Category Archives: yahoo

Yahoo! Corporate Blog. Believe it or not, it’s cool.

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I’m not usually a fan of corporate blogs because they usually suck in that sucky self-serving way, but based on a quick take the Yahoo blog, Yodel Anecdotal (I like it!) is going to be a light hearted view from and of a company filled with very clever people.   I’ll still turn to Jeremy for the unvarnished insider view, but this looks like the place to get a feel for a company that’s breaking a lot of new Web 2.0 ground even though they are not getting nearly enough credit for it. 

Now, if only the Panama team could get their act in gear maybe I’d be right about Yahoo stock potential.

Must be Good to be Google

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Just in from my “biting the hand that is going to feed me at next week’s Google Party” department:

It must be great to go unchallenged in your sector, especially in the hyper-competitive big money internet extravanza.

Over at WebMasterworld people are doing their usual fawning over the greatness of Google search, this despite the fact that Yahoo and MSN are close in quality according to most objective analyses, that history suggests dominance is often short lived, and that search dominance really does not bode well for anybody except Google.  I posted the following comment over there:

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I still use mostly Google out of habit but I predict that Yahoo’s recent move to bring social network and tagging information into the results will be successful and may even land them on top until Google relaxes it’s “no human ranking” approaches.

This thread surprises me as most objective measures indicate that Google  is the best, but not by much and certainly not always best if compared to good vertical search tools.  Habit is driving SE choice, not careful analysis of result sets.

Also, I think there will be legal battles when Vista launches over default search in future versions of IE browsers, MS will win most of them, and Google market share will go down with new users.

Search dominance is not healthy for users or webmasters – this community should recognize that more than most.
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Smart move by Yahoo?

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Yahoo appears to be expanding their approach to search using humanized contextual information. This may trump Google’s search quality if Google remains as stubborn as it’s been with regard to human interventions.  However I’d guess Google will soon be forced to use a lot more human input as search quality may soon demand this.

One should remain very bullish on computer intelligence, but it seems for at least the next decade or so it’s not realistic to think that search results can be ranked by machine better than by humans.  Machines are much, much faster rankers than a human mind, but lack even many basic filters that allow a human to discard irrelevant or spurious information.    The hybridized search using computer algorithmic results combined with data from all relevant human sources should prevail in the near future.

Yoo-hoo, YHOO?

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Hopefully you did not take my ealier “advice” and buy YHOO. I remain bullish on their prospects as well as IACI and MSFT as Google’s huge share of total PPC based search revenue dematerializes over the coming years, but hey, I also traded my Apple for WCOM so don’t listen to me.

Reuters says things will likely get worse for Yahoo as delays in their “project panama” contextual advertising routine continue to hurt their prospects of nabbing more of the PPC cash buffet.

Google is still going strong according to CEO Eric Schmidt, which is good because now they can afford the big party they’ll throw in a couple weeks – Google Dance 2006. See you there?

Gadgets – the desktop revolution begins

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One of the best sessions at Mashup Camp 2  was Adam Sah’s “Google Gadgets” which outlined how rapidly gadgets are sweeping onto the desktop.   These were formerly called Google Widgets but Adam told me they have been renamed to avoid confusion.  Yahoo “confabulator” concept has a nice ring….but….perhaps some term standardization is called for here.    Apple can keep the widget idea because… they are Apple.
Gadgets are sweeping onto the desktop.    At MIX06 the MS Live team was also very bullish on the concept and has been developing a desktop and OS environment that will rely heavily on people populating their desktop with gadgets.     Although many of these are “whimsical” in nature, the number of functional gadgets is growing very fast.  I think this is the coming “battleground” – or at least a coming very fertile ground – for those vying for eyeballs.    In the meantime it’s a great way to customize the desktop easily.

Mashup Camp 2 – Day 2 begins

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… Mashup Thursday begins with MSN sponsored coffee, for which they deserve major caffienated credit.    Part of the interesting buzz here (and I htink at MIX) is how good the LIVE people are and how different LIVE at MS is from the “old” MS culture which has a reputation for slow development and cumbersome approaches.    Maybe it’s the coffee?

HERE  is a list of today’s schedule here at Mashup Camp 2.  Great to see more from Yahoo and Google today.

Mashup Camp 2 – Brain Pain, but the good kind

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Mashup Camp 2, day 1 wraps up with  here at the Computer Science Museum.

Despite some good presentations, I think the Speed Geeking Session was the best part as in Mashup Camp 1, but it seemed the mashups in the competition are not quite as strong though there are several good ones and I only saw about 15 today.  David Schorr’s   WeatherBonk, which almost won Mashup Camp 1, is back and better than ever.   He’s got GolfBonk as well which is very clever.   The best viral marketing idea was a mash of maps and myspace called Frappr.com

Frucall‘s callback with shopping data was neat and Intel’s up to some great stuff with their shopping mashup that takes a *picture* of the UPC and fetches shopping data.     Also strong in this space SecretPrices.com

Some of these are too complex to digest, especially on the tiny screens some people were using to show off their applications (Marc, dude – you call that a screen?!) But his PeopleAggregator roll your own social network looked really promising in many ways.  Yobie’s online mega shop GoodStorm.com also needs a lot more than 5 minutes and has very powerful features.

Mountain View – Mashup Camp Two

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Seems like a double life these days. At 1pm today I was home in Oregon painting our house, and now I’m in Mountain View, CA where the 2 day first of all time “Mashup University” begins tomorrow at the Computer Science Museum. Mashup U is followed on Wednesday and Thursday by Mashup Camp 2, the sequel to Mashup Camp back in February. Doug Gold, David Berlind, and supporters did a fantastic job in February and I’m sure this one will also be a great event.

Hats off *again* to Hotwire.com. I just booked the Homestead Mountain View, a great little studio suite with kitchen, for $47 per night, about half the rack rate. An extra 4.99 got me broadband wireless – for my entire 4 day stay! Sure beats the 10.00+ per day often charged by the fancy hotels.

The Wired 40. Yahoo as the “McDonald’s” of Cyberspace !?

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Wired Magazine has named their top 40 “wired” companies.  The selection sounded a bit vague and trendy to me but lists are fun.    Wired says this is how they picked them:

We start by looking for the basics: strategic vision, global reach, killer technology. But that’s not enough. To land a spot on our annual Wired 40 list, a business also needs the X-factor – a hunger for new ideas and an impatience to put them into practice.

Notable points:  Google at top of list, Apple second. Yahoo at number 5, the “McDonald’s of Cyberspace” (!?), Microsoft 36th.

Social Networking challenges/problems detailed at GnomeDex

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When he’s asked to do it, Jeremy Z is very good at cutting through the technobabble and getting to mission critical ideas about how programs can be put to work for people.

Here’s a nice summary of his “bitch session” at GnomeDex where it appears they had some great ideas about social networks.

Looks to me like a lot of these apply to many types of tech development.