Enter the Vortex

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.

• Posted by John Battelle at 2:21 PM
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More On Google And Nasa

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.

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:02 PM
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Google's New Digs

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.

• Posted by John Battelle at 12:54 PM
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Q: Does Google Want to Spider Classified Ads?

A: Hell yeah.

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

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:52 AM
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RollyO Launches Beta

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...

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:25 AM
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Yahoo Updates Desktop Search

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."

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:32 PM
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Andy Beal Back In Biz

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!

• Posted by John Battelle at 6:37 AM
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Online Ad Revs: Up Up Up

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.

• Posted by John Battelle at 6:15 AM
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Google Announces New Index Size, Shifts Focus from Counting

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.

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:06 PM
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Here Comes Google Streaming Video

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

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:20 AM
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More Links

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!

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:03 PM
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Yow, WSJ Best Seller

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.

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:25 AM
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Cringely Questions AdWords

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.

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:51 AM
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Frank Quattrone Responds

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.

• Posted by John Battelle at 6:00 AM
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Google Defends Self On Blog

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.

• Posted by John Battelle at 5:54 AM
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Other Shoe Drops: Authors Guild Sues Google

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

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:19 PM
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New York Book Event Details

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!

• Posted by John Battelle at 1:22 PM
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MSFT Reorganizes

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....

• Posted by John Battelle at 12:19 PM
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Google Wifi Heats Up

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.

• Posted by John Battelle at 12:12 PM
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Financial Advice, Horoscopes on the Way?

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.

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:23 AM
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FT Honor

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...

• Posted by John Battelle at 6:57 AM
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Plans and Discount....

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.

• Posted by John Battelle at 6:23 PM
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No Laws Broken, But...

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

• Posted by John Battelle at 2:03 PM
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SEW Review

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.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:41 AM
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Book Signing in SF Today

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

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:03 AM
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Yahoo Launches "Instant Search"

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....

 
Yahoo! Instant Search beta Now Available

 
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.
 
If a search for a popular web address is conducted, users immediately receive a link that matches what was typed and when a shortcut, search result, or URL is not available for a particular query, the Search the Web button is always at hand. With Instant Search, select misspellings are automatically detected and corrections are displayed right below the search box. 
 
Users can add Instant Search to their http://search.yahoo.com page, a simple search interface that can be customized with multiple features and products like My Web, Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! News, to speed up common searches and further establish Yahoo! Search as the starting point to the Internet.
 
Why feel lucky when you can be right? Instant Search, available on http://next.yahoo.com, adds a bit of fun to web search, try the following examples or try your own searches:
 

• Boston Weather  

• San Francisco Coffee Shops

• NFL

• 22 5th Ave New York New York

• Britny Spears (misspelled on purpose)

 
Instant Search will improve and expand over time, but we wanted to show this cool, innovative feature while it is new. Screen shots are included on the second page. Please let me know if you are interested in learning more or if you are interested in speaking to someone from Yahoo!.
 

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:00 PM
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GOOG Prices Secondary - Is This a Pound of Flesh, Or Normal...?

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.

Google Inc. Prices Public Offering Of Class A Common Stock

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - September 14, 2005 - Google Inc. (NASDAQ:
GOOG) announced today the public offering of 14,159,265 shares of Class
A common stock, all of which are being sold by Google, at a price of
$295.00 per share. The underwriters have an option to purchase up to
600,000 additional shares of Class A common stock from Google solely to
cover over-allotments, if any.

The managing underwriters of the public offering are Morgan Stanley &
Co. Incorporated and Credit Suisse First Boston LLC, acting as joint
book-running managers, and Allen & Company LLC, Citigroup, JPMorgan,
Lehman Brothers, UBS Investment Bank, Thomas Weisel Partners LLC, and
Blaylock & Company, Inc., acting as co-managers.

A copy of the prospectus relating to this offering may be obtained
from: Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated, Prospectus Department, 1585
Broadway, New York, NY 10036 or Credit Suisse First Boston LLC,
Prospectus Department, One Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

• Posted by John Battelle at 5:50 PM
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Dig a Hole Through the Earth and other Links...

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....

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:20 AM
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Snap Adds Shopping Search

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....

• Posted by John Battelle at 6:59 AM
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Jeremy Asks: How Do You Learn to Search?

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....

• Posted by John Battelle at 5:49 AM
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Google To Launch Blog Search

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).

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:10 PM
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Google Can Hire Dr. Lee

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.

• Posted by John Battelle at 2:18 PM
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Berkeley Tonight, Mtn. View Tomorrow....

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.

• Posted by John Battelle at 2:31 PM
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USA Today, AP Reviews

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

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:57 PM
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Help SearchBlog and FM

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.

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:17 AM
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Google Update?

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!

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:19 AM
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MSN APIs

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?

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:10 AM
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