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Yahoo! Research Labs
glinden writes "Yahoo! issued a press release today announcing their creation of Yahoo! Research Labs. Although there's not much there yet, it's clearly targeting Google and Google Labs. The battle between MSN, Yahoo, and Google in the "Year of Search" is heating up. And it's still only January."
Invention, disruption, innovation, improvement
Anyone else think the disruption is a bit out of place in their motto? I know it caused me to read it twice, which is perhaps what they want.
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American Weblog in London
Google kicks everybody else's a$$ at one thing: Search results. Now when everyone else is getting more serious about search, (Yahoo buying Overture, Microsoft announcing Search R&D), Google announces Google mail. I am not sure if this is the way to go.
Lately, (and I'm sure lot of you have noticed) Google's search results have been a little more oriented towards commercial sites. Not good. They should apply the KISS principle.
I love Google (like billion other people) and it will be sad if going public and eventually catering to stockholders starts a downward spiral.
Free XBox, PS2
Just cause Google is currently the leader doesnt mean Yahoo doesnt deserve the chance to take the crown!
Would you prefer technology stagnate?
Good luck to the teams at both google and yahoo!
I dont believe in brand loyalty. Cause no company has believed in customer loyalty.
Sure they do, Yahoo was one of the first places you go go to find a broadly categorized collection of links. Before yahoo, you're best bet was either usenet, or navigating through narrowly organized hotlists. Yahoo helped design the look and feel of the web as most people know it.
Yahoo has a long ways to go. Aquiring geocities was the last smart thing yahoo did. (that and beefing up my email quota for free) Google has made a lot of news lately about how they try to be non-intrusive as a search engine and try to make it quick, simple, and have relevent search results instead of 10 advertisements and then a real search result. Until yahoo can do something really gripping I'll keep using Google for search engine. If yahoo is smart they will keep focused on thier "community" appeal. They are friggen awsome and community even if that community is the redlight district for teens. With that... I miss the old Geocities. I also miss Altavista (powered by digital) in its prime. /rant off
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
Y! should research how many of their features are currently used regularily by their users. IMHO, I do not think that cramming a web site with extra features does "advance the use of the Internet in daily lives and to continually improve the user experience".
It is good to see that Y! is interested in improving their services in many areas : "performance search, web search, vertical businesses and platform technologies", but they should concentrate on some specific business instead of trying to get a part of the market in as many different business markets as possible.
Call me oldfashioned, or offtopic, or whatnot, but I miss the days when you could talk to some store owner who has been specialized in one specific field and who could give you advice based on his experience. Don't get me wrong, I know that such people still exist, but they are getting rarer if you compare to all the Wal-Martish stores that are "diversifying" their line of products and services. The same is seen online...
DrkBr
Google: Lightweight pages, which is good for 56K users such as myself that are always downloading something off eDonkey. Very powerful search results, outputted in a simple and easy to read manner. Non-intrusive advertising. Small, simple, powerful.
Yahoo: Medium weight pages, due mostly to ads and other crap on their service that they're advertising. I remember they had popups, don't know if they do now. (Thank you, Firebird devs!) Search results that mimic but aren't as polished as Google. Has everything one could think of, excels at nothing.
Yahoo can't hold a candle to Google. Yahoo is a web portal. Google is a tool for searching. When I want to search, which do I use?
That said, the only way I think Google can become more useful is if they added a dictionary and thesaurus to their search box. I.E. "dictionary:crusade". Oh, and improve the Zietgeist. Other than that, Google shall remain the God of searching unless they muck it up.
All I see Yahoo doing is using this to add more crap to a site with already too much crap on it, truth be told. Simplicity is highly underrated.
Have more than one woman involved in the research lab for the company.
Not to get into a whole discussion about gender here, but I'm guessing that having a larger percentage of women in the group might lead to research in different areas.
I mean, women are probably a decent chunk of search engine users these days; it might be interesting to see if they have different interests or ideas on how they want to search.
If their goal is to increase market share, then one step might be to make services that cater to a now generally marginalized but growing sector of net users -- women.
Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.
Does anyone else find it ironic that Yahoo Research is just Overture Research rebranded? Another acquisition.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
Really? I've noticed that when I do a search for just about anything, the top 10 to 15 are Spam. This, of course is not completly Google's fault, Spamers have learned how to manipulate Google with fake front door pages. But I've been finding Google less and less Spam free to the point now only marganably better than any other search.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
> Its not a PhD/MSc only thing like Google.
As somebody with a PhD, let me just say that they aren't all they are cracked up to be. I honestly don't see any difference between the amount I learned in 4 1/2 years of PhD and the first 3 or 4 years I was in the corperate world.
You don't need to be a PhD to be a good researcher. This is especially true for people with generalist undergrad degrees who have learnt how to research. I find people with really specialist college degrees are next to useless when confronted with a problem they haven't seen before.