Random Is Good

Or so says Shmoogle, which randomizes Google's results. Neat parlor trick, but somehow I sense it won't be up for long... (Thanks, Philipp)

Update: Gary has some thoughts on why the deeper point of Shmoogle is worth making.

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:45 PM
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Forms and Feeds

Russell is playing with adding forms to his feeds, based on thoughts from Scot. I like this idea. I've often wondered when RSS will be hacked to the point it sort of mutates into another variant of the browser - when it does, then publishers might see it as just another window into their world, and stop worrying about RSS and learn to love it. Forms in feeds - ads in feeds - it's just another way to get the conversation out there. Long term, the OS is the browser, may the best experience win.

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:35 PM
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Fun Weekend Piece on Google Maximizers

From the LA Times:

Ramey, 30, is part of Google's in-house advertising agency, a team called the Maximizers that helps clients navigate the complex world of search-related advertising.

Her mission is worthy of a haiku writer.

Read to the end for a haiku from an apparently frustrated Google employee.

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:23 PM
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Safa on GOOG: It'll Hit 300

Last month Safa Rashtchy of Piper predicted GOOG would hit 250, then he revised to 275. Now he's saying 300. I get his reports in email, and he has not uploaded this one to the web yet, but in short, he notes Google's expanded product offerings and upgraded ad networks as signs the company will continue to beat Wall St. estimates.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:14 AM
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Be Careful What You Google Map

It might be a Stealth Bomber.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:35 AM
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Findory Mashes up AdSense

This is an interesting twist: Over at Findory, Greg and his team have introduced what they are calling "Personalized Advertising." It's AdSense, but remixed through Findory's personalized filters to be more relevant. From Greg's post:

This early version is built on top of Google AdSense, but these are not normal AdSense ads. They are not targeted merely to the content of the page, but to the individual behavior of each reader.

Update: I asked Greg how he does it, and whether it'd be against AdSense TOS to actually remix AdSense. Here's his response:

That'd be nice if we could filter AdSense, but I suspect you are correct that that would be against the terms of service. 
 
Instead, we request Google select ads based on information we extract from a combination of the content and the user's history on Findory.  It is layered on top of our personalization engine and Google's AdSense.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:24 AM
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WSJ And Free

I've been less than kind to the Journal in the past, but I recently started subscribing to its free RSS feed (you can link to these stories) and have found myself happily reading Journal stories again. Here are a few:

Gates Casts Cold Eye on Google (keying off last week's D conference).
The Numbers Behind Blogs (a round up of sorts).
Sky High Search Wars (Space, the next frontier - satellite search wars).
How Old Media Can Survive in a New World (I found this specious, but you be the judge).

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:58 AM
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Intent Driven Search?!

My favorite word, now a tagline at Yahoo, which launched Mindset ("Intent Driven Search) today. Greg has an interesting take on it here.

Want to return to classic Battelle Joints After Midnight stuff about intent? Of course you do!

It's too late on a Friday, and it's been too long and interesting a week, to play with this right now. Much news these past few days in my other life, and also over at Web 2.0, which is really taking shape, more as soon as I can possibly talk about it.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:30 PM
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Online Ads at $12.3 Billion This Year, And That's the Conservative Vote

Goldman gets into the game with a prediction. The main question is, when does online surpass TV?

From the MediaPost coverage:

The report... also predicts that online advertising could account for as much as 7 percent of total ad spending by 2009--up from between 4 and 5 percent last year--and that search will represent more than 50 percent of all online ad dollars..... earlier this month, Forrester Research predicted that online advertising would reach $14.7 billion this year--23 percent more than Forrester's estimate for 2004 estimates. Research firm eMarketer predicted a total online advertising market of $12.9 billion this year--a 34 percent increase over eMarketer's 2004 estimate.

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:56 AM
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Google Loses Round In Digital Envoy Case

Cnet reports the case will move forward.

The two companies had a licensing agreement as far back as 2000 that relied on Digital's IP technology to pinpoint the physical location of Web visitors for Google so that it could better serve sponsored search results. (The parties no longer work together.) Digital balked when in 2003, Google broadened use of the geo-location technology to include serving targeted advertisements onto third-party sites in a program called Google AdSense.

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:54 AM
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New Adsense Test Units Spotted

Interesting to see. Google announced earlier this spring that they would be trying out new stuff, I am reminded by the folks there, and here is one example. Interactive units, it seems - "click to see ads about...."
(thanks, Rick)

• Posted by John Battelle at 2:58 PM
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This Is a Big Deal, Folks!

So says SEW on the topic of Google needing two days to restore its control over two hijacked queries.

Two days after it appeared, Google has finally managed to get its hijacked listing restored for queries on adsense and google adsense. Two days! And this to correct a problem it has been told about for over year, a problem it largely dismissed as not being a big issue?

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:12 AM
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AdSense For Feeds Q&A

Tim Bray posts some questions about Google's new Adsense for Feeds. Jason Shellen responds.

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:08 AM
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Ask Launches New Zoom and Answering Services

Tonight Ask launched two cool new features, both innovations based on its study of how its customers use the service, according to Jim Lanzone, who runs the company's search efforts. The first, Zoom, builds on Ask's original clustering technology but goes several steps further, adding "narrowing" and "expansion" on your search based on Ask's Teoma technology. I got a preview from Jim, and while I have not really been able to bang on it, it seems quite cool. For example, a search on "the beatles" will offer "Beatles Lyrics" and "Beatles Names" as narrowing results, and "Beatlemania" and "Rolling Stones" as expansion options, among others. Another feature is "related names" which for the Beatles includes Elvis and all the four Beatles. Play with it, it's pretty neat.

Secondly, Ask is rolling out an expanded answering tool. Now, when you put in a phrase that might be understood as a question (ie "deadliest snake") Ask will do its best to offer the web's best answer. Ask will bold and enlargen the words its algorithms have concluded is the best chance to be correct. (It will also offer any number of other possible answers.) But these answers still reflect Ask's best attempt at discerning truth from what Lanzone calls "the wild west." It's a worthy caution, for when you ask "who killed JFK" you will get any number of responses. The first concludes in its bolded text: "The Warren Commission categorically stated that Lee Harvey Oswald was the killer of JFK and that he acted alone." But if you click through to the actual page from which this text is lifted, you get a conspiracist's dreamworld (or the truth, depending on your predelictions).

Stepping back from this, Lanzone says that in tests, the new web answer feature increased click throughs on the first result by 200 percent. "Our goal is to decrease the number of people who come to service and can't find what they want," he said. He added that it's Ask's goal to keep creating new features that, once sampled, will make folks dedicated users of Ask's searchers. Just in time, for apparently Diller intends to start pushing a lot of new traffic Ask's way in the coming months. Should be interesting to see how it turns out. My take on this is simple: Ask is resurgent, it's got a strong service, it keeps innovating, and it's got IAC behind it now. Don't expect them to stay 25 points behind Yahoo and Google for long.

PS - If Diller wants to change Ask's name to Jeeves, he better read Gary - someone else owns the URL.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:30 PM
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Two Ad-Driven Startups Profiled

Evan's Odeo in Businessweek

With his new company Odeo, Williams and partner Noah Glass aim to build a one-stop Web site where the masses can find and subscribe to podcasts, and create new podcasts with ease. Odeo will then help match advertisers to the newly created podcasts or let podcasters charge a subscription fee to listeners.

And Philip's AdBrite in the LA Times:

He persuaded Sequoia Capital, the blue-chip Silicon Valley venture capital firm that backed such companies as Google Inc. and Apple Computer Inc., to invest $4 million in his method of placing ads on websites. He moved from New York City to San Francisco with dreams of turning AdBrite into the next billion-dollar company.

In some ways, Kaplan's story is the story of the Internet: Both worked through their youthful indiscretions and are coming back in a more sure-footed, sober way. After 10 years of booms and busts, the Internet has proved itself a medium capable of generating billions of dollars from the kinds of ads Kaplan is selling.

• Posted by John Battelle at 3:02 PM
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A Little Off Topic, But...

Check out this extraordinary story in New York magazine by my friend John Heilemann. It chronicles the intense and very personal case of a man in New York who is suing a boys choir school. Larry Lessig, a hero to many in the Web 2.0 world, is not only the lead lawyer in the case, he's the driving character of the piece. Well worth the read.

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:47 AM
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Retail Search Spend Doubled Last Year

So says Forrester, MediaPost reports.

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:08 AM
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Speaking of Ask, Check Out Answers

Answers.com traffic has spiked since it got the nod from Google for its definition service. Here's a comparison traffic graph with Ask on Alexa. Impressive. See that spike in the blue line? That's when Google started pointing to it (right after it shed its sub model and went free).

• Posted by John Battelle at 12:16 PM
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Diller On Why IAC Bought Ask

Barry Diller took the stage at D today (see my interview here) and spent the first half hour or so talking about search, and why IAC bought Ask. Among the gems: "We were defensive about search...due to fears of disintermediation...but then realized....life will start with the search box."

Diller went on to declare that search will be the de facto interface to the screen, and I certainly agree. He then told the story of how they came to the decision to buy Ask. The team made a graph of market share, and saw Ask at 6-7 percent, Google and Yahoo at over 30. Could IAC move Ask to the right, to gain more market share? "If the answer was yes, then the acquisition made sense," Diller said.

Diller believes the answer is yes. He also believes Ask is a "differentiated" product, one that if more folks knew about, would take share from the incumbents. This is a process he's run before - Fox was a differentiated product which took share from the three incumbent networks. "I love competing against larger players as a newer entrant," he said. "Ask as a standalone company was constrained."

Among other things, Diller hinted he might change Ask's name from Ask Jeeves to "something with one word," claimed that CitySearch broke even last month for the first time ever and is poised to win in local search through its vast databases of structured local information, and claimed that in the end, search is a media business (yup), and that Yahoo and Google will not be able to hold onto their commanding leads in market share forever.

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:39 AM
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Google Ad Model Watch

Gary points to MarketWatch and speculates on Google driving new ad models based on a clearinghouse approach. It's pretty much where things are already, to be honest, with more site specific striping. Publishers already see AdSense as a place to clear unused inventory. This would simply be the next step.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:28 AM
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Chat With Perry Evans of Aptas

Here at D I got a chance to talk with Perry Evans, a mapping and local search entrepreneur who is working on a new company called Aptas. Aptas is working to re-structure yellow pages data to make local search more relevant. The company is partnering with several yellow pages companies (Dex, for example) to bring a new kind of local search site to market, and Evans makes a pretty convincing case as to why Yahoo, IAC, Google, et al don't necessarily have the market sewed up. He also makes a good case as to why the yellow pages still matter (I certainly have written them off from time to time).

For one, he points out that most yellow pages companies are now owned by LBO/private equity firms, and therefore have access to very deep pockets and a very real desire to leverage the yellow pages' assets into new, high growth markets. Clearly, local search is such a market. In other words, the yellow pages are no longer run by sclerotic RBOC managers, but rather rapacious financiers looking to take their properties public, and to do that, they need a growth story.

Secondly, Evans points out that there are plenty of ways to find distribution beyond the portals - including and especially mobile. In other words, just because we go to Yahoo Local now, does not mean we will in the future, especially if someone has a better solution. Evans claims to be working on such a solution, and expects to roll it out (in partnership with Dex) this Fall. He's also working on combining local search and web with 411/information over cel phones. Sign me up for that.

• Posted by John Battelle at 5:14 PM
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BitTorrent Search

Here it comes, Wired reports. TechDirt says, well, the lawsuits are next.

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:24 AM
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Google Is Not Limitless

Yeah, this is old news, but I've been thinking about Google's web accelerator. As you recall, Google introduced this in early May, but a week later stopped downloads, claiming that it had reached capacity for the time being. Not everyone was buying that as the reason. The web accelerator was derided by many webmasters for various implementation drawbacks, and when Google halted the beta distribution, many smelled the same kind of disingenuous spin that they heard with the Google News/China incident. Many believed that Google pulled the program because of the webmaster’s complaints, and manufactured the "capacity" issue as a coverup.

I'm not so sure. A very credible source insists that, for now anyway, Google simply can't handle the load. “(Google) ran out of bandwidth,” the source told me. “It’s as simple as that.”

While Google certainly does have an extraordinary infrastructure, it is not limitless, and I think this move proves it.

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:14 AM
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Clickfraud Clearinghouse

Gary reports:

Three of the attorneys involved in the click fraud class action lawsuit that Danny blogged about last month have started a web-based clearinghouse that will contain information about the case and links to articles about click fraud.

The site is called LostClicks.com.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:49 AM
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Jobs On Suing Bloggers

Last night Steve Jobs gave a great interview with Kara and Walt, and I was with him for most of it - with him as he railed against the walled gardens of cable and mobile phone operators, with him as he showed really cool new iTunes/RSS/Podcasting integration, with him as he dodged questions about whether Apple was going to get into the video market. But then he started justifying his decision to sue a few bloggers for leaking Apple's product plans. He claims that no one has the right to publish confidential information just because they can, and so far, the courts are agreeing with him.

I say, fuck that. I've stayed out of this one because it's orthogonal to search, but it's directly related to my ability to do my job, and I am not alone. At the core of this case is a clear attempt to draw a line between professional and amateur journalism, and as a practitioner of both, I have to say it's a very dangerous line to be drawing. Should the courts decide whether the next Tom Paine has to work at the Wall Street Journal before he starting cranking out his pamphlets? I don't think so.

When I was 25 years old,I was a young, untrained reporter at MacWeek, a new Macintosh trade publication. I cultivated as many sources inside the industry as I could, trying to get scoops about what Apple might be doing next. My readers were volume buyers at corporations who were eager to know what was next, so they could plan their purchasing.

Through a source, I got my hands on an early prototype of a new machine, called the Mac IIci, which was Apple's major play in corporate America. I took it apart, had some engineers stare at it for a while, and wrote up a cover story, including a photograph of the motherboard. I was told later that corporate sales at Apple tanked for a while, as folks waited for the hot new machine.

So, why didn't they sue me? One reason: Jobs wasn't running the company then. Jobs would claim that I was working at a "real publication" - it was owned by Ziff Davis at the time - but I have to say, most bloggers today are far more qualified to run a story like the Mac IIci scoop than I was back then.

During the Q&A, someone asked him about another dumb move: pulling all Wiley books from his Apple Stores because he didn't like an unathorized biography Wiley published. Why did he do that, the questioner asked. "I didn't want to do business with them," he answered. He has that right. But then he added: "People can publish whatever they want to publish." I guess so, as long as they are "real publishers."

Forcing journalism into some kind of a "qualified" box is a very bad idea. Jobs vowed at the conference to take this issue to the Supreme Court if necessary. I hope he does, and I for one plan to fight him the whole way there. If you agree, help EFF work on this issue. Thanks.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:40 AM
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Gates Shows Mostly Search At D

Gates is speaking now and showing stuff that looks an awful lot like Google Satellite/Earth. In fact, most of his talk was search related. He's integrated some very detailed views into his demo, down to much more resolution than Keyhole currently shows. "Local and mapping are coming together as one," he says.

The difference between Google and MSFT's satellite stuff? "We started the satellite thing ten years ago," he said, somewhat defensively. "If it touches on search, we're going to do it, Google's going to do it, Yahoo's going to do it."

Gates also showed a search/homepage personalization tool that looks a lot like the recent stuff from Google (which looks a lot like the old stuff from Yahoo). I won't go into details, but will udpate with links if there is coverage....

Update: They actually announced "MSN Virtual Earth" at the conference. Details in extended entry. Link when it goes up. The image at left is from their "45 degree" angle. Pretty cool.

Today at “D” Conference in Carlsbad, CA, Microsoft founder Bill Gates presented his vision of MSN Virtual Earth, an exciting new component of Microsoft’s Search vision that gives consumers a deeply immersive search experience where they see what it’s like to be in a location and explore what they can do there.

MSN Virtual Earth uses location as the way in which people interact with the information on the web so that they can more easily find, explore and plan activities relevant to that location.

· For example: Say you are buying a house and want to look at the traffic and weather patterns around that house for the past year. In addition, you want to find nearby dry cleaners and restaurants. MSN Virtual Earth would let you view that information on one map, layering each piece of information you request and giving links and more details about those items.

MSN Virtual Earth will provide a core set of reference points such as maps, aerial imagery, photos, consumer and business directories, and ratings and reviews. In addition, MSN Virtual Earth will allow the broader community of consumers and businesses to contribute their own location-specific information to create an always expanding, dynamic and relevant local search experience.

We did not share the entire feature set for MSN Virtual Earth today but some of the key capabilities that we showed include:

· Imagery – satellite maps and a unique 45-degree-angle view of buildings and neighborhoods
· Hybrid Maps -- street maps overlaid over satellite maps
· Full-bleed Map Views – a nearly full screen map that users interact with
· Scratch Pad – a online clipboard for customers to perform multiple searches and plan their activities

The first release of MSN Virtual Earth is expected to be available sometime this summer. Please let me know if you have any questions or would like a screenshot of MSN Virtual Earth.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:15 AM
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At D

I'm at the Wall St. Journal's D Conference today and Tuesday, last night was a discussion with Steve Jobs (he showed off Tiger's new Spotlight search, among other things). I'll have much more to report soon, if any Searchbloggers are here, track me down!

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:22 AM
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Ask Buys Excite in Europe

Doug has the scoop.

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:45 AM
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Bloglines Blog Search a-Comin'

Mark promises BusinessWeek a summer release of an engine that will "world-class blog search, which we don't think exists now."

I do agree, that much as I love the current options, they are a bit slow and hard to use sometimes. And the whole world has wondered why the big G or Y don't have a blog flavored search vertical. We'll have three by August, methinks.

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:36 AM
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Given My Inclination...

...to berate Google for not having any strategic center, this post from Marissa makes my list as an instant classic. From it:

Does Google have a strategy, or are we just a bunch of mad computer scientists running around building whatever we want? Today this question gets an answer: we've launched our personalized homepage via Google Labs.

I'm not sure that's an answer, but it's certainly the start of something.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:45 PM
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Wikipedia and Search

A nice piece penned by Max Kalehoff.

A ranking of all Web sites based on the total volume of traffic received directly from search engines placed Wikipedia at 146 in June 2004. But in September 2004 it jumped in the ranking to 93; 71 in December 2004; and in March 2005, it was the 33rd most popular site in terms of visits received from search engines.

That means Wikipedia is impacting not only the trivial results of our Internet searches, but increasingly what content we consume and the types of answers we find to larger questions. This is a profound statement for anyone competing in the marketplace for attention to content and ideas.

• Posted by John Battelle at 5:16 PM
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"my"Google

Marissa Mayer is announcing a new initiative at the moment...Fusion, the first product from which is a new personalized home page. This "strategic initiative" aims to "fuse together Google's functionality into a single unique way to interact with content." It can be found in the Lab area, but don't be fooled, this is an all out response to the success of Yahoo and others in the personalized/RSS space.

This is nothing new, Excite did this in 1996. But I am quite sure it will be much better - after all, there's nine years of innovation behind it.

Mayer claims the difference with this personalized home page is that it's very easy, it's very crisp and "Googly", it integrates across all Google products. It includes feeds from Wired, Slashdot, BBC, and others, and soon full RSS support...hmmm...MyYahoo RSS, anyone?!

In any case, it's great to see Google doing this, and I am sure there will be much to say once the dust settles.

News link.

Update: I wrote the above while watching Marissa unveil the news, and the response so far has been less than overwhelming. Mostly "and....?" and "so what took you so long." But this is interesting to note: Google is not driven by the media gene, and to make a move like this is unnatural, it represents something of a breakthrough for the company. I once asked a Google exec why it didn't have a music play, like Yahoo, AOL, and MSN. The answer: "Sergey doesn't listen to much music."

So for Google to in fact implement a "my" page, and for Google to call something, *anything*, a "strategic initiative," well, I think that is a turning point.

• Posted by John Battelle at 2:59 PM
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Google Earth

"We were wondering what we should do for Google Travel," Brin told the Factory Tour just now. Well, Google Earth is the answer. I hinted at this in a previous post about Keyhole's new database, and I think this is it.

More as I get links....

• Posted by John Battelle at 2:50 PM
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MyGoogle Is Coming Today

Google is launching the kind of personalized integration tool that many thought they'd never do. At first it was thought to be called iGoogle, but the name is uncertain at this point. It's due from Google Labs later today, according to SEW. While watching the webcast I noticed a Powerpoint glitch that showed integration of address books and local search, but I did not get a screenshot in time. More as I find out more. SEW coverage. (thanks to a commentor on my site, who points to this!)

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:37 AM
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GFT: First Q&A

Some highlights from the Q&A session with Marissa and Peter:
Q: How many servers do you have? A: 10,000 was the last figure given (Oh, please!)
Q: Why are products in Beta so long? A: We want to leave them in beat when we are still working on them and we plan to make a lot of improvements. Froogle didn't have sort by price, for example. News didn't have sort by date. We are getting close to taking some of these products out of beta.
Q: Eric in the introduction said search is not how you think about your business. How do you think about your business? A: Think about our mission. There are lots of things that fall into that. Gmail, etc. - that are not just web search.
Q: How often do you crawl? A: It's continuous - used to be monthly. Sites like CNN we might hit every ten minutes, others daily, or weekly....

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:00 AM
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Google Factory Tour, Take Two

The agenda looks good. I'm listening to Marissa Mayer right now, the agenda:

10:15 am - 12:00 pm Progress in Research and Ads
Marissa Mayer - (Director, Consumer Web Products)
Peter Norvig - (Director, Engineering Search Quality)
Q&A
Break
12:00 - 12:45 pm Lunch
12:45 - 2:00 pm Opportunities Today
Jonathan Rosenberg - (Product Management)
Jeff Huber - (VP Engineering)
Dave Girouard - (General Manager, Enterprise)
Q&A
Break
2:00 - 2:45 pm Future Directions
Alan Eustace - (VP Engineering & Research)
Marissa Mayer - (Director, Consumer Web Products)
Sergey Brin - (Co-Founder & President, Technology)
2:45 - 3:45 pm Q&A – Eric Schmidt and Sergey Brin
3:45 - 4:30 pm Product Demos

"Future Directions" should be interesting. Marissa had a funny overview of how the engine works, including introducing an engineer who handles porn spam. The image at left is from her presentation. So far, pretty basic stuff, but still interesting. Peter Norvig is starting just now. The Webcast is here, FYI.

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:46 AM
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Google Factory Tour

Google is having a press day today, inviting many press to the plex for a day of meetings and presentations they are calling the "Google Factory Tour." A last minute screwup in my calendar is preventing me from going, but fortunately there will be a webcast for press folks. I'll be watching that and asking questions via IM and email! Stay tuned....

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:56 AM
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Netscape Launches New Broswer

It's deja vu all over again. This one speaks both IE and Firefox. PCWorld's first look here. AOL's press kit here. The site is loading very sloooooowly.

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:51 AM
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Gates Has Another Book In Him

Remember when I chided Google for not thought leading and mentioned Gates' 1996 book? Well, another one is in the works. Bizweek reports:

Microsoft is in the final stages of closing a deal with a co-author, whom the company declined to name. And Gates's representatives have begun meeting with publishers to gauge their interest. The software giant won't say yet when it hopes to see a book in print.

There's little question, though, that the book will spark quite a bit of interest. The Road Ahead was a best seller, selling 2.5 million copies to date, according to Microsoft. Gates followed that book up with one written specifically for executives, called Business @ the Speed of Thought, which targeted a much smaller, elite audience. But Gates's latest look into the crystal ball will likely once again attract a wide audience.

(thanks, Craig).

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:56 AM
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