You're right that this wouldn't matter if eBay was content to be an online flea market. But eBay's lofty stock price assumes rapid growth. At their size, continued growth requires taking market share from traditional retailers.
But eBay's customer service policies, especially on disputes and returns, make the experience unattractive compared to a traditional retailer, putting eBay at a competitive disadvantage. So, the article argues, eBay's growth may be stunted by their relatively weak customer protection policies.
While the business model can survive, it is not clear that eBay's rapid growth can continue.
Exactly right. GMail asks and answers the question, "What e-mail client would you build if you never had to delete any of your old e-mail?"
GMail is designed to organize your information for easy access later. Messages are threaded, part of a conversation on a topic. Searching your mail is emphasized. And, because it's web-based, you can access you mail and any information in your mail from any computer.
The US IT industry needs to focus on innovation, developing new technology and software.
Companies can not outsource any part of their competitive advantage since doing so risks providing that source of competitive advantage to other firms. Where US IT helps a company do something better, faster, and cheaper than competitors, it is guaranteed to be closely held within that company. When IT is a source of competitive advantage, it can not be outsourced.
Higher productivity and innovation are the keys to the success of the US IT industry over the lower wage IT industries in other countries. At the policy level, to promote IT productivity and innovation, increase funding for graduate-level education, add incentives for startup and small businesses, improve the telecommunications infrastructure, and promote the free flow of information.
It is interesting to see the general popularity and importance of news stories in a nifty graphical layout. But isn't the priority of the news featured on the Google News front page already determined by popularity and importance? Is there any new information being provided here?
That's interesting that the international versions of Google News work so well for you. I've found that the Australian and UK versions of Google News contain entirely too much local news for me. When I go there, I'm looking for the Australian or UK perspective on international events, but Google News doesn't provide that focus for me.
But we all want something a little different from the news. Which, I'd say, is entirely the point.
Perhaps you'll find Findory News to be useful as one of several news sites you frequent. If you do use the site and have any other comments or suggestions, please don't hesitate to get in touch. Contact information is available from the About page on the site.
I'd assume you're already missing all cricket matches between India and Pakistan if you look at the sports articles on Google News. Google News features the most popular news articles, those of general interest to the mostly US audience. Findory News would be able to pick up your interest the first time you read a news article on the topic.
But I understand your general concern. You're worried that you'll be pigeonholed, only seeing articles on a limited range of topics and nothing else. It'd be a serious issue if Findory News simply selected other articles in the same small subject area for you, but that's not how the personalization works. Give it a shot and see if it works for you.
Interesting comment. So, clearly Google News is useful to you since it shows you stuff you haven't heard about. Do you mean that a personalized version of Google News isn't useful to you? Or that Findory News isn't what you would expect from a personalized version of Google News?
The idea behind personalized news is to help you find interesting articles. For example, I tend to be interested in tech, science, and world news, and specifically interested in UK news, news related to Linux, and news about Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft. Google News doesn't emphasize these interests, so I have to sort through a bunch of stuff I'm not interested in to find what I want. Findory News tends to emphasize articles that are related to these interests while still showing me important, general news events.
Search engines currently use one highly optimized relevance rank for all users. The relevance rank functions have improved tremendously, but it is increasingly difficult to make further gains with a single relevance rank function because not everyone agrees on how relevant a particular page is to a particular search.
To get further improvements, you will need many relevance ranks. With enough different relevance ranks, search results effectively will be customized to each person's definition of what is relevant. At that point, you have personalized search.
If you're curious what a personalized version of Google News might look like, take a look at Findory News. Findory learns from the news you read, searches thousands of sources, and finds articles that match your interests.
In the shameless-self-promotion-department, you might try Findory News instead of MSN Newsbot.
Findory News is a personalized newspaper that learns from the news you read, finds articles that match your interests, and customizes a front page of news stories specifically for you.
The yellow star ads can work well. I've found the movie previews and the BMW shorts films to be interesting.
I'm surprised that TiVo hasn't pushed harder on movie previews. Seems like there should be a entire section of movie previews, all paid sponsership by the studios and a source of revenue for Tivo, available on-demand. It'd be useful and interesting. I know I'd watch a bunch of them.
You can often do better than Google's web search for specialized searches. Froogle or Yahoo! Shopping works better for finding products. Google News works better for finding news articles. IMDB is better for movie reviews and information. CiteSeer is better for finding CS research papers.
While someone may eventually beat Google for general web search, it's these niche searches that offer a lot of easy opportunity. Because Google is a general purpose search engine, it's not too hard to beat it in a specific topic areas.
Formerly CRAYON was, IMHO a great site for quick-surfing only the news you wanted to read
You might also take a look at Findory News. It's a personalized news site pulling from hundreds of news sources. The site learns from the articles you read and helps you find the news you want.
If you have a single source of news that is sufficient for your needs, by all means use it. Google News and Findory News aggregate many news sources, giving you a much broader view of world events, but you should use whatever works best for you.
Plus, they HAVE done new things, such as google news.
Google News is cool, but it's been around for a long time (almost five years) and hasn't changed noticeably since I can remember.
I'd love to see Google allow customization of Google News so I can organize the page as I like. Even better, they could do personalization (like Findory News or Memigo) so that the news is more relevant and useful.
[Google] News is my primary source for world news.
In the shamless-self-promotion-department, if you like Google News, might give Findory News a try. It's similar to Google News, but which articles are featured depends on your reading habits.
So, if you read many tech news related to Linux, for example, it will emphasis news articles that are interesting to people who like tech news on Linux. It adapts to your interests.
Q: I'd like to know how long it will be before Indian tech professionals start forming startup companies to compete directly with their American corporate masters using what they have learned from them.
A: It's already happening. Like mad.
By outsourcing, US firms are creating their own future competition. While this happens in the US as well, intellectual property protections are weaker in these developing countries, increasing the risk.
At a minimum, US companies should be careful about outsourcing any work that they consider to be part of a competitive advantage for their firm.
Amazing thing about Gigablast is that it's a one man effort.
Re:Most press-release like post ever
on
Google's Bigger Index
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
this is so obviously just a link to a press release
It really is an uninformative press release. Surprising it made it to Slashdot.
I would have liked to see some information about the underlying technology that allowed this bigger index, especially if it allowed the broader coverage without a reduction in search result quality.
Seems like there's an easy way to play this system. Just start any voice mail maze by spitting a stream of invectives into the phone and you get premium support.
There's been a number of interesting attempts to manipulate Google results. Google is always struggling to determine which links into documents represent real interest in that document and which are merely shills. It's a never ending war between the search engines and those who try to manipulate them. Google has even been sued by companies who have seen a decline in their page rankings.
Google's AdWords program is remarkable in that truly anyone can buy ads. Small businesses with tiny marketing budgets can buy ads easily. Individuals can buy ads. The interface is simple and easy to use. Google even has a bunch of small business friendly features like limiting your cost per ad and total daily ad spend.
I've bought a bunch of ads on Google, most recently for my startup, Findory News. Most web advertising is expensive, difficult to set up, and performs poorly. But, because you can pick such specific keywords with Google Adwords and the advertising engine refuses to show ads that don't perform well, you can easily get in front of people that might be interested in them.
No need to be rude. I agree that I am explaining basic economic theory, but there seems to be some confusion on it, so I thought it added value to the discussion.
However, your question -- "What industries? -- seems to indicate that you either don't understand the theory of comparative advantage or believe it to be false. The theory claims is irrelevant in what industries the US has an advantage in the long-term. And the theory predicts that employment will always be full employement, modulo the business cycles. What does matter is US wages. If the US becomes uncompetitive in many industries, wages and the standard of living in this country will drop, at least in relative terms.
Now, you could dispute the validity of the theory altogether. If that is the case, you could explain why you believe the theory to be false instead of hurling insults.
Slashdot Mirror
You're right that this wouldn't matter if eBay was content to be an online flea market. But eBay's lofty stock price assumes rapid growth. At their size, continued growth requires taking market share from traditional retailers.
But eBay's customer service policies, especially on disputes and returns, make the experience unattractive compared to a traditional retailer, putting eBay at a competitive disadvantage. So, the article argues, eBay's growth may be stunted by their relatively weak customer protection policies.
While the business model can survive, it is not clear that eBay's rapid growth can continue.
Exactly right. GMail asks and answers the question, "What e-mail client would you build if you never had to delete any of your old e-mail?"
GMail is designed to organize your information for easy access later. Messages are threaded, part of a conversation on a topic. Searching your mail is emphasized. And, because it's web-based, you can access you mail and any information in your mail from any computer.
The 1G of storage is just a means to the end.
The US IT industry needs to focus on innovation, developing new technology and software.
Companies can not outsource any part of their competitive advantage since doing so risks providing that source of competitive advantage to other firms. Where US IT helps a company do something better, faster, and cheaper than competitors, it is guaranteed to be closely held within that company. When IT is a source of competitive advantage, it can not be outsourced.
Higher productivity and innovation are the keys to the success of the US IT industry over the lower wage IT industries in other countries. At the policy level, to promote IT productivity and innovation, increase funding for graduate-level education, add incentives for startup and small businesses, improve the telecommunications infrastructure, and promote the free flow of information.
It is interesting to see the general popularity and importance of news stories in a nifty graphical layout. But isn't the priority of the news featured on the Google News front page already determined by popularity and importance? Is there any new information being provided here?
That's interesting that the international versions of Google News work so well for you. I've found that the Australian and UK versions of Google News contain entirely too much local news for me. When I go there, I'm looking for the Australian or UK perspective on international events, but Google News doesn't provide that focus for me.
But we all want something a little different from the news. Which, I'd say, is entirely the point.
Perhaps you'll find Findory News to be useful as one of several news sites you frequent. If you do use the site and have any other comments or suggestions, please don't hesitate to get in touch. Contact information is available from the About page on the site.
I'd assume you're already missing all cricket matches between India and Pakistan if you look at the sports articles on Google News. Google News features the most popular news articles, those of general interest to the mostly US audience. Findory News would be able to pick up your interest the first time you read a news article on the topic.
But I understand your general concern. You're worried that you'll be pigeonholed, only seeing articles on a limited range of topics and nothing else. It'd be a serious issue if Findory News simply selected other articles in the same small subject area for you, but that's not how the personalization works. Give it a shot and see if it works for you.
Interesting comment. So, clearly Google News is useful to you since it shows you stuff you haven't heard about. Do you mean that a personalized version of Google News isn't useful to you? Or that Findory News isn't what you would expect from a personalized version of Google News?
The idea behind personalized news is to help you find interesting articles. For example, I tend to be interested in tech, science, and world news, and specifically interested in UK news, news related to Linux, and news about Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft. Google News doesn't emphasize these interests, so I have to sort through a bunch of stuff I'm not interested in to find what I want. Findory News tends to emphasize articles that are related to these interests while still showing me important, general news events.
Search engines currently use one highly optimized relevance rank for all users. The relevance rank functions have improved tremendously, but it is increasingly difficult to make further gains with a single relevance rank function because not everyone agrees on how relevant a particular page is to a particular search.
To get further improvements, you will need many relevance ranks. With enough different relevance ranks, search results effectively will be customized to each person's definition of what is relevant. At that point, you have personalized search.
If you're curious what a personalized version of Google News might look like, take a look at Findory News. Findory learns from the news you read, searches thousands of sources, and finds articles that match your interests.
In the shameless-self-promotion-department, you might try Findory News instead of MSN Newsbot.
Findory News is a personalized newspaper that learns from the news you read, finds articles that match your interests, and customizes a front page of news stories specifically for you.
The yellow star ads can work well. I've found the movie previews and the BMW shorts films to be interesting.
I'm surprised that TiVo hasn't pushed harder on movie previews. Seems like there should be a entire section of movie previews, all paid sponsership by the studios and a source of revenue for Tivo, available on-demand. It'd be useful and interesting. I know I'd watch a bunch of them.
You can often do better than Google's web search for specialized searches. Froogle or Yahoo! Shopping works better for finding products. Google News works better for finding news articles. IMDB is better for movie reviews and information. CiteSeer is better for finding CS research papers.
While someone may eventually beat Google for general web search, it's these niche searches that offer a lot of easy opportunity. Because Google is a general purpose search engine, it's not too hard to beat it in a specific topic areas.
The comic strip User Friendly often visits the topic of frustrated sysadmins. Good for a laugh. I have and recommend all of the books.
- Formerly CRAYON was, IMHO a great site for quick-surfing only the news you wanted to read
You might also take a look at Findory News. It's a personalized news site pulling from hundreds of news sources. The site learns from the articles you read and helps you find the news you want.- Why not just use slashdot???
If you have a single source of news that is sufficient for your needs, by all means use it. Google News and Findory News aggregate many news sources, giving you a much broader view of world events, but you should use whatever works best for you.- Plus, they HAVE done new things, such as google news.
Google News is cool, but it's been around for a long time (almost five years) and hasn't changed noticeably since I can remember.I'd love to see Google allow customization of Google News so I can organize the page as I like. Even better, they could do personalization (like Findory News or Memigo) so that the news is more relevant and useful.
- [Google] News is my primary source for world news.
In the shamless-self-promotion-department, if you like Google News, might give Findory News a try. It's similar to Google News, but which articles are featured depends on your reading habits.So, if you read many tech news related to Linux, for example, it will emphasis news articles that are interesting to people who like tech news on Linux. It adapts to your interests.
- Q: I'd like to know how long it will be before Indian tech professionals start forming startup companies to compete directly with their American corporate masters using what they have learned from them.
By outsourcing, US firms are creating their own future competition. While this happens in the US as well, intellectual property protections are weaker in these developing countries, increasing the risk.A: It's already happening. Like mad.
At a minimum, US companies should be careful about outsourcing any work that they consider to be part of a competitive advantage for their firm.
Amazing thing about Gigablast is that it's a one man effort.
- this is so obviously just a link to a press release
It really is an uninformative press release. Surprising it made it to Slashdot.I would have liked to see some information about the underlying technology that allowed this bigger index, especially if it allowed the broader coverage without a reduction in search result quality.
- I want it to return more relevant searches.
Have you tried some of the Google alternatives? Vivisimo is particularly interesting with its clustering of search results. Teoma is also quite good.Seems like there's an easy way to play this system. Just start any voice mail maze by spitting a stream of invectives into the phone and you get premium support.
There's been a number of interesting attempts to manipulate Google results. Google is always struggling to determine which links into documents represent real interest in that document and which are merely shills. It's a never ending war between the search engines and those who try to manipulate them. Google has even been sued by companies who have seen a decline in their page rankings.
Google's AdWords program is remarkable in that truly anyone can buy ads. Small businesses with tiny marketing budgets can buy ads easily. Individuals can buy ads. The interface is simple and easy to use. Google even has a bunch of small business friendly features like limiting your cost per ad and total daily ad spend.
I've bought a bunch of ads on Google, most recently for my startup, Findory News. Most web advertising is expensive, difficult to set up, and performs poorly. But, because you can pick such specific keywords with Google Adwords and the advertising engine refuses to show ads that don't perform well, you can easily get in front of people that might be interested in them.
No need to be rude. I agree that I am explaining basic economic theory, but there seems to be some confusion on it, so I thought it added value to the discussion.
However, your question -- "What industries? -- seems to indicate that you either don't understand the theory of comparative advantage or believe it to be false. The theory claims is irrelevant in what industries the US has an advantage in the long-term. And the theory predicts that employment will always be full employement, modulo the business cycles. What does matter is US wages. If the US becomes uncompetitive in many industries, wages and the standard of living in this country will drop, at least in relative terms.
Now, you could dispute the validity of the theory altogether. If that is the case, you could explain why you believe the theory to be false instead of hurling insults.