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Amazon Dumping Google for Microsoft?
theodp writes "How do you reward Google for letting your CEO buy stock for six cents a share? If you're Amazon, you dump Google for Windows Live Search to power subsidiary Alexa, who has not yet commented on the switch. Other Windows Live Search sightings are being observed at Amazon subsidiary a9.com." From the Search Engine Lowdown article: "The Alexa toolbar's gotten Alexa a bad rap from privacy advocates, though in function it's effect on search results is similar to click stream data that Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask may or may not be using in their determinations of relevance. Wall points out that 'A9 is still powered by Google...' A9 is Amazon's primary search project. Wall wonders, however, if the change in Alexa indicates a larger coming change in Amazon's relationship to Google. I agree. In fact, I see the move as the first Google Dump in the post eBay's-seeking-partners-against-Google era."
a9 is also now powered by windows live search.
Jeff Bezos shouldn't be criticised for buying class a stock at 6 cents. it wasn't a gift from Google, at the time it was Google needing his money.
Froogle is quickly becoming a popular selling portal, I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon believes that Google might overtake it eventually. I for one love the increased competition.
"How do you reward Google for letting your CEO buy stock for six cents a share? If you're Amazon, you dump Google for Windows Live Search to power subsidiary Alexa, who has not yet commented on the switch.
Jeff Bezos is not the sole proprietor of Amazon. It would be unethical for Bezos to award business to Google in exchange for a personal favor that made him more wealthy. As head of Amazon, Bezos has a responsibility to the other shareholders of Amazon. If dumping Google for Windows Live Search to power Alexa is going to maximize shareholder value, then so be it.
Just because Halliburton gets no bid sweetheart contracts from friends in the government doesn't mean that this is how business should be run.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I too, was one of the A9 crew. I loved having web results/image results/wikipedia all in one search. When Windows Live came up, I switched Google back. Now they've abandoned Google completely, and you can't search for web-wide images (from *anyone*) at all anymore.
I tried to live with Windows Live search, although it's results weren't so great. But the loss of image results as well was a deal-breaker.
A9 has lost it's edge in some bizarre powerplay. They should have been shouting about their service, and instead you got there by accident from IMDb or Amazon. Now I have to go back to Google, and it's oh-so-bland results.
*sigh*
If anyone hasn't read the Google interview in Linux Format (Chris DiBona) I highly recommend it. It really does a good job of conveying Google's position on many issues. Regardless I can't see how most people on this forum would consider Google <= M$.
In a nutshell:
LXF: In what ways would you say that Google is sponsoring open source?
CD: Actually I don't like the word 'sponsoring'. I don't like sponsoring, I don't like 'subsidising', I don't like 'giving back'. The words I like are 'working with' them. We see them as our peers in computer science...
Maybe you don't believe this is 100% true, you can at least agree that Microsoft's position are opposite of this. Not only they not our peers in computer science, but they seem arrogant enough to think they can dictate computer science.
> How do you reward Google for letting your CEO buy stock for six cents a share?
Either this is an intentional troll, or you have no clue about financial matters.
Bezos was an early investor in Google, when they were just getting off the ground. He gave them money ('angel funding') to allow them to expand. The agreement in that situation is that Mr. Bezos then owns a percentage of the company, giving him stock at a low price after an IPO.
Google didn't "let him buy" stock. Bezos invested in Google very early on, and he got big $$ when Google's stock went through the roof.
How to detect loonies:
... this guy chooses to point the finger at people who attempt to sway your opinion about what to buy as the "most EVIL business ever".
"the most EVIL business ever... ADVERTISING"
Ok, now step back, and think about that statement. In a world full of people who build nuclear weapons (e.g. G.E.); research fragrances by injecting bunnies with toxic chemicals; patent genetic sequences; squeeze the third world for cash in exchange for patented, life-saving drugs; grind up tons of sea life per day; build systems to gather all Internet traffic for domestic spying; etc.
Think about that.
And why does he say this? Because it pains the average paranoid to have a large business that spends its time worrying about the impact of its actions.
Keep in mind, Google has:
* Moved the banner ad from Internet dominance to second-class status.
* Contributed substantially to open source development efforts.
* Countered the growing dominance of Microsoft on many fronts.
* Revealed government efforts at privacy invasion (did MSN or Yahoo!?)
Complaints about Google amount to: well, they could do MORE for me!
If Google bothers you, you need to serious look at your priorities. Sure, they're large and public which makes them more of a source of concern than your average convinience store, but there are companies that spend their time and effort trying to KILL PEOPLE. Google doesn't show up on the evil company radar because there's already too many companies fighting for the right to be there.
I've decided that Google-bashing comes down to largely two areas:
* SEO people and website proprietors bitter that they don't have a higher ranking.
* People who are alarmed by the growing influence and power of Google and want to cap it.
The "China thing" was possibly the most absurd slam I've ever seen, where people were complaining that Google was horrible because it followed a country's laws within that country. Good lord. Google doesn't finance private armies to overthrow China's leadership, either. Darn them for not forcibly spreading democracy and promoting revolution. [rolls eyes] I'll take Google's approach over Bush's approach any day, and let the mass of the Chinese people decide whether to revolt or not on their own.
Google is making an incredibly useful set of products in a highly competitive market and still stomping the competition. While doing so, they are not using underhanded business tactics, they are providing funding to a number of highly-cost-effective open source efforts, and so forth. They have generally done a better job of advocating the privacy of their users than their competitors. They promote interesting CS development. They helped reverse the slide into unusable "media-rich" flashy, slow websites.
As you said -- they may not be perfect, but they're one of the best things you're going to run into. Maybe someday, when the growth slows and they hit a (real) scandal or two, there will be good reasons to dislike them. Until them, I'm going to sit back and enjoy.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.