Category: Of Note in Search Biz

Why Are Conversations (With the Right Person) So Much Better Than Search?

Thanks to the BingTweets program, I've been asked to opine on search and decision engines. I'm kind of proud of my third and final post, which riffs on the first two and goes a bit, well, meta. I'd love to know what you guys think of it. I'll repost the…

hal.jpegThanks to the BingTweets program, I’ve been asked to opine on search and decision engines. I’m kind of proud of my third and final post, which riffs on the first two and goes a bit, well, meta. I’d love to know what you guys think of it. I’ll repost the first half here, and link back to the whole post on the original site that commissioned the work.  

Over the past two posts I’ve outlined my hopes and frustrations around search and decision making, using my desire to acquire a classic car as an example of both the opportunity and the limitations of web search as it stands today. As an astute commentator noted on my last post – “normally a 30 minute conversation is a whole lot better for any kind of complex question.”

Which leads me to my last post in this series. What is it about a conversation? Why can we, in 30 minutes or less, boil down what otherwise might be a multi-day quest into an answer that addresses nearly all our concerns? And what might that process teach us about what the Web lacks today and might bring us tomorrow?

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Modest Share Gains for Bing Continue

Comscore's monthly ratings are out and Bing continues a slow but steady gain in share, to the slight expense of Google and Yahoo. Bing has a massive marketing push on right now, but also, I think the service is starting to gain footholds with users who see it as a…

Comscore’s monthly ratings are out and Bing continues a slow but steady gain in share, to the slight expense of Google and Yahoo. Bing has a massive marketing push on right now, but also, I think the service is starting to gain footholds with users who see it as a regular alternative to Google. I am also a fan of the recently unveiled visual search interface – I think it augurs some serious new – and useful – approaches to sifting through massive amounts of related data.

From the Thomas Weisel’s analyst coverage, sent to me in mail:

Google maintains dominance within “core search” but Bing Nudges Up m/m at Yahoo’s and Google’s Expense: Core search excludes searches conducted on video, local and map portions of the companies’ websites. Google’s U.S. query share of core search queries was down 11bps m/m to 64.6% in August but increased nearly 1.3 percentage points from August 2008. Yahoo’s share was flat m/m at 19.3% in August and decreased 39bps y/y. Microsoft’s share increased 35bps m/m to 9.3% in August and up 89bps y/y. Ask.com’s share were was flat m/m at 3.9% in August but decreased 45bps y/y. AOL’s share decreased 14bps m/m to 3.0% in August and decreased 133bps y/y.

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Watch Out Google, Facebook Is Gaining in PPC

Alex Salkever has written a post on Facebok's self service CPC platform, which has been getting a lot of traction lately and is largely responsible for the company's recent boasting about being cash flow positive. From it: I chatted with nearly two dozen people who are buying ads on…

facebook ads.png

Alex Salkever has written a post on Facebok’s self service CPC platform, which has been getting a lot of traction lately and is largely responsible for the company’s recent boasting about being cash flow positive. From it:

I chatted with nearly two dozen people who are buying ads on Facebook. Many of them are also purchasing ads on Google (GOOG) and other online venues. The overwhelming sentiment? Facebook ads are actually more effective and do a better job of getting them in front of their target audiences.

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A Worthy Rant From Danny on Yahoo Search

Danny Sullivan over at SEL has really teed off on Yahoo's search strategy, and any time he goes off, it's worth a read. From it: USER INTERFACE CHANGES WON’T LET YAHOO COMPETE IN SEARCH Got it? Write it down, someone come check back on this in five years. If Yahoo’s…

Danny Sullivan over at SEL has really teed off on Yahoo’s search strategy, and any time he goes off, it’s worth a read.

From it:

USER INTERFACE CHANGES WON’T LET YAHOO COMPETE IN SEARCH

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Omigili Figures Out How To Hack Google For Real Time Results

Way to go dudes at Omgili! By now you probably know about the “Search Options” feature Google introduced in May. One of its features is to limit the search results by time frame. By default the available time frames are: Any time, Past year, Past week, Recent results and Past…

Way to go dudes at Omgili!

By now you probably know about the “Search Options” feature Google introduced in May. One of its features is to limit the search results by time frame. By default the available time frames are: Any time, Past year, Past week, Recent results and Past 24 hours. Past 24 hours is nice but still far away from Real-time. What Google isn’t telling you is that you can search in the past minute and even in the past second. The trick is to change a parameter in the URL that will narrow down the time frames. ….Notice the URL parameter qdr:d. I assume qdr stands for Query Date Range (sounds about right). All you have to do to search for the query in the past minute is to change the parameter to qdr:n, and for the past second to qdr:s.

Past Minute:

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Bing Gets Visual

Bing is announcing new visual search features today. The post outlining it all is not yet up, but here are details and links from an email sent to me earlier: Link to the blog post, not yet up, but soon they promise. Link to the announcement on TC50 stage….

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Bing is announcing new visual search features today. The post outlining it all is not yet up, but here are details and links from an email sent to me earlier:

Link to the blog post, not yet up, but soon they promise.

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Google News: A Payment System and A New Search Bar

From Neiman: Google is developing a micropayment platform that will be “available to both Google and non-Google properties within the next year,” according to a document the company submitted to the Newspaper Association of America. The system, an extension of Google Checkout, would be a new and unexpected option for…

From Neiman:

Google is developing a micropayment platform that will be “available to both Google and non-Google properties within the next year,” according to a document the company submitted to the Newspaper Association of America. The system, an extension of Google Checkout, would be a new and unexpected option for the news industry as it considers how to charge for content online.

The revelation comes in an eight-page response to the NAA’s request for paid-content proposals, which it extended to several major technology companies and startups.

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Search Frustration: It’s Still Hit Or Miss On Complex Decisions

My second post (of two) is up over at the BingTweets site, part of an FM partnership with Microsoft. In it I describe my frustration with search as it relates to helping me make a complicated decision: How to possibly buy a classic car. From it: So first, how would…

My second post (of two) is up over at the BingTweets site, part of an FM partnership with Microsoft. In it I describe my frustration with search as it relates to helping me make a complicated decision: How to possibly buy a classic car. From it:

So first, how would I like to decide about my quest to buy a classic car? Well, ideally, I’d have a search application that could automate and process the tedious back and forth required to truly understand what the market looks like. After all, if I’m looking for classic Camaro or Porsche convertibles from the mid to late 1960s, there are only so many of them for sale, and they can be categorized by any number of important variables – price, model, region, color, features, etc. And while a number of sites do a fair job with a portion of the market, I don’t trust any of them to give me a general overview of what’s really out there. That’s where an intelligent search agent can really help.

But the next step is the harder one. I am not “smart” about how to buy a classic car. I don’t know enough to buy one with confidence. I don’t know what to ask about. I don’t know if it’s good or bad that an engine, electrical system, or transmission is original or rebuilt. I don’t know how one model does versus another in resale value, or insurance cost or…well, you get the picture. There’s a lot to consider, and I don’t know how to value everything. The world of classic cars is complex, like most major decisions. In short, there’s no easy way to decide in this case (unless, of course, I could just buy the most expensive one. That usually guarantees you’ve gotten what the market thinks you paid for it. Not an option for most of us).

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Yahoo’s New Search Plans: Out Bing Bing

Yesterday I got a chance to debrief with two leaders of Yahoo's search team (yes, I know how that sounds given the Bing deal, but bear with me here). Late last week Yahoo announced its intentions with regard to continuing its innovation in search, and I had noted the irony…

Yesterday I got a chance to debrief with two leaders of Yahoo’s search team (yes, I know how that sounds given the Bing deal, but bear with me here). Late last week Yahoo announced its intentions with regard to continuing its innovation in search, and I had noted the irony of such an announcement.

I think most of the industry has written off Yahoo as a search player, and for some good reason. It’s true the company has abandoned two key pieces of the search puzzle – indexing and search monetization. But it’s also true, as I noted in my coverage of the deal, that Yahoo is retaining its right to control the user interface to search, and it’s clear that’s what the company is now focusing on.

What I find fascinating about this is how clearly it positions Yahoo to compete, directly, with its partner Microsoft and Bing. More on this later today.

8 Comments on Yahoo’s New Search Plans: Out Bing Bing

Yahoo’s New Search

It feels a bit odd to be writing that headline – "Yahoo's New Search" – given the company's deal with Bing/Microsoft. But Yahoo seems intent on declaring its independence with regard to search, even as it sells its asset and audience away to its newfound partner. Yahoo does retain, in…

It feels a bit odd to be writing that headline – “Yahoo’s New Search” – given the company’s deal with Bing/Microsoft. But Yahoo seems intent on declaring its independence with regard to search, even as it sells its asset and audience away to its newfound partner.

Yahoo does retain, in the deal, the right to innovate on top of Bing results, and I guess that’s where this announcement is pointing – noting that Yahoo has been innovating in search UI and plans to continue to do so. I’m talking with the Yahoo folks next week and will have more on their plans then. But it strikes me as potentially conflicting to the deal for Yahoo to be innovating in UI on top of Bing, as one of Bing’s strengths is its innovation in UI….

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