John Battelle's Searchblog

I have a fantasy about the future I'll share with you - one where all I am doing is working on FM and writing Searchblog. It's not so far off, but right now, it feels a million miles away. I'm pretty much enveloped by Web 2.0 preparation (we closed registration and are totally sold out), book tour stuff (I go down to speak at Google - Google! - tomorrow), and what little is left over I am focusing on FM. Forgive me the lack of posts. I'll be back, strong and refreshed, week after next.

In the book I asked Eric Schmidt what was next for Google. He replied that the joke was "carbon nanotubes to the moon."

Well, take a look at this release:

NASA Takes Google On Journey Into Space

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - September 28, 2005 - NASA Ames Research
Center, located in the heart of California's Silicon Valley, and
Mountain View-based Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced plans to
collaborate on a number of technology-focused research-and-development
activities that will couple some of Earth's most powerful technology
resources.

NASA and Google have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that
outlines plans for cooperation on a variety of areas, including
large-scale data management, massively distributed computing,
bio-info-nano convergence, and encouragement of the entrepreneurial
space industry. The MOU also highlights plans for Google to develop up
to one million square feet within the NASA Research Park at Moffett
Field.

"Our planned partnership presents an enormous range of potential
benefits to the space program," said NASA Ames Center Director G.
Scott Hubbard. "Just a few examples are new sensors and materials
from collaborations on bio-info-nano convergence, improved analysis of
engineering problems as well as Earth, life and space science
discoveries from supercomputing and data mining, and bringing
entrepreneurs into the space program. While our joint efforts will
benefit both organizations, the real winner will be the American
public," he added.

"Google and NASA share a common desire-to bring a universe of
information to people around the world," said Eric Schmidt, Google
chief executive officer. "Imagine having a wide selection of images
from the Apollo space mission at your fingertips whenever you want it.
That's just one small example of how this collaboration could help
broaden technology's role in making the world a better place."

"I'm thrilled that NASA Ames Research Center and Google, two of our
region's and our nation's most valuable and innovative organizations,
have formed a partnership," said Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (CA -14th
District).

"As Silicon Valley continues to lead in developing technologies that
will guide our nation's economy in the 21st century, partnerships
combining the best in public sector innovation with the cutting edge of
private industry will serve as the gold standard in public-private
partnerships for years to come. The technologies created by the
partnership of Google and NASA Ames not only will enable and enhance
further exploration of space, it will positively impact the daily lives
of all Americans for generations to come," Eshoo said.

"The City of Mountain View is excited that two of our community's most
innovative and dynamic organizations, Google and NASA Ames Research
Center, are forming a new research and development partnership at Ames.
This new collaboration will undoubtedly result in new research projects
and endeavors with tremendous potential for innovation and far-reaching
benefit," said Mountain View Mayor Matt Neely.

Located on property at Ames Research Center, NASA Research Park is
being developed into a world-class, shared-use educational and R&D
campus. As part of a comprehensive plan for this area, new
laboratories, offices, classrooms, housing, auditoriums, museums, a
training and conference center, open space, parking and limited retail
facilities are envisioned. The plan calls for NASA to partner with
local communities, academia, private industry, non-profit organizations
and other government agencies in support of NASA's mission to conduct
research and develop new technologies.

The SF Chronicle has the scoop on Google creating yet another major campus (the company just moved to old SGI digs a little over a year ago).

Google Inc. is expected to announce plans today to build a 1 million-square-foot campus at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, sources familiar with the plan said Tuesday.

The Internet giant, which has been looking for expansion space during the company's extraordinary growth spurt, plans to build offices, housing for workers, roads and infrastructure on a vacant section of the sprawling NASA facility in the heart of Silicon Valley.

Yow. It's Googleville. Here's Google Maps link to Nasa Ames.

A: Hell yeah.

Why? See this post. But it's not just about magazine ads. This could be the start of something....remember Oodle?

The official launch is at Web 2, but the public beta went up today, Dave Pell tells me. This is a new engine which lets your "roll your own" searches. I rolled one on search, for example. It sort of like creating your own domain specific search on the fly...

New contextual search stuff integrated...More here...and BTW, Yahoo clarified its response to the Google index news yesterday. I misinterpreted their statement. Here's the clarification: "The "meaningless" number we referenced is not the act of citing an index count .... it's specifically the number Google was using on their home page."

Folks who watch the inside baseball of SEO/SEM took note with Andy Beal left his job at WebSourced, it also meant we lost a great voice at his corporate blog. Then the company's CEO left, and folks started wondering what was up. Well, I don't have any insight into that, but Andy pinged me last night to say that he's back, with a new business, and a new site. Looking forward to reading Andy again!

More up and to the right news, from MediaPost coverage:

INTERNET AD REVENUES FOR THE first half of this year surged to $5.8 billion--a 26 percent increase from the same period in 2004, according to a report released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers Monday. Online ad revenue for this year's second quarter totaled just under $3 billion, also marking a 26 percent increase over the second quarter of last year, as well as an increase of approximately 7 percent over the first three months of the year.

Search and display ads represented the bulk of online ad spending, with search accounting for 40 percent of total spending, and display ads pulling in 20 percent.

Under embargo last week, I spoke to Marissa Mayer about Google search. I do this often, as part of the normal news cycle, but this time was different. After clearing her throat with some 7th birthday news, she dropped the other shoe - Google is now claiming that its index is three times bigger than its competition. "Wow!" I said. "How can you tell?" "Tests we've done," Mayer responded. "But...those are the same tests we've been debating since August, right? The same tests Yahoo claims are inconclusive and not to be trusted!"

Yup, that's right. The index wars are over, at least in terms of raw counting. Google has taken its ball and gone home. The company has decided to take the McDonalds like number off its website - "8 billion pages served...", and instead simply claim to be more comprehensive. "Google is the most comprehensive search engine by far," Mayer told me. Can she prove that? Not easily. But there you have it.

Problem is, while Google is clearly sincere in making this claim - I don't doubt they believe it - the company refuses to call out any numbers or walk anyone through how they can prove it (other than a battery of disputed tests that honestly, no single person could reliably execute anyway).

In fact, this announcement, tied to Google's 7th birthday, is a major exercise in changing the rules of the game. Google has been increasing its index of late, Marissa said, and many out there have noticed it, including many commentors on this and other sites. The company was getting ready to back this claim, that's for sure. It's clear that this is a response to Yahoo's earlier announcement on index size. To pretend otherwise is naive. Second, by refusing to count anymore, Google is forcing the debate back to relevance, where, honestly, it really belongs.

I asked Marissa that since Yahoo claims 20+ billion documents, and Google claims to be three times larger, might not folks simply presume that Google has 60 billion documents in its index? The answer goes to the heart of the index debate in the first place: Google does not count the way Yahoo seems to, so the comparison is apples to oranges. Google is counting one way, Yahoo another. So the numbers don't add up.

I then asked Marissa if Google would be open to having a third party, agreed to by both sides, settle this in some reliable fashion. She said sure, but as she answered, I realized this will never happen. Both sides think they are right, and both sides will never divulge how they go about counting in the first place. So where are we left? Pretty much where we've been, only now, it's all about who you believe. So who's more comprehensive? Depends who you ask.....

Yahoo sent me a response late tonight. Here it is, in its entirety:

“We congratulate Google on removing the index size number from its homepage and recognizing that it is a meaningless number. As we've said in the past, what matters is that consumers find what they are looking for and we invite Google users to compare their results to Yahoo! Search at http://search.yahoo.com.”

Er, sorry Yahoo. I don't buy that one. Why on earth, then, did you announce that 20 billion number in the first place?

Well, at least this is the end of it. I'm not sure either company came off well in this particular dust up, but it seems to have been fought to some kind of a draw, at least for now.

Update: Eric Schmidt spoke with Markoff for this Times piece, in which he announces that Google will encourage folks to "guess" the size of Google's index. And the closest person will win something. Maybe. Sheesh.

Google to work with UPN to provide streaming video of new shows - starting with Everybody Hates Chris. Gary has the details.

The book tour is not quite winding down, more stuff this week, including reading in studio for three days for the audio book. So for now, some interesting links...

Findory has a neat sounding new feedreader, which watches what you do and refreshes its presentation. Cool.

In an LA Times op ed, Xeni weighs in on the Google Print lawsuit.

NYT on Microsoft's AdCenter (Adwords/Overture competitor). It's out of beta, as is AOL.com, by the way.

Yahoo hires well known authors for Finance columns. Let's hope the stuff translates well in China or these journos just might end up in jail....

Via NYT, Google's internal predictions market. Has this replaced strategy meetings?

Danny turned 40. Happy birthday!

I sense you might be getting sick of me tooting this particular horn, but I can't help myself, The Search made it to the Wall St. Journal's weekly list of Business Bestsellers (reg required) today, at #12. That's pretty good for only being out ten days, I'm told. And now I can brag about being a bestselling author. Like I am right now.

Again, I think all this happened because of Searchblog readers. I really enjoyed meeting some of you in New York, I have a few more events coming up, and will make sure to keep my book page updated. Thanks.

I've run across many a speculation on what levers and dials the folks at Google are pulling behind the AdWords curtain. This is another one, and begs the question: can we have a bit more transparency?

One of my readers makes his living selling goods over the Internet, and his sole means of obtaining customers is through Google AdWords. His business is robust for a one-man operation and he makes a good living. Knowing the actual numbers, I would say he makes a VERY good living, which shows the effectiveness of Google and AdWords as an advertising medium.

But one can never make enough money, it seems, so this reader decided to do some research to see if he could improve his results by modifying this and that. He decided that the best way to conduct this research was not by altering variables on his existing, very profitable web site, but by creating a separate site purely to be used for these tests.

Clearly ,this is a behavior that the big brains of Google did not expect.

As you all know, I promised to use this forum as a platform for anyone who took issues with the book to provide me feedback and corrections, if I got anything wrong. I was recently contacted by a communications consultant for Frank Quattrone, one of the most formidable investment bankers of the dot com era. I made a passing reference to Frank in my book, and he clearly disagreed with my observations. Bob Chlopak, Communications Consultant to Frank Quattrone, drafted a statement, which I post in full below. I'm happy to do the same for any source or character in the work who feels similarly.

”The Search” mischaracterizes Frank Quattrone’s case. The book makes reference to the right to privacy for personal email and says:

"While the more sophisticated e-mail user among us has grown to understand the folly of this assumption in a corporate environment, the idea that e-mail is an ephemeral medium is still widely held. In 2003, Frank Quattrone, one of the technology sector's most powerful bankers and hardly a computing rube, was brought down by such a presumption when incriminating e-mails were used as evidence against him in a widely publicized trial."

Mr. Quattrone did not regard email as private or ephemeral. There is substantial evidence of just the opposite – that he knew email created a lasting record available to many parties. For instance, there was an email shown at trial--in fact, a pre-cursor of the one to which he wrote his now-infamous reply-- where Quattrone admonished a colleague for making inappropriate comments on email. When asked about the admonishment, he testified that "email is a medium that lasts forever." There was testimony during his trials that Quattrone was well aware that CSFB backed up its system including emails, and that he rarely if ever discarded his own emails. His assistant testified that he even needed extra storage because his emails overwhelmed his system. Most importantly, Quattrone hit 'reply to all' to write his December 5 email and sent it to a broadcast list including hundreds of bankers -- an action that appears neither private nor ephemeral.

This passage also says that “incriminating e-mails" were used against Quattrone at trial. One of Quattrone’s contentions on appeal is that his emails were innocent on their face, rather than crimes or evidence of them. The 22-word December 5 email, for instance, does nothing more than encourage employees to follow the company's document retention policy--a policy that was in effect at the time, and one that CSFB's lawyers who (unlike Quattrone) had seen the subpoenas had chosen not to suspend for months. The defense argued that, in sending this email, Quattrone had a proper purpose, intending only to lend support to his subordinate whose underlying email urged colleagues to comply with CSFB's document retention policy, which all employees were required to follow at the time. Rather than the e-mails in evidence being incriminating, the defense view is that Quattrone was wrongly convicted because 1) there was no evidence that Quattrone knew that subpoenas called for the documents referred to in his e-mail reply, nor evidence that Quattrone harbored corrupt intent; and 2) the trial judge made various errors that resulted in an unfair trial. Among them were his refusal to allow a number of exonerating emails (also not ephemeral) into evidence that would have shown (a) that Quattrone had a management practice of sending seconding emails much like his December 5 message; (b) that lawyers at CSFB deliberately departed from their normal practice and did not notify Quattrone and thousands of other bankers that documents they held were subject to subpoena (which only the lawyers had seen) and had to be retained; and (c) that Quattrone was never under investigation or even interviewed regarding the underlying investigation, was cleared of any involvement in the allegations and subsequently promoted to CSFB's Executive Board by new CEO John Mack. The concept of incriminating emails is disputed strongly by the defense and is now a question for the Court of Appeals.

Finally, the book makes reference to Quattrone being “brought down”. Mr. Quattrone's case has been appealed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and he remains free pending the appeal. The case has been fully briefed and argued but the Court has not yet ruled, so the outcome of the appeal and the final verdict in Mr. Quattrone's case has yet to be determined. Mr. Quattrone continues to enjoy strong support in the technology community--hundreds of clients and colleagues wrote letters of strong support to the judge on his behalf, he continues as a Director and fundraiser for The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, and most recently was honored by clients and colleagues who joined together to contribute over $500,000 to his newest cause, The Innocence Project, which helps free innocent citizens who are in prison for crimes they did not commit and do not have the resources to challenge their wrongful convictions. "Brought down" conveys both a sense of finality and completeness that is not the case here. Mr. Quattrone continues to defend himself steadfastly and remains confident his conviction will be overturned.

I have to say, this post - defending Google's position on Google Print against yesterday's lawsuit - is damn refreshing. Google makes its case clearly, and the writing seems to be driven by conviction and passion.

The use we make of all the books we scan through the Library Project is fully consistent with both the fair use doctrine under U.S. copyright law and the principles underlying copyright law itself, which allow everything from parodies to excerpts in book reviews. (Here's an article by one of the many legal scholars who have weighed in on Google Print.)

Just as Google helps you find sites you might not have found any other way by indexing the full text of web pages, Google Print, like an electronic card catalog, indexes book content to help users find, and perhaps buy, books. This ability to introduce millions of users to millions of titles can only expand the market for authors’ books, which is precisely what copyright law is intended to foster.

Boing Boing has the coverage. I must say, this will certainly be one to watch.

So we have a time, date, and location for my New York pitstop:

Wednesday 9/21
6:00 pm
Coliseum Books
11 West 42nd Street, NYC
Between 5th and 6th Aves, across from Bryant Park
(212) 803-5890
www.coliseumbooks.com

Hope to see all you New York Searchbloggers there!

For all those watching the AOL/MSN/Google M&A game, Microsoft's recent reorg, covered here (NYT), is worth noting. The company is creating three divisions, and the one I find critical is what is called "Platform Products and Services". This division combines Windows and MSN, and that is an important shift - the two are increasingly interdependent. Applications like Office are now in a separate division, as are Entertainment and Devices.

Ray Ozzie (speaking with MSN chief Yusuf Mehdi at Web 2.0) is now reporting to Bill Gates and overseeing all three divisions integration with the web. Interesting as well.

I was starting to think that perhaps Microsoft was going to let MSN go and focus on evolving Windows to the open Web OS, independent of MSN's content focus. Now, I'm not so sure. More considered thinking when I get off this book merry go round....

Rumors abound now that folks have found some Google beta test pages which seem to indicate that Google is testing a Wifi service. The leader on this story is Om, whose piece frames the argument for why the company might do it here.

The pages in question - http://wifi.google.com/download.html and http://wifi.google.com/faq.html -either do not resolve, or now resolve to Google itself. Certainly the company is up to something...but Google is not commenting. No cached pages are found on Google either. Anyone find any screen shots?

In any case, I think folks really want to believe that Google is about to offer something totally game changing here, and honestly, it's hard not to want to believe this - it fits exactly our collective expectations for the company. But there are so many dots to connect in this idea, that I find a massive, one step roll out hard to fathom. On the one hand, if Google does pull this off, it'd be a coup. On the other, maybe this is just a speculative test, and it's teaching us the power of the the Google Rorshach effect in real time....

Update, one page is now resolving again.

Google has altered its famous Philosophy page and footnoted the change, SEW points out after noting an older Cnet piece. The line on the page once said: "Google does not do horoscopes, financial advice or chat." It was a poke at portals, and, well, was written before Google became, well, a portal of sorts. It has chat now, so one wonders, can Google Finance be far behind?

As Danny points out:

Overall, that page needs more than a full-disclosure footnote. It probably needs to come down entirely, at least the portion with points about what Google has found to be true. It's not that the horizon is becoming less blurry. It's simply that Google itself is growing up and changing, and so will the things it finds true as part of that process.

Update: See the "diff" here, thanks to reader Gabe.

The Financial Times was kind enough to excerpt The Search in its weekend edition - they gave it quite a bit of space. Then I found out about this honor. The FT has included The Search in its list of finalists for "Book of the Year," along with The World Is Flat, Freakonomics, Disneywar, and several others. I'm flabbergasted.

Update: Apparently, you can vote for your favorite. Now, I'm not suggesting you vote for me, of course, but if you feel so inclined...

Late last week my publisher arranged a discount on The Search for all Searchblog readers who care to buy it at Barnes & Noble - it's 35% off. You have to use this link.....it's good till the end of September.

I'm down in Santa Barbara where I'm giving a talk to the folks at Commission Junction's CJU, an annual event for affiliate marketing. Then I'm going to NYC for a few days of book related stuff there. I'm planning on having a MeetUp of sorts while in NY, so stay tuned for more info....probably will know more by the end of Monday.

A WSJ investigative piece alleges that insiders profited from the madness running up to Google's initial public offering. WebPro has a summary here.

A few weeks ago I was "quoted" by the Onion in a spoof on Google, and I thought that pretty much capped my entire career as an observer of the internet world. But today I was reading through my emails as I was awaiting my turn on yet another radio show, and up popped Search Engine Watch's daily email. "Search as the Great New Game" was the title, which sounded interesting, so I pulled it up.

I was stunned to see that it was Chris Sherman's review of my book, and not only that, he really liked it. And Danny also filed a blog post which had really kind things to say as well (and a few corrections and disagreements, which I will get about addressing in the next edition).

Now I can truly say that my work was worth it. I'm deeply honored. Thanks, Chris, Danny, and Gary, it means the world to me, it truly does.

I'll be at Stacey's Book Store in SF today, at 12.30. Come by and say hello if you are in town!

581 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
415-421-4687

This is an evolution of Yahoo's "search shortcuts" idea - will be available (you have to install it) from next.yahoo.com in a manner of minutes (I am told). From the release:

Today Yahoo! launches Instant Search, an early beta feature that makes the search process faster by providing a way for users to get instant answers. As users type, Instant Search immediately displays the most relevant result for the most popular queries directly beneath the search box. In many cases instant facts and answers are provided in the form of Yahoo! Search Shortcut results and, when a shortcut is not available for a query, Instant Search supplies the top Yahoo! Search web result for the most common searches.  Users can immediately access answers by clicking a ‘CTRL Enter’ hotkey once results are displayed.

My favorite line in the release (full text below):

Why feel lucky when you can be right?

Meeeeyowww, the claws are out....

Continue reading "Yahoo Launches "Instant Search"" »

GOOG had a bad day today, it closed down 8.68 points at 303. But after hours, Google announced it had priced its secondary offering at $295 (release below), another eight buck discount to its current price. Can any Wall St. mavens out there educate us as to why? Is this a trailing three month average, perhaps? Or a hedge to make sure the banks can do what they usually do, which is distribute underpriced shares to preferred clients, who make out on the "pop"? Google choose not to do an auction this time around, and auction pioneer WR Hambrecht is not a listed manager on the deal, as it was on the IPO.

Continue reading "GOOG Prices Secondary - Is This a Pound of Flesh, Or Normal...?" »

Stories I wish I had time to comment fully on:

Gates Talks to Google (SEW)

Kevin Sites Joins Yahoo He's reporting from every war on earth. (there is much to say here...)

Truveo, a new video search engine.

If you dug a hole from where you are, through the earth, where would you end up? This Google Maps mashup tells you....

Quick note: Bill Gross's company Snap has added shopping search. The engine is driven by cost-per-action, not CPC...will be interesting to see how and if it gathers steam....

Last night at a book event at Books Inc in Mountain View, a fellow asked me a question that made me think - in short, he asked why there was so much useless information on the web. Put another way, he was expressing frustration with search results - so often we can't find what we are looking for. I responded that - while it's possible he might not like this answer - we as users of search need to get better at searching. And by that I don't mean smarter about how to use advanced features, or how to find the perfect query, but rather at critical thinking, at reviewing and critiquing a set of results, learning from what is and is not there, and refining our searches as a result. And that the only way that is going to happen is if our educational system values critical thinking skills over rote testing.

Today as I was waiting between interminable radio interviews (yes, I am being a cranky author now, after all, I got up at 3.30 am, I'm allowed), I read this post from Jeremy. From it:

....I wished that someone could have been watching the query stream and stopped the user to say "hey, I see what you're trying to find.... try this instead." I felt like there was a missing link.
I think education and training are that missing link.
We search engines try to make the world look all simple, uniform, and tidy. There's a little text box you type into and a button you can hit to get what you want back. Except that it doesn't always work that way. Many times people don't find what they need on the first try or two. But they don't know where to go next, how to refine a query, or what their options are. There's no librarian to help. Few of them will ever see our Advanced Search page or realize they can restrict searches to a subset of languages.
The question I started this ramble with is largely rhetorical, since I know that the vast majority of folks have never been "trained" to search in any way. But I suspect many would benefit from even 10-15 minutes of education.
Are schools handling this yet? Or do they mostly assume that the search box is self-explanatory?
It made me think - perhaps it is just a matter of some simple training. Or maybe it's a bit of both, as the more one learns how to search, the more pointers one gets, the more one might develop critical thinking skills essential to good searching. I wonder, is there an opportunity there somewhere?
In any case, it sure would be cool to watch as master searchers went on journeys of discovery and explorations. I wrote about this in the book, referencing V. Bush's Memex as the basic principle. ... OK, back to the radio now...

Gary on this....

Tonight Google will announce (well, the embargo is tonight at 9 pm PST) that it is launching blog search, in two flavors, one for blogger.com, and another as a beta at google.com/blogsearch (not yet up, but will be soon...).

I spoke with Google about this, more soon, wanted to get this up in a timely manner...(too timely...as the service has yet to be pushed live....)

Update: I gotta hit the hay, as I have like ten hours of radio interviews starting at the ungodly hour of 4 AM, but so far the service is still not live, but Google's FAQ is, at least. As Dave Sifry of Technorati can attest, blog search ain't easy!

Also, the FAQ claims the URL will be blogsearch.google.com, not the other way around as I was told earlier...

Update 2: It's live now, and garnering a lot of attention. A good post on it here at the Six Apart blog (thanks Anil).

So says the judge, who ruled earlier today. Seattle Times coverage.

King County Superior Court Judge Steven Gonzalez is still barring Kai-Fu Lee from doing work on products, services or projects he worked on at Microsoft, including computer search technology. But while the judge said that a noncompete agreement Lee signed with Microsoft is valid, he said recruiting and staffing a Google center in China would not violate that agreement.

Google's blog post here.

For those of you who are in the Bay area, I'll be at the Graduate School of Journalism at Berkeley tonight, all are welcome, starting around 6 pm, and then Tuesday evening in Mountain View, 7:30PM
at Books, Inc, 301 Castro Street, Mountain View, CA 94041.

The book is really taking over my life right now, as one might expect, it's very exciting. Thanks to you it cracked the top 25 on Amazon, I think that's a good thing. I'm really proud, and very humbled. I teach today at Berkeley before the talk, and I'm glad I am - it's always refreshing to talk with students, who see the world much more clearly than us old, jaded folks.

Well, I'm happy about this one and this one too. Wow. And whew....

As many of you know I'm starting a company called Federated Media Publishing, we're hoping to build a way for site authors to thrive by matching their sites to endemic, high quality sponsors. As part of the initial process of starting up, we're asking our Authors to run surveys on their site, asking pretty standard questions of their audiences, so we can make better matches between marketers and an author's sites. We did this a while back on Boing Boing and really learned a lot. Searchblog will be the first site to try the survey, which means you guys get to be our first testers.

Will you help us out and take this short survey, and let me know more about you? It'll help make Searchblog and FM more successful - without reader input, there's not a business in the first place. Thanks in advance, and please let me know if you have any trouble or input.

Nope, says Googler Matt Cutts - just adding some pages, not changing algos. Yup, says grizzled vet Danny Sullivan - it's a major change to the index, whether or not the algos are changing. Net net: Google's index is swelling. Again, this have anything to do with Yahoo's recent declaration? Well...of course it does!

MSN is offering several new APIs as part of its web platform strategy, the most visible is its search API. More at SEW. Scoble, Microsoft's informal blogger in chief, has a riff on what MSFT is trying to accomplish, or should try to accomplish, here.

Here's something I've been thinking about a lot lately. Google (and MSN and Yahoo) are in the audience aggregation business. Huh? That means that they need to do things to draw in large audiences (so they can sell advertising to those audiences).
This job is very similar to a music group. Say, like, U2. Now, U2, if they are good, will see their audiences continue to get better. Here's a hint. U2 is good and sells out huge stadiums. But, what if they do something that pisses off the audience? Well, then, the audience will get smaller as those customers try to find somewhere else to spend their money. U2's job is to thrill their audiences (and they spend a LOT of time and money doing that with everything from lights, to sound, to special effects).
But, does U2 really care about what the Black Eyed Peas are doing?

Rumors on Google, EBay. I don't buy the first one, I can see the second. I mean, what on earth would the Google culture DO with Reuters? Really, I've dealt with both companies extensively, I can't imagine a worse relationship. On the other hand, they might just buy em and run them like an absentee landlord. Odder things have happened...at Google anyway.

Now eBay buying Skype? You kidding me? Of course that makes sense. Who is the largest paid search advertiser in the world? eBay. (Or at least in the top three). Why? They are a *mature business* which has reached the stage of *paying well for acquiring customers.* Skype has tens of millions of potential customers, AND a way for folks who are buying and selling to talk to each other for free. But the first point is more important than the second, trust me. Think AOL and ICQ. No brainer.

SEW says it's Google's 7th birthday, but I've heard the date is in fact "sometime in the late summer/early fall," so expect an official celebration as soon as Google can get their doodle designer to get it into gear....(my book does peg the date, but you'll have to buy it to find out...)

SEW also notes that Google's index seems to be swelling. Did someone predict this (read second to last paragraph)?! One reader here at Searchblog has also noticed this...see the comments on the left...

WSJ (free link) does blog search engines....

Google Maps + Katrina info via Slashdot...

Recovery2.0 meet to happen thanks to Jarvis and others, look for meeting at Web 2.0....all welcome who want to contribute, no pass needed - just work with Jeff and let us know.

Microsoft has grand plans for a new "web platform" strategy. Cnet has the coverage. From it:

The software company plans to open access to its MSN and other public Web sites to let developers assemble new applications that build on those sites--a technique used successfully at Google and at other Web companies to promote their properties.

Microsoft will detail its "Web platform" strategy at its Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles next week, company executives told CNET News.com. It intends to publish the application programming interfaces, or APIs, to some of its public Web sites, including MSN Search, and deliver better tools to write those applications.

More on this as I get smart(er) on it....the key of course, is how they plan to integrate Windows and Office...their main revenue lines....there is some detail on that in the Cnet piece...read to the second page...

On one hand, Microsoft is appealing to the trend of making Web applications that run entirely in the browser across all operating systems. But at the same time, it continues to espouse so-called thick clients, or what Microsoft calls "smart clients," where the application front end fully exploits the features of Windows and Office on a PC. In its own Dynamics-branded business applications, announced Wednesday, integration with Office is a top priority, for instance

Google and Gieco have settled their trademark dispute case. This suprises me little - Google, which we know has plenty of cash, has far too much to lose through a big, ugly case with lots of public discovery. And Geico, I am sure, has a price.

From the Reuters piece:

GEICO, the No. 4 U.S. auto insurer and a unit of investor Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said a suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia was "resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties."

...."Terms of the settlement, although not disclosed, would suggest some sort of payment was made, but that a trial has been avoided," Martin Pyykkonen, an analyst with brokerage Hoefer & Arnett. "This mitigates the risk of further trademark lawsuits," he said.

My my. Release in extended entry. From it:

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced that it hired Vinton (Vint) Cerf, the longtime
technologist who is widely known as a "founding father" of the Internet, as Chief Internet Evangelist.

...Cerf will continue his leadership in the Internet community, and help Google build network infrastructure, architectures, systems, and standards for the next generation of Internet applications.

Continue reading "Vint Cerf Joins Google" »

Well, the book is shipping from Amazon, I am told, and some folks are saying in comments that they are seeing it in bookstores as well. So despite the fact that the official launch date is not till this coming Monday....I guess that means...this is getting very real.

The books' Amazon ranking has jumped from nearly 3000 on the list to around 1000 - it was near 600 this afternoon....so that must be good, right? If you have any desire to buy the thing, boy, now would be a nice time to do it...I'm told that if the book makes the top echelons of Amazon's list in its first week, why, that's a platform for all sorts of good momentum.

The Harvard Business School reviewed it and had nice things to say, so that's good too....I've been warned that reviews are coming from many others in the next week.

And I have a new page tracking all this, inasmuch as I can stay up with it, over here. I plan to update as I can...

Thanks for the input on my last post about this, you seemed to want me to err on the side of keeping you informed...so for those who are in the Bay Area, here are my speaking events. I am due to be in Seattle, New York, and possibly LA and DC as well.

It'd be great to meet you, and if you buy the book, I'll sign it if you come:

Tuesday, September 13
7:30PM
Books, INc
301 Castro Street
Mountain View, CA 94041
650-428-1234

Thursday, September 15
12:30PM
Stacey's Book Store
581 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
415-421-4687

Monday, October 3
7:30PM
Barnes & Noble
3600 Stevens Creeks Blvd.
San Jose, CA 95117
408-984-3495

Monday, October 17
7:30PM
Barnes & Noble
11 West Hillsdale Blvd.
Hillsdale Shopping Center
San Mateo, CA 94403
650-341-5560

Monday, October 24
7:00PM
Book Passage
51 Tamal Vista Blvd.
Corte Madera, CA 94925
415-927-0960

By now you may have heard that Yahoo helped Chinese authorities track down a Chinese journalist (via his Chinese Yahoo email) who was subsequently jailed for "leaking state secrets" or somesuch brilliant bullshit. Here's the SJMN coverage (reg) and Search Engine Journal's coverage.

From the Merc:

Yahoo has provoked the ire of a media watchdog group for allegedly giving information to the Chinese government that led to the jailing of a Chinese journalist for leaking state secrets.

The controversy adds Yahoo to a growing list of U.S. companies that have faced scrutiny for their business dealings in China, a country that is coveted by businesses for its booming economy and reviled by activists for its censorship and human rights abuses....

....China's ``Public Pledge on Self-discipline for the Chinese Internet Industry,'' (is) a document signed by Yahoo and some other U.S. companies. The pledge commits signatories to make ``energetic efforts to carry forward the rich cultural tradition of the Chinese nation and the ethical norms of the socialist cultural civilization'' by observing all state industry regulations, according to the group Human Rights Watch. In particular, the document asks signatories to refrain ``from producing, posting, or disseminating pernicious information that may jeopardize state security and disrupt social stability.''

I've written about how Google struggled with this issue, and has gotten a fair amount of grief for it, but Yahoo and others have the same struggle. I pinged my contacts at Yahoo and all they could say was this:

"Just like any other global company, Yahoo! must ensure that its local country sites must operate within the laws, regulations and customs of the country in which they are based."

How I wish these companies had the backbone to at least say what happened was wrong, that the Chinese system is wrong, that they regret they are in this position. Take a stand - say what I know you must feel! One can have an opinion, and still "operate within the laws, regulations and customs of the country in which they are based." Or is it also the law in China that US corporations can't have an opinion?

Check out these stats from SEW:

Some new and amazing numbers released today show that search sponsored links from eBay, Shopping.com, and InterActiveCorp made up 34 percent, or nearly 13 billion, of online advertising impressions for a one week period.

Update: In the comments Chris points out we read the release wrong, it's 34% of ALL ad impressions are search/paid links, not that 34% of search impressions are those three companies....

Fathom reports that prices were down an average of 9 percent last month. Why? Stating the obvious - er, summer - may be too, well, obvious. But I'd wager that's what's up.

Mitsui has invested an undisclosed amount into Feedster. Congrats, guys! What's next?

I've always been fascinated by Vanity Fair's "New Establishment" power list, dominated nearly always by media folk (there's always a photo taken at media banker Herb Allen's retreat in Sun Valley). The idea was that the moguls of media controlled information and public opinion, and therefore were the most powerful men in the world.

Now, Sergey Brin and Larry Page hold the crown, above Murdoch and Redstone. You think this doesn't stick in those guys' craw? You'd be wrong.

Details in this Daily News coverage.

Well, it didn't take long for Google to file a rebuttal to the injunction covered in my last post on this matter. The first quote (that was not redacted - both documents have been redacted by either Google or Microsoft to protect what the companies believe is confidential information, Microsoft has redacted far more than Google so far) Google uses to make a point at the top of the document is familiar:

"I'm going to F....g kill Google." Steve Ballmer.

To clarify, today both sides are arguing on the preliminary injunction, which MSFT would like enforced so Dr. Lee cannot work at Google pending a full trial. Much of it points out that much of the allegedly confidential information Microsoft claims is at risk is in fact public. The response to the request for injunction opens by stating:

"Dr. Lee will not work or consult in any of the technical areas identified in Microsoft's proposed preliminary injunction..."

It then goes on for another 20 or so pages, highlights:

...Microsoft brought this preliminary injunction not out of concern for any confidential information, which Google and Lee have stipulated to protect, but out of a desire to delay Google's entry into China, and make an example of Dr. Lee for other Microsoft employees....

....the unique skills and qualities that make Dr. Lee and ideal recruiter for Google are personal to him-Microsoft does not own them and cannot prevent Dr. Lee from using them on behalf of Google....

...Microsoft's refusal to allow Dr. Lee to recruit (for Google) is based on a fear of competition....by its own admission, Microsoft is behind in the development of internet search technologies...

...Dr. Lee did not recruit anyone for Google before starting his employment....

The document then goes into case-based legal arguments, which I am sure will be at the heart of this case, but I'll let the courts sort that out, and report on the news as it comes out....

Update: Here is Cnet's coverage of the first day, the hearing continues today.

Yes, I think it's coming, to judge by this job position Gary found.

This Kai-Fu Lee case is starting to look less like an employment dispute, and much, much more like the first of what will likely be many protracted battles between the once mighty king (MSFT) and the young princely upstart (GOOG).

Another reliable source sent me the 26 page document Microsoft filed to support its request for a preliminary injunction which would stop Dr. Lee from beginning work at Google. (The injunction request - and Google's response to it - is being heard today in Washington state). The injunction makes for damming reading, as it is supposed to - it's very one sided, of course, but I found it fascinating for what it shows about Microsoft and how clearly vulnerable the company feels in the presence of Google.

Besides the stuff you would expect in such a filing - that Lee violated his non compete agreement, that Google knew what it was getting in hiring him, that Google and MSFT are active competitors - there were some pretty extraordinary facts as well. For example, Microsoft claims that Lee actively tried to get hired by Google, using his knowledge of MSFT's competitive plans as bait.

From the document:

..."Dr. Lee used his knowledge of Microsoft's technologies and business strategies to obtain his highly paid position at Google....Shortly after offering his services to Google, and while still in Microsot's emply, Dr. Lee sent a document he prepared for Steve Ballmer entitled "Making it in China" to Google, after removing the "Microsoft Confidential label from the document....

Much of the dispute seems to turn on whether Lee was in fact working on search technologies that Google might profit from. MSFT argues strongly that he was, in particular in relation to machine learning. But the real fun stuff comes from what Lee apparently knows about Microsoft's plans to compete with Google.

...Dr. Lee attended a March 24, 2005 highly confidential Executive Staff briefing entitled "The Google Challenge." Through this briefing...Dr Lee was made aware of: (1) Microsoft's overarching plan to compete with Google in the search marketplace, (2) specific product characteristics and product components that Microsoft is developing to advance that competition, and (3) specific strategic opportunities identified by Microsoft as the most promising means to compete effectively with Google.

Other tidbits: From a mail now public from Google's Jonathan Rosenberg regarding recruitment of Lee:

"...I all but insist that we pull out all the stops and close him like wolves. He's an all star and will contribute in ways that go substantially beyond China."

MSFT alleges Dr. Lee contacted Eric Schmidt:

...while recruiting for Microsoft's China R&D operations....(and) Dr Lee began helping Google with its China business plans ...while he was still a Microsoft employee.

The document also has details of the package Lee received from Google:

...he was offered an extremely generous compensation package, described internally at Google as "unprecedented"...it included: (1) a signing bonus of $2.5 million, (2) an additional bonus of $1.5 million after the first year, (3) a base salary of $250,000 per year....(4) options for 10,000 shares of Google stock, (5) a grant of 20,000 Google Stock Units over four years (with a value of over $5 million...)

Google also paid for his kids education, a car, and a housing and "hardship" allowance totaling more than $16,000 a month. That is one well paid scientist!

Google has filed an extensive rebuttal to this, which I am digging into now....

I'm thrilled that the SJ Merc published excerpts from my book, as well as a very nice piece about me. It's in three parts, all require registration, here (story), here (excerpts) and here (five things you may not want to know about me). While I am terrified of what the NYT and WSJ might say about the book, it means the world to me that the Valley's paper was kind.

So the book stuff is really heating up. It comes out this week on Amazon, early next week in bookstores. Do you guys want me to post on it here? I mean, you put up with all the sh*t to this point, but it seems a bit...indulgent to post every review, tic, correction, debate...what do you think?

A reliable source has passed along a legal document in the ongoing lawsuit between Google and Microsoft over Google's hiring of Kai-Fu Lee. The document is the "Declaration of Mark Lucovsky" in the case. Lucovsky was a distinguished engineer at Microsoft who defected to Google in November of 2004. His statement makes for some pretty interesting reading, to say the least.

The statement reads in part:

Prior to joining Google, I set up a meeting on or about November 11, 2004 with Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer to discuss my planned departure....At some point in the conversation Mr. Ballmer said: "Just tell me it's not Google." I told him it was Google.

At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office. Mr. Ballmer then said: "Fucking Eric Schmidt is a fucking pussy. I'm going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to fucking kill Google." ....

Thereafter, Mr. Ballmer resumed trying to persuade me to stay....Among other things, Mr. Ballmer told me that "Google's not a real company. It's a house of cards."

UPDATE: This has hit the wires.

Google expands Print into EU (Chirac mobilizes troops).
Google goes Local in China (SEW)
More Om on Google VoIP
Technorati launches Blog Finder (and IceRocket has a new Linktracker (via Cuban), which seems like more work that I want to do...)

Yes, I'm happy that we minority Mac users are getting some love. The Gmail Notifier for Mac is out. I'm going to start using it...and more likely than not, start using Gmail as well now that I have an easy way to interact with it.

My old school newspaper (the Daily Cal) is doing it, O'Reilly wittingly did it, and now Matt Cutts of Google has a post on why not to do it, or, if you are doing it for a good reason (say reputable traffic exchange, not PageRank inflation) then how to do it without penalty (use nofollow).

I don't like nofollow, but spam screws up all sorts of things.

Very. Very Very. So very that they are starting to do things that might, in the end, bite em in the ass, like bundling their toolbars with unrelated apps, and not allowing people to unbundle em. Not smart. (Thanks, Evan).

I have not used this site, but it's getting some buzz here and there, I and though it was worth noting...RawSugar. It's tagged/personal/social search. Seems too hard for the mere mortal to grok. Or maybe it's just me. I dunno. As much as I intellectually grok tagging, the dumbass in me Just Doesn't Get It.