Month: January 2009

Google Also Is Closing Any Number of Other Projects…

Like Dodgeball, Google Video Uploads, Jaiku, and Google Catalog, and … I am not keeping track. But this is the evidence of Sergey's comment months ago that Google was doing too much… In any case, I think the spin Google gave on Google Catalog's closing is a bit …….

Like Dodgeball, Google Video Uploads, Jaiku, and Google Catalog, and … I am not keeping track. But this is the evidence of Sergey’s comment months ago that Google was doing too much…

In any case, I think the spin Google gave on Google Catalog’s closing is a bit …. well it’s spin. We all do it. Let’s revisit the launch of Google Catalog, courtesy Danny’s SEW, which was deep into reporting mode when Catalog launched. (Danny has moved on to SEL).

My first thought upon seeing the service was “Why?” Of all the things Google could choose to make searchable, why target mail order catalogs? Shopping-oriented searches do make up a significant chunk of any search engine’s queries, so launching some type of shopping search service does make sense. But why not instead target online merchant stores?

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Google Lays Off Real Googlers

Google of late has been contracting its contract work force, but today the company announced real layoffs, in its HR group, no less – the folks responsible for hiring. 100 people will be laid off or redeployed, and as SAI notes, it's a very clear sign that the company…

Goog Layoffs

Google of late has been contracting its contract work force, but today the company announced real layoffs, in its HR group, no less – the folks responsible for hiring. 100 people will be laid off or redeployed, and as SAI notes, it’s a very clear sign that the company is feeling what all of us are feeling – a very significant recession.

When Google catches a cold, it’s a sure bet a lot of other companies have pneumonia, or worse.

7 Comments on Google Lays Off Real Googlers

Grease Is the Word

When I saw this Mashable post, I almost spit my wine (yeah, I am drinking wine, hell, it's 8.50 pm) onto the screen. Here's the headline: Did CNN Live Snub Twitter in Favor of Facebook? "What the f* are we, in high school?" was my first response. Then I…

Grease For Recast

When I saw this Mashable post, I almost spit my wine (yeah, I am drinking wine, hell, it’s 8.50 pm) onto the screen. Here’s the headline:

Did CNN Live Snub Twitter in Favor of Facebook?

“What the f* are we, in high school?” was my first response. Then I realized how important it is to some folks that “traditional” or “old” media like CNN validate “new” media like Facebook or Twitter.

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Yahoo’s New CEO is Carol Bartz

Not a lot of media experience in this choice, reported here by the WSJ. Kara had speculated on this previously. Bartz has a lot of experience in other parts of the technology world, to be sure, and is widely respected. And I love that her former company, Autodesk, is…

Carolbartz2

Not a lot of media experience in this choice, reported here by the WSJ. Kara had speculated on this previously.

Bartz has a lot of experience in other parts of the technology world, to be sure, and is widely respected. And I love that her former company, Autodesk, is in Marin, where I founded FM. But it does strike me that Yahoo needs a stronger suite of media-savvy executives now that Weiner and Rosensweig are gone.

7 Comments on Yahoo’s New CEO is Carol Bartz

Way Too Much Energy

If we are ever going to crack the biological barrier (IE, make real intelligence), we can't have this kind of inefficiency in our machines: "a Google search uses just about the same amount of energy that your body burns in ten seconds." Ten seconds!!! Man, that's slow. It takes…

If we are ever going to crack the biological barrier (IE, make real intelligence), we can’t have this kind of inefficiency in our machines:

“a Google search uses just about the same amount of energy that your body burns in ten seconds.”

Ten seconds!!! Man, that’s slow. It takes us, what, about two orders of magnitudes less, if not three, to conjure up a thought, right? Kevin?

8 Comments on Way Too Much Energy

Dear Oyuncambazi: Please Stop Spamming This Site!

For the past few years, but in particular in the past year, spammers, or one very focused spammer, have been posting bogus comments on Searchblog, hoping to leverage the authority of this community to promote a commerce site called oyuncambazi dot com. Well, here's my response: oyuncambazi are spammers,…

Oyunspam

For the past few years, but in particular in the past year, spammers, or one very focused spammer, have been posting bogus comments on Searchblog, hoping to leverage the authority of this community to promote a commerce site called oyuncambazi dot com. Well, here’s my response: oyuncambazi are spammers, spam, spam, spaaaaammmmmmers. Oyuncambazi = Spam. So please stop, Mr. Oyun. It’s tiresome and time consuming. STOP. Ideally, those wonderful Googlebots will pick up this post and start relating oyuncambazi with SPAM.

Update: I got an apology from someone for spamming, and a promise to not do it anymore. We’ll see!

Update 2: The person responsible claims to be a 17 year old from Turkey who, though it’s hard to understand his English, seems to be quite regretful. We’re trying to hav a conversation on email. He’s been doing this all over the web, clearly. Now this post is #2 on Google on a search for his site.

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The “Google” Of TV

Noting this piece which positions Tivo as the Google of TV. More to say on it, but from it: Announced this week at CES 2009, the new TV search works similarly to the search bar in the Firefox address browser. You type in the first few letters of a…

Tivosearch

Noting this piece which positions Tivo as the Google of TV. More to say on it, but from it:

Announced this week at CES 2009, the new TV search works similarly to the search bar in the Firefox address browser. You type in the first few letters of a show in the ‘discovery bar’ and relevant recommendations of shows on TV satellite and broadband networks come up. At the same time, you get a nice looking new column arrangement of information about a show, including episode description, rating, and relevant art.

The new appearance, according to TiVo reps, was created to fit to the longer length of HDTV’s. The old swivel search had no visuals and didn’t provide immediate information that could help a user choose efficiently. Still, this is a feature that is most helpful during passive browsing – if you’re the type that already knows what you want, the new search will look much nicer but it won’t make a huge difference.

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Blog 2.0 Realized

If ever there was a better realization of what I meant when I wrote about "a new kind of blog publishing", I don't know where to find it. This post, series, and site is exactly what I meant. Sure, I've known about The Hype Machine for some time, but…

Hypemachine

If ever there was a better realization of what I meant when I wrote about “a new kind of blog publishing“, I don’t know where to find it. This post, series, and site is exactly what I meant. Sure, I’ve known about The Hype Machine for some time, but this series is a publishing masterpiece, part authorial intent, part crowdsourcing, and part the confluence of great tools, platforms, models, and policies (you can play the music! you can buy the music!).

The top 50 albums of the year. Check it out.

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On Alice, Tik Tok, Marketing, CES, and Finding The Ground

I'm just back from a few days at CES in Las Vegas. The annual Consumer Electronics Show has become a white hot core of the marketing world, certainly for technology, but also now for nearly every major brand. Consumer electronics, after all, is the medium through which brands communicate…

Alice-Falling-Down-Rabbit-Hole-2

I’m just back from a few days at CES in Las Vegas. The annual Consumer Electronics Show has become a white hot core of the marketing world, certainly for technology, but also now for nearly every major brand. Consumer electronics, after all, is the medium through which brands communicate and converse with consumers. If you care about your brand, you’re at the show.

This year, of course, would prove to be different. Gone was (most of) the ebullience and chest pounding; a more somber tone was prevalent, and most certainly the network of hotels, casinos, and convention centers that makes up the CES ecosystem was …. more sparse. It’s clear companies had cut back travel and thousands of folks simply did not come. Everyone remarked on that – cab lines were shorter, halls and walkways between events less crowded.

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