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Yahoo! Yields Search Dominance to Google

Unsichtbarer_Mensch wrote to mention a Seattle PI story in which Yahoo! CFO Susan Decker states that they're not aiming to be the No. 1 Search engine. From the article: "Yahoo!'s comments underline the difficulties any Internet company faces in trying to challenge Google's dominance of the Web search industry. Google has at least double the market share of Yahoo! and Microsoft Corp. in Internet search, the largest and most profitable segment of online advertising. 'In some countries, it's already game over in search, with Google the clear victor,' said RBC Capital Markets analyst Jordan Rohan in New York. 'Google's product development pipeline runs at such a fast rate that it's very difficult for any company, Microsoft or Yahoo! to catch up.'"

180 comments

  1. Innovation by truthsearch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    it's already game over in search

    That's a great attitude for promoting competition and innovation! It's good to hear we'll never see any new ideas come out of these companies.

    1. Re:Innovation by decipher_saint · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Trying is the first step toward failure...

      --
      crazy dynamite monkey
    2. Re:Innovation by truthsearch · · Score: 2, Funny

      Homer: Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.

    3. Re:Innovation by mspohr · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Many times in the computer world it has been pronounce "game over" and many times the game has changed. (think WordStar, EasyCalc, Lotus123, MS-DOS, MSIE, and yes, Windows and MS Office).

      The market leader always likes to tell people "don't even try to beat us" but people can and will beat them.

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
    4. Re:Innovation by QMO · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "Trying is the first step toward failure..."

      That soulds like something from http://www.despair.com/

      --
      Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
    5. Re:Innovation by tehlinux · · Score: 1

      "it's already game over in search"

      "That's a great attitude for promoting competition and innovation! It's good to hear we'll never see any new ideas come out of these companies."


      I still expect to see a lot of good ideas come out of Yahoo!, even in their search technology. This isn't necessarily a bad attitude if you think about it. You don't stop a speeding train by stepping in front of it.

      --
      Most linux users don't know this, but the man pages were named after Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris fsck'ing hates noobs!
    6. Re:Innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      'In some countries, it's already game over in search, with Google the clear victor,' said RBC Capital Markets analyst Jordan Roha.
      RBC invested in SCO.
    7. Re:Innovation by Alex+P+Keaton+in+da · · Score: 2, Funny

      Was it game over when GM had their best year ever (1978)? Not for Toyota...
      Was it over when the A&P was the largest chain in the world?
      etc etc etc....
      Was it over when the Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor?

      --
      And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
    8. Re:Innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is times like this, when I have mod points, that I wish they had a stupid mod for people. It reminds me of a time when one of my small friends refused to wrestle one of my large friends, stating that it would be, "like David versus Goliath". We then kindly pointed out that David won.

      On a side note, the Germans did not bomb Pearl Harbor, it was the Japanese.

    9. Re:Innovation by Heembo · · Score: 1

      Google is so far ahead, they are going to focus their energies elsewhere. I'm waiting for the Yahoogle merger!

      --
      Horns are really just a broken halo.
    10. Re:Innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well... isn't that a contemptuous market signal. I'd like to dispute your use of "always likes".

      Personally, I'd prefer to have a competitor try to beat my business. I'd like to have a company 1) invest large amounts of money, 2) conduct the R&D and identify value gaps, 3) use my resources/competitive advantage and clobber them to death, 4) consume their product into my own to enhance growth.

      Evil isn't it? But it's been done numerous times. If you disagree, just look at our own precious hi-tech industry.

    11. Re:Innovation by Nahor · · Score: 1
      it's already game over in search
      That's a great attitude for promoting competition and innovation! It's good to hear we'll never see any new ideas come out of these companies.
      Yeah, talk about a group of morons! They don't even know they just have to press "Start" to start a new game. Even a 3-year old knows that!!
    12. Re:Innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On a side note, the Germans did not bomb Pearl Harbor, it was the Japanese

      In case you didn't get the reference, it's a line of John Belushi's from Animal House.

      "Don't stop him, he's on a roll."

    13. Re:Innovation by LnxAddct · · Score: 1

      In previous cases it was companies self-proclaiming. Now it is the other market leaders making the claim about a competitor and I'm not sure what to make of it. Two years ago Yahoo used Google for its search, maybe they'll go back to that.
      Regards,
      Steve

    14. Re:Innovation by Gordo_1 · · Score: 1

      "Kids, you tried and failed miserably. The lesson is: never try."

      --Homer Simpson

    15. Re:Innovation by lartful_dodger · · Score: 1

      Sorry, I didn't realise that David wrestled Goliath.
      Isn't the point of that story that god told David to be sneaky and avoid wrestling at all costs if he wanted to win?
      If he had wrestled, that could have been far more interesting.

      --
      The face of 'evil' is always the face of total need
    16. Re:Innovation by fferreres · · Score: 1

      Great examples!

      WordStar -> Wordperfect -> MS Office
      EasyCalc -> Lotus123 -> MS Office
      PCM -> DRDOS -> MS-DOS -> Windows
      Mosaic -> Netscape -> MSIE

      Uhg...don't even try it...

      --
      unfinished: (adj.)
    17. Re:Innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wish they had a stupid mod for people

      Yeah, me too. Or something like an ignorant-of-pop-culture mod.

    18. Re:Innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yahoo didn't make the "game over" statement. It was "RBC Capital Markets analyst Jordan Rohan"

      Besides, I think it's a healthy goal. Yahoo is so much more rich in features and content than Google. Their goal is probably to provide a good search. World Domination is not required, because they have a lot of other stuff to make money on.

    19. Re:Innovation by Weh · · Score: 1

      you forgot:

      icq->msn messenger
      quicken->ms money

      and to a lesser extent:
      real player->windows media player

      they are also trying:
      any personal firewall->ms xp firewall
      any anti-virus-> mx xp anti-virus
      etc.

      Having said that, I'm not really anti-ms, I for one like many things about windows and ms products.

  2. the analogy police might arrest me for this, but.. by B3ryllium · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Isn't that like saying "IBM yields OS Dominance to Microsoft" when talking about IBM PC-DOS or OS/2 vs. Windows XP? :)

  3. my only fear is... by gg3po · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've loved google in the past, but my only fear is that as they evolve into a defacto monopoly, their "do no evil" bit will be tossed. One dominant provider of any service (monopoly) is never a good thing, no matter how good the source started out. Power corrupts, and all that...

    --
    ---
    1. Re:my only fear is... by Mrs.+Grundy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I doubt it will be as simple as tossing their 'do no evil' mandate, but rather the law of unintended consequences will take hold as they grow. Things they think are harmless or even good can and probably will have effects they cannot control. This is especially difficult as one tries to balance the ethical dilemma of doing 'no evil' to shareholders as well as users simultaneously.

    2. Re:my only fear is... by ClearlyPennsylvania · · Score: 1

      Compare Google and Microsoft: Microsoft: high switching costs to users. You want to use a Mac? Go for it, but: you'll be unfamiliar with how to use it, your machine at work will likely not be a Mac, not all your software will run, etc... Google: low switchings costs to users. You want to use Yahoo? Go for it. You'll know how to use it already, and there are no compatibility issues. Microsoft: doesn't need the trust of users. Google: counts on the trust of its users - they need it for gmail, talk, etc. So, you see, this "do no evil" thing is not just something the execs like to say - it's something that they need. Additionally, the larger a company grows, the more its culture is ingrained. Simply by Google starting off with a culture of "do no evil," it's much more likely to stay that way for a long time.

    3. Re:my only fear is... by porkThreeWays · · Score: 1

      If their recent refusal to give the gov't information regarding what people searched is any indication, they are already on the way.
      k thx slash sarcasm

      Seriously though. That bold move made them take a huge stock hit. Giving away those records wouldn't have negatively affected their business, so the only conclusion I can really come to (given their history) is that they did that purely for moral reasons. They are smart guys and knew their stock would take a hit, but did it anyway. Does this sound like an evil company to you?

      --
      If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
    4. Re:my only fear is... by guaigean · · Score: 1

      No, it doesn't sound like an evil company. If anything, Google has held a very good history with their "do no evil" process. My fear is not of Google now. My fear is of Google in 10 years when the benevolent dictatorship realizes its power, and someone unscrupulous takes over. It is a reoccurring theme in history, and is likely to happen eventually. I just hope that their dominance does not encourage others to avoid the market.

      --
      Microsoft Sucks, F/OSS Rocks. I get mod points now right?
    5. Re:my only fear is... by OOGG_THE_CAVEMAN · · Score: 1

      That stonewalling sure is mysterious, and cheers up those who want to stick it to the current Justice Department, but I think the real problem for Google is they have *shitloads* of data on what web sites folks visit, and this is possibly fundamental to their ability to offer relevant ads that are their revenue source.

      Letting anybody with a subpoena go trawling through this ocean of data could really open Google up to having to support a lot of litigation, and probably opens up serious liability issues for Google itself, although IANAL, so I couldn't really say.

      That hit on their stock price could be due to the market realizing "hey, Google isn't using magic powers, but is dependent on some huge, mysterious apparatus that might be outlawed or sued into oblivion." Sounds like a real issue to me.

    6. Re:my only fear is... by BewireNomali · · Score: 1, Insightful

      dude, do no evil is diametrically opposed to any publicly held company. they can and will do more evil.

      when amazon started up, everyone thought that they'd get smashed by the brick and mortar retailers - B&N, Borders, et al. The only way they were able to thrive was through diversification. I caught my business partner buying sex toys on Amazon. If only she were hot.

      The contention was that the brick and mortars could discount the internet guys into oblivion since they didn't rely on the web as a sole source of revenue. It's a valid contention to a certain degree, but Amazon exists and isn't doing badly.

      So if I were a google shareholder - I'd be very afraid that they aren't making money off anything else. I don't think Microsoft is actually a serious competitor here - rather Yahoo - with its all encompassing portal services. It's an interesting and well integrated one stop solution. Google honestly seems slapdash in comparison. And lets not forget, Live.com is coming along nicely.

      The web Gods shine down on Google as its taken Yahoo and Microsoft eons to mount serious competition. But to date - Google only sells one product that seriously and significantly affects the bottom line. shareholders won't stand for that. Google's leadership will be forced to diversify or be deposed. Thus the erosion of the culture begins.

      --
      un burrito me trampeó.
    7. Re:my only fear is... by ClamIAm · · Score: 1
      Additionally, the larger a company grows, the more its culture is ingrained. Simply by Google starting off with a culture of "do no evil," it's much more likely to stay that way for a long time.

      Similarly, compare Google's early days to Microsoft's. MS has pretty much always been a lot more evil.

    8. Re:my only fear is... by TMarvelous · · Score: 1

      Being the dominant provider doesn't make a monopoly especially in search. It's as democratic as it gets. I can type in any url I want when I'm looking for information and google can do nothing to prevent that. Now if Google became my ISP and denied my access to MSN or Yahoo search they would be behaving as a monopoly. btw - I spell-check my posts in Outlook before submitting them and M$ capitalized the leading G in Google for me!

      --
      http://www.worldsoccerbars.com
    9. Re:my only fear is... by gg3po · · Score: 1
      Being the dominant provider doesn't make a monopoly especially in search.

      Not yet...

      It's as democratic as it gets. I can type in any url I want when I'm looking for information

      for now...

      and google can do nothing to prevent that.

      Yes they can. They can grow to the point where competing with them becomes futile. They can drive the other search engines out of business. Even now, maintenance, data storage, and sufficient processing power for a contstantly updating search that indexes the entire web has such a high bar of entry that many smaller offerings are effectively shut out of the market. This trend toward consolidation is poised only to continue. One day, you may wake up only to discover the other url's you used to type in to look for information are all out of business.

      --
      ---
    10. Re:my only fear is... by ejp1082 · · Score: 1

      At the risk of stating the obvious, that seems to be the biggest motivation behind Google Video. I don't think that Google PayPal, Google Ebook, and some kind of Google music store are that far off either. I also think that a clash of the Titans is pre-destined for some point in the future, and that Google will eventually directly challenge Microsoft Windows and Office.

      It's also quite obvious that Google is moving to diversify its advertising business. They have two killer apps - search and AdSense/AdWords. There's a lot of money to be made in applying the latter to print, radio, and TV.

    11. Re:my only fear is... by jallen02 · · Score: 1

      It is NOT a super high barrier to entry in my opinion. Archive.org only has like 100TB or so of storage. I personally can afford 1-2TB of storage easily. You can put a *LOT* of web sites in a few TB of data. You can effectively develop search technology as long as you have the brains on any modern hardware. I think it is much more about the technology than the barrier to entry. Its not like building some factory or some geographically limited resources. It is a knowledge thing. The hardware can be had for very little money to do initial development.

      Jeremy

    12. Re:my only fear is... by BewireNomali · · Score: 1

      google video is content dependent. the apple/pixar deal all but cements ITUNES lead in that department. Plus Apple can leverage their IPOD installation to full advantage. Prognosis: uphill climb, high risk.

      ebooks: are you serious? microsoft already has an ebook store. they make no money because most people hate reading ebooks, children included. it requires a culture shift that is two generations away at least. Not to mention that piracy of ebooks is and will continue to be rampant due to such small file sizes.

      music store: join the club. that's not being the second rat to the mousetrap, it's like being the 20th.

      google paypal is interesting. where is it?

      you essentially reiterated the obvious, which is that Google has one product that makes money. None of what you've put forth justifies market valuation for Google, nor do they force me to reconsider their rather precarious prospects going forward. The market thinks different because that's what the market does. they hype up companies to get an infusion of cash into the market from the average investor. The price is hyped up - companies like Legg Mason cash out on top, and the individual investor takes the fall. It's a stock run-up... a ponzi scheme.

      My point remains: Amazon is around because they've diversified successfully. Google has not. They do not have a significant monetized business other than advertising.

      --
      un burrito me trampeó.
    13. Re:my only fear is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You may want to reread the previous post. He mentioned a combination of factors. Your response seems an attempt to insinuate that he focused *exclusively* on storage space. You fail to address sufficient processing power to handle millions of requests in a very short span of time. Your mention of Archive.org as evidence that small offerings have a chance at competing is, at best, somewhat off-topic. Archive.org doesn't even fall into the category of a commercial search engine, nor is it any small effort (Being a collaborative effort does not make it small).

    14. Re:my only fear is... by ejp1082 · · Score: 1

      As ebooks go, they will take off one of these days - they did suddenly get a lot of attention with the Soney e-Reader technology, and Google's already done all the legwork necessary to build such a store. And I don't think that Apple's current dominance in the video/music store area is anything close to a permanent state of affairs. As for Google Paypal - I wonder where it is myself, as its been rumored for quite some time.

      In any case - my point wasn't really to disagree with you, but simply to say that they're very aware of the problem with having one revenue stream. And that by the end of the year, they'll have a lot more. Whether or not any will be successful and can provide a significant source of additional revenue remains to be seen.

    15. Re:my only fear is... by Millenniumman · · Score: 1

      They aren't a monopoly, and probably never will be. It's relatively easy to set up a search engine, and a lot of companies have the power to do it. There also aren't any incompatibility issues between search engines.

      --
      Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
  4. Just a matter of time by Vivek+Jishtu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    First it was altavista then yahoo and google. Lets see who is next :)

    --
    I lost my signature... help!
    1. Re:Just a matter of time by Eightyford · · Score: 1

      First it was altavista then yahoo and google. Lets see who is next :) Askjeeves. No. Not really.

    2. Re:Just a matter of time by kjh1 · · Score: 1

      Agreed. At this point, it's hard to see how Google can be surpassed, but just think about it: are all of your search results exactly or even close to what you thought you would find? Nope. That's why there are at least a half dozen search engine upstarts that are working on the next generation of search technologies. Google has now attained a position like Yahoo where search is hardly their means of survival, but search is still a killer (and necessary) web application and someone else will come along and clean Google's clock.

      _KJH

    3. Re:Just a matter of time by stevesliva · · Score: 1
      I tend to agree. If Google was be the usurper, why can't it be usurped itself?

      I wonder, though, if it's now possible to achieve the step-function improvement in relevancy that Google achieved. And I think that this time around, the giants won't be sleeping-- They'll buy the upstarts or copy them.

      --
      Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
    4. Re:Just a matter of time by kminchau · · Score: 1

      First it was altavista then yahoo and google. Lets see who is next :)

      Microsoft!!

      (Ducks and hides from the inevitable comments being thrown at him)

      --
      "Never underestimate the power of the Slashdot!"
    5. Re:Just a matter of time by Vivek+Jishtu · · Score: 1

      It is quite possible that Microsoft is up next. With integration of MSN search into IE7 it won't take long for people using Vista to get used to MSN. They did it with IE. People were used to Netscape but as soon as IE came preinstalled netscape was history. With microsoft anything is possible. Though I would hate it.

      --
      I lost my signature... help!
    6. Re:Just a matter of time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Local search-engines might get a run again. At least in europe.

      And then there are sites for domain searches. For example my own hobby-project (http://bananana.nl/) is a specialized search-engine for classified-sites (which are hot here in the Netherlands at the moment).

  5. Anyone remember googlezon? by Rooked_One · · Score: 1

    I think that was the name of it - showing how google would merge with amazon and make some hilarious new system in which all your info would be right there for the world to see.

    1. Re:Anyone remember googlezon? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I remember it. I'm from the unlikely future.

  6. Yahoo in neutral by peterdaly · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "We don't think it's reasonable to assume we're going to gain a lot of share from Google," Chief Financial Officer Susan Decker said in an interview. "It's not our goal to be No. 1 in Internet search. We would be very happy to maintain our market share."

    "maintain our market share" is what's interesting. She doesn't even say increase. That is not a good sign for Yahoo's search business.

    I can imaging Ask employees giddy with glee seeing that search engine #2 has consciously put their search market share in neutral.

    -Pete

    1. Re:Yahoo in neutral by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Growth is overrated. Seriously, if Yahoo can maintain a profit at the #2 place, then there is no need to grow. It might be nice to grow... assuming that you can show that the investment into growth will return a better profit than what you have now. Just because you're a bigger company doesn't mean you have bigger margins, only a better shot at an economy of scale, and when you're on the internet and webpages are dirt cheap, you don't get a lot of positives from that.

    2. Re:Yahoo in neutral by PriceIke · · Score: 1

      Growth in and of itself is without value. But growth for the sake of greed/ever-increasing profit almost always becomes (begets?) evil.

      If I were a Yahoo shareholder, I'd be concerned by this statement given, because it effectively is a signal to the #3 search engine that says, "hey, we're ready for you guys to pass us. We're not gonna fight too hard to stay here.. knock yourself out."

      --
      It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
    3. Re:Yahoo in neutral by vertinox · · Score: 1

      I can imaging Ask employees giddy with glee seeing that search engine #2 has consciously put their search market share in neutral.

      I don't think Yahoo makes their bread and butter off of web searches. Its mostly on the finacial pages (note, when you look up a stock quote on google it points to finance.yahoo.com). They mostly likely have realized they can't compete and will have to make their monies elswhere.

      --
      "I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
      -Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
    4. Re:Yahoo in neutral by blamanj · · Score: 1

      You realize she said "maintain our market share," don't you. In a competitive market (think Ford, GM, Toyota), you don't maintain by giving up. You have to continue to innovate or you'll get creamed.

      She'll probably catch flack inside Yahoo, but I think all she was saying is that search is not their #1 priority. Makes sense considering how many other things they're doing.

    5. Re:Yahoo in neutral by DerekLyons · · Score: 1
      "We don't think it's reasonable to assume we're going to gain a lot of share from Google," Chief Financial Officer Susan Decker said in an interview. "It's not our goal to be No. 1 in Internet search. We would be very happy to maintain our market share."

      "maintain our market share" is what's interesting. She doesn't even say increase. That is not a good sign for Yahoo's search business.

      So? Yahoo's great strength in search is, or at least was, it's directory, it's still the best out there for that matter. Also, Yahoo - unlike Google - is widely diversified with revenue streams beyond that of advertising and eye attractors beyond the slim few that Google offers. I personally spend as much, if not more, time on Yahoo than Google.
    6. Re:Yahoo in neutral by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Check out one of the latest marketshare reports:
      http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060124-1526 41

      Looks like everyone is in neutral to me.

    7. Re:Yahoo in neutral by d1on1x · · Score: 1

      "... maintain our market share is what's interesting. She doesn't even say increase. That is not a good sign for Yahoo's search business...." Is sure is .. growth can come from a bigger market share or by keeping the same share of a growing market, no? In other words.. as long as more people start looking for things, the amount of searches increases (and so does the usage of Yahoo!, with their current market share).

  7. Take a leap! by Arthur+B. · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Maybe they are not going to catch google at this "raw brute-force search engine game"... good for them! Why would one try to imitate such a primitive way of searching. Come on, this is the prehistory of search engines, there is so so much more to do. They should take a leap into next generation search engines. When I look for a movie, I go to imdb, when I look for a scientific article, I go directly to wikipedia... I wish I'd use only one site but I need to look for more than a movie title, I want to specify it is a movie, and if in my native language "movie" is written just like "baby diapers" I still want to be unambiguous... Google still relies VERY heavily on syntaxic tricks... there are so many "tricks" in Google maps it is sickening, just for the sake of keeping a single search bar. The future is clearly semantic, I think Google is seeing it with Google base but for the moment, this is their only "appearant" use.

    --
    \u262D = \u5350
    1. Re:Take a leap! by mojosupreme · · Score: 1

      Dear Arthur, I am glad you feel that way and only hope you are not alone. I know I thought similarly so I devised a product that would probably help you out. Essentially, it is a domain-specific vertical search engine, called http://www.metamojo.com/ - enter your query and then INSTEAD of pressing enter, click on the category of interest from the list below the search box. Instead of blindly returning results from ALL over the Web and the engine assuming what context you are searching for, you - the user - tell the search engine what state of mind you are in. After all a student searching for Berlin might want WWII info, a couple might want travel info... Alternatively, you can check out: http://www.flickmojo.com/ for films and movies http://www.arcademojo.com/ for video games http://www.escapemojo.com/ for travel. the list goes on and on. Is this the best search engine out there? Of course not. Is there such a thing? Of course not. Is this a search tool for everyone? Of course not. Is there such a thing? Of course not. All to say, it does seem to be for someone with your needs. Enjoy, and mainly I look forward to your feedback, Cheers MojoSupreme

    2. Re:Take a leap! by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Personally, the feature I most want to see on google is for all the wikipedia-sucking site results to be listed as being "similar" to the wikipedia result. Oh yeah, and, I'd like to be able to exclude all those fucking sites that require you to pay to see an answer, that's #2. If I could bomb those guys' house I probably would, they're poisoning search.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:Take a leap! by Arthur+B. · · Score: 1

      Yep this is nice... but far from being enough... category specific search is just one thing, the web need to be pushed to full semantic searches, to allow me to look for example to map the people who liked a particular movie, see the list of schools who have a teacher teaching a particular subject etc.

      --
      \u262D = \u5350
    4. Re:Take a leap! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're crazy. The next time you decide to go to IMDB, try searching for the movie/actor name on google first. 90% of the time the IMDB site will come up at the top (because 90% of the time the IMDB answer is the best one out there). Ditto for wikipedia.

      You don't have to use any crazy tricks to make it happen, it will just happen. Sure, if you add imdb or wikipedia to your query, it increases the chances, but it is usually unnecessary. Besides, adding the term to the query if you don't get the results you want is much faster than using the internal search engines from either of those sources.

    5. Re:Take a leap! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yeah. i hate searching for a tech support problem for my computer and get 'yeah if you pay for us we'll get you the last critical step to being able to use your computer again!' FU I PAY FOR THE INTERNET GaAHHH

    6. Re:Take a leap! by ClamIAm · · Score: 1
      and if in my native language "movie" is written just like "baby diapers" I still want to be unambiguous

      Given the quality of most Hollywood movies, this probably isn't entirely unaccurate.

    7. Re:Take a leap! by Arthur+B. · · Score: 1

      This "often" works because the "syntax" is a good hash function for the semantic... as long as the movie title is rather unique, it'll work. Try looking for a movie called "the web" for example... Adding imdb or wikipedia to the query? Well, this is precisely adding semantic to your query.

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      \u262D = \u5350
    8. Re:Take a leap! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly! That's exactly what Google Base is attempting to do! Let other content owners feed data (in a structured format) into a giant easily-searchable but arbitrarily defined structure. IMDB, ebay, craigslist, etc. can all be uploaded into Google Base.

    9. Re:Take a leap! by belloc · · Score: 1
      ...when I look for a scientific article, I go directly to wikipedia...

      Just...wow.


      --
      I got more rhymes than Jamaica got Mangoes.
    10. Re:Take a leap! by kchrist · · Score: 1

      Say what you will about the quality of Wikipedia articles themselves, but they're often a goldmine for references. One of the first places I look after skimming a article is the external links at the bottom of the page.

    11. Re:Take a leap! by Flunitrazepam · · Score: 1

      I look for a scientific article, I go directly to wikipedia..

      When I read "scientific articles" on wikipedia, I go directly to the bathroom and vomit

      --
      1) Your analysis is based on bad assumptions so your result is way off. 2) You're a sick bastard for fucking a horse.
    12. Re:Take a leap! by belloc · · Score: 1

      I was mostly kidding. But the first thought that ran through my head (when I saw Wikipedia and "science reference" in the same sentence) was the image of a lazy grad student sitting at home in his underwear grumbling about the long, cold trip to the damn research library, convincing himself that Wikipedia "is just as good as those worthless peer reviewed scientific journals; and who's gonna find out, anyway?"

      But I guess if I'm thinking of dirty grad students in their underwear, I have bigger problems...

      --
      I got more rhymes than Jamaica got Mangoes.
    13. Re:Take a leap! by Arthur+B. · · Score: 1

      I actually am a lazy grad student doing research on the net in my underwears... But yeah, actually I generally skip to the references... Hey, those references ARE generally papers from peer reviewed scientific journals...

      --
      \u262D = \u5350
  8. Hi, I'm Yahoo. My mistakes teach me nothing. by DysenteryInTheRanks · · Score: 5, Funny
    Hello, my name is Yahoo. During the dot-com boom, I forgot search was important and let Google take over my core franchise. Then in 2002 I spent $235 million buying Inktomi to try and catch up and create the "highest quality search."

    Now, just as Google becomes choked with spamblogs and linkfarms and results bought and paid for by SEOs, I am once again ceding competitiveness in the most important part of Internet media.

    If you are a shareholder, and this bothers you, please remember you bought stock in a company WHOSE NAME MEANS FUCKING IDIOT.

    Thank you, and have a nice day.

    1. Re:Hi, I'm Yahoo. My mistakes teach me nothing. by pthisis · · Score: 1

      During the dot-com boom, I forgot search was important and let Google take over my core franchise.

      Since when was search ever Yahoo's core franchise? It started off as a way to share the founder's bookmarks online and evolved into a hierarchical link categorization system. Then it added portal features and tacked on a search engine. But http://www.dmoz.org/ is much closer to their original "core business", and even http://del.icio.us/ is much closer to what they do than Google is.

      I'm not even sure they had a general Internet search box before they went with Google in that capacity, and they only got into developing such a thing after purchasing Inktomi in 2002 (well after the dot-com boom).

      Google's search competitors were other search engines, mainly Lycos and Altavista (Lycos being the older of the two and the first widely used general search engine, Altavista being the predominant search engine by the time Google was in the field).

      --
      rage, rage against the dying of the light
    2. Re:Hi, I'm Yahoo. My mistakes teach me nothing. by DysenteryInTheRanks · · Score: 1

      I remember the directory too, but it rapidly fell behind. By roughly 97 or 98, Yahoo's full text search was the industry leader and a huge source of revenues, especially once businesses stopped paying to be listed in the directory. The original search engine searched both the directory and a full text index of the Internet -- this was pre Google.

    3. Re:Hi, I'm Yahoo. My mistakes teach me nothing. by pthisis · · Score: 1

      By roughly 97 or 98, Yahoo's full text search was the industry leader

      What is "Yahoo's full text search"? From 1996-1998, Yahoo used Altavista to provide their searches. From 1998-2000, they used Inktomi. From 2000-2004, they used Google.

      In 1995*, and 1997-1999, Altavista was the #1 search engine in the nation. Note that Altavista continued to dominate the search space after Yahoo moved to Inktomi, until Google's emergence (and Compaq acquiring them and retargeting them as a portal rather than a search site).

      Yahoo didn't have their own search engine until the Inktomi acquisition; Yahoo Search (2004 on) and was the first time they had their own search results online.

      *in 1996, both Inktomi and Excite were larger

      --
      rage, rage against the dying of the light
    4. Re:Hi, I'm Yahoo. My mistakes teach me nothing. by DysenteryInTheRanks · · Score: 1

      Yahoo was what people used to search the Internet. The fact that some of the tech was outsourced did not seem to matter, particularly because the directory results were included. It turns out it was foolish of Yahoo to outsource the core of its business -- "Finding things on the Internet." This is precisely my point.

    5. Re:Hi, I'm Yahoo. My mistakes teach me nothing. by webfiend · · Score: 1

      Which people? Before Google, I usually used Altavista or Webcrawler, same as most of my peers. When we went to Yahoo, it was nearly always for the directory. My experience may not have been universal, but you shouldn't assume yours was either.

    6. Re:Hi, I'm Yahoo. My mistakes teach me nothing. by pthisis · · Score: 1

      Yahoo was what people used to search the Internet. The fact that some of the tech was outsourced did not seem to matter, particularly because the directory results were included. It turns out it was foolish of Yahoo to outsource the core of its business

      But it never outsourced anything it had in house. I don't believe that Yahoo was ever close to "what people used to search the internet"--if you look at the search engine numbers, it was never dominant or even within shouting distance of the top 3-4 players, and the search engines it used to power it's searches didn't get big spikes when they were chosen nor did they level off or decline when they were dropped.

      Even as late as 2003, Yahoo did about a third the searches that google did and less than half what AOL did. It was closer to Ask Jeeves or InfoSpace than to the big players when it comes to searches.

      People used Lycos in the early days, then shifted primarily to Altavista with Inktomi and Excite on its heels, and then Google rose to dominance. With AOL and MSN always as major players.

      Regardless, even if Yahoo had been a dominant search player you'd have to applaud them for cutting the deals to be able to have a search function at all and not think they're foolish for outsourcing something that they never, in fact, had in-house to begin with.

      During that same time, Yahoo was the #1 most popular web site almost every month. That's because its core business is being a portal site (and a mail site), and it's one of few sites to navigate that terrain effectively.

      --
      rage, rage against the dying of the light
  9. only a message to investors by snooo53 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This doesn't mean Yahoo is going to abandon searching by any means. Instead I think this is a message to investors not to grade them by their search marketshare becuase they don't consider that important anymore. If anything, this opens up the door to more innovation because they can be the quiet underdog. Yahoo can focus more on R&D and let google try to struggle to maintain dominance when investors are breathing down their necks about profit numbers and market share

    Not too long ago, didn't AMD essentially throw in the towel to Intel by saying they weren't going to compete for the fastest processor anymore? And look at what they are offering today with their 64bit processors. As long as yahoo continues to innovate they aren't dead

    --
    The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
    1. Re:only a message to investors by mcguyver · · Score: 1

      Instead I think this is a message to investors not to grade them by their search marketshare becuase they don't consider that important anymore.

      I couldn't agree more. Yahoo has much more than just search results and the focus should be elsewhere. Google on the other hand is search engine first that generates its revenue by being the largest adsense website. Google's focus is obviously search.

    2. Re:only a message to investors by evilviper · · Score: 1
      Not too long ago, didn't AMD essentially throw in the towel to Intel by saying they weren't going to compete for the fastest processor anymore?

      What the hell? I've never heard anything like that, and a quick search didn't locate anything either.

      I remember a few months before the first Opteron came out that AMD said they weren't going to continue to be the "low cost" chipmaker, and of course the x86-64 processors are notably more expensive than their 32-bit processors were.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  10. Re:the analogy police might arrest me for this, bu by macadamia_harold · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Wasn't Yahoo's strength always that it was a directory, not a search engine? They've always outsourced their search .

  11. Google was the victor. They still are (for now). by mmell · · Score: 4, Interesting
    But even a quick look will show you that Google is aware of their preeminence in the search engine arena. While they are still innovating, I'm just waiting for them to become so caught up in their own greatness that they kick back and rest on their laurels.

    Because that's when somebody'll come up with "a better mousetrap" and unseat the reigning kings of search. Anybody here remember Browser War I (BW I)? Microsoft won that one and suddenly Insecure Exploder didn't need to be improved any more.

    Sorta like the way Wal-Mart grew up (hellfire, I can remember driving out of the city to a rural area just to shop at Wal-mart. Now that they're a retailing juggernaut I avoid Wal-mart whenever possible - their customer service sucks almost as bad as their mostly-imported product lines).

  12. Oh No! by Burning1 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Oh no! The bastard monopolists at Google are crushing the freedom-loving people at Yahoo and Microsoft!

    I'm trying to figure out what happened. It seems to me that many slashdotters have a fundimental urge to root for the underdog. Slashdot seems to fear any company that becomes successfull. Shouldn't we all be proud that an ethical company that relies on Open Source Software has become a dominant player in the search industry?

    If someone knows an honest example of google violationg (our) trust, I'd be interested in hearing about it.

  13. Very interesting coincidence by truthsearch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The /. quote on the bottom of this page:

    Lack of capability is usually disguised by lack of interest.

  14. Quality of Google Search has decreased however... by us7892 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It used to be that technical searches (the kind you use at work when searching for code snippets, general help, etc.) turned up some excellent result using Google. Back when AltaVista was still around, I switched to google because Google had great result lists.

    In the past year or so, there are just too many junk results. Sites which exist only to flood us with google ads; sites that are fake (you know the ones, with obviously bulk generated text to "match" your search); and poor "help" sites which also seem to exist just for ad revenue...

    The next "google" will be the one that filters out the garbage, and brings the result lists back to the way they were 1999-2001...actually, Google will probably allow us to mark results as bogus, like a personal "black list". Maybe they allow this already?

  15. happy or sad? by dotpavan · · Score: 1

    Yahoo must be confused as to whether it should be happy or sad, happy that it had invested in the then startup called Google, or sad that the small baby has overtaken the daddy himself!

  16. Good Move by skubeedooo · · Score: 1

    I'm not really surprised, it seems like there is far more scope for improvement in turning the web into a useful platform than there is in trying to make a search engine epsilon better than Google's. In the tech industry it seems you only supplant the incumbant in his own domain by being an order of magnitude better, as Google did in the 90's. Maybe search just doesn't have any potential order-of-magnitude improvements that could help Yahoo leapfrog Google. Perhaps they're better off staking their place in the next revolution - the web as a platform.

  17. Conan, what is best in life? by MightyMait · · Score: 2, Funny

    To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

    --
    Nothing interesting to say...MUST...NOT...REPLY...ohtheheckwithit.
  18. The new elite industries... by lpangelrob · · Score: 1
    'Google's product development pipeline runs at such a fast rate that it's very difficult for any company, Microsoft or Yahoo! to catch up.'

    It's not just coincedence that Google only hires the best and brightest to work for them.

    So is this going to be the future of industry in the U.S.? Whoever gets the brightest and smartest, not only wins, but dominates for generations to come?

    If so, the populace is woefully unprepared. Considering that teachers are largely mediocre, the educational system is underfunded and in many areas of society education just isn't really that important, what will happen to a declining, undereducated workforce in the next 50 years?

    1. Re:The new elite industries... by dioscaido · · Score: 1

      "dominate for generations to come"? Don't you think you are jumping the gun a bit?

    2. Re:The new elite industries... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I will personally bow to our new Google overlords!

  19. drama queen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    please -- such drama.

    yahoo is better search and has many more products and tools than google.

    that's a fact

  20. Absolute Power by millahtime · · Score: 1

    Google already is a massive power when it comes to search. They are not quite there yet but on the way to having the market share of Microsoft when it comes to search. With Google branching out into all of the other areas of a web portal and leveraging their popularity to steal people away from others at what point will Google become too dominant? Personally, I would rather see 3 big names (at least). A single party system can dictate too much, a 2 party system has too much fighting between the two. We need more options and less dominance.

  21. Looking out for #1 by digitaldc · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "It really ought to be their goal" to be No. 1, he said. "Whether it's realistic or not."

    I'm a big dreamer. I shoot for unrealistic goals all the time and it totally works for me.

    --
    He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
  22. Ummm...so? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is, with due respect, stupidly alarmist.

    There are a lot of computer makers out there who do NOT aspire to be Dell. There are radio stations that do not aspire to be ClearChannel. There are financial compaies that do not aspire to be Citibank.

    "Largest volume" does not and never has implied "best." Nor does it imply "most profitable."

    Yahoo is not throwing in the towel and abandoning having a good search product. They're saying that, on their list of priorities, topping Google purely on volume is not their highest priority.

  23. Superior Product by TheDoctorWho · · Score: 0

    By and far Google has been a superior product over any other search engine ever made available since the dawn of the internet. Even when google first started you could find great results with minimal serach criteria. And the results you were looking for would nearly alwasy be on the front page. Other search engines just could not do the same thing, not even close.

  24. Well, I for one by gallwapa · · Score: 2

    I for one have been using google for over 6 years now - and the search results have always been EXACT. I have never liked the link whore page that is Yahoo, and before that I used "Infoseek" (1996) because it had "Search within results" - after they became "Go" it went downhill and I switched to google. I have never seen an instance where Google hasn't delivered on its promises, for all but 1 period of time. I remember being frustrated in late 2002 early 2003 when the search results were including meaningless blogs. I didnt give a damn about other people's opinions in my search, I just wanted to get to the page I searched on two months ago. At any rate, Google fixed that, has gone public, and has been offering a number of quality services since. With the aquisition of Keyhole, the advent of google local, froogle, News, alerts, and specifically GMail and Google Talk, google deliver what I want as a customer. I want a lightweight experience that *I* can add to if I choose. I *LIKE* the google talk client because it doesnt have 283423492340234 smilies, and all the other 'crap'. I like GMAIL and Google search for its simplicity and un-cluttered look. A google search within my email? Thank you, Lord. To say that Yahoo may still innovate and stuff - good for them, let them innovate, but if there is a Google branded product, I'd be more apt to go for it first: I'll let a computer analyze my email for targetted ads a lot faster than I'd allow the Yahoo toolbar, for Y! messenger get installed. Yahoo Messenger - "Idiot" Messenger, think about it. Google has held true to its very explicit privacy policies, and makes known EXACTLY what will be going on in a short, readable paragraph or two.

    1. Re:Well, I for one by gallwapa · · Score: 1
      ...now if only slashdot would recognize a carriage return instead of having to type

      when I forget to change the format setting

      dang it

    2. Re:Well, I for one by op12 · · Score: 1

      You don't have to like the link whore page that is Yahoo: http://search.yahoo.com/

    3. Re:Well, I for one by jack_csk · · Score: 1

      Given the recent news of search engines handing over user search records to governments, even the warrant does not specify a crime may have happened, Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL have a lot of things to do before any of them have "true dominance" to Google.

  25. Makes sense. Yahoo is much more than "search." by dpbsmith · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm reasonably net-savvy, but wife is a computer layperson. She's quite "computer literate" but has no real depth technical understanding. She bought a Gateway about six years ago, choosing Gateway because the liked the Holstein motif. She specifically wanted it to be _her_ computer and wanted me _not_ to "help" her or hang over her shoulder or kibbitz.

    When you double-clicked the IE icon, it brought you to a Gateway-badged version of the Yahoo home page. So, her network experience started with Yahoo and she never turned back.

    By the time I offered to help her configure Outlook Express to work with our ISP's email, something I thought she might have trouble with, she said "But I already have email." She had signed up for a Yahoo account, and she thought and still thinks that there's no reason at all to use anything else. (And she was proved right when our ISP had some infuriating email outages, lasting several days each, and my email was interrupted while Yahoo's was completely unaffected).

    She uses Yahoo weather, Yahoo maps, belongs to several Yahoo groups, books her plane flights with Yahoo travel, and so forth and so on. Yahoo is well-designed, engaging, caters to novices, and is a portal to many things that she wants to do on the Internet.

    It is, in fact, all the things that AOL tried to be and wasn't.

    The only thing she doesn't use Yahoo for is searching. Within about a month after Google launched, I discovered it and was impressed by how much better it was than either Yahoo or Altavista. I mentioned it to her, she tried it, she loved it, and has used nothing else since.

    I have no idea at all what Lycos and all the others are up to these days...

    1. Re:Makes sense. Yahoo is much more than "search." by Caspian · · Score: 1
      "Yahoo is well-designed, engaging, caters to novices..."
      And that, my friends, is why it will never go away, even if Google eats its lunch. There will ALWAYS be a market for "search solutions for noobs". Of course, Google could buy Yahoo!...
      --
      With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
    2. Re:Makes sense. Yahoo is much more than "search." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Makes sense. Yahoo is much more than "search."

      I think that's true. I think Yahoo (wisely) saw the rapid emergence of Google and tried to shore up other markets neglected by Google.

      Here in Korea, where I am at present yahoo seem to have a pretty good share off e-mail but they do compete with Korean companies like Daum. As to whether they can maintain competetiveness in the future, I don't know. I'd hazard a guess that they should keep looking for new markets and maybe rebrand themselves. For allot of people the word Yahoo now symbolizes 2nd. (soon to be 3rd?) best

    3. Re:Makes sense. Yahoo is much more than "search." by ejp1082 · · Score: 1

      Yahoo is well-designed, engaging, caters to novices, and is a portal to many things that she wants to do on the Internet.

      I don't disagree with the gist of what you said... but you can't go to www.yahoo.com and tell me that the page is "well designed". I have to use Google to find the links to services that I know Yahoo offers. And there's some parts of Yahoo that just *desperately* need an overhaul (Geocities), or have become spam-ridden peices of garbage (Yahoo Groups). In general, their interfaces are terrible and the ads are obnoxiously placed.

      I think Yahoo has a lot of potential. Google seems determined to use algorithms to do everything, Yahoo seems to be pursuing network effects and group wisdom, but at least for right now, they seem to be stuck in the 1990's. I like the idea of the social web - but Yahoo has an uphill climb to get there, and has a lot of legacy stuff to fix first.

    4. Re:Makes sense. Yahoo is much more than "search." by WuphonsReach · · Score: 1

      I still find it useful to have my.yahoo.com as my customized homepage. Most of my front page is dedicated to the newsfeeds, but I also make use of a lot of sidebar content (weather, stocks, etc). I also keep a small collection of bookmarks there. Wonder when Google will get smart and setup something similar? (And yes, I probably could get all this via RSS, but I've been using my.yahoo.com for quite a few years now. It works, no big reason to change, yet...)

      --
      Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
    5. Re:Makes sense. Yahoo is much more than "search." by dpbsmith · · Score: 1

      I didn't mean that their web page is well designed. I mean that their service is well designed. For example, the page has links to about twenty services that are all described in one word ("Weather," "Travel," "Maps") that are all things anyone might want and are all what you'd expect. (Except for "360", of course.) And they've got 'em all in the top left corner, where you'll see them even if your screen is 640x480.

      Now, Geocities. I have a story about that. Years ago I ran out of space on the free webspace my ISP provided, so I unloaded some of it into Geocities. A couple of years later my ISP offered more space at a decent price, so I moved it back, and sort of forgot about my Geocities site. The other day I decided I really should clean it up... and I can't! Why? Because somewhere along the line, they discontinued FTP access to the free service! The free service still exists, and you can set up and edit a free site via a Web-based interface... but there is no provision whatsoever for getting to anything but the top-level directory! And, of course, my old Geocities site was a multilevel directory structure set up via FTP.

      No, I'm not going to pay them for the privilege of deleting the content on my site.

  26. Re:Quality of Google Search has decreased however. by Daniel+Baumgarten · · Score: 2

    They do. It's called "Personalized Search."

    --
    "Screw slashdot." -- Linus Torvalds
  27. Makes Sense.... by porcupine8 · · Score: 1

    I use Yahoo for many things every day - maps, email (yes, I like Yahoo's implementation of both of these better than Google's), weather, yellow pages, movie times, you name it. General searching? Never. They do plenty of other things (many of which could be thought of as very narrow search engines, like for movie times or weather), I can see why they don't want to put all their effort into competing with Google for the general search market. They're not giving up, they're just choosing to focus on other parts of their business.

    --
    Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
    1. Re:Makes Sense.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and dont forget they do fantasy sports perfectly

    2. Re:Makes Sense.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They do plenty of other things (many of which could be thought of as very narrow search engines, like for movie times or weather)

      Can't agree enough...but the Yahoo's real meat and potatoes for me has to be its News coverage. Cover page is constantly updated with the 5-8 most current global stories. Going deeper coverage expands exponentially, different sources, optinion, etc. and it's edited by humans which does make a real difference (not slapped together like google news, childish like CNN, or totally biased like the BBC).

      Love the Yahoo!

  28. Horsepucky! by pla · · Score: 5, Informative

    Google's product development pipeline runs at such a fast rate that it's very difficult for any company, Microsoft or Yahoo! to catch up

    Yeah, right, whatever. Although it sounds like a good excuse to give to one's own unhappy shareholders, Google's success has nothing to do with rapid "product development". Their core product hasn't changed (other than cute logos and the necessary shift from a 32bit limit a few years back) all that much, from the perspective of the end-user, since inception.

    Not to say that Google doesn't keep coming out with cool new toys. But as much as they beat every clone to the punch with GMail, with their desktop search widget, and the rest of their toys - their core "product" still weighs in at 1.3k, fits on a 640x480 monitor, and has a single significant input field.


    So why has Google kept their market against a player like Microsoft?

    Because I don't need to wade through massive flash-hell to do a search. Because the search results page doesn't take great pains to obscure the content with the advertising. Because they told the DOJ to go pound sand rather than turn over my (and your) search histories. Because they just do what they do well, and found a way to make a tidy profit at that without annoying me. Because they proudly know "what is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?", when most companies would fire the developer who put in such a "useless" feature.


    Because they "do no evil", put simply.

    1. Re:Horsepucky! by code65536 · · Score: 1

      You know, I remember back in the day when Yahoo! was the darling of news media and many people in the media wrote about their style: uncluttered, minimal graphics, and clean. Today's Yahoo! looks an awful like MSN. Cluttery--much unlike Google. It's ironic, no?

    2. Re:Horsepucky! by OOGG_THE_CAVEMAN · · Score: 2, Interesting

      their core "product" still weighs in at 1.3k, fits on a 640x480 monitor, and has a single significant input field.

      I think this view of their "product" is totally naive.

      Google makes squat from that blank page. They make lots of money from sticking tiny, unobtrusive, but still lucrative ads on all sorts of websites, including their own.

      As long as they keep finding new ways to stick their ads all over the place on pages people want to view, and the ads stay lucrative, www.google.com itself could vanish, and GOOG would keep making money.

    3. Re:Horsepucky! by pla · · Score: 1

      I think this view of their "product" is totally naive.

      Fair enough opinion...

      But consider this: While adblocking software/plugins has become increasingly common (and when IE7 comes out, I'd say we can safely change that to "ubiquitous"), most of us deliberately do not block Google's text ads.

      Why?

      The same reasoning applies. Because it doesn't annoy me. It sits there on the side of the page, humbly minding its own business and, if I really want, I can look over and see what it has to offer me today.



      But yes, I will concede as naive my view of GOOG's main product as "www.google.com". As will all advertising supported organizations, we the viewers count as their real "product".

      Though, the cheese tastes good and they don't zap us very often.

    4. Re:Horsepucky! by mrklin · · Score: 1
      But as much as they beat every clone to the punch with GMail... So why has Google kept their market against a player like Microsoft?

      While I like GMail, there was simply no way for the likes of Hotmail and Yahoo Mail to offer the same functionalities Google offers globally considering those two services combined have 100x more users (conservatively) than GMail. Google's refreshing approach with mail (reminds me of Pine) urged innnovation amongst its peers which I think is the best situation the users can wish for - rather than having any one of the above companies dominate any one field

      Simply put, Google get start fresh because they do not have to maintain millions of users who are already using their (mail/photo/IM/start page/whatever MSFT and Y offers to keep its users sticky). How many times have you wished you could start fresh only wishing that you do not have to support existing users and maintain existing code/process? Seeing how fickle the internet search engine business is, first with Yahoo, then Altavista, (Inktomi and metasearchs somewhere in there) and now Google, it would not surprise me if Google is dethroned someday like the likes of Kodak, Polaroid, Lotus, etc.

  29. Re:Quality of Google Search has decreased however. by OOGG_THE_CAVEMAN · · Score: 1

    Google has to deal with the Web as it is right now, not as it was in the ancient past of 1999; that's not to excuse them, but crap results could mean the Web has a lot more crap now. It's very hard for a computer to make these decisions, but I'm sure Google has lots of smart people trying to fight off the hordes of people who want to pillage the clicks of the billions of visits to Google.

    In any case, I believe if you are logged into your Google account, you get a link "Remove Result" on your searches, which probably fees back in some way to improve future search results.

  30. Yahoo Calendar by TheSync · · Score: 1

    Yahoo Mail's integrated calendaring ability makes it more useful to many people than Google Gmail. I think Gmail needs to add a calendaring function.

  31. They'll get eaten alive... by NigelJohnstone · · Score: 1

    ... and not in the good way.

    "Seriously, if Yahoo can maintain a profit at the #2 place, then there is no need to grow."

    Until someone else comes along with new ideas and walks all over them. Thats what Google did to Altavista & Lycos, Altavista quit trying because it wasn't making big money and Google took their market away from them.

    I talked (rather exchanged emails) this afternoon with Ricardo Baeza Yates, the man Yahoo hired to head their Spanish research arm and by the sound of it he's after the cream of any PhD's he can get, so I don't believe this woman when she says loser stuff like that. She's just spouting off.

  32. Re:the analogy police might arrest me for this, bu by B3ryllium · · Score: 1

    If anything, that just makes my analogy Double True :)

    (Due to IBM outsourcing PC-DOS and possibly parts of OS/2 development ... specifically to MS, I believe ... :))

  33. Maybe if yahoo! by catahoula10 · · Score: 1

    Maybe if Yahoo! took all the crap off their main page like Goggle did people would go back to them. Goggle's clean front page is the only reason i switched from yahoo to goggle.

    --
    This has been another valuable and informative opinion from:
    Catahoula!
    1. Re:Maybe if yahoo! by tommers · · Score: 1

      Its been said many times before, but I might as well point out again that http://search.yahoo.com/ provides the same interface as Google.

      The philosophy of the front page does affect other areas of the site, but the lack of a clean search front page would be resolved by search.yahoo.com if that were your only reason to switch.

    2. Re:Maybe if yahoo! by catahoula10 · · Score: 1

      Thanks. This was new to me.

      --
      This has been another valuable and informative opinion from:
      Catahoula!
    3. Re:Maybe if yahoo! by tommers · · Score: 1

      Glad it was helpful. I didn't mean to imply I'd assume everyone would know about it, but in a past discussions there are a lot of people who know about it who still compare the Yahoo Front Page to the Google Front/Search Page. Admittedly, the style of the front page affects other parts of Yahoo as well, but it seems the search front pages are pretty comparable on Yahoo and Google.

  34. Not quite applicable by GroeFaZ · · Score: 1

    'Google's product development pipeline runs at such a fast rate that it's very difficult for any company, Microsoft or Yahoo! to catch up.'

    To me this looks like a pretty clear confession of having smaller balls. Erhm. A smaller pipeline. NO NO NO, not that, you know what I mean.

    --
    The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
  35. Not a serach engine... by starrift · · Score: 1

    I think it is important to point out that Yahoo! is not a search engine, it is a directory. People hand pick the websites at Yahoo! unlike google's web crawlers which are automated. So technically they aren't even in the same category. But the above article still applies. Just a little fact I thought I would throw in.

    1. Re:Not a serach engine... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Wow, someone has been living under a rock, for, I dunno, past 4 years.

  36. Yahoo has gotten better by SilentChris · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've got to say Yahoo has impressed me lately. Not in search, which still pales compared to Google, but in everything surrounding it.

    1) Less clutter. They still have the occassional (highly annoying) Flash ads, but a year or two ago people screamed at them for literally clogging the pages with ads. Today they've scaled them back quite a bit, and the content vastly outnumbers the ads (which it should).
    2.) Yahoo Mail Beta. If you get a chance to use this thing, do it. It's f'ing amazing. Think Outlook in a website. Works great on Firefox. Easily blows the doors off even Google Maps in terms of sheer "How the hell did they program that?" One can argue whether or not Outlook in a website is a good idea (I love it) but you can't help but be impressed by the programming.
    3.) Yahoo News. Sorry, Google still owns search, but their news site (even out of beta)... lacks. Yahoo cleanly brings a ton of sources together with a lot of great photos. Browsing the "Most Viewed Photos" is fun (even if it results in seeing one-eyes cats).
    4.) Yahoo Widgets. Which they bouugh (Konfabulator). Excellent acquisiton. Konfabulator's always been awesome (I've programmed a number of widgets) and the graphical polish is way better than anything you see on most Windows apps.
    5.) Yahoo Groups. Still the best source for free pr0n. I mean... a great way to get friends and family together. ;)

    I still use Google all the time for search, but Yahoo is commanding more and more of my attention for everything else. If they used Google as the search engine, I'd probably head there full time.

  37. Re:Quality of Google Search has decreased however. by davidsyes · · Score: 1

    Introducing "Gargle" and "Googerine". We're better than Yahoo! and Google. We take in your request, we rinse, and then regurgitate it back to you. It's probably going to have some garbage, but it'll be a lot cleaner with less "data plaque"...

    --
    Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
  38. del.icio.us by massysett · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Maybe they are not going to catch google at this "raw brute-force search engine game"... good for them!

    Some say they are already going in this direction, which is why they acquired del.icio.us. Why have computers characterize pages when humans will do it for you, and for free? Sometimes I search for things in del.icio.us, and the other users' bookmarks turn up some good results. It will be interesting to see if Yahoo can harness this in a big way.

  39. Re:Quality of Google Search has decreased however. by mikepaktinat · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You should check out the firefox extension "customizegoogle"

    It lets you filter results in "black list" fasion(among other crazy google customizations)

  40. Reminds me of the old days by Masa · · Score: 1

    Maybe Yahoo! should start using a LISP again.

    1. Re:Reminds me of the old days by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe Yahoo! should start using a LISP again.

      Wouldn't that be Yathoo!?

      It works best if you lengthen the 'a' and o

      Yaaaaaaathoooo!

  41. Search Logs by DieNadel · · Score: 1

    At least Google is trying to fight against handing over their (our?) search logs. According to the articles shown here about this incident, Yahoo! and Microsoft already complied with the demand to give the logs, and I think that such a coward company, that has no guts to fight our government, should not have their products used.

    --
    Utinam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant!
    1. Re:Search Logs by Weedlekin · · Score: 1

      I'm also impressed by the valiant way they stood up to the Chinese government's demands that they censor search results until they'd had time to write some marketing spin telling us all why implementing an enforced censorship policy is not in fact evil. Not all companies would have gone that extra mile to protect peoples' rights: MS and Yahoo for example caved without even thinking about such an illuminating press release, let alone actually writing one.

      --
      I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
    2. Re:Search Logs by DieNadel · · Score: 1

      I totally agree with your point. At least, censoring is a little bit "not so evil" than censoring+"revealing journalist ID". (Not really, but I'm trying to make a point against Yahoo! as well)

      I'd think that a foreign internet company would have two options when negotiating with the Chinese government: obey to whatever they tell you to do, or have ones sites firewalled off for good.

      China is, indeed, an odd place. I thought those billion+ people would have rebeled against their government by now, but I must think that this is not they culture.

      But let's focus on our freaking government for a while: Mr. Bush's administration is trying really hard to take away all our freedom and privacy (maybe convert us to the People's -- cough -- Republic of America). And the most interesting thing is that he was already a convicted moron when re-elected. I love this country, I really do, but people: WAKE UP before the next election!

      --
      Utinam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant!
    3. Re:Search Logs by Weedlekin · · Score: 1

      "I'd think that a foreign internet company would have two options when negotiating with the Chinese government: obey to whatever they tell you to do, or have ones sites firewalled off for good."

      Yes. Morally it's definitely better to be firewalled off for good. Financially, it's obviously better to obey the Chinese government. This is why "moral" and "fiducuciary responsibility to shareholders" are in most cases mutually exclusive.

      "China is, indeed, an odd place. I thought those billion+ people would have rebeled against their government by now, but I must think that this is not they culture."

      It has nothing to do with culture, because the Chinese are far from being the only ones to suffer under a totalitarian regime for decades. Totalitarians manage to maintain their hold because they know that populations contain five basic types of people:

      1. The vast majority. These might moan about the way things are, but they will only form a dangerous mob if pushed very hard. "Hard" in this sense means killing enough of them that the rest think they have nothing to lose by rising up, so this must be avoided unless it is done small, isolated communities, in which case it's best to leave no witnesses.

      2. The militant minority. These can be quite dangerous, but will usually be contained by expert use of brutal repression because they are in most cases poorly disciplined. Most people of type 1 above will accept this because they see type 2 as "trouble makers".

      3. Potential leaders. These are charismatic, motivated people who can turn the usually undisciplined type 2 into an organised centre that can in its turn gain significant support from type 1. Must be removed from society immediately.

      4. The military. Necessary for oppressing the rest, and therefore disciplined, well armed, and well led. It is therefore essential to keep them on your side by ensuring that the higher ranks are extremely well rewarded, but while remaining frightened by what they know will happen to their families if they are disloyal.

      5. Snitches. Greedy and usually cowardly individuals who are willing to sell the liberty and even lives of others for personal reward. Sprinkle them liberally among the other four groups so you can identify and weed out potential sources of problems. It's a good thing there are usually lots of snitches, because they have a high attrition rate due to the fact that nobody from the other four groups likes them.

      "But let's focus on our freaking government for a while: Mr. Bush's administration is trying really hard to take away all our freedom and privacy (maybe convert us to the People's -- cough -- Republic of America)."

      I'm not American, and don't live there, but do receive US cable and satellite TV channels. It seems that people have forgotten Benjamin Franklin's famous "Those who would trade liberty for security deserve neither".

      "And the most interesting thing is that he was already a convicted moron when re-elected."

      Is being a moron illegal in the US, then? Sounds like an excellent law that a lot of countries would do well to emulate!

      --
      I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
  42. All i want for Christmas is to be #3... by jennarose023 · · Score: 1

    granted that google seems to be the monster that can't be killed, but when was the last time you were in a meeting and your boss says "ok people, this year we are aiming for #3!" It's sad don't you think?

  43. Yahoo = "boorish, crass, or stupid person" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    If you are a shareholder, and this bothers you, please remember you bought stock in a company WHOSE NAME MEANS FUCKING IDIOT.


    Jerry Yang's business card reads "Chief Yahoo" . I thought a liberal education is supposed to teach you this stuff, but no wonder:

    http://www.epinions.com/content_73675148932

  44. Re:the analogy police might arrest me for this, bu by mrklin · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yahoo's strength, and the company itself has said that over and over, is that it is a media company which encompasses being a directory, a portal, a provider of services - one of which includes search.

  45. Re:Quality of Google Search has decreased however. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Check out the "Remove result" link next to every result blurb.

  46. Betcha I could beat Google in an afternoon... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Create your own search engine that happens to display a new pron image on the engine home page every time you search and you'll be #1 in a few hours...

  47. Re:Google was the victor. They still are (for now) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Precisely.

    The day google puts scrolling FLASH spamverts all over the page and animated gifs, *that's* the day I switch to another engine.

  48. How to knock Google off the top of the hill... by maillemaker · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Make the top 10 search results actually relevent again.

    Google is rapidly becoming a disappointment for me. Or rather, I'm quickly learning after doing a Google search to immediately click to page 2 of the results to see the "real" results.

    Page 1 of the results seem to largely be irrelevent to what I'm /really/ searching for - it is far more relevent to people who have paid to have their URL returned when my keyword is typed in.

    I can't tell you how many times I've typed in "chicken" (or whatever) and been presented with a top-10 list of "results" for web sites that have absolutely nothing to do with chicken - they've just paid someone to make sure their web site /appeared/ to be associated with chicken.

    You want to beat Google? Find a way to make a search engine that doesn't pad the results with irrelevent paid advertising.

    Interestingly, I'm finding the "legitimate" paid results - those down the right side of the screen, to often be more relevent to my searches than the top 10 URLs presented in the actual search body.

    Steve

    --
    A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
    1. Re:How to knock Google off the top of the hill... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What makes you think someone paid Google to appear in the top ten results? If you've been on the web for a while, which it looks like you have, you'll know that there are known tricks for increasing your ranking in search results. Which can be achieved without transfering any resources directly to Google.

      For instance, try visiting a few of the top ranked results for lyrics. They look suspiciously similar, don't they? They have a lot of artist information dumped on one page to catch as many keyword matches as possible. Domain names also contain keywords. And my guess is that they link to eachother, perhaps indirectly.

    2. Re:How to knock Google off the top of the hill... by danpsmith · · Score: 1
      I can't tell you how many times I've typed in "chicken" (or whatever) and been presented with a top-10 list of "results" for web sites that have absolutely nothing to do with chicken - they've just paid someone to make sure their web site /appeared/ to be associated with chicken.

      I know I'm going to kind of play devil's advocate here, but have you searched for chicken on Google before you suggested it? I actually found the results to be a lot better than you imply in your post here.

      There are some things people simply don't remember I think, about what Google does and has done for the search industry...

      Everyone talks about altavista, well let me tell you gentlemen that altavista was probably awful from the day of its inception. I can remember plainly when altavista dominated the search market and let me tell you, you could never even find relevant search results at all most times. You'd be lucky if you didn't get offered about 10 different types of virii in the first few results.

      It was only when Google decided to innovate, I find, that using a main search engine for tasks and for research took less time than doing the actual research the old fashion way, or using an offline encyclopedia or reference source.

      PS: A search for chicken gives you recipes for chicken nuggets, a picture of a chicken, a link to a website regarding chicken little, etc etc. I cannot see how any of these results are even the slightest bit tainted.

      All of that aside, I can see how some people can complain about certain sets of search results. I tend to have problems with Google searches sometimes, but it is only when I am searching for what is an extremely unpopular item, or perhaps *cough* a not-so-legal one. You can hardly blame Google for results in these cases, where even relevant links have pages chalked full of garbage, or when the only reference it can find is on some archaic page with a bunch of blabbing text. Sometimes you conduct a search so strange you even stump that.

      Anyone that seriously thinks Google is a bad search engine, I defy you to go back to looking at what altavista was, or what Yahoo was for that matter. Google deserves its position still today.

      --
      Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
    3. Re:How to knock Google off the top of the hill... by chachob · · Score: 1
      What makes you think someone paid Google to appear in the top ten results? If you've been on the web for a while, which it looks like you have, you'll know that there are known tricks for increasing your ranking in search results. Which can be achieved without transfering any resources directly to Google.

      That's what he meant... did you even read his post? Look (emphasis mine):
      they've just paid someone to make sure their web site /appeared/ to be associated with chicken.
    4. Re:How to knock Google off the top of the hill... by loom_weaver · · Score: 1

      I agree with you full heartily.

      I had to try and find the official site for the youth hostel in Tofino. Used google and gave up after the first few pages of links are to those 'useful' linking sites with no real content.

      I was clicking through google's links for a good 10-15 minutes.

      Do the same search for 'tofino youth hostel' on MSN's site and bang... first few links are at least local listings and there is the hostel site 5th one down.

    5. Re:How to knock Google off the top of the hill... by ballwall · · Score: 1

      Interestingly, I'm finding the "legitimate" paid results - those down the right side of the screen, to often be more relevent to my searches than the top 10 URLs presented in the actual search body.

      Lately I've seen the same thing when searching for product type stuff. (reviews, etc). I wonder if that's just coincidence or not. Which one makes money for google when you click it?

      Just a thought...

  49. Redundant, but... by gmuslera · · Score: 1
    ... we are speaking here of different beasts. Yahoo started as directory, google as raw search engine. Then yahoo moved to community, and google keeped as mainly search engine... maybe a lot of services (mail, news, maps, groups) but one of the things that makes them bright is the search.

    As search, i think is almost a monopoly. Not only their website is the default search for most people, but most browsers and desktop apps that have the possibility of an internet search use it, and is the default "plugin" for most websites. In fact, i think that google could be a good monopoly of not content by itself, but the generic "engine" behind (search, maps, talking, etc)

    Yahoo focus is a bit different, they are building communities, portals, etc, and there they are the dominant party. They could switch to using google as search engine and dont lose visitors or value, because the target is different.

    Of course, google can play a catch up game and really start to build competing communities and portals, but i dont think so, looks like they are building a minimum implementation of features to make those features the base that anyone related must reach to succeed (think in gmail 1gb space). In any case, is a good opportunity (for both and for whoever want to enter those games) to improve, both in reach (i.e. yahoo maps is too focused in us/canada) as in intelligence (making it easier/more integrated/more usable)

  50. Yahoo failed with its directories by MikeRT · · Score: 1

    I could never get a site of mine listed in any category, even personal, on Yahoo. They take forever and you have to practically pay them off to have have a shot at getting listed, even though they have a freebie option. If they'd open up their directory to a "community-maintained and policed" system, they'd have an incredibly useful system. Imagine if a Yahoo user could add a comment to an entry saying, "I found this useful for researching topic XYZ." You could have tons of metadata to enhance the search engine, and categories could be peer-moderated by people who pay a $5 processing fee to Yahoo to have a Yahoo rep receive a photo ID by fax proving that you're a real person, not some troll signing up for the 15th time in a row.

    Yahoo could have made a lot of money if they'd bought Google, let them take over the entire search and directory side of Yahoo and opened up the directories to a community process.

  51. Ironic by PingXao · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's ironic that this story was posted today. Only 3 hours ago I used the Yahoo search engine for the first time ever. Google has been serving me a ton of broken cache links over the last few weeks, and today I finally had enough. Google also needs a way to turn off their supplemental search results. If there are only 2 or 3 hits on something then that's all I need to see. I don't need 3 extra pages of dreck. I got modded as a troll for posting these sentiments in a different story the other day but I am completely serious. I have had Google as my home page for 5 years now and I'm not abandoning it. I'm just saying that if Google wants to maintain their overall superiority and excellence of quality there are a few things they need to attend to.

  52. They don't need to do evil by Doros · · Score: 1

    If Google gets a Microsoft-like grip on the search market (>90%), they don't need to do evil. Doing nothing at all is bad enough. Once they own the market, they don't need to compete, and all those innovative features that keep streaming out of Google might dry up.

    1. Re:They don't need to do evil by notthe9 · · Score: 1

      You don't need to be a monopoly to produce nothing innovative. Look at all the other search engines!

  53. Re:the analogy police might arrest me for this, bu by Savantissimo · · Score: 1

    Or maybe it's more like saying: "Belgium cedes world hegemony to the United States".

    --
    "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
  54. Re:the analogy police might arrest me for this, bu by metlin · · Score: 1

    Originally, yes. Although, they have always projected the image of a portal - and lately, they seem to be trying to be a media company + portal, more than anything else.

  55. Not necessarily by Z0mb1eman · · Score: 1

    If you're #20, shooting for #3 doesn't seem sad to me. I'd have much more respect for a boss who has and presents a realistic view of our strategy, rather than empty rhethoric that isn't even remotely within his power to accomplish.

    --
    ClutterMe.com - easiest site creation on the Net. Just click and type.
  56. Re:Dupe by DaoudaW · · Score: 1

    Uhmmm, that's not a dupe... but why isn't it funny???

    I probably see about 25% of the stories on slashdot before they appear on slashdot

  57. We're number 2, so we try harder by DaoudaW · · Score: 1

    Yahoo should take a lesson from Avis...

    1. Re:We're number 2, so we try harder by tommers · · Score: 1

      You could interpret there comments that way. They know they will remain Avis, yet they will try harder because of it. But with the hope to be number one.

      But maybe Avis expects to be number one real soon.

  58. Re:Hi, I'm Yahoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you do realize that Yahoo! owns del.icio.us, right?

  59. Woo! Go Yahoo! by homesandgardens · · Score: 1

    We're Number 2! We're Number 2!

    --
    To be shpongled is to be kippered, mashed, smashed, destroyed, COMPLETELY GESCHTONKENFLAPPED.
  60. Re:Hi, I'm Yahoo by pthisis · · Score: 1

    I didn't know that. They own Altavista (and Inktomi, obviously, and alltheweb) now, too.

    I'm just saying that dmoz and del.icio.us are far closer to being competitors to what Yahoo did than Google is--Yahoo didn't have a search engine of their own until 2004 (from 1996-2004 they provided results from major search engines, variously Altavista, Inktomi, and Google). They were more of a bookmark/hierarchical link categorization service at the outset, and expanded into a portal site. Only recently did they enter the Internet search space.

    --
    rage, rage against the dying of the light
  61. Re:Hi, I'm Yahoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    they also own musicmatch, flickr, and egroups

  62. analysts... by serbanp · · Score: 1
    Isn't it interesting how in each such article there's a shithead sitting on the fence and giving advice to the guys who do the work?

    "It kind of makes you wonder about how serious they are about search," said Danny Sullivan, editor of London-based SearchEngineWatch.com, which tracks the search industry. "It really ought to be their goal" to be No. 1, he said. "Whether it's realistic or not." That "whether it's realistic or not" cracked me up.

    It shows how true is the old adage "who can, does, who can't, teaches".

  63. Re:Dupe by Millenniumman · · Score: 1

    Then ignore it on slashdot.

    --
    Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
  64. Re:Hi, I'm Yahoo by pthisis · · Score: 1

    Which are even less related to the search space...

    --
    rage, rage against the dying of the light
  65. ITEOTIAWKIAIFF by accessdeniednsp · · Score: 1

    It's the end of the Internet as we know it, and I feel fine.

  66. yeah well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Its hard to catch up when you are so busy sucking. What else is news.

  67. Chicken... by maillemaker · · Score: 1

    >I know I'm going to kind of play devil's advocate here, but have you searched for
    >chicken on Google before you suggested it? I actually found the results to be a
    >lot better than you imply in your post here.

    I knew someone would actually go Google for "chicken". No, I didn't actually Google for chicken myself because it was merely an example.

    For the things I have been routinely searching for, I find myself digging deeper and deeper down the list of returned results before I find what I'm actually after.

    For example, yesterday I Googled on "how to engrave metal". I ended up digging up a lot of pages before I finally came across the obvious: http://www.engravingschool.com/ . Most of the results returned are about people /selling/ engraving services or equipment, not web sites about how to engrave metal.

    No argument - Google is the best thing going in internet searching - I wasn't trying to argue anything different. I'm just saying - you want to knock Google off the top of the hill, one possible way is to make your results more relevent.

    Steve

    --
    A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
  68. Google Search != MSIE by miro+f · · Score: 1

    I very much doubt now Google has Market Dominance that they're going to sit back and relax like what Microsoft did with MSIE. This is definately not the end for new and innovative things, even if Google does take a 95% market share.

    The major difference between the two is that while MSIE was only a tiny part of Microsoft's revenue, Google Search is a massive chunk of Google's profit. If Google loses it's search then they're pretty much screwed. They know if they don't keep innovating then the same thing will happen that is happening to MSIE right now, which is losing market share. And while this is a small problem for Microsoft, losing market share in the search engine stakes would be a massive blow for Google. If they're not the best, then they don't even have the "default install" bonus that MSIE has, they're in huge trouble.

    Don't count on seeing an end on innovation in search if Google gets market dominance. It may slow down a little, but they couldn't afford to follow the footsteps of MSIE.

    --
    being vague is almost as cool as doing that other thing...
  69. The 90's want their search engine landscape back by adnonsense · · Score: 2, Informative

    Hop along to http://search.yahoo.com/ and tell me whether those results are also hand picked. And if you have access to web server logs, have a look for the user agent "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Yahoo! Slurp; http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/slurp)".

  70. Yahoo are Evil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What sticks in my throat about Yahoo is how they gave the Chinese Government the identity of a man who sent an email critisizing the Chinese Government. He's now spending 10 years in Jail. Yahoo has never echoed a shred of remorse about this. And when the US Government recently rocked up at all the Major search engines and said asked for the search logs, Yahoo happily handed everything over.

    Yahoo has the conscience of Enron and a Saudi Arms Dealer. Do you really want to trust your personal thoughts on Yahoo Mail?

    Google at least stands for something. I hope they send Yahoo bankrupt. Forget "Do no Evil." This is "Good versus Evil"

  71. Re:Google was the victor. They still are (for now) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Anybody here remember Browser War I (BW I)? Microsoft won that one and suddenly Insecure Exploder didn't need to be improved any more.

    You know, that's browser war II !
    Browser War I was called the Mosaic War, and was won by Netscape.

  72. Re:Quality of Google Search has decreased however. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They do...well, last time i did this, about 3 years ago because i was annoyed by the 'bulk text phrases' in fake websites. Google removes those from their search, but you have to email them directly.

  73. How to be Number 1 again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I want my mp3's! Gimme gimme gimme! Of course they must be longer than 1 min. samples.

  74. Same thing can be said the other way around... by MOGua · · Score: 2, Insightful

    'In some countries, it's already game over in search, with Google the clear victor,'

    But don't people in China, Taiwan, and Japan all use Yahoo!?

    China is a very important market; coincidentally, there's news today about Google agreeing to censor results in China.

  75. post of the year by Brigadier · · Score: 1

    I here by nominate this post for post of the year ....

  76. Usage of the word "search" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Am I the only one annoyed by how "search" is now used in the industry as a categorical noun? For example:

    In some countries, it's already game over in search, with Google the clear victor."

    What the hell is wrong with just saying "searching"?