John Battelle's Searchblog

I'm in the air most of today. Back at it tonight....

The Tao of Linkbait Method

Microsoft unveils Innovative New Computing Model - SURFACE

CozyBug - Where Buyers And Sellers Meet

.CN - Domain names for China, is now just $12.99

See Who's Online Behind Your Browser

Just was tipped to this filing from Yahoo, which declares that Farzad Nazem, the head of their Tech group, is leaving. That means of the three groups created in the re-org, only one position - Sue Decker's - is filled:

On May 30, 2007 (the “Agreement Date”), Yahoo! Inc. (the “Company”) entered into an agreement with Farzad Nazem (the “Separation Agreement”) providing for Mr. Nazem’s resignation as Head of Technology Group and Chief Technology Officer of the Company, effective as of June 8, 2007 (the “Separation Date”). A copy of the Separation Agreement is filed with this report as Exhibit 10.1 and is incorporated herein by reference.

I have sent a note to Yahoo asking about this. I can't find any news stories referencing it yet, nor any Yahoo releases save the SEC form filed today. For now, his image and bio is still on Yahoo's corp. page.

Wait, here's his blog post on it on Yahoo's Yodel blog.

I'm not at the D conference this week, as business has kept me on the East Coast. But at that event, Jason Calacanis just launched his "people-powered search engine" and I happened to be meeting with one of his Board members here in New York. So I got a bit of inside scoop. Jason has a star studded line up of investors (from CBS to Jon Miller to Mark Cuban to Fred Wilson to many more), and a focus on the top search terms - the head of search, so to speak, including human brains (humans help organize the best results for the top search terms, as I understand it). More here, the site is not yet live. I've asked Jason for an interview, once he gets through the crush of D, I hope he'll have the time to respond.

Hmmmm:

Social music site Last.fm has been bought by US media giant CBS Corporation for $280m (£140m), the largest-ever UK Web 2.0 acquisition.

The online network was founded in the UK five years ago and it now has more than 15 million active users.

It allows users to connect with other listeners with similar music tastes, to custom-build their own radio stations and to watch music video-clips.

Thanks to commentor Kimo for pointing me to this SF Gate Op Ed, written by Neil Henry, a former colleague at the Graduate School of Journalism.

Snip:

The Chronicle's announcement earlier this month that 100 newsroom jobs will be slashed in the coming weeks in the face of mounting financial woes represents just the latest chapter in a tragic story of traditional journalism's decline.

Reportedly losing an estimated $1 million a week, the paper's owner, the Hearst Corp., concluded it had no recourse but to trim costs by laying off reporters, editors and other skilled professionals, or offering buyouts to the most seasoned journalists in order to induce them to leave. The cuts reportedly will amount to a quarter of The Chronicle's editorial staff...

....The factors behind this shrinkage are sadly familiar: The rise of the Internet has produced sharp declines in traditional advertising revenues in the printed press. Free online advertising competitors such as Craigslist.com have sharply undermined classified advertising as a traditional source of revenue. While many newspapers have attempted mightily to forge a presence on the Web -- including The Chronicle, whose terrific sfgate.com is among the top 10 most trafficked news sites in America -- revenue from online advertising is paltry compared to that from traditional print sources. As a result, newspapers such as The Chronicle must make staff cuts to survive -- and increasingly it is highly skilled professional journalists committed to seeking the truth and reporting it, independently and without fear or favor, who must go.

The average citizen may not realize how severely the public's access to important news, gathered according to high standards, may be threatened by these bottom line trade-offs.

When journalists' jobs are eliminated, especially as many as The Chronicle intends, the product is inevitably less than it was. The fact is there will be nothing on YouTube, or in the blogosphere, or anywhere else on the Web to effectively replace the valuable work of those professionals.

I can't disagree more with what Neil is saying in this first part of his Op Ed, though I do agree with some of his conclusions (more on that later). I can't tell you where I heard this, but trust me, it's from a good source: Up until recently, the Chronicle had 400 journalists working at the paper. FOUR HUNDRED! When I wrote for the LA Times, I often wrote two stories a day. Is the Chronicle pumping out 800 stories a day? Is it breaking all sorts of amazing stories and being a leader in the community with those 400 journalists? Hell no! 400 reporters and what is the paper DOING with them? Not much, I'm afraid. The paper should OWN the Valley Tech story. Does it? No. It should OWN the biotech story. Does it? No. It should OWN the real estate/development story. Does it? No. It should OWN the California political story. Does it? No!

Why? Well, maybe it has THE WRONG 400 journalists working for it?! And the wrong tone/approach/structure? Just maybe?

Neil goes on to write:

I see a world where corporations such as Google and Yahoo continue to enrich themselves with little returning to journalistic enterprises, all this ultimately at the expense of legions of professional reporters across America, now out of work because their employers in "old" media could not afford to pay them.....

....the time has come for corporations such as Google to accept more responsibility for the future of American journalism, in recognition of the threat "computer science" poses to journalism's place in a democratic society.

It is no longer acceptable for Google corporate executives to say that they don't practice journalism, they only work to provide links to "content providers." Journalism is not just a matter of jobs, and dollars and cents lost. It is a public trust vital to a free society. It stands to reason that Google and corporations like it, who indirectly benefit so enormously from the expensive labor of journalists, should begin to take on greater civic responsibility for journalism's plight. Is it possible for Google to somehow engage and support the traditional news industry and important local newspapers more fully, for example, to become a vital part of possible solutions to this crisis instead of a part of the problem?

I agree with Neil's sentiment, and in answer to his question, yes, I do think it's possible, and I agree that Google and others should be more engaged in helping shore up and - GASP - evolve the fourth estate. But assuming the way to do it is to support more of the same - the approach that gave us a bloated newsroom that puts out a product fewer and fewer people want to read each year - is to ask for tenure over evolution.

I'd love to see Google and Yahoo and others lead here. I do think they have a responsibility. But not because they are responsible for "killing newspapers". Rather, because they are responsible for leading, period, in a world where they are the premiere corporations of the information age, an age that requires analysis, transparency, and, well, simply good journalism, unfettered by traditionalist packaging presumptions.

Google has once again taken a good idea from a competitor (in this case, A9's Block View) and taken to the next level. Check out this review from Where 2.0:

This morning Google gave their 2D maps an incredible realworld addition. Its a street-view, that in certain cities, will let you get a street side view of the area you are currently in. This is not just a static, A9-style image. It will also let you move along the street in a smooth manner and even more amazing it will let you change your angle and continue moving that way. This will be formally launched at Where 2.0 later today.

As you can see from my probably-confusing-words above, this is something that you must interact with to really understand. It's awesome. Go. Check. It. Out. Now.

I'm moving around the world this week, and it will be, as it's been, a pretty light week of posting. I'm working hard to get back to my first love...writing more here.

Stuff worth noting I missed near the end of the week, as I was traveling:

Blinkx goes public, soars.

FT has an op ed from Google's global privacy counsel. This in response to the EU noise earlier this week.

Google and Dell taking some flack for approaches to software bundling.

Facebook gets generally positive reviews after its first developer conference. "The anti-Myspace" seems to be the buzz.

Cringely says it's inevitable: Google will do itself in because there are more good ideas than the company can go after. I'm not convinced. Google may lose some folks to entreprenuerialism, but that's entirely normal. The NYT covers how Google recruits.

From Ars: The Future of Google Mobile Search.

Bloggers are more connected than journalists. Huh. What if we're both?

Yahoo testing linking to outside sites on homepage. Firehose, ho!

Nah, focus on what you do best, says Ad Age publisher Scott Donaton. I agree:

Consumer insights. Creative ideas. Media strategies. Marketers will still need those. Yes, even when behavioral targeting and advanced technologies make it possible to serve the right ads to the right audience at the right time. It won't all come down to technology.

Jeff Barr, who works at Amazon, discusses his go rounds with Google recruiters:

They were almost ready to make the “can’t refuse” offer but the process became bogged down when I couldn’t recall my college GPA. Given that I earned my degree in 1985 and have been earning a living by writing code since I was 15 or 16, this didn’t seem all that essential.

Funny thing is, I now have several more emails in my inbox from other Google recruiters. After reading these emails it appears that they don’t know that I interviewed there last year! Perhaps they don’t have this data in searchable form. Could that be?

The comments are very interesting as well.

Bloomberg:

Google Inc., owner of the world's most popular search engine, may be violating the European Union's privacy laws by storing information on customer queries for as long as two years, advisers to EU regulators told the company.

Google's privacy counsel in Paris, Peter Fleischer, said the company received a letter this month from the EU's data-protection advisory agency asking it to explain why records of user searches are retained.

The scrutiny of policies at Google, the gateway to the Internet for tens of millions of users, has increased since it announced plans in April to buy New York-based online advertiser DoubleClick Inc. for $3.1 billion. Regulators have said that competition among Google, Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo! Inc. to deliver ads to specific users may violate civil liberties.

More on privacy from Searchblog.

Robert Peck (Bear Stearns) analysis of recent Comscore search share numbers:

GOOGLE: SIGNIFICANT SHARE GAIN AT THE EXPENSE OF EVERYONE ELSE. According to comScore data release yesterday, Google once again posted solid domestic market share gains of 140 bps in April 07 to reach domestic market share at 49.7%, up from 48.3% in March 07. Google grew search queries by 27% YoY in March 07. While this growth level almost triples the industry growth at 10.5% YoY, it continued the deceleration trajectory of Google's YoY growth rate. Q/Q, Google searches grew 12% (April over January), tracking ahead of our top line seq. growth projection of 6% for 2Q07.

· YAHOO. Google's share gain came at the expense of almost all top search sites and Yahoo! took the largest hit as it lost 70 bps in market share and came in at 26.8% in April 07. Yahoo continued to be the second fastest growing search site YoY among the top five with growth of 5.7% YoY, down significantly from the 12.7% reported in March 07. However, Yahoo's YoY growth is still behind that of the industry at 10.5%. Q/Q, Yahoo searches grew 2%, tracking behind our seq. growth projection for search revenues at 4% for 2Q07.

· MSN, AOL & ASK. MSN posted 60bps share loss facing Google's strong share gain and came in at 10.3%. AOL stayed flat at 5%; however, we think this could be aided by the addition of several sub-channels by comScore. Ask Network lost 10bps and came in at 5.1% in April 07. Ask.com's market share, on the other hand, remained flat at 2.2% in April 07. While Ask Network’s search queries were down slightly YoY, Ask.com search queries grew 2% YoY.

· SEARCHES PER SEARCHER. We took a look at monthly searches per searcher as Google has stated this metric is important as it shows mind share. Google is leading the pack and came in at an average of 31 searches per searcher per month. Yahoo came in at a distant second with 22 searches per searcher per month while MSN, AOL and Ask were all around the low teen vicinity.

Gary found it. Innaresting! Also, climatesaverpc.us is owned by a Google VP.

SearchMob and the queue of stories. Gary is posting like a madman!

Today I am traveling, light posting. For your enjoyment, play with Babelplex. It's a new twist on translation search, which has been around since Alta Vista....using Google's translation service.

Google Ad honcho Tim Armstrong now owns the Boston lacrosse universe!

...or "What Job Should I Take" is the day one of you, please, should put me out of my misery. Some things are simply best left to conversation and that messy thing called human relationships. Hell, once I can have that kind of a conversation with a search engine, it's entirely arguable if the search engine is anything other than a human being, right?

From the FT:

Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said gathering more personal data was a key way for Google to expand and the company believes that is the logical extension of its stated mission to organise the world’s information.

Asked how Google might look in five years’ time, Mr Schmidt said: “We are very early in the total information we have within Google. The algorithms will get better and we will get better at personalisation.

“The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as ‘What shall I do tomorrow?’ and ‘What job shall I take?’ ”

Sources say it's done. More at Techcrunch.

RWW and CenterNetworks have tons of advice for Ask, not that Ask asked...but when you plan to spend $100mm in marketing money, folks are going to start talking, that's for sure!

An interesting "refresh" over at Technorati (I've been an advisor in the past) points to where the company is heading: as a social search service that uses blogger's signals to surface popular and interesting media objects. The clear next step is to package these insights into media products.....congrats, T'rati folk!

The IAB has released its annual PricewaterhouseCooper/IAB online spending report. This report, as I recall, is quite conservative, but it still shows very healthy growth. (Caveat: I am on the IAB Board).

Some breakouts:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) today released the Internet Advertising Revenue Report which shows record results for the full year and final quarter of 2006. Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. continued upward totaling $16.9 billion in 2006, a new annual record exceeding 2005 by 35%. Q4 2006 internet advertising revenues totaled $4.8 billion, representing record revenues for a single quarter and a 35% increase over same period in 2005.

I like the trends in terms of the top ten largest sites' share of revenues, which were down year over year (from 72 to 69%).

From an email sent by Google PR to me today:

Today website content is much more than just text – it's also video. As the importance of online video increases, we think it's important to deliver users relevant video ads, give advertisers a new way to reach customers online and help publishers earn additional revenue from their video content. Starting today we will begin an in-stream video ads test with a small group of US publishers and advertisers to help us learn the easiest and most scalable way to deliver ads to online video content.

Publishers will now be able to insert high quality, relevant in-stream ads that enhance their video content while maintaining a positive user experience. It also provides broader distribution for participating publishers, and an effective way for advertisers to reach their target customers with rich, engaging messaging. This test represents our continued efforts to address the challenges faced by publishers who want to monetize their video content, by advertisers who want access to quality video inventory, and finally by users who want ads to enhance their video watching experience, not detract from it.

The details:

The test will run on participating sites throughout the network.

As with current AdSense publishers, revenue will be split between the website publisher and Google. The exact revenue share is not being disclosed.

The advertisements will play on the publishers' Flash players, not on YouTube or Google Video hosted videos.

Publishers can select which videos to monetize and track their performance using AdSense. They can also choose where the ads will appear within the videos.

Ad creatives, which can be no longer than 30 seconds, can be made skippable for users.

Google has invested nearly $4mm in 23andMe, Inc., "an early stage biotech company focused on helping consumers understand and browse their genome".

The company is co-founded by Sergey's new wife. Details in this SEC filing, thanks to Gary, himself newly married. From the site:

Even though your body contains trillions of copies of your genome, you've likely never read any of it. Our goal is to connect you to the 23 paired volumes of your own genetic blueprint (plus your mitochondrial DNA), bringing you personal insight into ancestry, genealogy, and inherited traits. By connecting you to others, we can also help put your genome into the larger context of human commonality and diversity.

Toward this goal, we are building on recent advances in DNA analysis technologies to enable broad, secure, and private access to trustworthy and accurate individual genetic information. Combined with educational and scientific resources with which to interpret and understand it, your genome will soon become personal in a whole new way.

You think this search stuff ain't getting cosmic? Uh huh.

If you know my book, you know I started this whole endeavor with a random link in late 2001 or early 2002 to Google's first ever Zeitgeist. Well, since then they launched Trends, and now they've updated it with Hot Trends.

From an email Google sent me (the site is not responding at 10 pm...):

On Monday night, Google launched Hot Trends, a new feature on the Google Trends report. Hot Trends enables users to see a list of the current top 100 fastest-rising Google search queries in the U.S. Users can also select specific dates to see what the top-rising searches were at a given point in time.
For years, Google has produced a manually-compiled list of popular searches called the Google Zeitgeist. Hot Trends takes this list to a new level, providing an up-to-date snapshot of what's on our collective mind – from current events to daily crossword puzzle clues to the latest celebrity gossip. For each Hot Trends result, the associated Google News, blog searches and Google web search results appear, giving users greater context for each result. For example, the #2 Hot Trends result on Tuesday, May 15th was a cryptic phrase: “I who have nothing.” The associated news articles and blog results showed that this is in fact the title of a song that was performed on American Idol that night. And the associated web search results reveals this was originally a song made popular by Shirley Bassey. Mystery solved.

In addition to Hot Trends, there are a few other new changes to Google Trends to make it more informative and user-friendly. Now, in addition to viewing the top countries and cities that searched for a term, users can view the top “sub regions” (i.e. states within the U.S.) across more than 70 countries. Users can now compare the leading presidential candidates around the country, for instance, or find out what region in France is crazy about cognac. Hot Trends is Google’s newest tool for users who want to keep their finger on the pulse of what the world is searching for.

I'm sure it'll be up soon here.

It's all over the search engine web: Google is cleaning house of Adsense arbitrage sites, which I wrote about in The Search and form a cottage industry that benefits both parties. SEW has more here. I asked Google for a statement on this and got this rather tepid, but telling response:

At Google, we are always focused on how we can make the user experience as positive as possible while still providing value to our publishers and advertisers. As part of this effort, we continually conduct automated and manual reviews of publishers and sites that violate our policies. In some cases, violations of our program policies will result in termination from AdSense.

My site was jammed by spammers most of today, I barely got two posts out. But it's back, and we'll be back to normal soon. I did have a very interesting talk today with Yusef Mehdi, who ran the aQuantive deal for Microsoft, and Brian McAndrews, the CEO of aQuantive. What struck me most was the commitment to have a solution that counters AdSense, but with a richer suite of services for both publishers and advertisers. Microsoft is really committed to this business, but they have work to do to productize and integrate this acquisition. More soon.

I've started to interview interesting online marketing folks over at the FM blog. The first is Casey Jones, the new VP of Marketing at Dell. Check it out!

And if you have an appetite for marketing, you might check out the cool stuff going on with FM partners, including avery cool deal with Ask A Ninja, Boing Boing naming a plane, and Intel sponsoring Digg Labs.

I'm talking to some of the key players later today and will post some thoughts afterwards. Meanwhile, some second day stories:

Merc News

Scoble

GigaOm

Reuters

SEL

AdAge

NYT

B2

Kara

Ars

OK. I gotta think about this one. Give me some time...

More on this as I get better connectivity and figure out my flight options. I'm stuck in La Guardia in thunderstorm hell. Here's SEL:

Google is undertaking the most radical change to its search results ever, introducing a "Universal Search" system that will blend listings from its news, video, images, local and book search engines among those it gathers from crawling web pages.

The new system officially rolls out today for anyone using Google.com and searching in English. Not everyone will see it at first, but over the course of the next several days, Universal Search should be more, well, universal.

I plan to write about this at length if I ever get on a plane...

Update: Several of you have noted in comments that Google's new approach to search is old news - Ask and A9 and others have had these kind of services for quite a while. True, for the most part (they have not combined them as aggressively as Google promises to). First, it's notable that Udi Manber is making his first tuely public appearance as the face of Google search this week, and it's not a coincidence that many of the search innovations he pioneered at Yahoo and A9 are now showing up at Google. Second, regardless of whether or not Google is simply playing catch up, the fact that it has decided to do this is quite significant. And it will no doubt send the folks at Ask and other places into paroxsyms, Google will, because it's the market leader, get credit for what others have already done. Jim Lanzone, you now know what it feels like to be Steve Jobs when Windows came out.....

Lastly, and very importantly: this "gradual change" to a multi-media search result is a very tangible step toward the execution of intent-driven web navigation - and advertising. Expect display and video ads on the home page of Google very soon.

PS - I am focusing on family matters for much of the rest of the week. Back at it as I can be....

A very clever morale booster and job baiting document from Meetup CEO Scott Heiferman.

At Google, you take the Google Bus with people as smart as you. Your fellow Googlers will probably be listening to Tech Talk Podcasts while coding.

At Meetup, you take the NYC subway to work. You're part of the greatest melting pot on Earth. WARNING: Some of your fellow riders aren't naturally excited about Google Apps.

From Threadwatch, Google has won a key battle in the Perfect Ten case. Now we can have porn thumbnails in our universal search results....

I was invited to this search-a-palooza, but I'm in NYC and then SD tending to some business and family issues. I won't be covering it, but you can follow it here.

Via SEL, check out Pipl. Not a bad first impression....

I've interviewed Jeff Weiner plenty of times (including this onstage interview in April at Web 2 Expo), and had enough off the record chats as well, to know that this post outlining Yahoo's mission is a milestone of sorts for both Yahoo and Jeff.

That mission:

"To connect people to their passions, communities, and the world’s knowledge.”

Recall my earlier post on Jeff's mission for his search group, before he was elevated to EVP, Network Division:

"To enable people to find, use, share, and expand all human knowledge."

Sounds like Jeff's earlier visions for search have begun to inform all of Yahoo lately....

Where there might be an ad market, Google has a possible patent (ars)...This one in games.

Imagine a small bit of code that runs on either a PC or a console and monitors user behavior in video games—everything from the sort of car that people drive in racing sims to the conversations that they have in WoW. Imagine that this code examines saved game files to see what titles are currently being played, and imagine that it could look inside those files to learn about a user's game choices and abilities. Now imagine that all this data is relayed back to a central server, where it is sliced, diced, and deep-fried, then used to serve highly-targeted ads that appear onscreen. Sound like spyware? Nope, it's a new in-game advertising system that Google hopes to patent.

What would Google do...if it had tons more assets? Tim asks....

From Fortune's blogs:

The writing was on the wall for this one since the moment last October that Google (GOOG) agreed to buy YouTube. Jennifer Feikin, the director and chief businesswoman of Google Video, is leaving the company. I’ve wondered ever since the deal was announced how Google Video and YouTube would co-exist inside the same company. YouTube so thoroughly vanquished Google Video, an also-ran product in terms of traffic, that Google was compelled to buy YouTube, if only to keep it out of the hands of Yahoo (YHOO), Microsoft (MSFT) or one of the several broadcast networks that should have bought it. Feikin, at least, has something of an answer to the question: She’s not sticking around to find out.

I'd call this article pretty obviously an attempt to get link cred....and I bit.

You have got to be kidding me. From the NYT:

Andrew Feldmar, a Vancouver psychotherapist, was on his way to pick up a friend at the Seattle airport last summer when he ran into a little trouble at the border.

A guard typed Mr. Feldmar’s name into an Internet search engine, which revealed that he had written about using LSD in the 1960s in an interdisciplinary journal. Mr. Feldmar was turned back and is no longer welcome in the United States, where he has been active professionally and where both of his children live.

Mr. Feldmar, 66, has a distinguished résumé, no criminal record and a candid manner. Though he has not used illegal drugs since 1974, he says he has no regrets.

Thanks, Hugo!

Last week I got a chance to test drive HALO, Hewlett Packard's super high-end telepresence application. And all I can say is .... Oooooh, I want one. In fact, I want everyone to have one.

Of course, that's pretty impractical. HALO is, in essence, an extraordinarily expensive television studio cum virtual private network, and I can only imagine the cost of building one of them is in the low seven figures. For now, only large enterprises with serious budgets can afford to install such a system.

But man, after you use it, you really, really want to use it again.

I was invite to a HALO meeting by VJ Joshi, the fellow who runs HP's Imaging and Printing Group (IPG), and HALO is one of VJ's many products. IPG is best known for its printing business, but VJ has a larger vision for printing as a platform, and he wanted to bounce it around with me. (HP is a marketing partner of my company FM. Am I guilty of writing glowingly of a partner's products? Yes, but I only do that when, in fact, it's worthy.) VJ is also on the board of Yahoo, so I knew we'd not run out of things to talk about.

I came unsure what to expect - I've done video conferences before, and I was worried that all the usual glitches - latency, crappy video quality, poor audio - would make it hard to really connect. And I wanted to connect with VJ, I had heard a lot about him, and I was eager to pick his brain.

All that fell away when I walked into the rectangular HALO meeting room. The room was paneled in soft, light brown fabric, and dominating its left side was a board room table of sorts - well, half of a board room table, really, an arc of sorts from the stem to the stern of the room. On the wall to my left as I walked in were three 42+inch HD monitors, arranged at table level. Above them was a fourth screen, the same size.

And it was looking at the image on those screens where the mindbender came in: sitting at the table on the "other half" of the room were four people from Hewlett Packard. They looked jarringly real - but in fact, they were sitting in three different locations. They smiled and said hello when I entered, and I got this eerie feeling that I had triggered a family of Disneyland-esque automatons - they weren't reacting to me, were they? Maybe I triggered some kind of response system a la Haunted Mansion, where the ghost starts speaking to you as you pass by?

But nope, these were the folks assembled from various HP locations around the country, ready to meet with me. VJ sat in the middle, in HP's Fort Collins offices. Others were piped in from New York and Vancouver (I was in HP's Palo Alto offices). But as I viewed them, they were all sitting across the table, as if we were all in the same room. It was, as I've said before, really cool.

VJ gave me a brief tour of HALO's features - the fourth screen at the top allows you to manage the experience, share computer screens, and even share images of physical objects (a square light appears on the table next to you, and anything you put in the light can be seen by everyone else). By the time he had finished giving me the nickel tour, I had quite forgotten we were not in the same room. Our subsequent conversation was as nuanced and, well, as human as most meetings I've had face to face. The sound was superb, there was absolutely no latency, and the system adjusts for eye contact - people know when you are looking at them, allowing for the full gestural language of conversation to flourish.

After experiencing HALO, I asked VJ if he thought it was practical to get one of these into every Kinko's in the world. He smiled and shrugged his shoulders as if to say "Why not?" I'm sure that day is a ways off, and because of that, I feel like a got a test ride of the future. Telepresence for me was some kind of Jetsonian fantasy, a silly, far off concept that I understood intellectually, but discounted entirely because it struck me as unrealistic and impractical. But after experiencing it first hand, it strikes me as the kind of impractical idea - like the telephone or the automobile - that will end up changing the world someday.

Of note: Cisco has a similar product in the market, recently featured on Fox's 24 (see here for more, and Charlene Li's site has a write up of it here).

Ask has launched "Ask Mobile GPS". From the release:

IAC (NASDAQ: IACI) today announced the availability of Ask® Mobile GPS™, a GPS-enabled lifestyle application featuring the best of Ask.com, Citysearch, and Evite.com, along with instant location finder and turn-by-turn navigation powered by the Global Positioning System. The service – the first ever to combine local content, social networking and GPS navigation – is now available for download at gps.ask.com.

Danny has more here.

Last week YouTube announced a new partners program (TC coverage here, Om's first coverage here). The program elicited a fair amount of negative response - see the comments in that partners program post - and a lot of head scratching as to how YouTube chose its partners, and what the Terms of Service might be. I happen to be friendly with a number of well-known YouTube "stars" and I emailed one of them for a read. What I got back was quite a rant. Below is a response that I can verify is from a well-known video blogger, who has a very large audience, but who asked for anonymity.

I have spoken to the folks at YouTube about this and suggested that they be given a chance to respond to this post, once it goes up. That certainly seemed fair to me. Should they wish to, I'll post their response here. Meanwhile, read on, in the first person words of a former YouTube star....

###

I'm a YouTube star, but YouTube wishes I wasn't. They would like to pretend I don't exist, rather than admit there are several roads to financial and critical success that don't lead through their corporate headquarters.

If they could, YouTube would love to become the next gatekeeper, the next network. And in fact they have, they've gently plucked their stars and anointed them with advertising dollars. And someday you too can be touched by their magic wand and granted the status of weblebrity if you pass the test.

Our site has won a lot of awards, been seen tens of millions of times, and is one of the most subscribed to around. But somehow, it was left out when "YouTube Elevates Most Popular Users to Partners". Okay, that's cool.

We were approached last year, sure. They talked all about how we should shut down our personal domain and run everything through their site, and how that soon they were going to add a podcast feature to the site. They asked us if we'd heard of podcasting?

"Um, yeah, we've created two of the most successful video podcasts," we responded.

So that's the You in YouTube. They couldn't even be bothered to spend five minutes on our website to find out anything about us. Sweet.

The biggest point of friction has been their opacity and lack of communication. I know they were in startup mode, but seriously, you'd think they'd want to foster good relationships with the people that were supplying the only legitimate content to their sites. We were the ones that were the new way -- the new media creators.

And the big question for everyone was how are you going to make money? Well, we certainly were not making any green from YouTube. And until the last three months, they weren't publicly promising any cash to anyone. So what were we supposed to do? Just pray really hard that YouTube would someday pay us? That's sorta irresponsible. So we did what anyone would do, we started evaluating the opportunities that presented themselves and then took advantage of some of them.

So when YouTube finally got its act together and offered us an advertising split, it was too low an offer. We were doing better without them. And with less strings.

But seriously, why was that the first time they talked to us? Well actually they did ask for our mailing address early on, to send us T-shirts (they never arrived).

If we had a dialog from when we really started to take off, this situation probably could have been avoided. But they talked to us once, knew nothing about us, and expected us to just be so pleased to be in business with them.

Get over yourselves.

Right now YouTube has a three tiered system, the top, or big media, the middle, indie content creators with audiences, and the bottom, random user submissions that get small numbers of views.

At the top they've got some deals in place, but they're also getting sued in a big way. And the new company from Fox and NBC is also going to give a lot of competition.

The bottom is pure long tail. The only money there is in the aggregation of content and selling ads against the massive volume of vids with low views. YouTube will continue to be king here.

The middle is where our site lives, the indie content creators. This is the space that YouTube could just own, if they invested really heavily in terms of ad splits and career development. The terms that YouTube offers to these middle players will set the floor for what every other site has to offer the talented upstarts that create fun and entertaining shows.

They need to be aggressive in identifying the new talent the people that can get more than 50k in views on their vids. And then bring them into the fold, help them. Let them know about podcasting, help them build a good merch operation, sell high value advertising against their content.

This involves much more than they are doing now. Now they just elevate these indies into Partner status. Which means they give cross promotion on the site, the future promise of preroll/postroll ads, and a split of the advertising that appears on the page views on their site.

What they are doing now is a short term play to get and keep the eyeballs of those indie shows. But what happens when those contracts are up? And the creators haven't really developed their careers?

Some shows will stick with YouTube, but the savviest and the most commercial ones will move to other video sites that can provide better splits or signing bonuses. Creators will start to realize that their storytelling talents are rare and valuable.

I don't know the terms this round of authors were guaranteed by YouTube, but I do know that we were offered was okay money, but something that we've already surpassed. And then when you factor in merch sales, and the value of having our own users and pageviews on top of that and controlling our own brand, we're coming out miles ahead of a typical YouTube power user.

So what happens next? I dunno. I mean I know YouTube's got deep pockets now, but I also know that their technology is pretty commodity ( http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=Flash_Video_Player ), and I know if these deals aren't that successful, that the creators will flee to some other deep pocketed competitor.

My biggest hope is that these creators can walk away. How many of them have a good lawyer reviewing that contract?

Whatever YouTube is paying will be the marker. I expect Microsoft, Yahoo, and other players will follow suit, but with better terms to attract the top talent.

Also I think that new kinds of media services companies - smaller and more focused than YouTube - will continue to cherry pick the best and most commercial properties to sell ads against at a much higher dollar value than what YouTube is able to do.

###

Thanks for starting the conversation, and now, let's continue it ....

My thoughts: I'm guessing that this partner pilot is just that, a pilot, and the terms are not totally nailed down yet. I'm also hoping that YouTube does *not* act like a typical media company and require that its monetization partners sign exclusive distribution and intellectual property deals. That'd be a big mistake, I think. My caveat is this: My company, FM, works with a limited number of well known video bloggers. Clearly, I have an interest in this debate.

What do you think?

I don't do gossip here. I tend not to write about folks' personal lives. OK, OK, though. Yes, I did hear that Sergey got married (scroll down.) OK?

More like meat, potatoes, and vegetables....from SEL.

Yahoo integrates flickr even more, Thomas Hawk reports...

...and, the shareholder vote on China and censorship fails. It would, given it seemed black and white - either go into China, or not.

Oh, and btw, Google is talking about data retention, privacy, and policy again here. This is tedious, seemingly. But not worth ignoring.

Thanks to reader David for this:

At SOBcon yesterday in Chicago, Robyn Tippins, who was recently hired as the MyBlogLog community manager, spoke about several major upcoming changes with MyBlogLog.

There are several changes in the works:

1) The biggest news is that there will be a rebranding of MyBlogLog. The exact timing and new brand were not revealed. (YahooBlogLog or MyYahooLog? Time will tell.)

2) A complete site redesign is on the way!

3) A new “Widget 2.0″ is coming with some hover features.

4) Yahoo! is hard at work to remove the offensive photos so that MyBlogLog would be palatable to more conservative business blogs.

5) Some sort of method to turn off your presence for some types of sites will be added.

Finally! One of the ideas we bounced around in my blog merchandising post is live on Searchblog. Folks who come from search (I call them hummingbirds because they come via a very specific search, read one post, and leave) now get a box greeting them and giving them some search-driven options on the site. Big thanks to Jonathan and Ivan at FM!!

Here's what happens when you do a search for "sea dragon" on Google blogsearch, and land at Searchblog:

Check out this one for "steve ballmer throws a chair"! It works for Yahoo too...though not MSFT or Ask yet...

I love it! What do you think?

Updated: It works now for Ask and Microsoft. Thanks guys!

....or any other news organization, Reuters reports. Makes sense to me, in terms of the "we're not in your business" stance the company clearly is taking toward Big Media.

My earlier suggestion on Dow Jones and Google here.

Gary Flake (I posted on my meeting with him earlier this week here) has sent me files from his demo at SAS. I missed that demo, but you can get the picture, literally, by checking out these images.

Here is an image of LiveSearch with the SeaDragon/SivlerLight mashup overlay.

When you mouse over or click on a favicon-sized object at the beginning of the paid search ad on the right (in this image, you can just see one of them at the bottom right), a window opens up with tons more information, turning a "text ad" into an interactive display ad, voila! Yes, this is like Ajax, Flash, etc. But the feel is far more fluid, at least, it was in the demo...

Now, imagine this technology for display ads or online representations of traditional publications. Here's an example of a digital newspaper:

Imagine clicking or mousing over that BMW ad and getting tons more info instantly. All of sudden, real estate gets far more fungible. It could change the business model a bit.

PhotoSynth is still in early dev stages, but the possibilities are very interesting. Using the technology you can start to build virtual stores that integrate the way we are wired - visually - to the way the web is wired - datily. Er, data-ly. You get the picture. Well, no, here's the picture:

In this example you see a very realistic rendering (it should be, it's from a photo) of a high-end plumbing fixture store. Highlighted via the PhotoSynth interface is a faucet, and on the left is a ton of specs, data, etc. on that item. Imagine shopping in this interface online. It's compelling....the glimmerings of a tangible link between the physical and the data worlds.

It's all the matrix anyway. We just process it one way. Connecting the way we process data to the way machines process it is...well, fun to think about.

I bet if we asked nicely, Gary'd be happy to take your questions and input in the comments section....

Full story here.

I'm in an offsite all day ... but I got a lot to write about, so watch out when I come up for air....which might not be till next week...

Here's a rundown of search innovations "outside of Google" from Read/Write Web.

A9 has been very quiet since Udi Manber left, but Gary notes it got a makeover recently....

Mike's got the lowdown on a panel featuring Wink, Spok, and Zoominfo.

I had to leave SAS early today, but before I left, I met with Microsoft's Gary Flake, who debuted Photosynth at Web 2 last year. He had some cool stuff to show me. I was very keen to learn more about Sea Dragon (which also might be called See Draggin', you know...), and that did factor into what I saw, but the stuff he showed me was even cooler.

First, one thought on the implications of Sea Dragon. In short, the idea is this: Finite real estate, infinite information (this is a Flake-ism). I want to get pics from the Gates demo to show you what I mean, but imagine the ad as a rabbit hole of sorts. If you go down it, you can explore all of Wonderland without ever really leaving the page you are on.

Much of the other stuff I saw was under NDA, but suffice to say, I was impressed. What I can tell you about has to do with a new model for ads on the web, a sort of mashup between web-based data and virtual representations of familiar tableaus, for example, a typical storefront. It's sort of hard to explain, it's best seen. Gary called it "one and a half life...".

In short, it's all about a new interface for navigation through commercial space, and honestly, it's about time we started to see innovation in this space. I've asked Gary and co. for some screen shots, and when/if they come in, I'll post more. I'm a bit tuckered. It's been a long 24 hours. More when I can...

This: LookSmart adds contextual to its offerings. Given that it powers Ask's offerings, this is not a surprise.

That: Krugle launches a search appliance for search engine developers....

Google today announced a new version of Google Analytics. From the release mailed to me:

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced a new version of its powerful web analytics solution, Google Analytics™. The new version of Google Analytics was unveiled today at the EMetrics Summit taking place in San Francisco. Google Analytics, a free enterprise-class solution, enables executives, marketers and website owners to understand how their users interact with their website and maximize online business. Google has completely redesigned the product and enhanced the feature set through new email reporting, customizable dashboards, improved map displays, and plain language descriptions to make important information more accessible. .....
.....In the new version of Google Analytics, data is concentrated into combinations of reports, allowing users to make informed decisions about site management and Google AdWords™ campaigns. Google Analytics tracks the effectiveness of online marketing initiatives such as display campaigns or cost-per-click programs and creates e-mail reports that can be scheduled and distributed to colleagues.

I asked Google to answer this one question:

How does Google use the data it has access to through Google Analytics?

I'll report back when I get an answer....

SearchMob is in a bit of a lull since I stopped posting roundups from there, but found today, a cool extension for Firefox that "automatically shows you whether or not the search results listed will contain the keywords in your search query. "

I've always admired Jeff Jarvis's disclosure page, and wanted to do my own. So here it is. I'll be updating and revising this from time to time as things change.

As the guy who writes at Searchblog, I wear many hats. I'm began this site as a companion to my book, but it's become more than that - a place where I sound off on things I find interesting, or pontificate, or ask those who wander in for insights, help, and opinions.

What Searchblog is not is pure, objective, New York Times style journalism. I make no pretension of objectivity, though I do try to be fair, transparent, and accurate. When I'm not, readers generally slap me back into shape in any case.

At Searchblog, I take advertising. That advertising is largely driven by a company I started, Federated Media Publishing. I am the CEO of that company, and I'm hopelessly in favor of it succeeding. I try not to use the site as a platform for FM, but I will mention things I think are of interest to Searchblog readers from time to time. It's entirely possible that I'm biased in my linking toward FM authors, because I tend to read them all as a matter of course. I also tend to think they have the best sites, of course.

When it comes to the site and marketing, I follow FM's Mores, which can be found here. When I work with marketers who support this site, I let readers know (examples here, here, here.) My company has a deal with Google for Adsense, I've also tried Yahoo and others in the past and will again in the future.

Besides my work at FM, I also chair the Web 2 Summit conference and am a partner with CMP and O'Reilly in the various Web 2 related businesses like the Web 2 Expo. I am very proud of the work we've done on this conference. My role is as program chair and consultant, I've run many conferences in my career, in particular at The Industry Standard, which I founded and ran from 1997 to 2001. That company was run by IDG, and readers of my site know my bittersweet feelings about that particular chapter in my life.

I am often asked to speak, for a fee, at a wide range of corporate events, and I turn most of them down due to time constraints. However, I used to do more of this before starting FM, and I still have a few speaking commitments, mostly driven by my book, that are pending (I think my last one is this summer). Touring the speaking circuit is very normal practice for authors, it's rather like touring as a musician. I wish I had more time to get out there and converse with people, but at the moment, I don't.

In the past worked with Steve Rattner on the Foursquare conference, and have tremendous respect for him and his colleagues at Quadrangle.

My family owns individual stocks, but I don't trade or pick stocks myself. Since my days at Wired, I work with a fellow who manages that for the family. I make sure, however, that they do not own stocks in companies I write a lot about. Hence, I do not (knowingly) own Microsoft, Google, Yahoo or IAC/Ask (it's possible that some mutual fund owns them that my broker bought). My wife is utterly unhappy with this, as she suggested we pick up Google at the outset and I demurred. Oh well. Back when journalism was my full time job at Wired, I passed on AOL and Microsoft for similar reasons, in the early 90s when those were very cheap indeed. DOH.

I often write about companies that sponsor Searchblog. That's the way it goes. However, I feel like, after 20 years in this business, I've earned the right to say what I think, and that I have the respect of my sponsors to do so. So far, I think my integrity is intact. If I lose it, I lose you, the reader. I'm not eager to do that, so I write what's on my mind, and I'm respectful of, but not cowed by, my sponsors' support.

I'm sure more will come to mind as I think through these disclosures. Consider this a first draft of many to come.

I'm sitting in a ballroom at the Sheraton, waiting for Gates to come on for his keynote. The scene is pretty standard corporate client conference - vanilla house techno music, hundreds of attendees burbling to each other, Voice of God announcer hushes the crowd and...

The theme is "Inspired" and the conference kicks off with a slick corporate video on that theme.

Bill Gates takes the stage after some sales schtick between Kevin Johnson and Joanne Bradford. His topic is "Innovating in the Age of Engagement."

His talk so far is pretty broad and tuned for a non-technical audience. His first slide is "Megatrends" - stuff that will not surprise this audience - smaller hard drives enabling video and music on small devices, wireless broadband, SOA, etc. He cites MSFT's R&D investment as the largest in the industry - $6 billion (that includes work on core products).

He's moving on to another theme of "customer driven interaction." I have to say, the slides he's showing are pretty standard - models looking excited and engaged, etc. But that's the tuning of this audience - this is a sales conference, not Web 2.0. It's clear that his role here is not sales guy, or cheerleader for the ad industry, but rather eminence gris, Visionary with a capital V.

Damn. The WiFi just went down. That's a bummer. Swapping to another network....

Quotes:

"The only sure winner (in the Internet space) is the consumer himself..."

He mentions that MSFT would like to see another billion computers (that's the current installed base) into the world.

"Reading will go entirely online" the way photography is in the process of doing now.

News and getting news out is changing, uses Microsoft as an example - Channel 9 gets a namecheck - 3mm unique viewers every month on that Channel, wow.

On to the future of video - TV is going from one sized fits all to personalized. Yup! "It's a dramatic change in TV..."

"There is no way in the next five years that broadcast infrastructure will not be viewed as competitive."

"Ads will be targeted to the viewer."

Namechecks Xbox Live. "That's been explosive in growth" - the games that succeed are the games that drive community. For sure....

Brings out Ed Graczyk, a fellow who will discuss IPTV...oddly, he's talking about Microsoft's IPTV platform while showing a fly fishing instructional video, which is pretty cool and distracting me from what he's saying.

OK, now he's showing channel tuning done in software, which is neat. A better looking program guide as well. Neat again.

I wonder what Comcast thinks of this. Hmmm, he mentions that the model is OEM - ie ATT uses it. I see now. Comcast is certainly a competitor of this then. I've not really grokked this world and I need to.

It does look prety good compared to Comcast. Then he namechecks search in digital TV as sucky. YESSIR. Shows search and it's really much better. Way to go Micrsooft, I want it!

IPTV on Xbox 360 was announced at CES. How did I miss that? Doh. Interesting. He shows the integration of IPV on Xbox with IM chat, etc. Again, very cool.

"The first example of how social is coming into the TV experience."

Talks about advertising possibilities in this environment. Yessir.

OK, Ed's off, Bill's back.

More from Bill, now focusing on advertising. Targeting is getting better, in the case of someone reading a particular article, "in the future instead of a publication going to a single provider (for ads) it will be a richer thing than that - the publisher knows something about that reader" as do other third party providers ... "it's really a combination of that knoweldge, far more than the article itself..." that will decide the right ad for that reader. A not too subtle jab at Adsense....

Moving on to Silverlight, see here for more on that....Brian Goldfarb is coming up to talk about that....

Where Silverlight shines is in media experiences....strikes me this is really about competing with Flash, no? It's like Windows Media Player meets web development...talks about contextual advertising using Silverlight...loads of integrated stuff - overlays, etc.. Cool. But very video driven....

Now talking about new ways to work with search ads. Interesting....integrating search and video ads. I've talked about this before....He mentions a technology called Sea Dragon which is very cool. Integrated into paid text ads that blow up into very high resolution images that allow advertisers to push tons of info and pictures into paid search text ads. Very interesting...

Gates is back. Now talking about "the Live era" and wrapping up. Overall, I was impressed with the stuff I saw. Sea Dragon in particular strikes me as pointing to where we are heading in search ads, and I bet Google will do something similar soon.

Gates is down now with Joanne Bradford for Q&A....

What in tech is underestimated? TV on the internet is finally happening. Mobile...

What's next in mobile? Mixed voice-screen interfaces...for sure...

Will the Yellow Pages get wiped out? They will be used less and less. Namechecks TellMe....

What gets you excited about Web2? Education and video...

What are you spending the next 15 or so months on? People don't want to go to the Internet just to see a list of links (ouch, another hit on Google). We can make that far better. I think what he's saying here is that Microsoft is all about creating a better interface for the Web. This is consistent with what they showed and ties it up nicely.

Now this is a monumentally bad idea:

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Walt Disney Co.'s two big TV networks, ABC and ESPN, have struck a deal with cable operator Cox Communications Inc. to offer hit shows and football games on demand, but with the unusual condition that Cox disables the fast-forward feature that allows viewers to skip ads, according to a media report Thursday.

The deal between Disney and Cox is expected to be announced today at the National Cable Television Association convention in Las Vegas, The Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition. See Wall Street Journal story (subscription required).

Apparently the deal applies only to on demand inventory, but still....it's a Very Bad Idea.

Tonight I got into SEATAC, pretended not to see Hasselhoff while heading toward the cab line, and checked into the Seattle Sheraton, site of Microsoft's annual Strategic Account Summit.

After checking email and the like, I made my way to the opening reception, held at the Benaroya Hall, home of the Seattle Symphony.

It's a beautiful space, and Microsoft does know how to throw a party. There was a 16-piece band, tons of happy people, plenty of good food, and in general a festive and upbeat mood. I saw a lot of colleagues and met a lot of new ones, and to a one, they had one question for me: What do you make of the rumors about Yahoo and Microsoft hooking up?

Well, after you discuss that one with five or six folks, the standard back and forth starts to get old. And then, BOOM, it hit me. It's time for Microsoft to step out of its skin. Get out of its box. Quit the fight with Google, but don't lose it. Instead, redefine the game.

In short, it's time for Microsoft to stop being just a technology company, and start being....General Electric.

This is how I came to this admittedly ill informed and entirely speculative conclusion: I was talking to a senior person in Microsoft's sales organization, and he/she (preserving anonymity) asked an important question: do you think it'd even be possible to merge Yahoo and Microsoft's radically distinct cultures?

I thought about that for a moment. He/she had a point: Getting the two companies to play well together would be a monumental task. But then it hit me: This just might be the wrong question! Why does Microsoft have to be a technology company? Why can't, instead, it be General Electric?

Imagine a Microsoft that commits to the media business the way that GE has - it bought NBC. Microsoft can buy Yahoo, and simply claim that its media play is, well, called Yahoo! Now, Terry Semel may not like that, but I sense Bob Wright got over it, just as Terry was OK with Warner Studios being part of Time Warner. The central question vexing Microsoft as it competes with Google, the ultimate technology-driven company, is whether Google is supplanting Microsoft as .... the ultimate technology driven company.

Well, that fight can continue, under the leadership of Ray Ozzie in Microsoft's Software division, which makes Windows, Office, Live, and all that.

But Microsoft has twice the market cap and four times the cash of Google, and right now, it can step into a far larger role than Google can - the role of multinational conglomerate. But if it keeps trying to win the game at the level of its current foe, it might not be able to win.

After all, GE started with the light bulb, and went from there. Microsoft started with DOS....

In short, it strikes me that to win, Microsoft might need to become bigger than the industry it helped create. There are new markets - and old - to conquer in turbines, appliances, and lord knows what else. I wonder what the market would make of such a move?

Just a late night JAM thought. What do you think?

Good lord, has it come to this? That was my first thought upon getting off the plane here in Seattle, and seeing CNN - f*cking CNN! - running clips of David Hasselhoff reverse puking a Wendy's Steakhouse Double Melt in a crowded airport during high rush hour (6 pm).

Yes, it has come to this. Why am I, defender of all things Internet (see my views on NBC making the Va Tech material available), offended by seeing on CNN what I can freely see on the Internet? This may not be in any way insightful, and I'm sure someone has put it far more elegantly, but it comes down to this one simple insight: What I see on the Internet, I *choose* to see, and in particular, I choose to see it *privately* - in other words, I see it when and how I want. But when I'm walking with 1000 other souls through a public thoroughfare, and a poor, sick, f*cked up man is losing his dignity on CNN, well, it strikes me the standards are different.

Even though we often watch alone, television is in esssence a shared medium. We watch it together. If it's on, in a bar, on our homes, in our airports, well, it's on for anyone who comes in the room. Collectively, we must form an opinion that individually, perhaps, we might form differently. We are forced to find common ground. And honestly, really, well, I don't *want* to find common ground with a bunch of strangers in an airport about David Hasselhoff. No, really, I just don't.

Online, it's different. Online, I control my space. Yup, it's my space.

So CNN, put it online. But don't make me watch it with people I just got off a plane with.

Microsoft is playing catchup on the web apps side with a big relaunch of Hotmail (now with Live!) today.

Sphere re-orgs its home page around its strength in social news.

Google buying Simply Hired? And updating Finance...

CNN making debates available to public. This makes so much sense it's ridiculous anyone thinks otherwise.

Google command line search and Gadget Ads.

I'll be heading up to Microsoft today (nice timing) to the company's annual sales partner meeting. Terry Semel, interestingly, is on the docket to speak. Now that should get some tongues wagging.

That's what the Journal is saying.

I say, they are ALWAYS talking. They should always be talking. More thoughts when the day quiets down...

I met Elizabeth van Couvering while working on the book. She's published a paper titled Is Relevance Relevant? Market, Science, and War: Discourses of Search Engine Quality.

For your Friday reading pleasure. From the abstract:

Fairness and representativeness, core elements of the journalists' definition of quality media content, are not key determiners of search engine quality in the minds of search engine producers. Rather, alternative standards of quality, such as customer satisfaction and relevance, mean that tactics to silence or promote certain websites or site owners (such as blacklisting, whitelisting, and index "cleaning") are seen as unproblematic.

Thank God we have a paper like the Washington Post which owns this story. Here's their latest: Bush Wants Phone Firms Immune to Privacy Suits.

Now, why do you supposed the Bush administration wants to protect phone companies from lawsuits? Gee, that's a tough one. From the piece:

The measure is part of a legislative package drafted by the Justice Department to relax provisions in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that restrict the administration's ability to intercept electronic communications in the United States. If passed, the proposed changes would forestall efforts to compel disclosure of the program's details through Congress or the court system....
...The proposal states that "no action shall lie . . . in any court, and no penalty . . . shall be imposed . . . against any person" for giving the government information, including customer records, in connection with alleged intelligence activity the attorney general certifies "is, was, would be or would have been" intended to protect the United States from terrorist attack.
...The measure would gut Congress's efforts to conduct inquiries into the administration's surveillance program because a subpoenaed company or government official could invoke immunity, said Tim Sparapani, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, which has sued the government to force a halt to its wiretapping program

The worst part of this proposed legislation is that it gives blanket immunity for **past** actions. In other words, Cover Your Ass For Things You Did Wrong While Screwing Up The War on Terror. Or, Provide Immunity and Therefore Impunity To Those Who Might Have the Goods to Prove The Government Broke All Kinds of Laws.

No thanks, guys. I prefer my oligarchy with sunshine. It disinfects.

Well sheesh, who didn't know these two were talking. Is there substance here? Apparently enough to get the papers talking. I'll put in a few calls...the original source of this story is the New York Post. We may want to check on that....

Yahoo/Microsoft makes less sense to me than Soverture, but then again, as predicted and discussed here and here, GoogleClick pushes these two into each others arms. It was the first prediction I made in January of this year. Not exactly rocket science.

At Mix earlier this week, Microsoft introduced Silverlight, a new approach to developing web applications. As I understand it, this allows developers the ability to code in native, PC languages like C sharp, bypassing the limitations of javascript and HTML. Scoble has interviews with folks claiming this will "change the web." Will it? I honestly want to know your opinion.....

Interesting details on a new strategy from CBS, which is innovating more than most media companies these days. It recently struck a syndication deal with Joost, now it's providing incentives to the long tail. From Lost Remote (and more):

CBS News is offering blogs and other online publishers the ability to embed a CBS News player on their sites. Video will include CBS Evening News, The Early Show and news video produced exclusively for the web.

Video from Biz 2 here.

From Rob Phillips, an astute reader in the UK, a new look for Yahoo search. He can only see this from a UK IP address looking at the main yahoo.com site, not uk.yahoo.com.

He reports:

They have their entire cascading stylesheet in the source of the page generated. I imagine they will tidy this up soon...
Still, the new branding looks pretty good to me!
The first stage of an AJAX'y search results page? Certainly looks that way....

I've known Tom Wilde for a long time, he's been in the search game for 15 years, with stints at FAST, Lycos, NameMedia, and more. So I was interested to see that he's joined PodZinger as CEO. PodZinger was spun out of BBN Technologies about a year ago to focus on audio and video search technologies.

I asked Tom three simple questions which he was kind enough to answer:

Why did you decide to join Podzinger?

In looking at Podzinger, I actually found the rare opportunity to build a company around a world class piece of technology. Podzinger’s speech recognition technology was developed from $50MM in research & development grants from the US Government at BBN Technologies, from which the company spun out. This technology has solved the very difficult problem of “unbounded” speech recognition, meaning speaker independent, language independent, topic independent speech to text capability. In addition to our extensive patent protection and intellectual property, we have spent the last 5 years building the world’s largest training corpus which has created the high quality output the platform provides. This combination of research, investment, and productization is a terrific platform to build from.

Why now?

Podzinger came to life as a proof of concept around Podcast search as a consumer destination. In the last six months the company has increasingly focused on enabling media companies to enhance their online multimedia offerings. My background in consumer search and online advertising is a terrific fit here, as our ability to extract a full text output from audio and video files across the Internet means that content previously “hidden” from the search crawlers are all suddenly “plugged in” to the online search economy. This creates all the attendant benefits search provides i.e. dramatically improved search and discovery, topic and tag creation, auto-classification, and contextual advertising opportunities. The analogy of the current state of the art in audio and video search would be to imagine a web search engine that could only index the title and meta-tags of the web pages. Unlocking the contents of multimedia files is a paradigm shift in how multimedia content will be organized, accessed, and monetized into the future, and Podzinger is uniquely positioned to address this need.

Given the platforms Yahoo and Google have, how will you differentiate? Is your company going to be built for an exit, or for the long term?

In the near term, our platform can substantially enhance the consumption of multimedia content through improved search and navigation as well as enrich the advertising opportunity through improved targeting. Long term we are well positioned to drive the growth of video advertising inventory as that market quadruples in size in the next four years. With our capabilities we believe that Podzinger will be a successful standalone business in its own right. The core differentiation is our ability to extract the contents of multimedia files. While its of course possible that a competitor could create similar technology, our IP protection and five year headstart will provide barriers to entry for competitors.

Thanks Tom!

How this guy has time to blog while watching the Warriors run circles around the Mavericks (except last night in the last two minutes) is beyond me. But what he has to say about the Comcast deal is interesting:

In short, Yahoo and Comcast can start working together to develop video content and ad platforms that Google can't touch. Any video that is streamed from Comcast.net can be streamed at bit rates that match the user's throughput, including commercials. If Comcast can deliver on demand video at full DVD quality to PCs, it can deliver commercials at that quality. All without ever touching the internet.

Via Digg, a photo essay on Life at the GooglePlex

Update: An astute reader notes:

These photos are originally from a TIME photo essay:
http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/2006/inside_google/

Bloomberg is speculating that Google might buy Dow Jones.

They only way this makes any sense (see my rant on buying NBC for more) is for Google to take a public service stance and put the Wall St. Journal in a non profit trust. Now that would be ballsy. It's been done before (The Guardian is in a trust). Dean Orville Schell has made this argument to me, and I agree with it.

News.com has the response here.

TechDirt has a good writeup:

The filing from Google is pretty much exactly what you'd expect. It points out that Google is well within the law. When Viacom sends takedowns, Google complies -- even if Viacom screws up and demands non-Viacom videos get taken down. Google's lawyers also point out that Viacom was one of the companies that pushed for the DMCA and had a clear hand in shaping what was in it -- noting that it's a bit ridiculous for the company to now be complaining about the law it wanted put in place.

The plot on the chess board thickens, Yahoo wins its second major media company account (Viacom was first).