Month: December 2006

“Frienemy” – Bleccchh

Please. Please. PLEASE stop using this word (WPP boss Martin Sorrell on Google yesterday). Why? I hate it. Isn't that enough? No? Ok, well, perhaps stop using because it's a cop out – a way of not dealing with a company that represents in a nutshell the need for…

Please. Please. PLEASE stop using this word (WPP boss Martin Sorrell on Google yesterday). Why? I hate it. Isn’t that enough? No? Ok, well, perhaps stop using because it’s a cop out – a way of not dealing with a company that represents in a nutshell the need for major media companies to confront shifts in their audiences, content producers, and business models. Leaning on words like “frienemy” and patting oneself on the back for coming up with them (and please, the word is as old as the hills) is simply a delaying tactic. (NBC has taken to the word as well, ahead of WPP, if anyone is counting). I hate this word nearly as much as I hate the word “Coopetition”. There’s no such thing. You are competing, period. Perhaps one way you compete is to partner with them, so as to keep them close. But don’t tell me a competitor is your friend.

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Yahoo’s Top Searches

Are here. Two things. 1. I find the "hostess" deeply irritating, even if it's just an introduction. I'm coming to rifle through information and draw my own conclusions (ie, I'm in Internet mode), not be yammered at in vapid TV grammar. 2. Interesting timing, Yahoo doing this on Dec….

Vapid Tv Host

Are here.

Two things.

1. I find the “hostess” deeply irritating, even if it’s just an introduction. I’m coming to rifle through information and draw my own conclusions (ie, I’m in Internet mode), not be yammered at in vapid TV grammar.

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Researchers Wonder: Where’s Google’s Contribution

Early in my research for the book, I noticed that the practice of academic publishing in the field of search seemed to have tapered off after the late 1990s. I speculated that this was due to the privatization of the field – companies were starting to jealously guard what…

Acm Call

Early in my research for the book, I noticed that the practice of academic publishing in the field of search seemed to have tapered off after the late 1990s. I speculated that this was due to the privatization of the field – companies were starting to jealously guard what they discovered because there was money to be made. I worried about this on my site, and even started a project to prove the trend that I had only noticed anecdotally. But I am not an academic, and like so many streets my research went down, this one turned into a dead end.

But a faithful reader remembered my earlier posts, and provided me an interesting datapoint from a recent search related conference – the ACM Fifteenth Conference on Information and Knowledge Management. Turns out, of all the papers submitted at this conference (conferences tend to be where most academic papers are presented), ten came from Microsoft Research, ten from Yahoo (one in concert with Micrsoft), and none came from Google.

The site only lists the papers and authors, so my trusty reader source (who wishes to remain anonymous) did the legwork matching authors to companies. ACM has the final say on what papers get accepted, but I doubt they’d bong papers from Google (though Larry and Sergey’s paper on PageRank was denied at first by a conference in the mid 1990s!).

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Ask CEO on AskCity

OK, let's start from scratch. What is AskCity?
 OK. Here we go: AskCity is a new local search application from Ask.com. You can find it in one of two ways: through the AskCity link on our homepage, our automatically, at the top of our standard results page, in response…

Lanzone-Tm-1

OK, let’s start from scratch. What is AskCity?


OK. Here we go: AskCity is a new local search application from Ask.com. You can find it in one of two ways: through the AskCity link on our homepage, our automatically, at the top of our standard results page, in response to your local queries.

AskCity is the fifth major search vertical we’ve launched this year, following Image, Maps, Blog/Feed, and Mobile search, and we’re really proud of it. It stands out from the crowd because it seamlessly integrates four types of local search – business/service, events, movies, and maps – with the best local content on the Web, along with ergonomic design and features, to form an “all-in-one” resource. AskCity users won’t have to bounce around to multiple sites in order to find, and take action with local information. In short, we get you from Point A to Point B faster.

Local has been around for ages. Why now?

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AskCity Goes Live

I'll have an interview with Ask CEO later today, but for the news: (via SEL) Danny Sullivan and I got a demo last week, which was impressive. At the level of functionality and usability the new Ask City is a dramatic improvement over the former Ask Local. It brings…

Ask-Logo

I’ll have an interview with Ask CEO later today, but for the news: (via SEL)

Danny Sullivan and I got a demo last week, which was impressive. At the level of functionality and usability the new Ask City is a dramatic improvement over the former Ask Local. It brings more horsepower but also some greater complexity for users. Ask Local was a very basic presentation of Citysearch data beside an associated map – simple and potentially effective for a business name lookup but not as helpful for a category search.

The new Ask City combines data and content from a range of IAC sites and third-party sources, including Citysearch, Ticketmaster, Evite, Trip Advisor, Yelp, InsiderPages, Judysbook and a number of other sites. It’s broadly organized into four content areas: business listings (i.e., yellow pages), events, movies and maps & directions.

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Oh – That Web OS Thing? Amazon Thinks It’s a Pretty Good Idea

From TechCrunch: A new and unannouced Amazon Web Service to be called “SDS” is referenced on [a now pulled] Amazon web page discussing customer YouOS ….and is being tested with a select few Amazon partners. After a little digging, we heard that it may stand for “Simple Data Service”…

Jeff Bezos

From TechCrunch:

A new and unannouced Amazon Web Service to be called “SDS” is referenced on [a now pulled] Amazon web page discussing customer YouOS ….and is being tested with a select few Amazon partners. After a little digging, we heard that it may stand for “Simple Data Service” and will be launching sometime this year, although another source said that the name is incorrect. A representative from Amazon would not comment on whether the service exists or not.

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Oh To Be A Fly …

…on the wall for these discussions/debates. To wit (via BizWeek, but reported here and here and here and loads of other places….) Google (GOOG ) and YouTube are dangling nine-figure sums in front of major programming and network players—that is, the Time Warners, News Corp (NWS )s, and NBC…

Money2-1

…on the wall for these discussions/debates. To wit (via BizWeek, but reported here and here and here and loads of other places….)

Google (GOOG ) and YouTube are dangling nine-figure sums in front of major programming and network players—that is, the Time Warners, News Corp (NWS )s, and NBC Universals of the world. Google calls these monies licensing fees, according to executives who’ve been involved in the discussions. But some of them characterize the subtext like this: Don’t sue us over copyrights. Take this (substantial) payment, and trust us to figure out how we’ll all make serious money once we get advertising and revenue sharing worked out.



The offer, and YouTube’s rapid rise, force the titans of a time past to make a very big decision quickly. If you’re a network, you can’t ignore YouTube’s reach. (Some 23.5 million unique visitors went there in October.) But if you’re a network, you also believe you can’t give up your stuff lightly. Your copyrights, and insisting on your programming’s premium value, underpin the entire business model.



The questions that matter:

– Are they exclusive to YouTube/Google, so that no other online outlets can have the content?

– Do they include any sharing of ad or future subscription revenue?

– Can the media companies pull their content for breach? And what is breach?!

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Abuse of Your Privacy And Online Info: Don’t Worry About the Govt…

…worry about the MPAA. From Techdirt: A few months back, of course, you'll recall the big scandal over HP's use of "pretexting" to spy on various people to figure out who leaked some information from the board of directors. Pretexting is a nice way of describing a basic form…

…worry about the MPAA.

From Techdirt:

A few months back, of course, you’ll recall the big scandal over HP’s use of “pretexting” to spy on various people to figure out who leaked some information from the board of directors. Pretexting is a nice way of describing a basic form of social engineering identity theft. Basically, you call up a company pretending to be someone in order to get their information. It seems pretty clear it should be illegal, and while Patricia Dunn was eventually charged with crimes over the practice, there were plenty of questions as to whether or not California laws actually made pretexting illegal. This surprised many people, who then started trying to push through such laws, which haven’t really gone very far. In fact, there were similar laws that politicians had tried to put in place earlier that had failed as well.

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