Highlights:

Google Inc. may have needed Wall Street after all.
The Web-search giant's quest to reform the Street through an unconventional initial public offering backfired, as Google yesterday sharply cut the size of its stock sale and then set an IPO price far lower than it had anticipated: $85 a share.
A combination of Google's own hubris, stubborn investors and a deteriorated technology market transformed what was billed as the hottest IPO of this short century into a rather messy affair....
...The price "says that a type of auction going out to the public like this is a failure because it raised uncertainties to such a level that people backed away," said Matthew Rhodes-Kropf, an auction theorist at Columbia University's business school in New York. By creating uncertainty, it "got Google a worse price than they could have gotten using a standard mechanism," he said...
...They managed to tee off the broader constituency of Wall Street, and it's obviously hurt them," said Brad Ruderman, head of Beverly Hills, Calif., hedge fund Ruderman Capital Partners, who was sitting out the Google auction. "Wall Street wins again."...
...In the end, Messrs. Page and Brin may have themselves to blame for setting expectations too high, in regard to both the pricing and their ability to avoid Wall Street's usual ways. The $85 price was about where many financial experts had pegged the shares' values early on....
...When Google executives, including Messrs. Brin and Page and CEO Eric Schmidt, met with mutual-fund and hedge-fund investors at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel the day after the pricing announcement, the presentation was light-hearted, and thin on details. Some investors sitting in the ballroom began speculating with each other whether the executives had spent any time practicing the presentation, or if they were winging it.
Glenn Krevlin, a New York hedge-fund manager who runs Glenhill Capital LLC, said he had no interest in the stock after attending the road show. "They didn't tell you anything. They came across as high and holy," he said...

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:03 PM
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Markoff's Grace Note

Journalists read other journalist's stories with a different lens. So when I read Markoff's piece (reg required) in the Times today, I was thinking "OK, what does he have that is new - he never writes about Google unless he has a scooplet buried somewhere..."

I found it here:

According to several people close to Google, the company's reticence has drawn regulatory attention in the past. They say that a continuing informal inq