Category Archives: Google

Taking Stock of Yahoo

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What do you get when you mashup Yahoo’s uber blogmeister with EX uber stockmeister Henry Blodget? A very interesting dialog about what’s up — or what’s NOT up — at Yahoo. The only thing for sure is that in stock terms YHOO is no GOOG, and this is THE key issue for many.

This follow up summarizes that mini-debate. I’m more interested in whether I should be buying YHOO or buying more puts on Google.

Jeremy’s bold stab was probably taken too far out of the intended context, though I think it will generate a good debate about a broader topic — that Yahoo and Google are similar in many broad respects but not even in the same ballpark in total company valuation. 109 billion vs 45 billion. Why is this?

* Search quality roughly equivalent according to objective measures.

* Traffic similar (though not search traffic in which Y lags significantly). I think search will begin to move vertically soon and people will use a different engine for different tasks. A9 recognizes this already. This could shake out in many destabilizing ways.

* Yahoo considered clear leader in Web 2.0 awareness

* MOST IMPORTANTLY, YPN is still in beta and will likely soon take a chunk of Google’s online publisher revenue stream (about 40% of G total revenues) as will MSN’s new publisher programs.

* I do think corporate leadership is VERY different at Google, and probably helps facilitate and motivate people in ways that are well tuned to the fast and flexible needs of the online biz world. I’ve heard that Googlers will be working in the wee hours on a project only to have Sergey Brin walk up behind them to ask them to explain the code they are working on. This level of interaction has got to be a VERY powerful incentive and motivating force.

At MIX06 I spoked with two ex-Microsoft people who noted slow change there frustrated them and inhibited the flexibility needed to compete in the new web environments.

But Yahoo is no Microsoft, and to my knowledge Yahoo was the company that brought the new informal but intense corporate culture to Silicon Valley in the first place. If this style has caused problems for Yahoo it’ll likely cause similar problems for Google in a few years. If not, then why is Yahoo stock languishing despite good fundamentals and huge revenue potential from online ads?

Wait … No free lunches at Yahoo Cafeteria? THAT must be the problem!

MIX06: Timing is everything?

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Today Microsoft announced more delays in VISTA. This jived in an interesting way with several conversations I had with former MS employees and some high level geeks with big companies attending MIX06. Most expressed frustration at how s-l-o-w things tend to move at Microsoft, and all seemed very enthusiastic about the explosive potential of Web 2.0 *approaches* which encourage experimentation, speed, and flexibility, and platform *independence*.

I’d suggest that the LIVE initiative at MS is very exciting and has great potential in every way …. except …. protecting Microsoft’s core cash cows of Office and XP (make that Longhorn…Avalon….no VISTA!)

So, who ya gonna call to fix this MS?  Google? No way – not enough chairs to throw over there, and most are beanbags anyway. Yahoo? Hey…now there’s a Web 2.0 play….if I were Ballmer I’d look very hard at ways to buy or partner up in a long term big way with Yahoo hoping their culture would help invigorate some of the bright but sometimes seemingly… demoralized or disinterested…. MS teams. The problem? I think Jeremy posted that he’d leave Yahoo if that happened and that would NOT be good for Yahoo or Web 2.0 in general.

MIX06: Amazon as Web 2.0 butt kicker

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Jeff Barr, Amazon’s Evangelist, is about to show how to use Alexa’s API and search services to build your own search engine.   I’ve written about this before and like John Battelle I think the implications of Amazon’s many clever, cheap, and hugely customizable routines has yet to sink in even among many in the development community.    In one sense Amazon is bringing the price point on advanced development way, way down.

Jeff just noted how his kids didn’t recognize a dial up modem sound and I’m thinking some of the people here at the conference probably don’t even remember such things now that all but the most backward university would have broadband almost everywhere.

MIX06 “Live” Gadgets = Cool

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Earlier I said MS was doing web 1.9 rather than 2.0 but that was before I heard the two presentations about the coming “LIVE” web environment, complete with what looks like the most robust set of customizable gadgets from a major player.  This is 2.0 stuff and it’s … really good stuff.

I actually heard Microsoft rather than Yahoo and Google folks talking enthusiastically about mashups and open environments and how important it is to create platforms to spread info wildly as well as customize the user experience with things that are NOT Microsoft.   I confess I’m not familiar enough with MY YAHOO to compare it to the LIVE environment which will be growing fast in the coming months.  My Yahoo is certainly really good stuff too,  but I think MS has the edge in being able to customize their LIVE stuff to their own OS and browser.   I see a lot hinging on how LIVE plays out over the coming months.  

Also I’m starting to see why their were rumors recently about MS aquiring Yahoo.    I’m not betting on it even though I’m right here in Las Vegas, but it’s interesting to see several Yahoo examples with nary a mention of Google.  

Mix06 = Web 1.9

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OK I’m starting to grok the conference and the MS role in 2.0 …. maybe….. I got a chance to ask Tim O’Reilly to help me interpret Bill Gates’ answers to Tim’s excellent questions to Bill at this morning’s keynote. Most important to me was this simple question:
“Does Microsoft ‘get’ Web 2.0?”.

“parts of it…” was Tim’s excellent summary of the situation I see unfolding before me here at MIX.

I’m seeing good stuff – maybe some great stuff once I have a chance to play with some of the new applications like ATLAS and Windows Presentation Foundation – and I’m seeing enthusiastic MS folks who know they must come up with great aps and must overcome the Google “coolness” challenge in the developer community, but I’m not feeling anything like the energy at Mashup Camp where developers were simply on fire with new ideas that embraced the new Web with the excitement of the early years when the internet wasn’t about money, it was about … profound innovation and change.

So this is Web 1.9, and if I were an MS shareholder I think I’d be OK with that. The path to Web 2.0 riches is VERY unclear.

Off to MIX06

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No Mom it’s NOT about the glitz, glamour, and free huge nightclub tabs picked up by Microsoft!  It’s WORK and SOMEBODY darn well better get down to Las Vegas and do what has to be done!

MIX06 starts tomorrow morning with keynote by Bill Gates and leads into a large number of concurrent sessions which appear to be focused almost exclusively on how MS applications and future developments can be used in online applications.   That’s OK because this is put on by MS, but somewhat ironically I think the concept here was to have a very “open” environment that tried to get feedback from the community about what they need, want, and where they are going.   I’m anxious to see if MS is sincerely interested in ….. us.

Yahoo and Google certainly are interested as evidenced by the way they interact at other conferences.   I think part of their corporate culture is to say “damn the torpedos, full speed ahead!” even when that approach could threaten some aspect of the company’s revenue.  I’m not expecting this from MS but I’m hoping for greater responsiveness than they’ve shown the web community in the past.  

Sitemap submission for NMohwy.com

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Using the excellent free online sitemap generator HERE I created and have uploaded and verified a sitemap for the approx 3000 pages at NMOHWY.com.   I’ve noticed that using site:nmohwy.com currently yields almost all supplemental pages with VERY old Cache dates – usually Feb 2005.

Now and I’m trying to get Google to revisit the site.

Interestingly about 3 weeks ago when I uploaded pages that had the old names and data in a simpler database format Google pulled in the new pages and indexed them very quickly and did NOT seem to put them in Supplemental Index.   Now they are using OLD page with OLD cache dates.
The overall idea is to take the OLD pages from the time Google liked us, strip out links that are no longer relevant and other extraneous stuff, reformat some of the text in the hopes of avoiding duplicate content problems, and see if we can regain traffic for this domain and figure out why Google seems to hate the site after loving it for so many years.

The NMohwy.com Experiment

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…. and so another chapter in the saga begins….sort of….my ambitious – some would say reckless and foolhardy – attempt to regain the good graces of Google search for a part of what was once one of Google’s favorite travel websites – www.OHWY.com

This chapter began a few weeks ago when I resurrected NMohwy.com which for about 8 months has been 301 redirected to www.ohwy.com/nm/   The redirection was thanks to recommendations by Google support, Google Engineers, and a major SEO firm.    So why defy all that brilliant conventional wisdom?   

Because things still aren’t working.   So I’m taking the blogged advice of Matt Cutts and “experimenting”

The basic story is that our major travel site – OHWY.com or “Online Highways”, was downranked by Google on February 2 of 2005.   The drop in traffic was severe – about half gone, and we had to lay off people and restructure the company.   On February 1 we had about 50,000 visits from Google searches and on February 3 we were down to about 5,000 which fell over the next few months to about 500.

The site had been growing for years and we’d set up domains like NMohwy.com which were specifically targeted to states – in this case New Mexico.   After the drop we were advised that consolidating the 12 or so domains into our “mother ship” of OHWY.com was advisable and we did it.  

 

Cleverness should be copied, Yahoo and MSN and Google!

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Although I’m in the growing crowd that suggests Yahoo and Google search results are comparable and MSN is not far behind, Google remains the leader in simple cleverness.

Why Yahoo and MSN don’t copy these little ideas from Google is a great mystery to me.
C’mon MSN, I don’t think many who search for “17 x 3” want this:
RAD Mfg. 2005 Application Chart & Pricelist
19×2.15 17×3.50,16.5×3.50 Front 17×4.25,17X4.50, 17×5.00 Rear CRF 250R 04-05 (36)Hex or Eagle 21×1.60 (32, 36)Hex or Eagle 18×2.15 19×2.15 17×3.50,16.5×3.50 Front

Yahoo you are no better with this:

Start Start 3 Portfolio – 17 x 22 x 1′ – PriceGrabber.com Open this result in new window

Find the lowest price on Start Start 3 Portfolio – 17 x 22 x 1′. PriceGrabber.com delivers instant bottom-line prices on millions of products from thousands of merchants

Google wins HANDILY with this:

  17 x 3 = 51

It’s hardly a copyrighted thing, so why don’t Yahoo and MSN do this?   Or the temp function of Google calculator where you type  “77 F in C”  to get the F to C temp conversion?

I actually think part of this stubborn foolishness is that competing company people get a sense of pride in the status quo and actually  stick to the wrong approach until they come up with something much better or they are forced by forces outside of their own control to copy the cleverness.