Well, OK, if you're Matt Wells, you can do it yourself. Gigablast is amazing, in that it really is just Matt. Here's an interview that I read on the plane on the way to MSFT yesterday. Talk about dissonance. Matt Wells, one guy in New Mexico. MSFT, well, MSFT. My…
Well, OK, if you’re Matt Wells, you can do it yourself. Gigablast is amazing, in that it really is just Matt. Here’s an interview that I read on the plane on the way to MSFT yesterday. Talk about dissonance. Matt Wells, one guy in New Mexico. MSFT, well, MSFT. My report on MSFT by the way is held up a bit as I clear some PR issues as to what I can and cannot report right now….stay tuned.
A sort of consumerized version of MS Research, MSN Sandbox is where they roll out social software and search-related betas for test runs. (thanks Tara)…
A sort of consumerized version of MS Research, MSN Sandbox is where they roll out social software and search-related betas for test runs.
(thanks Tara)
Try searching for "what is my destiny"…this is a nod to the Onion spoof, posted here……
The Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley, where I have taught for the past few years, is sponsoring a conference April 30 and May 1 on "China’s Digital Future: Advancing The Understanding of China’s Information Revolution." More information on the conference is in the extended entry below, but I…
The Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley, where I have taught for the past few years, is sponsoring a conference April 30 and May 1 on “China’s Digital Future: Advancing The Understanding of China’s Information Revolution.” More information on the conference is in the extended entry below, but I wanted to let this audience know about it, as I helped the school create China Digital News, a blog covering these issues, and will be moderating a panel. Admission is free.
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One of my largest gripes about the web is that it has no memory. But I think this will soon change – at some point in the not too distant future we'll have live and continuous historical copies of the web that will be searchable – creating, if you will,…
One of my largest gripes about the web is that it has no memory. But I think this will soon change – at some point in the not too distant future we’ll have live and continuous historical copies of the web that will be searchable – creating, if you will, a time axis for the web, a real-time Wayback Machine (only there’ll be no broken links). In other words, in our lifetimes we’ll see our cultural digital memory – as we understand it through the web and engines like Google – become contiguous, available, always there. And barring a revival of the Luddites or total nuclear war, this chain will most likely be unbroken, forever, into the future. Historians looking back to this era will mark it as a watershed. At some definable point in the early 21st century, the web will gain a memory of itself, one that will never be lost again. Most likely, this will start as a feature of a massively scaled company like Yahoo or Google, much like Gmail or search itself is now. But it’s coming, and the implications are rather expansive.
If the web had a time axis, you could search constrained by webdate. You could ask questions like “show me all results for my query from this time period…” or “Tell me what was the most popular results for XYZ during the 3rd of May in 20XX.” How about “show me every reference to my great grandfather, born in 2050,” asked by a great grandson in 2150? Impossible? Yeah, seems that way, but…so did a free gig of mail and the concept of the entire Internet in RAM. Thanks to the dramatic decrease in the cost of storage, 64-bit computing, abundant memory (jesus, there’s an entendre), and the scalable business model of paid search, I think this day is not far off. The web is just ten years old, for the most part, but think what it might be like when it’s 100 years old. That’s a lot of data to search.
I was reminded of this idea (I had written it down a while back while musing for the book) when Gary sent word that Daypop is archiving its Top 40 back to 2002. It’s fascinating to see what was the buzz, say, two years ago today.
Many have pointed me to this NPR series on search…I was interviewed for it but have no idea if my ramblings made the cut……
Many have pointed me to this NPR series on search…I was interviewed for it but have no idea if my ramblings made the cut…
This BusinessWeek article, which I missed but an alert reader pointed me to, takes the thesis that MSFT is facing middle age with uncertainty. The piece runs down the threats: Linux, slow growth, bloated core product that hasn't had an update in years, anti-trust suits….then runs down how they are…
This BusinessWeek article, which I missed but an alert reader pointed me to, takes the thesis that MSFT is facing middle age with uncertainty.
The piece runs down the threats: Linux, slow growth, bloated core product that hasn’t had an update in years, anti-trust suits….then runs down how they are reacting.
So check this out: They keep a list.
Read MoreOur culture often counters success with the rebuke of pridefulness, the font of tragedy. News.com reports from a Stanford MBA panel, where a Google exec (Salar Kamangar) gave the reporter, search beat veteran Stefanie Olsen, the sense that he was "downplaying the looming threat of search competition from Microsoft, saying…
I dunno if this was a misinterpretation, but…this reminds me of what Marc Andreesseen said lo so many years ago (the famous quote where Windows was dismissed as buggy device drivers…). Also, new Google recruit Anna Patterson dismissed MSFT’s search in this story a month ago. A trend? Probably not. But it’s not beyond many to call it so.
Funny Onion spoof (is there any other kind?): "A soul search often required backpacking trips across Europe, disastrous long-term relationships with incompatible lovers, and years of expensive therapy," Semel said. "Worse, the search process often included depression, lowered self-worth, and intense doubt." Semel called the old way of seeking clarity…
Funny Onion spoof (is there any other kind?):
“A soul search often required backpacking trips across Europe, disastrous long-term relationships with incompatible lovers, and years of expensive therapy,” Semel said. “Worse, the search process often included depression, lowered self-worth, and intense doubt.”
Semel called the old way of seeking clarity “a logistical nightmare.”…
Read MoreInteresting and funny. Some tidbits on Google exces "personal question" for password recall purposes….
