Month: May 2006

My Ray Ozzie Interview On Biz 2

I'm still not used to the idea that my stuff at Business 2.0 is not behind a paywall. But it ain't. Here's my interview with Ray Ozzie. From it: When the deal went down, people wondered, Was it Groove that was getting acquired, or was it Ray Ozzie? The…

OzzieI’m still not used to the idea that my stuff at Business 2.0 is not behind a paywall. But it ain’t. Here’s my interview with Ray Ozzie. From it:

When the deal went down, people wondered, Was it Groove that was getting acquired, or was it Ray Ozzie?



The answer’s “Yes.”

At such a big company, there’s so much to tackle. What did you do first?



The first few months I spent doing what anyone who sells a company should do – make sure the acquiring party doesn’t screw up the acquisition. Fortunately the culture that we had built at Groove matched the Microsoft Office development culture, and Groove will be part of Office moving forward. After a few months, I started spending a lot more time in Redmond. Before doing anything, I just wanted to get to know people and understand the map of projects. It’s very broad. Every organization is the product of its leaders and its culture and the negative and positive things that have happened to it over time. So I tried to just learn from people there.

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Melanie’s Monday RoundUp

Microsoft (Finally) Landing on the Map The acquisition of the mapping and 3-D imaging company Vexcel brings Microsoft into the running with Google and Yahoo Maps. But MS has bigger plans. SenseWeb is MS’s project to provide real-time maps that integrate localized data like gas prices, traffic reports, and…

Microsoft (Finally) Landing on the Map

The acquisition of the mapping and 3-D imaging company Vexcel brings Microsoft into the running with Google and Yahoo Maps.

But MS has bigger plans. SenseWeb is MS’s project to provide real-time maps that integrate localized data like gas prices, traffic reports, and even average wait time for Sensewebrestaurants. MIT’s TechReview notes that while other research projects—at Berkeley, MIT, Stanford—also aim at including variable data into maps (irregularly updated), SenseWeb alone is attempting to create up-to-the-minute updated results specific to a user-defined area. The technology requires a feed of incoming data from individuals and auto-detecting equipment (currently underserved):
One challenge for the SenseWeb project will be making the different types of information pulled into its database consistent enough to analyze and sort, says Samuel Madden, professor of computer science at MIT. For instance, there would need to be standard units for temperatures. “As soon as you start integrating Earth Adall this data, you can imagine that weird things will happen,” he says. “It’s really a challenge to build tools that work with generic data and to come up with a way that anyone can publish their information.”

Microsoft has gone so far as to add favorite celebrity sites to its maps. CelebFavorites signed Alex Rodriguez, for example. All this localized personal search in maps leads Geeking with Greg to fancy Search without Searching.

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Reader Chris Says…

Reader Chris Says: If John had written all he's written about Google *and* included point-by-point comparison's of AdWords, DTC and AdCenter for the past two years, then you can bet the high-level thinking he's brought to bear would've been unnecessarily weighed down by reality…….

< ![CDATA[Reader Chris Says: If John had written all he’s written about Google *and* included point-by-point comparison’s of AdWords, DTC and AdCenter for the past two years, then you can bet the high-level thinking he’s brought to bear would’ve been unnecessarily weighed down by reality….]]>

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Your Help: Vint Cerf and Jonathan Miller

As part of my ongoing quest to stay abreast of major net issues, get ready for Web 2, and satisfy my editor's desire to have interesting conversations for Business 2, I'm talking to Vint Cerf and Jonathan Miller this week. What should I ask them?…

As part of my ongoing quest to stay abreast of major net issues, get ready for Web 2, and satisfy my editor’s desire to have interesting conversations for Business 2, I’m talking to Vint Cerf and Jonathan Miller this week. What should I ask them?

11 Comments on Your Help: Vint Cerf and Jonathan Miller

OK, But How Do I Make A Word Bold?

Day Two, and I'm sort of hooked on learning this AdWords thing. Thanks to you all, I've changed my mix of keywords, separated my content bids from my search bids, been on the alert for Chinese based clickfraud (thanks, China Boi….no, really….) and a lot more. But here's a…

Day Two, and I’m sort of hooked on learning this AdWords thing. Thanks to you all, I’ve changed my mix of keywords, separated my content bids from my search bids, been on the alert for Chinese based clickfraud (thanks, China Boi….no, really….) and a lot more. But here’s a puzzle I ran into (the answer is below). I am testing the keyword “blog advertising” (stay away, fraudsters, I’m not spending that much…). This is a very hotly contested keyphrase, and Google wins the auction, as its ads are at the top. Here’s a shot of the ads at the top:

Adwords 2

There are also a ton of ads on the right, and you can see that by lifting my bid a bit, I’m at the top of the heap.

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My First Day As An AdWords Advertiser

I've played around with AdWords before, just to learn about how it works so I could write about it with some first hand knowledge. But I was never a "real" AdWords advertiser – I didn't have anything to sell. Sure, my publisher (and Amazon) have purchased the "John Battelle"…

Adwords PicI’ve played around with AdWords before, just to learn about how it works so I could write about it with some first hand knowledge. But I was never a “real” AdWords advertiser – I didn’t have anything to sell. Sure, my publisher (and Amazon) have purchased the “John Battelle” keyword, which is great, but I had nothing to do with that.

That all changed today, when I created an account with Google and started a campaign, for real, promoting Federated Media’s new ad platform. Now, sure, it may be odd to use one ad platform to promote another, but I believe that AdWords and FM are complementary, and further, well, I’m a big believer in intent driving content, as anyone who’s read this site or my book knows. Plus, the more I know about Google, the smarter I might be as we take FM into the future.

The lessons so far are really, really interesting. I’ll be sharing them as I go along, but a few to start:

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News: Yahoo Launches Major Update to Ad Platform

I'm plum tuckered out (always wanted to say that) from finishing up the first draft of my paperback chapter (wooohoooo) but it's worth noting that Yahoo is rolling out a major update to its ad platform tonight. I got a run through from Tim Cadogan at Yahoo late last…

Ysm

I’m plum tuckered out (always wanted to say that) from finishing up the first draft of my paperback chapter (wooohoooo) but it’s worth noting that Yahoo is rolling out a major update to its ad platform tonight. I got a run through from Tim Cadogan at Yahoo late last week, and the new interface is slick as can be, and very clearly targets what Yahoo believes are weaknesses in Google’s AdWords platform. I’ll have more later…but for now, here’s MSNBC’s story.

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Melanie RoundUp – Brief Weekend Edition

Quintura Search Approaches Launch Quintura Search brings out version 1.5 boasting "complex query using a map of related words." It's generating some buzz as intuitively easy to understand – its display is interactive and lively, with fairly rewarding results. Some initial questions after I checked-out the demo (I didn't…

Quintura Search Approaches Launch

Quintura Search brings out version 1.5 boasting “complex query using a map of related words.” It’s generating some buzz as intuitively easy to understand – its display is interactive and lively, with fairly rewarding results.

Some initial questions after I checked-out the demo (I didn’t fool around with the program because you need IE to install). What if the secondary search term you want isn’t displayed? It’s not clear if the order in which you choose the search terms effects the results. Quintura looks to be a great tool for exploration, for example of linguistic association or hierarchal learning, but it’s potential to compete directly with single-entry search looks murky. Even if not a replacement to the titans, Quintura is adding a welcome dimension to the evolution of search.



Microsoft Answers with QnA Beta

Windows Live QnA Beta is expected soon, providing some competition in Q&A service to Yahoo! Answers (free, community/amateurs) and Google Answers (paid researchers, community comments). QnA is a collaborative effort–with individual ranking and community exchange. Based on precedent, Resource Shelf expects it to be free. From Live: “ask any question and get the 411 from people who have the answers you’re looking for. Everybody’s an expert on something–including you–so tap into that collective brain power and contribute your own.” The curious can sign onto the beta list here.

More MSFT: A Froogle Foe, Live Products

TechCrunch makes some comparisons: an important difference between Froogle and Live Products, however. Froogle takes data from merchants via a push model (merchants use a Froogle API to include information), whereas Live Products pulls the data from the main Live Search web index – so Live Producst is presenting crawled results and algorithmic ranking. Merchants will be included if they are in the index without taking any additional steps.

Live Products is not as good as Froogle yet, although a big part of this may be due to the fact that Froogle, with their push model, obtain very structured data from merchants. Live Products, in contrast, structures the data directly.

3 Comments on Melanie RoundUp – Brief Weekend Edition

Friday Wondering: How Much Is New?

I wonder….how much of the web is "fresh web", and how much is the same old stuff? By that I mean, at the most granular level of indexing – the word and the phrase – how much is relatively new, and how much has already gathered a lot of…

I wonder….how much of the web is “fresh web”, and how much is the same old stuff? By that I mean, at the most granular level of indexing – the word and the phrase – how much is relatively new, and how much has already gathered a lot of digital imprints?

I wonder because my old little league coach andy vollero has very few mentions in Google. Nothing to link to, in fact. He’s clearly in the BG generation (Before Google). But I posted on him just now, and also in the last post. So he’ll have two entries now. I wonder, each time Google, Yahoo, etc. crawl, how much of what they find is truly new – in the sense of entirely new words, phrases, names, etc? It’d make an interesting graph, I’d wager. Any of you search geeks out there have any ideas?

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It’s My LAST Public Book Gig: Pasadena, CA Tonight

You never thought you'd hear it, eh? But this is a special one. Nine months after my first book tour appearance, (at the Bunch of Grapes on Martha's Vineyard, where I have family), I'm doing my last signing, at Vroman's bookstore in Pasadena (where I grew up). Vroman's holds…

VromansYou never thought you’d hear it, eh? But this is a special one. Nine months after my first book tour appearance, (at the Bunch of Grapes on Martha’s Vineyard, where I have family), I’m doing my last signing, at Vroman’s bookstore in Pasadena (where I grew up).

Vroman’s holds a very special place in my heart – it’s my childhood bookstore. It’s still my ideal model for “a place you can buy books.” It’s the largest independent bookstore in Southern California, and a wonderful place to just hang out. The store’s Chairman, Andy Vollero, is a family friend (and was my little league coach, but now you know more than you wanted to…).

Tonight at 7 pm, I’ll be talking about The Search, seeing old friends, and generally enjoying myself. I hope anyone down in the Pasadena area can join in!

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