Yahoo Rejects Microsoft Search Offer

mytrip writes to mention a Financial Times article detailing Microsoft's apparent interest in Yahoo!, and Yahoo!'s rude reaction to their interest. From the article: "The fight is on between the three internet search titans, after Yahoo's Terry Semel laid down the gauntlet to Microsoft saying the software giant's recently elevated ambitions in the search arena were a lost cause. 'My impartial advice to Microsoft is that you have no chance. The search business has been formed,' he said in an interview with the New Yorker's Ken Auletta."

Comments

Google?

[biocute]

"The search business has been formed", that was what I heard when Yahoo was teh king, and guess who came in and took over the search business?

Re:Google?

[jellomizer]

The only problem was Yahoo was the king before it became king before the Internet became common place .
First you take an idea that someone else made and mature it.
You become the King until the market stabilizes.
Then someone else takes your place for the stable market.

It is not fair but that is the way it seems to go.

Like GUI OS's
Xerox made the GUI Interface.
Apple took the idea and matured it.
Apple becomes the king of GUI
Then Microsoft comes and takes your ideas and wins for the stable GUI market.

It is not always about quality it is just about having the charm to get most people to use it over something else.
Like Google seemed to load a little faster then Yahoo so people with dial-ups used it more. And when the internet became common place and mature a lot of people were still using dialup.

Re:Google?

[iamthatjoseph123]

see http://007google.com/Yahoo.aspx

Re:Google?

[LegendLength]

The only problem was Yahoo was the king before the Internet became common place .

No I reckon their biggest problem was the amount of crap on their front page.

Re:Google?

[Ilgaz]

http://search.yahoo.com/

Exists since '98 (archive.org)

Also moronic, lame people like me called "end users" or "90% of customer profile" actually uses that "crap" such as news, mail notification,custom alerts.

That is a working thing so they won't break it. That place is the Web"s NUMBER ONE site.

live with it,sorry

Re:Google?

[timeOday]

Google actually shopped around for years trying to license or sell their search algorithms before giving up and foolishly (most said at the time) trying to establish their own brand in the saturated search market.

That said, I don't think generalizations should be drawn from google. It's a one-in-a-million case where the underlying technology actually trumped everything else, and a good algorithm made its inventors super rich. How often does that happen? Almost never. All your examples are about exactly the opposite; normally the value generated by great ideas goes not to the inventor but rather to whomever can best market them (IP law notwithstanding).

Re:Google?

[carlivar]

No one ever took over the search business from Yahoo, to my knowledge, since Yahoo had no pure search business. Prior to their own technology I believe Yahoo always outsourced. Inktomi and Google in that order. I don't recall what they did before Inktomi, if anything.

Re:Google?

[Julian Morrison]

Eh, no, the market wasn't formed.

The sign of an unformed market is customers groaning. The sign of a formed market is when the customers sigh in contentment.

Does nobody else remember how frickin' useless search engines were before Google?

Re:Google?

[R3d M3rcury]

Yup. search.yahoo.com has been around since December 12, 1998.

Google, on the other hand, made it's first appearance on December 2, 1998.

Hm.

Re:Google?

[jeannie888]

The biggest problem with Yahoo is that their Search Engine is so "commercialized" that their search isn't an "search" anymore, it's full of paid per click ads.

Re:Google?

[retiarius]

really? try both yahoo and google search on something
commercial, like "dog food". results are about the same.

now try something less so, like "ovshinsky", which elicits
no sidebar ads. yup, about the same.

Re:Google?

[efflux]

The only problem was Yahoo was the king before the Internet became common place .

No I reckon their biggest problem was the amount of crap on their front page.

I stopped using yahoo as soon as a Flash version of Britney promoting Pepsi started dancing across my screen. I can't remember the exact year, but I think it was around 2000. The damn ad would actually *obscure* the search box!!!

Re:Google?

[Ilgaz]

AC fanboy says:

"where are you getting THAT information, eh? i'm sure Yahoo! is going to be real quick to tell you that they're the "Number One" site... but does that mean the most visits? unique audience? what?"

also he adds:

"for the record---plain old Yahoo.com still has LOTS of "crap" on their page. i don't know about you, but in the time it takes to load "POPULAR YAHOO SEARCHES," links for "Yahoo Small Business" and random shit like "BUZZ LOG" (whateverthehell THAT is), i could have typed my search term into the plain box on google.com."

So, I stupidly reply below:

A modem will compress text , yahoo has started to serve web while 14.4kbit was a fast connection, that style.

Some people has life and use the features of yahoo.

Also http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/news.jsp?section =dat_to&country=us

Have a nice day

Re:Google?

[jeannie888]

I was commenting how Yahoo "emphasis" their ads as the search results. 14 ads vs. Google's 10 per page.

That quote brings to mind the phrase....

[spiritraveller]

"famous last words"

And I'm not sure who I dislike more at this point.

At least Microsoft hasn't been handing political prisoners over to the Chinese government.

Re:That quote brings to mind the phrase....

[muyuubyou]

Microsoft just shuts them down:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTI CLE_ID=48199

Re:That quote brings to mind the phrase....

[Bing Tsher E]

That's a little different from what Yahoo has done. Yahoo gave them a forum to reveal themselves, under the assumption that they were safe to express their opinion. And then sold them out to the authorities. That is far more odious than just shutting down the forum and not providing a phony 'free speech' honeypot.

Re:That quote brings to mind the phrase....

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

At least Microsoft hasn't been handing political prisoners over to the Chinese government.

Amnesty International disagrees with you:

An Amnesty International report has cited Microsoft among a clutch of leading computer firms heavily criticised for helping to fuel 'a dramatic rise in the number of people detained or sentenced for internet-related offences'.

They just didn't get caught as badly as Yahoo did.

So - feel free to dislike them both.

That sound bite is gonna come back and bite ya

[Irish_Samurai]

"My impartial advice to Microsoft is that you have no chance. The search business has been formed,"

I dunno, that sounds similar to the boasts made by almost every large company head right before they get their ass handed to them by someone.

Re:That sound bite is gonna come back and bite ya

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

impartial

I don't think that word means what you think it means Mr. Yahoo.

Re:That sound bite is gonna come back and bite ya

[hotdiggitydawg]

I was thinking the same thing. I wonder if he's related to General Custer...

Re:That sound bite is gonna come back and bite ya

[icedivr]

I think the captain of the Titanic said something similar...

Re:That sound bite is gonna come back and bite ya

[zuluechopapa]

maybe that quote will be added to the list of such memorables as:
640k ought to be enough for anyone
computers of the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons
and my favorite
I think there is a world market for maybe five computers

So let's see...

[meatflower]

I hate Yahoo search, I REALLY hate MSN search... If they had combined I may have spontaneously combusted from the new, dangerously high levels of hatred coursing through my veins. That was close.

Re:So let's see...

[carlivar]

Why do you hate Yahoo search so much?

Re:So let's see...

[Hadlock]

For me, personally, it's that I can run a particular search query, and if I don't get the exact results I'm looking for, I know how to tweak it so that google will give me the results I need. I could spend 15 minutes on yahoo tweaking search strings to get the exact page/nugget of info, but Google and I are old friends, he knows exactly what I want, if not the first time, than the second. Yahoo or MSN is often times like asking the crazy guy on the corner for directions to the super market. You'll get the general idea, but there's so much gibberish/noise that it's not worth the trouble hardly.
 
Also: I freaking hate getting ads for credit cards every time I search for anything. I have three, thank you, no I don't want/need any more. When I did need another credit card, I went to Google, and searched for lists of the best credit cards, and applied from one of those sites.

Re:So let's see...

[cfuse]

I hate Yahoo search, I REALLY hate MSN search... If they had combined I may have spontaneously combusted from the new, dangerously high levels of hatred coursing through my veins. That was close.

I don't know, YaMShooN has got kind of a ring to it.

Transcription of dialogue...

[terrahertz]

MS Rep: Hey baby, how 'bout lettin' big daddy in on a piece o' that action?
Y! Rep: Oh no you dit'in! Oh no you dit'in! (gesticulates the talk-to-the-hand)

Stupid

[nagora]

It may be that Yahoo's search engine is better than MS's (just as a kick in the balls is better than being shot in the head) but to say that the world's richest company has no chance in any field just shows that the speaker is an idiot.

TWW

Re:Stupid

[Xuranova]

Not to focus on semantics or anything, but I think you mean they aren't even in the 50 biggest companies. In terms of spendable cash, last time I checked their 30+ billion warchest was the biggest for any NON financial institution. (Obviously Citigroup and compnay got more cash lying around since its their business.)

Re:Stupid

[nagora]

Hate to burst your bubble, but Microsoft is not even in the top 50 richest companies. I am assuming you meant Bill Gates being the richest person.

No, I meant their huge cash reserve. Unless you count banks then MS is pretty well the richest, and unlike banks it's their money too.

TWW

Re:Stupid

[Ramses0]

I listed to the hour long talk yesterday, consider what he actually says is:

  - Yahoo wasn't in the search business before google (they used outsourced providers and have only recently bought / brought "search" in-house)

  - There are (presumably) reasonably large fixed costs to search (ie: database of the entire internet)

  - MSN is at a *stable* distant third place (~15% market share) even with all their inherent microsofty advantages

  - MSN have no stable base of advertisers (to help recuperate the large-ish fixed costs) ...of course all that changes when you have $N billion in the bank and aren't afraid to lose it.

--Robert

Re:Stupid

[mdfst13]

"Microsoft isnt making huge amounts of money like you seem to think."

They didn't say that Microsoft had high revenues. They said that Microsoft had high cash reserves. Most companies don't maintain $33 billion cash reserves, both because that would make them takeover targets (the buyer can borrow against the cash reserves when making the purchase) and because share holders generally insist on getting the money in the form of dividends.

Btw, Microsoft has similar profits to Wal-Mart. Some quick googling found

Wal-Mart: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8969481/

Microsoft: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A531 43-2004Oct21.html

Revenue is irrelevant to this discussion which is about companies ability to fund money losing operations. Despite having six times the revenue, Wal-Mart is only about as profitable as Microsoft because their costs are so much higher. Microsoft is considerably more profitable than Target, even with lower revenue. Of course, if the claim is "Microsoft has $33 billion in cash reserves, which it can use to fund years worth of money losing operations in search," then even profits don't enter into it. Although the truth is that it can fund search indefinitely even if the search space is not internally profitable for them.

It's also worth noting that Microsoft is not competing with Wal-Mart here. They're competing with Yahoo (and Google), which is a much smaller company (both combined are smaller than Microsoft; heck throw in Amazon and the three are smaller). See http://www.investopedia.com/articles/basics/03/031 703.asp for some relative comparisons. Incidentally, Wal-Mart's market capitalization has dropped since then. They would no longer qualify as a mega cap.

Re:Stupid

[Paradise Pete]

Target even made more than microsoft coming in at 50 bil.

Target did not make 50 billion last year. They aren't even *worth* fifty billion. They had fifty billion in revenue, but only 4.3 billion in profit. MSFT had 14.5 billion in profit.

My humble advise to Yahoo! and Google

[guacamole]

Be very afraid. One thing that sets Microsoft apart from many of its competitors is persistence when it comes to products and technologies that are important to Microsoft's core business. Add to that the fact that MS has a huge multi-billion $$ war chest and their dominant position in the operating systems and web browsers and you see that they have not only the will but also the resources to be persistent. This battle won't be over any time soon.

Re:My humble advise to Yahoo! and Google

[fireboy1919]

That's probably true. But I can't help but thinking that unlike every other problem Microsoft has dealt with, search is different.

Search is hard.

Look at every other product that Microsoft made. It doesn't really require any genius-level intuition to solve or anything like that. It's ordinary, straightforward implementations that are being done. Back in the day it would have taken a genius, but Microsoft got to borrow ideas that have been published by other people. Further, they don't even do it well. Their primary concern is getting it done and filling it with lots of features. That's not going to work for search.

I would put it to you that it is very difficult to come up with a way of doing something that works well when the thing you want to do is hard, and that, in general, throwing money at it doesn't help.

If you are to prove to me that Microsoft's giagantinormous size is going to do it for them, then tell me about their track-record of genius.

Re:My humble advise to Yahoo! and Google

[twohorse]

Add to that the fact that MS has a huge multi-billion $$ war chest and their dominant position in the operating systems and web browsers and you see that they have not only the will but also the resources to be persistent

Thats exactly why Yahoo have decided not to do a deal with Microsoft at this time. Any search engine with a significant share of the market will see whats happened to Microsoft "partners" in the past. If MS get a foothold, next step for them will be to use their desktop leverage, partners not included.

Re:My humble advise to Yahoo! and Google

[Bing Tsher E]

That's not going to work for search.

Sure it is! Remember, 'disk compression was hard' in it's time, too. So have a lot of 'solved problem' tasks that are now now surmounted.

Re:My humble advise to Yahoo! and Google

[oztiks]

MS has made a big deal about how they are going to invest in R&D but just like any IT related industry the day for absorbing customer attraction is over. Google has made its money, now they are big and successful and there isnt a damn thing MS can do about it.

Just like the fact the general market has chosen to use Windows the general market has chosen Google to search with. It doesnt really matter if you have a MSN search tool in the corner of your address bar because at the end of the day even myself who has the FF google search box and the google toolbar i still find myself typing in the web address. Further to that IE's default homepage is MSN and still a click of a button and i can default it too google anyway.

Too many companys depend on adwords to successfully run their business and too many professionals in the industry sell Google Adwords Management as a product, more so Adsense is bloody everywhere. As a result its built Google to be a very lucrative business even more funnier which is what i think MS is really crapped off about is that Google was smarter with this dispursal of stock and ownership. MS relied too much of other investors once it made itself a public company even though they are bigger they've spread their stock ownership alot thinner then Google has.

And why is this you ask? Simple, Google is still bloody huge but they dont need offices all around the world to operate and they dont require to run support desks or create agreements of hardware developers, and what it all boils down to is their system is of making money is SIMPLE much much simpler then the way Microsoft makes its money.

Simplicity is the name of the game and the core of any good business. Because the similar it is to make a dallor the better, then all you do is replicate it a billion times to make a billion dallors. Google's way of making money is 100x simpler then Microsofts way. Again the general market is now hooked on it they wont let it go, of course 5% to 10% here or there might change because of some well played strategies but at the end of the day you'll never have the Google or Yahoo customerbase just go "I'll stick with MSN from now on" just wont happen.

Just like the Windows and Linux choice or your preference in cars and favorite perfume/calone.

Re:My humble advise to Yahoo! and Google

[Narcissus]

True, but disk compression never had to deal with applications that were written specifically to change the compression rate of certain files... I mean, you can always write better compression software, but what that software is working on is not actively trying to skew results either way, if you get my drift.

Re:My humble advise to Yahoo! and Google

[PietjeJantje]

Monitoring the search engines crawling my site, Yahoo Slurp is clearly the most aggressive now. This is backed up here: http://drunkmenworkhere.org/219

Their results are getting better all the time. In a time where Google is having troubles staying up to date and MSN search is still lacking, it seems the others must be afraid. The newest public sign of results can be seen on http://www.alltheweb.com/ with the Yahoo powered Live search.

I'm not applauding them nor affiliated with them, all I'm saying is that it is clear that inside Yahoo they want to aggressively compete and are up for it. At least that is a good thing, for starters it puts the pressure on Google. Likewise in such a situation it's clear they don't want/need MS. So this has all been an irrelevant exercise, the outcome was clear before the game started, so this is probably all aimed at internal MS politics or something. Some manager just proved a point. Probably about internal re-allocation of money. So, in the end, you might have a point, as the game might be aimed at getting more budget for MSN search. But now I'm just guessing.

Re:My humble advise to Yahoo! and Google

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

I actually disagree with the premise that "search is hard". Search at its core is exceedingly simple. Scaling this can get a bit tricky, but that has really already been solved by all current major search engines. The hard part I assume you mean is the filtering and ranking of results. Even that isn't some magic vodoo anymore. There are many well known tools accomplishing this. From from more complex topics like Bayesian filtering, to simple use of web statistics, and even "trust measures" (if the New York Times has a direct link to a domains page than that domain is probably reputable, etc). Search as it is today really isn't rocket science. Now web page spammers are always trying to circumvent these algorithims to get thier pages posted higher, but the always changing nature of this makes this just a big a problem for established search providers as start-ups basically.

Now I default to Google and personally prefer Google, but there are certainly times I cannot find what I'm looking for so go to another engine and find it easily (the reverse is also true in many cases). The point is, there isn't some huge technological advantage any one of the big three search providers have over the others at this point. I wouldn't want to say they are all equal, but I'd certainly feel safe they are all very similar in results.

I could probably switch to Yahoo or MSN search tomorrow and not really notice the difference. The biggest issue at this point is the brand. Google has a big lead in that most people are just used to using it and of course "googling" being in the vernacular doesn't hurt. What is required to take that leadership position is either going to be one of the other engines have a major break through on the tech side to be able to offer a superior search (not likely at least in the short term) or they will have to do lots of advertising, partnering, etc, etc to get thier service in the public concience as much or more than Google's. And this is where MS$ money comes in. They are VERY good at the business of tech. They have a history of making great partnership deals which REALLY boost thier products and of course the ability (cash) to basically have every commerical ever on TV be an ad for MSN search if they so choose doesn't hurt.

Re:My humble advise to Yahoo! and Google

[dna_(c)(tm)(r)]

...FF google search box and the google toolbar i still find myself typing in the web address.

try "google search engine" or "wp search engine" in Firefox, however I doubt IE offers these shortcuts...

It's a nice shortcut for googling that comes standard as well.

Re:My humble advise to Yahoo! and Google

[fireboy1919]

Scaling this can get a bit tricky, but that has really already been solved by all current major search engines.

And here is the premise with which we disagree.

Google does a good job, but it's difficult to find what you're looking for in any of the other major search engines.

And I'm positive you can't get results like theirs with simple bayesian filtering.

What you don't seem to be grasping is that search is artificial intelligence. It's saying "given these search parameters, what am I REALLY looking to find?"

Here's a really good example I just thought up. Try looking for "explosive materials."

That's a very general subject - I could be looking for where to buy them, or what they are, or the definition, or... What I would probably like to get back with such a general subject on that are authoritative pages that can point me to information about them so that I can narrow down my interest. This would be the logical thing to get back if your search engine is smart enough not to just search for the words "explosive" and "materials."

So take a look at the difference in results between MSN and Google. The top pages on Google are what I would want - references that talk about explosives in general. MSN's look suspiciously like someone went through and found all the places that the words "explosive" and "materials" exist.

This level of specificity thing is just one area that shows how Google is winning. Search is the greatest attempt at artificial intelligence currently in existence, and a problem that is currently so open-ended and complex that it makes rocket science look like lego assembly.

But don't take my word for it. Go pick up a few books on AI. There are many, many problems related to search still unsolved.

Re:My humble advise to Yahoo! and Google

[tb3]

You seem to have forgotten Microsoft's 'solution' to disk compression. They ripped-off Stak's code. Got caught and paid for it, too. I doubt Google will give them the same opportunity.

Re:My humble advise to Yahoo! and Google

[jthill]

I could probably switch to Yahoo or MSN search tomorrow and not really notice the difference.

You'll look long and hard for a slow-loading Google page. I suppose you could bloat your own. You won't find even PNGs, let alone blinking banners or flash. What happens when you follow that nice "More..." button on MSN and Yahoo? After Google, theirs just seem lame. Got a box that will run Google Earth? Google do awe-inspiring things and give them away. Sure they're going to make money. That's how they stay in business. But they make money with people who use their tools to make money, and they know, no matter how counterintuitive it seems, that those aren't their most important customers. They treat all their customers right. The guys at Yahoo sorta get it. Microsoft ... well:

They have a history of making great partnership deals which REALLY boost thier products

They seem to be running out of willing partners. I wonder how that happened?

Re:My humble advise to Yahoo! and Google

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

Here are a list of the 8 top results for "explosive materials" on each of the three big guys (google, live (MSN), yahoo (if I say "NA" it means it wasn't amoung the top 8):

www.isis-online.org/ (6 on google, 6 on live, 3 and 4 on yahoo (since they put pages from same domain as seperate entry)

en.wikipedia.org (1 on google, 1 on yahoo, NA on live (they really do need to give much more priority to wikipedia as it is now so useful)

www.space-rockets.com (4 on google, 1 on live, NA on yahoo)

remtc.com/ (5 on google, 2 on live, NA on Yahoo)

www.nap.edu/ (7 on google, 4 on live, NA on yahoo)

www.jobinyvon.com/(NA on google, 3 on live, 2 on yahoo)

www.nti.org/ NA on google, 7 on live, 6 on yahoo)

Besides those listed the remainder were unique to each site (google had 3 unique to it, live had 2 unique to it, and yahoo had 3 unique to it). Now I'm not qualified in the subjet of "explosive materials" to say how relevant each site is or isn't, but with the number of sites available to choose from it pretty amazing how similar the result lists are.

People can agrue all day which site is better (and if you'd argue Google is the best then I'd agree), but it doesn't make much sense to pretend one has some magic formula thats simply out of the grasp of the others. And also, while you agrue you cannot just throw money at a problem and get results with these "hard" problems I say that you can't promise results by throwing money at it but you can certainly increase your odds. If you have limited funds you have to choose the most promising of the ideas to actually move forward and test. The more funds you have to work toward a result the more ideas you can try out and see how they actually work. When it comes to testing these ideas on the scale of something as large as indexing and searching the web we are talking millions of dollars just to get the real tests started. Money does help.

Re:My humble advise to Yahoo! and Google

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

You'll look long and hard for a slow-loading Google page. I suppose you could bloat your own. You won't find even PNGs, let alone blinking banners or flash.

Check out these if you haven't for awhile MSN and Yahoo. I don't think you'll see anything like your talking about.

I certainly love Google and thier practices, but I was just speaking about search technology and how they are basically identical (see my post to reply just before yours).

BTW, don't talk about Google Earth like that, your just asking for people to tell you all about how Microsoft released TerraServer to do the same thing (yes without the Web2.0 yumminess) almost a decade before Google even existed ;-)

Re:My humble advise to Yahoo! and Google

[TemporalBeing]

I actually disagree with the premise that "search is hard". Search at its core is exceedingly simple. Scaling this can get a bit tricky, but that has really already been solved by all current major search engines.

Search is quite hard as the engine has not only to interpret what the user is asking, but also interpret what the pages are trying to convey - thus, as fireboy1919 pointed out - it is very much AI, and a very problematic one at that.

Search would be a lot easier if we had linguistic AI's already worked out - but we don't...and that in itself is one of the hardest AI problems out there. I say it would be easier if we had linguistic AI's worked out only because that would solve half the problem - interpretting what the pages are trying to convey - it still doesn't solve the problem of interpretting what the user is asking, which is a far more complex problem than interpretting what the pages are trying to convey.

The hard part I assume you mean is the filtering and ranking of results. Even that isn't some magic vodoo anymore. There are many well known tools accomplishing this. From from more complex topics like Bayesian filtering, to simple use of web statistics, and even "trust measures"

There may be a number of tools - but they are not likely going to work. For example, Bayesian filters work because the community helps the AI learn what is valid and what is not - works great for spam control on large e-mail systems, but would suck for search results. Per fireboy1919's example of "explosive materials" - one person using it could mark something valid that another person would find invalid, it just doesn't work.

Web statistics don't generally work too well either, but at least they don't require user intervention to help the AI learn.

The problem is a long way from being solved. For example, when was the last time you didn't spend a lot of time searching for a file on your own hard drive (many magnitudes smaller than the Internet) and hit a bunch of things that are just not right? Even there at the simplest level of computer searches it's still being refined and worked on. Sure there are better tools now - Google Desktop, etc. - that do a lot better, but they still have a long way to go. When that problem is solved, then we can start thinking about how far along the "search the Internet" problem is to being solved - one this is for sure, it'll be years after.

Google certainly is the best out there to date, but even they have a long way to go - and they know it and working on it. Now, if the multi-billion dollar google has to keep refining their engine every day to make sure it stays at least as accurate - if not get more accurate - how much more would MS or Yahoo have to invest to do the same? They have never really had any where near as good results as Google does.

They day the search problem is solved, is the day that computers run the world and you're plugged into one via a brain tap device like in the Matrix. Until then, all they can do is refine the engines to do a little bit better and hope they are better enough than the majority of others to stay among the top. As one of the Google guys said - it really is best to have multiple choices to keep the competition up - something Microsoft doesn't really understand - in any of their business ventures. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=185669&cid=153 24604

Re:My humble advise to Yahoo! and Google

[AnalogDiehard]

Be very afraid. One thing that sets Microsoft apart from many of its competitors is persistence when it comes to products and technologies that are important to Microsoft's core business. Add to that the fact that MS has a huge multi-billion $$ war chest and their dominant position in the operating systems and web browsers and you see that they have not only the will but also the resources to be persistent. This battle won't be over any time soon.

M$ had the will and bottomless resources to acquire Intuit and their Quicken accounting suite back in 1995, but the FTC filed suit to stop M$ in its tracks. M$ responded by giving away M$ Money, but unlike giving away IE they are still far from being the dominant 800lb gorilla in the accounting business.

I would not be so confident that M$ will win this battle.

Re:My humble advise to Yahoo! and Google

[jthill]

Whoops. I've seen the other MSN bloatware, didn't actually check the search page. My bad.

I didn't address the search result quality because others had already done that. I agree they're often comparable, but Google is IMTrulyHO better at filtering out the crap.

Terraserver afaict doesn't do what Earth does. You tried it? That 3D flying thing is utterly cool, and it has global coverage. It's not at all hard to get a LEO view at 768K (you might have to do it slow if you want all the detail, but still). And it's not limited to LEO. Detail obviously suffers drastically in a lot of places, but they've got the cities and an impressive amount of the rest covered beautifully, every major landmark I could think of, plus of course lots of places of national interest :-). Tou want to see e.g. Yosemite from the valley? From Tenaya Lake? From the top of Half Dome? I've been to all of them. The top of Half Dome, looking down over the cliff; climbing the cable ladder looking at Angel's Cap: it actually catches some of that feeling. Do I spend a lot of time at it? No, and Google are no doubt betting not many people will: that's major bandwidth even by their standards. But in a classroom? You want a sense of just how big and beautiful this place is? Siddown, kid. Play with this a while. Zoom in on your house, take a trip.

And then there are the layers. MS made a lot of noise recently about how they're going to do local searches for things, it's going to be the Eighth Wonder Of The World, yaddayadda. Earth does that now. The live updates on restaurant waits etc part? I ain't buying it. And MS have this history of not delivering on the marvelous things they talk about.

Re:My humble advise to Yahoo! and Google

[jthill]

OBTW to get reasonable response on the flying thing, turn off all the layers.

Re:My humble advise to Yahoo! and Google

[GoogleGuy]

I really enjoyed the crawl analysis on drunkmenworkhere.org (and lots of Googlers enjoyed reading it), but I wouldn't necessarily agree that Slurp is the deepest crawling in the general case. In the case of a (mostly) empty website with a huge binary tree under it, quite a few of my colleagues would argue that it's good to have some pages from the tree, but that you don't want to have too many. Most of the pages were pretty empty other than the spambot comments, so you could argue that it might be better to crawl fewer of those low-content pages.

Look at it from other perspective: here's another infinite spider trap:
http://infinitetree.com/big-tree/node/01011000110/
A good index selection algorithm would probably notice the near-duplicate nature of many of these pages, and select only a sampling for indexing. Crawling too many of those low-content pages would be a bad idea.

Re:My humble advise to Yahoo! and Google

[PietjeJantje]

>Crawling too many of those low-content pages would be a bad idea. Indexing would be. Crawling, it depends. It indeed looks like Yahoo is using a shotgun. But there's a flaw in your argumentation (besides arguing for worse spiders), which is if the search engine was capable of identifying the link farm in the first place, it would not be crawled at all. So both failed. So the Yahoo's and Google's must equip themselves against those links farms. That strategy has two parts: what to crawl, and what to index. I wonder if you decide to crawl "deep first" to avoid link farms, if that also has negative indexing results on legite sites. Bu that would be speculation.

Re:My humble advise to Yahoo! and Google

[GoogleGuy]

Fair points. In my experience at Google, we try to crawl at least a little bit from any site that might prove useful, but PageRank is also a large factor in crawling, so that helps to avoid infinite spaces.

I do think you make an important distinction between crawling and indexing though, because they don't have to be identical. Anyway, if you did the study--nice job. We all enjoyed reading it at Google. :)

Re:My humble advise to Yahoo! and Google

[PietjeJantje]

>Anyway, if you did the study--nice job.

For the record, no, I just picked up the link and passed it on, as you did.

Really why should they?

[jellomizer]

don't see what Yahoo really has to gain with MSN? I like google so I use it. My Girl Friend prefers Yahoo. And I am sure someone out there prefers MSN. But most of the sites they all have. If I find one search method is becoming to tedious then I use an other one. Combining Yahoo and MSN would hurt Yahoo. First there is the people who just don't use MS. Stuff when possible which would be around 10% of the population (Figuring most Linux users and Apple users alternative OS users, and windows users who are afraid of Microsoft dominance but only know windows. ). Yahoo will need to split their advertising dollars with MS. Any software improvements probably wont affect the bottom line. And it will do nothing against Google. Google is a verb in the english language now. When the company branding becomes imbedded in the culture it is difficult to change it. Like Jello and Kleenex other companies can sell similar products but the culture still thinks of the brand name. Going with Yahoo will only benefit MS. And at best Yahoo will loose nothing, but in reality yahoo my loose more.

Re:Really why should they?

[TheSeer2]

Girlfriend? You're obviously lying.

Re:Really why should they?

[ghost of perception]

"Google" and "Googling for it" has become part of everyday culture which I didnt really think about until recently when a (non techie) friend of mine got a computer for the first time and has only just had exposure to the internet but one of the first places she went was Google with IE so it was not even the default Firefox homepage. First computer, never been online...went straight to google. you really have to admire that level of mindshare google has acheived in society.

So.. Yahoo rejects Microsoft. In other news..

[SirFozzie]

A non-standard precipitation warning has been issued for the Redmond, WA area, as it is expected to be raining chairs for the next few days, or until Steve Ballmer runs out of furniture..

Re:So.. Yahoo rejects Microsoft. In other news..

[SirFozzie]

It's a song. It's funny. Laugh.

Oh.. Boot to the Head.

Re:So.. Yahoo rejects Microsoft. In other news..

[RAID 0]

LOL.. I did.. sometimes it's fun to stat some s#!t! WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Pretty obvious stance...

[Jugalator]

The only search engine with less traffic than Microsoft's is AOL's, and a number of more obscure ones.

Yahoo is receiving more than twice their traffic, and likely ad revenue potential as well.

There'd be a lot to win for Microsoft if joining forces with Yahoo, but I'm not sure Yahoo would sacrifice their image. If their managers have any sense, they know it's important to preserve your identity, especially if you're quite far ahead.

This just looks like a cry for help from Microsoft's side, now that their second (?) "Google Killer" with "Live Search" (a very idiotic name too; why not "Microsoft Search"?) has probably failed just as bad as their updated MSN Search they did a few years back.

Homepage

[therage96]

I predict this will probably appear in the news in the next few weeks.

"And in a surprising move, Microsoft has chosen to make live.com the default homepage any new Internet Explorer installation."

Microsoft 1, Yahoo -screwed-

Re:Homepage

[kjart]

Isn't the MSN page already the default homepage for IE?

Re:Homepage

[The Mysterious X]

Why is that a problem, since the default page is already msn.com, which has a MS Search right at the top of the page?

Should be even less of an issue, as the default firefox homepage is google.com

Should you not also have added to your comment "Firefox 1, yahoo -screwed-"?

Re:Homepage

[Psychotext]

...and a mysterious new virus has been changing the IP routing table in Windows from yahoo.com....

Re:Homepage

[R3d M3rcury]

This would easily enter the antitrust end of things.

If that happened, Yahoo! and Google just need to talk to the OEMs. Remember that most consumers buy computers, not operating systems. Yahoo! signs a deal with HP and there goes Microsoft's default homepage advantage.

Familiar

[Council]

'My impartial advice to Microsoft is that you have no chance. The search business has been formed,'

Because Microsoft's entire history hasn't been one of moving in to an area where other people have worked out how to do things and then doing them better/cheaper/faster.

Re:Familiar

[blakestah]

Microsoft's business is Office and Windows. Those make a ton of $$$$.

Microsoft loses money on almost everything else.

Every market they've tried to move into and make money on, they've failed.

They did pretty well against Netscape - giving away the browser seemed to kill their market completely, and thus kill Netscape. But Microsoft didn't make money on that. They lost money and killed a competitor.

But Google has a different model. They run internet advertising on the back of the best internet search engine. Microsoft cannot give away search for free, Google already does that. They can entice users to use their own search, but users used Google before when they had to find it.

It is easy to forget pre-Google searches. Every search engine was MILES behind Google. They came along, and all of a sudden you could find what you wanted. They intelligently leveraged that into becoming the Internet advertising leader.

Still, Microsoft could get a chunk of the market if
1) the next IE has an MSN search box built in
2) defaults to MSN homepage
3) And MSN search rivals Googles in its ability to return good results

I think that is the looming battle. Microsoft needs more leverage from IE, and a better search engine. And they will spend whatever it takes to get the latter. Google, meanwhile, is probably locking down IP on internet searching as much as they can.

Re:Familiar

[Bing Tsher E]

Every search engine was MILES behind Google. They came along, and all of a sudden you could find what you wanted.

And I contend that the 'breakthrough' at Google was that they scaled up and captured the market. There are no 'magic google sprinklies' that have caused their success. There's no 'magick' arcana that only Google understands. There is, though, a cult of Google mysticism, and a large following of mystic worshippers of the company, but that's typical of any operating religion. This site happens to be the host of the slashbot sect of The Google Religion.

Nothing more.

Re:Familiar

[el cisne]

Well, what attracted me, and I'm sure a lot of others, to use Google, was the main page was just their name and a text box. Damn, that was sweet. No dancing animations, no freeking Flash ad anims to load, no 56 other ad images to load, no weather box, no sports box, no news box, no attempt to be Yet Another Portal Site, just a damn text entry box to search for what I wanted. Man, that was lovely to see and use. And the search results were pretty good, I didn't have a problem with them, and the presentation of the results was clean, too, and they didn't use any wild, exotic, convoluted code for the page, (ie it rendered fine in a non-IE browser, on a non-Windows platform). Just Search relatively plain and simple and easy to use, the way $ONE_OR_MORE_DEITY meant it to be. And yes, there were ads, but there were nice friendly well mannered unobtrusive text ads that didn't piss me off. It was more a clean simple interface, painless to use, which was a major difference for many at the time, and at the minimum decent results, that drew people to use it like bees to honey. That's what they first did right , IMO.

Re:Familiar

[blakestah]

I think that is why they are number one. They don't send any ads at some before they search, and load fast.

Once they search, they throw unobtrusive ads at the searching user. Those are highly targetted, very valuable, ads.

When you go to msn.com and there is a blank page with a search box, you'll know they get it.

Re:Familiar

[carlislematthew]

And it was FAST! Other searches were very VERY slow at the time. Google was like a breath of fresh air...

Re:Familiar

[el cisne]

I had to go look, because I don't recall what it looks like, and just compare the difference between MSN and Google and the difference is like black and white, night and day, Sith and jedi, um,...anyway, the difference is obvious. Although I freely admit that it wasn't obvious maybe at first about Senator Palpatine.

Re:Familiar

[SuperMog2002]

Still, Microsoft could get a chunk of the market if
1) the next IE has an MSN search box built in
It does

2) defaults to MSN homepage
It does

3) And MSN search rivals Googles in its ability to return good results
Supposudly it's getting there, though I haven't tried it myself to say for sure.

I agree with you. This is going to get interesting. I personally don't think Microsoft will be able to knock out Google, but as long as they have Windows and Office, Microsoft can't really lose either. They can just keep throwing money at it until the cows come home.

Impartial???

[zaphod_es]

If he had googled for "dictionary impartial" he would not have made such an egregious error. ZB

Re:Impartial???

[dna_(c)(tm)(r)]

come on, this IS funny. "GOOGLED"!

Specialize

[Bios_Hakr]

While MS might have problems breaking into a full search system, there is a ton of room for a company that can do one thing really well.

Look at ISO Hunt. They picked an area and really cached in on it.

My advice to MS: become the best video game search engine out there. It'd be really easy. Have a box to search and buttons to look for reviews, purchace, FAQs/walkthroughs, and cheats.

Hell, you could pick anything. But do one thing and do it really well.

Re:Specialize

[Utopia]

You can already do that using Live.com macros.
I use it to search for product reviews and excluding the pages that are meant to sell the products.

Breaking News

[Anonymous Coward]

Terry Semel of Yahoo! corporation was found dead this morning. At this point the cause of death is being attributed to a chair leg that is still lodged deeply inside the victim's skull. Police have ruled out accidental death and are compiling a list of suspects.

Re:Breaking News

[spongebue]

But the real question is... what search engine were they using to find out more about the suspects?

Re:Breaking News

[Intrinsic]

Terry Semel of Yahoo! corporation was found dead this morning. At this point the cause of death is being attributed to a chair leg that is still lodged deeply inside the victim's skull. Police have ruled out accidental death and are compiling a list of suspects.

A note was left on the body that stated "Google. This is what were going to do to you when we get though with you. We are going to fucking bury you! FUCKING BURY YOU!"

How are you gentlemen

[Dachannien]

My impartial advice to Microsoft is that you have no chance,' [Yahoo's Terry Semel] said.

When asked for comment, Google's representative, CATS, said, "Ohhh, no, no, no. All your search are belong to us."

RTFC

[fireboy1919]

Read my comment. Third paragraph, third sentence.

Back in the day it would have taken a genius, but Microsoft got to borrow ideas that have been published by other people.

No one's published how Google is doing search. It's a trade secret. It won't be hard the moment that they do.

Re:RTFC

[YU Nicks NE Way]

Bad news, dude. It's not at all hard to work backwards from the Google or Yahoo results to figure out what they're doing -- it's just tedious. You can't buy "hard", but you can buy "tedious". Microsoft is really, really good at tedious.

Re:RTFC

[joeykiller]

You might say Microsoft's good at tedious, but you have to hand it to them: This time they're really trying something new. Where the other search engines tries to achieve quality and relevance trough variations of link cardinality, anchor text, page rank (how many and how highly valued pages links to a page), etc., Microsoft's trying neural networks and some kind of "artificial intelligence".

So far MSN Search/Windows Live Search is worst of the three big players when it comes to relevance. But they're not too bad, either, and I think there's been a lot of improvement since they launched their beta last year (the beta was incredibly bad). If this "self learning" idea works out, MSN Search very well could become the best engine of them all.

See http://www.searchenginejournal.com/?p=2273 (Search Engine Watch) and http://blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch/archive/2005/10/22 /483846.aspx (Robert Scoble's video inteview with the guys behind the search engine).

I'd also like to point out that relevance is a subjective matter, and sometimes the correct answer to a query might not come from the web index at all. Microsoft already emphasizes answers from Encarta when suitable (Google and Yahoo is doing similar things), as seen in this example: http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=what+is+chimp anzee&FORM=QBRE

I think we'll see more similar stuff from MSN Search in the future. Also, Microsoft seems to be the only one interested in experimenting with the search interface on a major service, as can bee seen on their live.com site -- see http://www.live.com/#q=what%20is%20chimpanzee&offs et=1 and the image search http://www.live.com/#q=chimpanzee&scope=images&lod =2&page=results for examples.

(Yahoo also has an interesting interface experiment going on an obscure part of an almost forgotten search engine: http://livesearch.alltheweb.com/)

My point is quite simply that what they're doing may be tedious, but this time they're also trying some fresh ideas.

Bull

[slashmojo]

Bull, meet red rag..

Well...

[suv4x4]

Guess we know there's only one thing left for Microsoft to do... buy Google.

Impartial Advice?

[Corbets]

'My impartial advice to Microsoft is that you have no chance. The search business has been formed,'

Yeah, cuz he's got nothing to gain or lose in this battle... impartial my aunt Susie!

Re:Impartial Advice?

[TemporalBeing]

'My impartial advice to Microsoft is that you have no chance. The search business has been formed,'

Yeah, cuz he's got nothing to gain or lose in this battle... impartial my aunt Susie!

Probably not so much impartial in the area of the search business, though...more likely telling Microsoft that they have no chance of partnering with Yahoo - he doesn't have to think about it, and it's not about partiality - they're just not going to do it, so Microsoft should go pester someone else...Altavista, Lycos, Excite, Google...but someone else.

It's kinda like me when I get phone calls for donations - I let them say their little thing about who they are and wait for them to ask for money...then I say something to the extent of "Well...I can't at the moment, so I'll let you get on to someone else". He's kind of saying the same thing to Microsoft - we're not interested; we're not going to do it; so go on to someone - anyone - else. Don't waste your time, effort, or money on us - cause you're not going to get anywhere.

Yahoo gives up search

[Cromac]

So just because Yahoo has decided they can't compete with Google and will be happy to just maintain what marketshare they have, no one else can compete with Google either? Awfully bold statement from someone who has given up.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/256748_yaho o24.html

Yahoo! Inc., one of the first Internet search companies, has capitulated to Google Inc. in the battle for market dominance. "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."

I don't even really look at Yahoo as Search...

[IANAAC]

I don't even really look at Yahoo as a search engine anymore. Back when I had SBC as my internet provider, they were the content provider of choice for SBC. I suppose that's when my view of them started to change.

Other things like Launchcast, albeit Windows-only, only reinforce that view.

Obviously there's a search engine behind it to bring it all together, but I honestly see them as more a content provider.

Is that what he told his investment banker when...

[Assmasher]

...Google floated their IPO?

Yahoo Rejects Microsoft Search Offer

[gtwilliams]

This sounds familiar (Marc Andreessen).

In related news....

[Churla]

Second toughest guy from bar pokes brown kodiak bear with stick.

Second toughest guy quotes "You have no chance bear, the tough person in bar market is formed"

Meanwhile the toughest buy in the bar is buying a shotgun and bear hunting license, and getting to a safer shooting distance.

Sony said the same thing about xbox

[Ilgaz]

I remember earlier times of XBox Sony kind of publicly warned Microsoft that "electronic device business is very different".

I don't even dare to search news for "sony" "xbox" etc, perhaps an actual console fan/user find a link for it.

Microsoft ignored the warning and the first story came after Xbox ships in Japan that it actually SCRATCHED a certain type of DVDs physically.

Phew

[andrewmmc]

It would be nice to keep some sort of competition out there. With games consoles, search, tv, and everything else, I don't want to end up giving more to Microsoft in a year than I do to the government in tax!

lets be serious here

[dioscaido]

Does anyone really doubt that MS can (and will) scream ahead of Yahoo in market share in the coming years? Yahoo is a relic of the early interent, with little innovation on its side. Google is a whole other affair, where I don't see MS winning. At least not unless they do much something better than their live site.

Re:lets be serious here

[rossifer]

Does anyone really doubt that MS can (and will) scream ahead of Yahoo in market share in the coming years?

Yes. I live down the street from their new office in Santa Monica. They're competing well with Google on recruiting the sharpest people from other regional employers. Including three of my new neighbors who recently moved down here from Seattle.

Google isn't the only one successfully recruiting hot-shit developers from MS.

Regards,
Ross

What the article left out

[Provocateur]

What makes this different from all those other boasts?

It was spoken in Klingon, in a tone usually reserved before the drawing of bat'leths.
 

LOL

[Britz]

As soon as MSN search produces somewhat usefull results (and now they do) they will have at least 50% market share among systems that have MSN search on default.

Personal estimate, wait for 2 years and see for yourself.

Watch Terry comment this in this video interview.

[antdude]

Digg mentions a video interview with Yahoo!'s CEO, Terry Semel. One of the topics was mentioned about this MS and search (e.g., no room in search market for MS, etc.).

"Google" is a verb.

[Poromenos1]

See title.