Microsoft: Another Search Buy
August 30, 2008
Microsoft has gathered another search system for its information retrieval basket. There’s a good summary on Yahoo News from Thomson Reuters. I will provide this link, but it will go dead in a short span of time. Click here to see if you can access “Microsoft Buys Ciao.com to Boost E-Shopping Search” by Georgina Prodhan and a carton of contributors. The idea is for Microsoft to do a better job with shopping search. Microsoft lags Google, and the hope is to narrow the gap between Microsoft and the GOOG. For me the most important point is the article is:
Microsoft’s Mangelaars acknowledged the distance Microsoft had to cover, especially given the commercial edifice rapidly being built by online advertisers whose models depend on Google’s particular view of the Web. “It’s a race,” he said, “but we also believe it’s very early days in search technology.”
In my opinion, I am tired of hearing that it is early days for search. Search has been around since the 1960s. Sure, I’m on record saying, “Search sucks.” But whether search sucks or not is irrelevant when one company has a 70 percent share and a competitor has been trying to catch up for a decade. Leap frog, not me too, is needed.
Stephen Arnold, August 30, 2008
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3 Responses to “Microsoft: Another Search Buy”
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We don’t always agree, but this is one of those times when we are on the same page and line number. My take on the need to leap frog, not me too: http://thenoisychannel.blogspot.com/2008/08/is-google-good-enough_05.html
Daniel Tunkelang,
No need to agree with me. This Web log is subject to the disclaimer on the About page. When people agree with me, I conclude that I am thinking too traditionally. There’s not much point to that. New ideas are more my line.
Stephen Arnold, August 30, 2008
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