Author: John Battelle

Upshot: they don’t like the idea much. Nor do I, but it’s not because I hold an unfettered libertarian worldview. I thought the meme of “let’s regulate Google like a public utility because it has too much power” was a short lived one, and I’m not sure why Cato brought it up again, but, there you have it. The piece has a lot of links in it and therefore provides a pretty good overview of the “Is Google Too Powerful” concept. Plus the piece even quotes one of my columns, though without direct attribution (it does point to my article hosted and mirrored on some other site…hey…wait a minute! But I guess that’s one way to get my stuff out there beyond the walls of the Time Inc. enclave….) It’s nice to know folks are reading…

Today I was offline most of the day, as I was working on the book. I met with key folks at Yahoo Search and Scott Rafer , the reasonably new CEO of Feedster (Feedster is a search engine which trolls only RSS feeds. What’s an RSS Feed? Read this). Lots of discussion about the present, past and future of search. I left Yahoo impressed with where the company is and how the folks I spoke to approached the problem/opportunity of search. Yahoo has the longest history and the richest resource set of any of the current search players, and they certainly have got serious search religion, something that definitely waxed and waned over the past five or so years. Much talk of the lessons of Google, the looming competition with Microsoft, and good discourse on the best ways forward w/r/t search solutions. Ninj Srinivasan, employee #5 and Editor of Yahoo, has been there for nearly 9 years and is still stoked to come to work every day. That says a lot to me. Funny side note: while I was there, 1600 Yahoo employees and various friends went out into the parking lots and broke the world record for simultaneous yodeling. I’m not kidding…

Meanwhile, Scott at Feedster reminded me that PageRank was created back in a time when making links was pretty hard to do, and therefore a scarce resource, so one could reasonably trust that the links were authoritative. But, he supports the idea (as do others, see here and here) that blogs have muddied the waters for PageRank to the point of diminishing returns. I am certainly not one with the chops to judge, but I do wonder how this meme is playing out now that it’s been in the world for a while? It’s not like anyone has come up with anything demonstrably better….
In a related note, Scott mentioned an intriguing development at Feedster that he calls Feedpaper. From his site: “Feedpaper is a dynamic newspaper constructed from RSS feeds around a particular topic.” They are playing around with the idea on the site, for examples, check out this one on the Dean campaign and this one on the recent Longhorn developer conference (Longhorn is the new version of Microsoft’s interface, due sometime later this decade…). Scott’s thesis is that algorithmic search engines do a pretty poor job of aggregating this kind of content for readers interested in a very specific “island” of information. Watch this space, it could get interesting.

When I was at AdTech way back in June I met with Karen Howe, CEO of Singingfish, an audio/video search engine. I believed then and still believe now that video and audio files will become integral to the grammar of the web, but first we have to solve major search and copyright issues. In any case, I enjoyed meeting her, but left feeling like they had a significant uphill battle – a very small company in a land of giants.

Well, no more. I was messing around on Google news earlier this afternoon and somehow I came across a very odd link from the Puget Sound Business Journal about Singingfish being sold to AOL. Google’s summary had details: the excerpt read “has acquired Seattle-based Singingfish Inc., which makes a search engine that scours the Web for audio and video files. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. … ” but when I clicked on the link, it took me to a story with the headline “MagnaDrive raises $3.5 million “. Turns out the Puget Sound Journal had jumped the gun on a embargoed story, and Google News grabbed it before they could swap it out. The news officially breaks tonight at midnight, but … you saw it here first!

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GrokLaw, a blog run by a paralegal who must be hepped up on triple espressos, has posted an interesting journey into the seamy side of paid search. Basically, this fellow noticed a significant discrepancy between Google and MSN’s search results, and set out to understand why. This is a great illustration of a theme that is fundamental to Google’s mojo: purity of results. MSN comes across as basically sold to the highest bidder, with competitive manipulations on top of that. It’s not a pretty picture. When MSFT launches its new search engine, one hopes they will keep this in mind.

In this post on his blog, Dan Gillmor of the SJMN points to the contradiction between “company executives and others” who claimed MSFT approached Google about a buyout (see my earlier post and comments here) and Gates’ very clear denial of same earlier this week. Dan points out that Gates is the CEO of a public company, so he can’t very well lie about something so material to his stock price. Because of this he implies that Google insiders – such as the VCs who backed the company – are the likely sources of the story.

I’m not so sure. The sourcing in the Times piece seems intentionally non-specific:

“According to company executives and others briefed on the discussions, Microsoft – desperate to capture a slice of the popular and ad-generating search business – approached Google within the last two months to discuss options, including the possibility of a takeover.”

Which company does “company executives” modify, MSFT – which is closer to the sourcing, or Google? Who knows?! My guess is the Times kept it vague on purpose, to protect its sources. (more via link below)

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Internet News reports:

“Software giant Microsoft is testing its answer to Google’s popular news aggregator and search site. “MSN Newsbot”, on MSN UK, France, Spain and Italy, signals at least one of Microsoft’s intentions as it seeks to build out its own search technology.”

This is one area where MSFT has some serious prior chops – MSNBC has been thinking about news online for a long time. Should be interesting to see how it shakes out in this market.

This one from Search-This, a SEO/SEM house. The buttons, when clicked, activate colored arrows that chart who supplies who with what…ie Inktomi powers MSN, Google powers AOL, etc. (Thanks to Josh Quittner for the reference…)

Once a year Google holds a contest for hardcore search-related coders. This year, the Europeans swept, interestingly. But no mention of what they actually did (as I recall, last year they asked for new features, and the winner made a local search app that Google ended up incorporating into Google Labs)? I’ll look around…Aha…Read Slashdot threads here to find out more on the problems the Google coders were solving…MarketingWonk has a round up here of the PR and Marketing implications…

In the past few months I’ve gotten a fair number of similar email threads forwarded my way by friends who know I’m writing about search. By the time they’ve gotten to me, the emails have wound their way fairly well through the six-degrees-of-separation web, with scores if not hundreds of souls cc’d, forwarded, and attached. The subject line usually blares something along the lines of “I can’t believe they can do this!” and “Oh My God, Did You Know?”

Here’s a sample email, with identifying information deleted:

——————-
Subject: This is hard to believe, but true, I tried it.

Google has implemented a new feature wherein you can type someone’s
telephone number into the search bar and hit enter and then you will be
given a map to their house.
Before forwarding this, I tested it by typing my telephone number in
google.com. My phone number came up, and when I clicked on the MapQuest link, it actually mapped out where I live. Quite scary.
Think about it–if a child, single person, ANYONE gives out his/her phone
number, someone can actually now look it up to find out where he/she
lives. The safety issues are obvious, and alarming. This is not a hoax; Mapquest will put a star on your house on your street.
—————

I understand the initial reaction of many to this feature (which is not that new). My God, They Know Where I Live! But this fear of a such a simple thing – a reverse directory lookup – bears further contemplation. Fact is, reverse directories are not illegal. But they are also not widely available – usually only cops and reporters had access to them. No more. (more via link below)

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When Google flutters its wings, a typhoon may result in the AdWords ecology – those hundreds of thousands of advertisers who depend on Google for sales via the company’s paid listings. So points out CNet’s Stephanie Olsen in a good overview of advertiser reaction to Google’s most recent shift in its AdWords technology. The complications Olsen reports point to a larger story: the increasing complexity of this shifting market ecology. The question then becomes, can any one company maintain control of this? I don’t think so, you need robust competition; the recent defection of Paul Ryan (former CTO of Overture) to MSN will help insure robust competitors for years to come.