Walt Likes Ask

Well looky here, the WSJ has put Walt Mossberg outside the paywall, and it's a Valentine to Ask.com. Now that makes Steve, Jim and the folks at Ask happy, I'd warrant!

I've been testing the new Ask.com against the search champ, Google. I've found that in terms of relevant results and ease of use, Ask holds its own with Google, and even beats the champ on some searches. It has some very nice features Google lacks, including previews of the sites it finds, an easy way to narrow or broaden your search results, and frequent top-of-the-screen answers that lead you directly to core information.

The retired butler Jeeves is probably pissed he got canned right before the Journal gives his company props. But no, the stock (well parent IAC stock) did not pop...

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:09 PM
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Don't Forget....April 1st Is Coming

It's this Saturday. All the major engines compete for the funniest prank. Keep yer eyes peeled....

(I still think the King of all these pranks was Google's Pigeon Rank...Prank for short, natch)

PS - Track all the pranks at new FM Site Museum of Hoaxes...

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:12 PM
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Google Launches Biz Local AdWords: It's Just the Start....

Just got this news:

Google Introduces Local Business Ads Through AdWords

In line with its commitment to add value to advertisers and users through local advertising, Google today announced local business ads, a new feature in AdWords that allows advertisers to promote location-based products and services. Local business ads appear with an enhanced map component on Google Local and in a text-only format on Google.com and other sites in the Google network. Currently, this service is available to any advertiser who targets locations in the U.S., Canada and the U.K.

According to the Kelsey Group, 70% of U.S. households now use the Internet as an information source when shopping locally for products and services (March 2005). With local business ads, businesses can promote location-based products and services to users at the precise moment when they seek local information.

Mix this with Base, add a few bells, whistles, and databases, and hey now, my wine fantasy ain't so far fetched.

From that:

As you slip your Naiman Ranch tri-tip into your basket and thank the butcher, you head to the wine aisle. What might go with that grilled tri tip? A nice cabernet, no doubt. Whole Foods' wine aisle, a testament to hierarchy and peer pressure, places the most expensive bottles on the top, and the cheap juice on the bottom. No self-respecting Whole Foods shopper wants to be seen bending down to check out a bottle of wine. Then again, those bottles staring out at you from eye level are exactly the kind that you suspect Whole Foods marks up with the glee of a five star sommelier.

What to do? Not to worry, you’ve got Google Mobile Shop installed on your phone. You whip out your Treo 950, the one with the infrared UPC reader installed, and you wand it over that bottle of 2001 Clos Du Val now lovingly cradled in your arms. In less than a second a set of options is presented on the phone’s screen. It reads:

Clos Du Val Merlot, Lot 21
Stags Leap District, Napa Valley
Average Retail Price: $38 (click here for more)
Price at your store: $52 (more on this)
Click here for a list of prices at nearby stores
Click here for stores selling similar items
Click here for reviews of 2001 Clos Du Val Merlot
Click here for more on this vendor (Ecological Impact, Vendor Labor Policies…etc.)

You’re pretty sure that Clos Du Val isn’t employing child laborers, and anyway you’re really only interested in price comparisons, and the first screen has confirmed your initial suspicion: Whole Foods is ripping you off.

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:35 PM
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CorpDevDude writes....

http://battellemedia.com/archives/002454.php#comment_021529

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:27 PM
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Thanks for The FOIA, InfoWeek

Good work, Tom. Turns out, the DOJ demanded records from 34 businesses. Check out the list. Wow.

In its effort to uphold the 1998 Child Online Protection Act (COPA), the U.S. Department of Justice is leaving no stone unturned. Its widely reported issuance of subpoenas to Internet search companies AOL, MSN, Google, and Yahoo is just the tip of the iceberg: The government has demanded information from at least 34 Internet service providers, search companies, and security software firms.

Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by InformationWeek, the Department of Justice disclosed that it has issued to subpoenas to a broad range of companies that includes AT&T, Comcast Cable, Cox Communications, EarthLink, LookSmart, SBC Communications (then separate from AT&T), Symantec, and Verizon.

Asked which companies objected to, or sought to limit, these subpoenas, Department of Justice spokesperson Charles Miller declined to comment because the litigation is ongoing. He also declined to comment on utility of the information gathered by the government.

The list:

711Net (Mayberry USA), American Family Online, AOL, ATT, Authentium, Bell South, Cable Vision, Charter Communications, Comcast Cable Company, Computer Associates, ContentWatch, Cox Communications, EarthLink, Google, Internet4Families, LookSmart, McAfee, MSN, Qwest, RuleSpace, S4F (Advance Internet Management), SafeBrowse, SBC Communications, Secure Computing Corp., Security Software Systems, SoftForYou, Solid Oak Software, Surf Control, Symantec, Time Warner, Tucows (Mayberry USA), United Online, Verizon, and Yahoo.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:20 PM
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Hey S&P, Thanks for the Secondary!

From Bloomberg:

Google to Sell 5.3 Million Shares for S&P Index Funds

March 29 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc., the most-used Internet search engine, plans to sell 5.3 million more shares to satisfy demand for the stock as the company joins the Standard & Poor's 500 Index.

The sale would raise more than $2 billion at today's price and would bring to more than $6 billion the total Google has brought in from stock sales in the past year. These new shares primarily will be offered to funds that are based on the S&P 500, Google said today in a regulatory filing.

• Posted by John Battelle at 4:23 PM
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Oh, To Be A Fly On The Wall In A Facebook Board Meeting

Om says: when offered $750 million for your company, well... Erhmmm. TAKE IT. Bizweek is reporting that the company turned that figure down and is looking for something more like $2 billion.

Is this going to be another Friendster tale of woe?

Well, perhaps. As I learned when similar sized offers came to the Standard's board table, selling the company is not always the entrepreneurs' decision. The investors usually have final word, though I have no idea if that is true or not in the case of Facebook. And the company does have a remarkable business, in terms of its nearly complete reach into one of the most sought after markets in America - college kids. I can certainly see why Facebook board members might pound the table and say "We're worth more, dammit!"

But, twenty years from now, I'm not sure anyone in the deal would argue that taking $750 million was such a bad move. Especially when the money in was about $13 million, and the damn worm of cool turns so fast in this business.

On the other hand, there is the Google problem. What's that, you might ask? Google going after Facebook with an Orkut-powered killer app? No. Not at all. The problem is that Sergey and Larry held out and refused a lowball offer from Excite (and others) early in Google's life, and they never looked back. Every set of young founders wants to do what they did - catch lightening in a bottle, change the world, make billions of dollars. Good luck, guys. I really do wish you well.

Me? I'd take the $750 million. But then, you all probably figured that one out by now!

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:49 AM
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This Time, It's Serious

The net neutrality debate is heating up, and this time billions are at stake. Back in the 1990s John Doerr and other tech luminaries created TechNet in an attempt to rally the tech world into realizing that the industry needed to play, and hard, on Capitol Hill. This time no rallying cry is needed. Case in point: Google's lobbying efforts (as outlined in this NYT piece), and this Cnet piece, outlining the NN debate. Also, see this Post article about the legislative angles.

I'm planning on focusing on this issue (among many others, of course) at the Web 2.0 conference this year (it'll be Nov. 7-9 in SF, at the Palace hotel.) If there are folks who you think can speak to this issue, or resources where I might go to get smart on the issues, please point me in the right direction. Thanks!

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:40 AM
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Ash Writes...

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:46 AM
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Search Share

From a Bear Stearns report on comScore data, Google continues to gain ground in search share in the US. Given all that's going on in search and related media, that's impressive. From the report, which was emailed to me:

Google now has a 42.3% share of the domestic search market (the highest since comScore starting tracking market share data), up from 41.4% in Jan 06 and 39.8% in 4Q 05.
...Yahoo's share dropped 110 bps to 27.6%, MSN share dropped 20 bps to 13.5% while AOL's share increased slightly to 8.0% from 7.9% in Jan 06. Ask market share rose to 6.0% from 5.6% in Jan 06. The marketing push behind the Ask brand likely contributed to its share gains.
Year-over-year, Google and Ask showed strong search query gain of 29.4% and 27.9%, respectively, while the other search providers in the top five declined. On a sequential basis, Google and Ask also showed the highest growth at 8.3% and 14.6% respectively.
While Google's unique searcher market share remains flat at 59.1% level from Jan. 06 (Yahoo and MSN both declined in this metric), searches per search increased to 29 from 27 in Jan. 06 and from 26 in 4Q 05.

• Posted by John Battelle at 4:10 AM
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Why Read The Newsweek Piece on Tagging...

When you can read Gary's running commentary on it (via his Resourceshelf) instead?

Here's the Newsweek piece, but I felt much smarter after reading this.

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:47 AM
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Looking For A Job At Google?

Then do we have an interface for you! A search for "Google careers" returns this one box integration (thanks, SV.com):

Looking for a job at Yahoo? Sorry, no one box for "Yahoo Careers"!

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:30 AM
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If You're Ever In Montana...

...or near those parts, you have to go say hello to my pal Jonathan Weber, who was my Editor and partner at the Standard, and is one of the overall great folks in journalism. Last week he closed a series A financing for his wonderful regional blog/publishing company New West, and I'm thrilled that both he and I are still at it, even after fate (and a lot of other things) forced us apart five years ago. Congrats, Jonathan and the New West team! (caveat, I am an informal advisor for Jonathan's biz....)

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:29 PM
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Local Matters Going IPO

I've spoken off and on over the years with Local Matters' CEO Perry Evans, and watched as he rolled up his company, formerly Aptas, into a major online Yellow Pages and directory play. I missed it due to all my travels, but last week Local Matters filed to go public. Perry was the founder of Jabber and always struck me as extremely thoughtful. Though he's in a quiet period now, I'll be pinging him to see if he'd like to speak with us...

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:20 PM
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CME - The GOOG of Chicago

Just found an interesting piece comparing the red hot Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings (ticker: CME) to Google's explosive stock price.

...Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings (CME), now trading at $435.25, more than 12 times its IPO price from December 2002. The price is at the same high altitude as GOOG, and people understandably wonder if there's a kind of dot-com fever infecting both issues. ....

Profit margin: 31.4 percent for CME, 23.9 percent for GOOG; return on equity, 31.8 percent for CME, 23.8 percent for GOOG; forward estimated price/earnings ratio: 32 for CME, 28.8 for GOOG. GOOG's revenue growth is greater, but CME has less competition. And both balance sheets have piles of cash with no debt.

CME, though, has one clear advantage over GOOG. Its progress is transparent. With more than 70 percent of its revenue coming from trading fees, all an investor has to do is check the daily volume reports. GOOG has been criticized for not being forthcoming about revenue sources. With CME, its an earnings "surprise" only if you haven't been paying attention.

Interesting point about that transparency...

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:15 PM
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Higest Paying AdWords

I love lists like this. Recently updated highest paying keywords from Google. Top Ten:

$54.33 mesothelioma lawyers
$47.79 what is mesothelioma
$47.72 peritoneal mesothelioma
$47.25 consolidate loans
$47.16 refinancing mortgage
$45.55 tax attorney
$41.22 mesothelioma
$38.86 car accident lawyer
$38.68 ameriquest mortgage
$38.03 mortgage refinance

Found on Xooglers.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:05 PM
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GOOG Loves the S&P

Or, vice versa? From Reuters:

Shares of leading Web search company Google Inc. (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) jumped 8 percent in after-hours trading after Standard & Poor's said the company's stock listing would be added to the S&P 500 Index on March 31.

Actually, now it's up more than 35 bucks. Fickle, fickle, fickle. Of course, when a company makes the S&P, it makes the index buyers, and that drives demand, and demand drives the stock up.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:40 PM
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TVRank: Tell Me What People Are Watching

I've been thinking about television lately. It's not like I spend an inordinate amount of time watching TV - my relationship to the medium is mostly moderated by Tivo. The damn thing crashes every two to three days (I know, that's not normal, I need to figure out why, but WHY do I have to figure out why?!). But still, I love it. Never would give it up. It's like the Macintosh, you know? Finicky, but great in bed.

Anyway, I've been thinking about television. And here's why.

The other day I was at my gym, on my way back from a yoga class. Yeah, I know how that sounds, but don't bash it till you've tried it. OK, so I'm walking past the communal flat screen in the men's locker room, the screen that is usually tuned to CNBC or ESPN - both lowest common denominators of male communality. From time to time an old movie might be on, or a perhaps a rerun of Cheers, but 98 percent of the time it's sports or business. Given that the remote is shared among half-naked men who barely know each other, CNBC and ESPN are pretty much the safest bets to be found.

But that day, as I strolled past the screen in a post yoga haze (it's not unlike getting stoned, without the tendency to talk like a Berkeley sophomore), sports and business were nowhere to be found. Instead, the set was inexplicably tuned to Fox News.

Now, I will acknowledge a bias here. I don't like Fox News much. It strikes me as an intellectually dishonest form of news, but then again, one could argue that about any news outlet. Regardless, what the damn channel had on was simply impossible to ignore.

At first glance it was clear that Fox was covering a trial, and the coverage was live (that was declared in traditional cable news fashion - an unavoidable "LIVE" in the upper right hand corner of the screen, if I recall.) Fox had split the remaining real estate into three windows. In the lower right was a man, head down, clearly a beaten soul, clad in what appeared to be a prison jumpsuit. He had the demeanor of an admonished child, but this child had the countenance of an alcoholic, or an insomniac, or possibly both.

In the center was a live feed of a judge, a man who was, well.... struggling to explain his point. Watching him speak, it seemed he was attempting to justify a decision he didn't much like: he seemed to be praying for an eloquence that escaped him, some way to express the reasoning behind the decision he was about to impart. He had been speaking for some time, it seemed, and given he had not yet found his groove, he also seemed prepared to speak for some time to come. An air of impossibility encumbered his demeanor - this was a man grasping to explain something that, in the end, simply cannot be explained.

In the lower left corner were the victims. They were nameless, mute, anxious, determined. I recall the central figure was a motherly woman, but I could be wrong. For this telling, it matters little.

And in the center at the bottom, as is the practice of cable news, Fox had placed a headline, something along these lines: "Murderer To Be Sentenced For Killing 14 Year Old Girl." To the right of the headline was a thumbnail picture of an adolescent woman, clearly the victim. She was blond, as I recall.

In a second or less, Fox News had communicated this simple fact: A Man Will Be Condemned Today. Stay Tuned, And Watch It Live.

At that moment, in that locker room, there wasn't a man - clad or not, dripping wet or dressed and ready to leave - who didn't stop and stare at the screen. It was a captivating - and exploitative - moment. We were watching, "LIVE", mind you, a judge struggling with whether or not to sentence a man to die. How could you NOT watch?

So what happened? I have no idea. I turned away. I couldn't watch anymore. Maybe that's just me, but it felt, well, too intimate. But as I showered and got dressed, I thought about that moment. And it made me wonder - what might television be like if moments like that Fox News coverage became, well, instantly searchable? What if there was some kind of TelevisionRank that noticed, in real time, what people were paying attention to, right now? Where moments like the condemned man rose to the top of a television index in real time, so that at any time, anyone could ask of the web: What are people watching, right now?

Wow. Now that would be powerful. Is it possible? Oh hell yeah, it is. And it's coming in the next five years, I'll wager. It's pretty much Technorati mashed up with Neilsen, YouTube, and Comcast. And when it happens, we'll never see television in the same light again. I, for one, can't wait.

• Posted by John Battelle at 6:44 PM
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Cloudy Vista, and More News of Note

Everyone knows by now that MSFT has delayed Vista (I can only imagine the glee at the 'plex). But there's much more afoot lately, and since I've been running around having meetings all day in NY, I'm not posting about it as much as I'd like. The stuff I find notable:

Tim interviewed Bill Gates on Monday at Mix06. His questions are here, webcast here. The interesting thing is that Tim even got the chance to do this, given what an open source and web2 advocate he is. Cool.

Tempest in teapot about Blogger banning MSN Search bars turns out to be false.

Google does a deal with Nike for a soccer social networking site called Joga.com. Come on. Let's have a debate about whether Google is in the publishing business....

Philipp notices what folks are doing with "Google Page Creator." Sigh. Tragedy of the commons.

Xeni notes the wonderful world of the DOJ w/r/t teabagging and Google.

Claria is "exiting the adware business by Q2."

Podzinger (podcast search) has launched.

Google appears to be testing an interesting new approach to SERP layout in Italy, more here.

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:51 AM
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Jonathan Says...

In the long run, we don't want to be in the retail web service business...

http://battellemedia.com/archives/002439.php#comment_20732

• Posted by John Battelle at 4:54 AM
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About Sun's Grid...

So soon Sun is going to launch its utility computing grid, open to all for rent. In Jonathan's post covering the launch here, I wonder, really, truly - isn't Google the clear competitor here? Oh, wait, no, it's already Amazon. I'm pinging Jonathan to ask about this. Google is Sun's partner, but will they also be fundamental competitors? (Thanks, James)

• Posted by John Battelle at 2:56 PM
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Abortion, Adoption, Amazon

This NYT story is getting some pickup across the mainstream mediasphere, it demonstrates how search and clickstream habits can create sticky political wickets. From the piece:

Amazon.com last week modified its search engine after an abortion rights organization complained that search results appeared skewed toward anti-abortion books.

Until a few days ago, a search of Amazon's catalog of books using the word "abortion" turned up pages with the question, "Did you mean adoption?" at the top, followed by a list of books related to abortion.

Amazon removed that question from the search results page after it received a complaint from a member of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, a national organization based in Washington.

In short, it seemed to the pro-choice group that Amazon had an editorial opinion. I am quite sure this is not true (Amazon denies it), but it's yet another example of how we see ourselves reflected - at least how we wish to see ourselves reflected - in the cultural mirror that is search. Amazon decided to disable the search suggestion, which, to be honest, *is* an editorial decision.

• Posted by John Battelle at 2:39 PM
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News: Google.Portal.Finance Launches

(image credit) It may not be live for a bit, but I just got off the phone with the product manager for Google Finance. Today the site is finally launching. The UK sites already have the story. A few thoughts.

First, this marks a rolling shift at Google - the company is getting into publishing, whether or not it wants to admit it. The product manager, Katie Jacobs Stanton, admitted as much when we spoke - Google Finance will have a Groups section where stocks are discussed with paid moderators - that's editors to you and me. And that's a shift, a shift that is worth noting.

Second, Google is integrating its Finance section as the first link in its one box implementation, ahead of Yahoo and the others who previously got the free Google juice (see it in action HERE). Now the first results are going to...well...Google. That's obviously the right thing to do for the business, but it brings up the question - is Google in the pure unadulterated we don't mess with your results at all we're totally objective search business, or....is it in the Yahoo business of being a content company? Think about that on for a second. (For more, read my book on this tension.)

I'm looking forward to checking the site out. Katie - who is clearly proud of her work in an infectious way - said she's adding blogging voices, and interactive, news driven charting, and other neat features. "We're up to par," with the other services, she added. (Interestingly, Katie worked at Yahoo Finance, then took time to be with her kids, then went to Google.)

Apparently this started as a 20% project in Google's Bangalore office, after Google consumer testing showed that the product was wanted by Google users.

Well, OK then. I recall a fellow by the name of Jerry Yang and another by the name of Tim Koogle telling me that when they wanted to start a new publishing venture at Yahoo, they would watch what the users did after searching. Where the tracks were deepest - finance, sports, travel - they built a new section of the ....uh oh, here it comes...the PORTAL.

As Danny pointed out last week, this page (see #2) is getting really outta date. Not that I won't be looking forward to using Google Finance to track my non existent shares of GOOG, which, as you might recall, have been in the dog house of late. I had dinner with a Google analyst tonight in fact. Her price target is mid 400s. Can't a brother spare a good analyst a hundred points or so? One way or another, you'll see the stock move right here, at Google Finance.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:20 PM
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On the Road Again...

NYC bound. Post a comment if the world changes in the next six hours...

• Posted by John Battelle at 6:19 AM
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An Interesting Note in Google's 10K: No Favored Nation Status for AOL

Thanks to Bear Stearn's Robert Peck, for doing the work, in the summary of the 10K he finds:

Google also stated that they have substantially completed negotiations with Time Warner and AOL and expect the investment to close in 2Q06. One of the prior elements in the agreement, “making AOL content more accessible to Google web crawlers”, was removed, likely due to concerns that Google would give AOL’s content preferential treatment in its search results. AOL represented 9% of revenues in 05, down from 12% of revenues in 04.

So, it seems, Google and AOL have quietly dropped one of the most controversial elements of the deal. Remember the hubbub (I made a shark jumping comment, you may recall)?

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:50 AM
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Google Wins (For The Most Part) Against DOJ

Google was due some good news, and yesterday (sorry, was traveling to Spring Training with my son...) it got some. From the Google Blog:

Google will not have to hand over any user's search queries to the government. That's what a federal judge ruled today when he decided to drastically limit a subpoena issued to Google by the Department of Justice. (You can read the entire ruling here and the government's original subpoena here.)

The government's original request demanded billions of URLs and two month's worth of users' search queries. Google resisted the subpoena, prompting the judge's order today. In addition to excluding search queries from the subpoena, Judge James Ware also required the government to limit its demand for URLs to 50,000. We will fully comply with the judge's order.

Google PR also sent me over this response, from Nicole Wong, associate general counsel:

"This is a clear victory for our users. The subpoena has been drastically limited, most importantly the order excludes search queries."

I laud Google for going to the mat on this. It could have just rolled over, as did several others. My earlier converage on this, and speculation on why Google was so motivated to fight, here and here (What's the Big Deal?!).

• Posted by John Battelle at 6:35 AM
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The GOOG Annual

If you're into some light reading, here's a copy of the Google annual report. (Gary tipped me to it, natch.)

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:30 PM
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These guys...

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:51 PM
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CenSEARCHip

A neat project at the Indiana School of Infomatics compares Google US and China for the same search. Fascinating to see the results build on the fly. The site uses a variation of a tag map from the results, as opposed to just the results themselves. From the about page:

When you click the "Web Search" button, each side of the display will first show you an estimate of how many English-language results the search engine has for that national version. Our system will then begin downloading the top few pages that are unique to that country's results. As the pages are downloaded, you'll see a set of words of varying size in each half of the display.

We get those words by breaking the pages up into individual terms, throwing out some common noise words ("and", "the", etc.), and tallying up the results. We then find the 50 words that have the highest relative frequency of use on each side and draw them in a font size proportional to their frequency. For example, if you see that the word violin is very large on the Chinese side of the display, that means that the pages unique to the Chinese search results use the word violin much more often than the pages unique to the United States search results.

You can also see image searches. Unfortunately it does not support inline URL searches so I can't link to specific searches, but try Dali Lama, or Falun Gong, or Tiananmen (image results shown below).

(Thanks, Brent)

• Posted by John Battelle at 5:57 PM
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Please, Give me LiveSoft (Or...Please Split Up Microsoft!)

I've been thinking about Microsoft lately, maybe because I've been in an email dialog with Gary Flake, or because I just interviewed Ray Ozzie for my column, or because, perhaps, of silly speeches given by Gates like this one, which was summarized thusly by a news service I subscribe to:

"The cell phone will become a "digital wallet," able to receive e-mail and even scan business cards, while computers and TVs will merge, predicts Microsoft chief Bill Gates."

Now, I know it's Gates' job to make the world of tech seem approachable and understandable to the typical MS Office user - the same person who apparently has a dinosaur for a head and stopped paying attention to technology somewhere back in 1997. But g'damn, we've been hearing this speech for more than ten years now, and if Microsoft ever wants to get back out in front of the pack in technology, if it really wants to lead again, as it did in the mid 1990s, it needs to do one simple thing: Split the company up.

Everyone knows that Microsoft has one center of gravity that matters: The Office and Windows revenue line. Everything else pales in comparison. But where does Microsoft get judged, day in and day out? Not on Office, or even Windows. It's search, and innovation across the web generally. And there, it's clear, Microsoft's gravitational mass is getting in the way.

Gates needs to do to Microsoft what Jobs did to Apple when he launched the Mac team - give the new guys carte blanche, and get out of their way. There so so many smart, amazing minds at MSFT, but also so many stories of brilliant mediocrity. How can a company innovate against the likes of Google and a thousand Web 2.0 startups when it has to worry about Windows and Office integration? Short answer: It can't.

Microsoft is a middle aged company struggling to figure out how to dance with the teenagers, and its body simply can't keep up with its intentions, no matter how correct they may be. I'm not claiming "Microsoft doesn't get it" - in fact, I very much think it does. I'm saying that structurally, the company is not capable of executing on what it knows it must do. Major projects like Live, Search, and MSN need to compete in the same market ecosystem as Google, Yahoo, and the startups. As it stands now, they can't.

But that could be addressed. MSFT has already taken the first step, which is to reorganize into three distinct businesses - Platform and Products (Windows and MSN), Business (Software), and Entertainment/Devices (Xbox etc.). But really, what it needs to do is spin out a Google/Yahoo killer. Take Search, Live, and a good chunk of MSR (research) and make it a separately traded division of MSFT. Take the damn thing public. Imagine that IPO!

Let's call this new company LiveSoft. It spins out with exclusive licenses from MSFT for integration with Windows and Office. For infrastructure support and access to patents/IP/research/human capital. All the stuff it needs from Mommy Microsoft, it can have. But, it's kicked out of the nest, and run by a real madman/woman, someone who lives to run this shit. It finds its Terry Semel, Meg Whitman, Barry Diller, or Sergey Brin. (Paging Dan or Jeff from Yahoo...) And it runs from day one out of the gate.

If I were at Google, this development would scare the sh*t out of me. And if I were on Wall St, I'd have a reason to really love a MSFT related stock again.

Anyway. There you have it. I read one headline, and this rant comes out. So, what do you think?

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:51 AM
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FM News

For those of you keeping track of my other job, there's news today.....

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:00 AM
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Hackoff.com Is Out

Tom Evslin went way further than I did with the whole blogging/book thing, he literally wrote it online, and has now published it in hardcover. Congrats, Tom!

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:38 AM
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AdWords As Political Weapon

The Drum Major Institute, a local public policy group in New York, recently released a report grading New York state legislators' voting records with regard to middle class issues. Pretty traditional stuff, save for the way the group has decided to market it. For the next 30 days, if you Google any one of the state legislator's names, you will see a paid ad which shows that legislator's grade. The next step, of course, will be those legislators who got terrible grades fighting back with their own AdWord campaigns. My guess is Thomas F. Barraga will be first in line.

(Thanks, Tom).

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:21 AM
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Amazon S3

It's late, I'm tired. But I have to say. Anyone who thinks Bezos and Google are not on a collision course is just not paying attention.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:50 PM
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Danny Loves, Danny Hates

Love. Hate. From the guru of search about Google.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:40 PM
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What's Vast? The Number of Plays in This Market

Vast, another classifieds play, launched today. (Edgeio launched last month.) TechDirt has coverage here. Gary has rounded em all up here.

• Posted by John Battelle at 1:15 PM
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Updated: Judge in Google v DOJ: Likely Force Google to Turn Over Info

From a WSJ story (paid reg):

A federal judge said he is likely to require Google Inc. to turn over some information about its users' searches to the Justice Department, after the government said it would scale back its request.

After a hearing in San Jose, Calif., U.S. District Court Judge James Ware said he will pay special attention to privacy concerns as he weighs the government's request for the information with the interests of a private company.

The legal showdown over how much of the Web's vast databases should be shared with the government has pitted the Bush administration against the Internet giant, which resisted a subpoena to turn over any information because of user privacy and trade secret concerns.

Update: Google has provided me this comment from counsel Nicole Wong:

"We're very encouraged by the judge's thoughtful questions and comments.
They reflected our concerns about user privacy and the scope of the
government's subpoena request. At a minimum we've come a long way from the
initial subpoena request, which was for billions of URLs and an entire
week's worth of search queries. When the government was asked to justify
their demand they conceded that they needed much less. Now the government
has on its own already reduced that to 50,000 URLs and 5,000 search queries
as a result of this process."

• Posted by John Battelle at 1:12 PM
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Danny Hillis Has A Company...

And Metaweb is its name. Danny isn't telling me much (but at least he did email me to tell me about it!), but here's what the site says:

Based in San Francisco, Metaweb Technologies, Inc. was spun out of Applied Minds, Inc. in July, 2005 to build a better infrastructure for the Web. Metaweb was founded by Danny Hillis and funded by Benchmark Capital, Millennium Technology Ventures, Omidyar Network and other prominent investors. It is led by battle-hardened alumni of Netscape, The Internet Archive, Alexa, Tellme, Intel and Broderbund.

The funding was announced today. Here's the release. From it:

Metaweb Technologies, Inc., announced today that it has received $15 million of funding. Led by Benchmark Capital, other investors in the round included Millennium Technology Ventures, Omidyar Network and prominent individuals. As part of the financing, Kevin Harvey from Benchmark Capital joined Metaweb's board of directors.
Danny Hillis, chairman of Metaweb, remarked, "We are delighted to receive financing from investors who share our long-term vision to fundamentally change how information is stored, organized and shared online." Mr. Harvey
noted, "My partners and I are very excited to be working with the Metaweb team. This is a disruptive technology that puts a lot of power into the hands of individuals." Doug Solomon, vice president at Omidyar Network, Pierre
Omidyar's mission-based investment group, said, "Metaweb enables individuals to pursue what matters most to them and dramatically expands their role in enhancing the value of online information."

When your *first round* is $15 million, you ain't messing around. One to watch, for sure. For more on what Danny has been up to, read my post on Applied Minds here.

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:03 AM
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