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."

Comments

Uhhh...

[grub]

"Yahoo Labs"... there's got to be a Farside cartoon in there somewhere.

Yahoo? Invent?

[stevesliva]

When was the last time Yahoo actually invented something, as opposed to licensing, acquiring or copying it?

I'm serious-- I'd just like to know if Yahoo has any record of invention.

Re:Yahoo? Invent?

[poot_rootbeer]

They were the first large portal... and we have all heard the rumors that google also is going that route.

I've heard the rumors, but I don't believe them for a second. Didn't the idea of the monolithic Web Portal site die out around 1999?

Google's core mission, as far as I can tell, is to provide highly meaningful search results in a variety of specific contexts -- News, Shopping, Usenet, etc. That alone does not a portal make.

Likewise, google is establishing a mail service...

From what I've heard, it's going to be an advertising service for emailers, and not the kind of "sign up to get your @google.com disposable webmail address" tools that Yahoo! and Hotmail offer.

Yaaaa-hoooo!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Google have the advantage of the better name. With 'Yahoo Research Labs', I have this image of a load of cowboys wearing white research coats.

Silly! People!

[CaptainAlbert]

I! refuse! to! take! them! seriously! until! they! obey! the! same! punctuation! rules! as! everyone! else!

Re:Silly! People!

[CGP314]

wHat aBout eBay and aPple?


--
In London? Need a Physics Tutor?

American Weblog in London

Googlemail

[savagedome]

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.

Competition is good

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

heating up?

[CheeseTroll]

The battle ... is heating up. And it's still only January.

Yup, it's January - thank God *something* is finally heating up!

It should only make sense.

[W32.Klez.A]

Search Engines and portals are our internet starting points; we can't just magically pull information out of our asses. When you're fighting to become that starting point, you're fight much the same battle as news stations do. And we know how fiesty journalists are.

Using heuristics in searches

[pubjames]

There's been an ongoing project going for years to build a massive heuristics database (I can't remember the damn name of it now, something like Cync). The heuristics are rules about the world, "truths" if you like, for instance, "water is wet", "sugar is sweet", etc). I would love to see what would happen when you made a search engine which used this massive heuristics database. Even better, let the search engine derive further truths from the pages it searches.

Re:Using heuristics in searches

[derek_farn]

You can download the 'Open' version of Cyc here http://opencyc.org/

Re:Using heuristics in searches

[pubjames]

Sometime in the near future:

Brilliant (but evil) scientist: Ah! My diabolic new creation awakens! The world will never be the same again! Mmmmwwwhahahahaha!!!

[Speaking to machine] So, my heuristic-driven search engine machine, what universal truths have you discovered? Have you discovered the meaning of life?

Machine: [Metallic voice] I have discovered that George Bush is a miserable failure.

Brilliant (but evil) scientist: I knew that already! What else have you discovered?

Machine: Your penis is too small...

Brilliant (but evil) scientist: D'oh! [Slaps forhead]

Machine: I have also discovered Jar Jar binks sucks bigtime.

Brilliant (but evil) scientist: But what of the meaning of life?? You've discovered that haven't you?

Machine: Britney is hot.

etc. etc.

[etc.]

Re:Using heuristics in searches

[pubjames]

A heuristic is an estimate of the distance to your goal that you can use to evaluate which node in the seach space to expand next.

Not necessarily. There are various definitions of heuristic, one of which is "a commonsense rule (or set of rules) intended to increase the probability of solving some problem". By that definition "water is wet" is a heuristic. Perhaps some people use the term differently, but when I studied AI that was a common definition.

Really, it's research.overture.com

[greenhide]

Go to http://labs.yahoo.com
Click on the "Research", then the "Open Source Search", and then the "Staff" tab.

Notice the URL now says:
http://research.overture.com/staff.xml

Now, I'm not sure whether the two sites, research.overture.com and labs.yahoo.com were launched at the same time. There's no Netcraft record for research.overture.com (at least, there wasn't when I last checked it), so I couldn't get an uptime or anything of that nature.

But considering that the URL changes halfway through while you're browsing through the site, it leaves me to believe this was a fast hatchet job of getting something, anything out of the door to compete with Google, now that Yahoo is severing its ties with the search engine.

It won't be hard to beat Google

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing Google has going for it is the page ranking mechanism. If you take the time to look through Google Labs, you will see that there is very little stuff there that is actually useful. Fun, yes. Very useful to a very small minority of people, sometimes. But very little Google does actually generates revenue whereas Yahoo! has a well-established online supra-portal that generates revenue through a wide range of method, from banner ads to pay services.

Once Yahoo! starts producing useful products from their research in Yahoo! labs, they will show that not only is Google Labs a complete waste of time and money (Google's money that is) but it does not generate revenue to support its existence.

Google is innovative

[shuz]

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

Re:Yahoo is Dean?

[CGP314]

I know that my father for one prefers yahoo!. When I try and make him use google by setting it as the homepage, he complains that it takes forever to load.

``Dad, it's done loading.''

``Well, where is everything.''

``That is everything.''

``Change it back''

::sigh::


--
In London? Need a Physics Tutor?

American Weblog in London

Bad signs

[HappyCitizen]

I was on the yahoo labs page, went to a certian project and got:

Error 404: File Not Found
The page '/error.html' could not be found. Please check that you did not mistype the URL. If you followed a link to this page, we apologize for the error.

Its a bad sign when you cannot find the error page

Yahoo or Overture ?

[psycho_tinman]

Most, if not all of these guys seem to be from Overture. I read the resumes which are available, simply because I was interested in what their focus for research would be. Everyone who has a blurb seems to have joined from Yahoo's acquisition of Overture..

Makes me wonder, then. Was Overture such a force in the search arena ?

Interestingly, I also notice that some of their developers are just BSc guys.. W00t!:) Its not a PhD/MSc only thing like Google (ok, there are a few PhDs as "senior" scientists)

Here's an innovative idea

[greenhide]

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.