Month: April 2007

Google – NBC: Very Dumb Idea

Some buzz from Wall St: Analysts are saying that there is no "synergy" between NBC, a GE Unit, and the conglomerates' other units. So the analysts suggest selling it. That is nothing new, this kind of stuff is tossed around all the time on Wall St. But what is…

Nbc

Some buzz from Wall St: Analysts are saying that there is no “synergy” between NBC, a GE Unit, and the conglomerates’ other units. So the analysts suggest selling it. That is nothing new, this kind of stuff is tossed around all the time on Wall St. But what is new is the suggestion that the best buyer might be Google.

Such a move would be a monumental error. Google is not a company that wants to or probably even knows how to own a major media company. Also, it has outlined a strategy that positions the company as a Switzerland of sorts with regard to major media companies. Buying one of them would kill that strategy.

And lastly, I think the coporate cultures would clash so deeply, AOL/Time Warner would look like a love match in comparison.

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Gilgamesh

Those of you who've read my book may recall I go a tear around the epic of Gilgamesh, and it's meaning in a search-driven world. I was thrilled to see this Salon review of a new book that tells the story of the oldest known story. The review itself…

Story

Those of you who’ve read my book may recall I go a tear around the epic of Gilgamesh, and it’s meaning in a search-driven world. I was thrilled to see this Salon review of a new book that tells the story of the oldest known story. The review itself is a worthy read.

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Search Index Grammars

During the conversation yesterday I mentioned something that I've been meaning to talk to you all about – the idea of different "grammars" for search indexes. Last week I changed my default engine from Google to Yahoo for a while. Now, Yahoo has a very good engine, and I…

Choices

During the conversation yesterday I mentioned something that I’ve been meaning to talk to you all about – the idea of different “grammars” for search indexes. Last week I changed my default engine from Google to Yahoo for a while. Now, Yahoo has a very good engine, and I know its results are, by some objective measures, as good if not better than Google’s results. But what I did not realize, given how long I’ve defaulted to Google, how significant an “accent” Yahoo has compared to the idiom I was used to by using Google. In short, I’m very fluent in navigating through the mass of unstructured results that Google offers me after I enter my two or three word keyword phrase. But with Yahoo, I often find myself conversing in a foreign tongue. Not that the language is better or worse, just….different. Interesting….

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Ask and the Contextual Ad Network

SEW reports on Ask's long awaited contextual ad network: Advertisers buying search ads in Ask.com's Ask Sponsored Listings (ASL) program will soon have the option of buying contextually-targeted ads on IAC-owned sites and third-party publishers. The program will launch at the end of May on several IAC-owned properties, such…

SEW reports on Ask’s long awaited contextual ad network:

Advertisers buying search ads in Ask.com’s Ask Sponsored Listings (ASL) program will soon have the option of buying contextually-targeted ads on IAC-owned sites and third-party publishers.

The program will launch at the end of May on several IAC-owned properties, such as Match.com, Ticketmaster, Evite and Citysearch. Ads will also appear on a few trusted publisher sites, most likely starting with some of the 90 publishers that syndicate Ask.com search results and search ads. Mid-sized publishers are able to sign up for the program now, and a self-service platform for smaller publishers is expected later this year.

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Thanks For the Conversation

That was a lot of fun! Many of you had more questions, post em here if you want and I'll get to them once I get off the plane I'm about to jump onto. Thanks to sponsor WebEx!…

That was a lot of fun! Many of you had more questions, post em here if you want and I’ll get to them once I get off the plane I’m about to jump onto. Thanks to sponsor WebEx!

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The Data Bill of Rights

I've not really pulled all the stuff I've written about this in one place at one time. I realized this while talking to a researcher last night who is writing a paper on the implications of search and web history. In particular, I've not posted in one place about…

I’ve not really pulled all the stuff I’ve written about this in one place at one time. I realized this while talking to a researcher last night who is writing a paper on the implications of search and web history. In particular, I’ve not posted in one place about what I’ve started to call “The Data Bill of Rights.” My first attempt was here.

I recall that the first time I wrote about Stewart Butterfield told me it’d be impossible to do what I was suggesting. Maybe so, but Eric, in the interview last week, said Google was committed to Data Portability, which is the key and most difficult piece of the pie.

So, I submit for your review, editing and clarification, a new draft of what rights we, as consumers, might demand from companies making hay off the data we create as we trip across the web:

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