Great Google Quote
July 2, 2009
Short honk: The Christian Science Monitor snagged a great Google quote from the lips of Eric Schmidt. The quote appeared in “Bing Nothing to Worry about, Yet” here.
Mr. Schmidt allegedly said:
“Google is about getting all the information and organizing it,” he said. “Yahoo has a different strategy. We think ultimately Bing will evolve to a different strategy as well.
Let’s see. If Google gets “all” information, what’s left for the Redmond crowd and the Yahooligans. Logically, the addled goose thinks, nothing.
Stephen Arnold, June 14, 2009
Yahoo and Execution
June 26, 2009
WebProNews reported in “Yahoo Has Execution Problem: Stop Comparing It to Google” that Yahoo has ideas but making them reality is difficult. Mike Sachoff wrote:
She also said that Yahoo did not have a “vision problem” but that it did have an “execution problem,” which it was working on fixing. Bartz repeated her plan to update Yahoo’s main properties, including its homepage and mail service. She said Yahoo was working on allowing users to customize more services to focus on things they are interested in. Yahoo is also evaluating other existing products to “shut down, repair or outsource.”
In my opinion, thinking up some whizzy service is easy. I recall a Yahoo senior executive slapping a cost of $200 million or so on the amount needed to build a search service. That type of thinking is more deeply flawed than the ability to set a goal, execute tasks, and roll out a service. Crazy notions about cost and complexity will lead a company into more severe problems than non delivery. Yahoo is a technology company and its engineering focus is blurry. Add to that the pressure Google brings to bear on the company and toss in a pinch of economic downturn, and you have a recipe for trouble flan.
The comparisons with Google are inevitable. Yahoo followed the AOL portal path and Google did not. Yahoo stagnated in ads; Google did not. Comparisons are going to be the stuff of business school essays for years to come. Yahoo does not have an execution problem. Yahoo has deep technical, strategic, and financial challenges woven into its business model. Just my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, June 27, 2009
Yahoo in a Pickle
June 24, 2009
27/7 Wall Street published an eye opener called “Why Yahoo! Will Never Recover”. Categorical negatives are absolute and I think “may” might make an equally compelling headline. That’s small potatoes. The meat of this write up was:
Yahoo!’s most important strategic blunder is likely to be the refusal of CEO Bartz to form a search partnership with Microsoft quickly after taking the top job. The industry has known for months that Microsoft was about to launch the next generation of its search product. Bartz and many experts believed that Microsoft did not have the product development and engineering expertise to build a highly competitive search engine. This turned out to be an underestimation of Microsoft’s resolve, its willingness to invest great sums of money on risky ventures, and the prowess of its developers.
You must read the rest of the analysis to assess the impact of this review of Yahoo. The one point that I think warranted more beef was Yahoo’s fragmented technical infrastructure. Yahoo has many problems, and the odds of revitalization of the company are long, long indeed.
Stephen Arnold, June 24, 2009
Google, Microsoft, Yahoo Search Death Match
June 15, 2009
Well, not really “death” death. Ihar Mohaniok’s “Blind Search Engines Comparison on Real Queries” caught my attention. The youthful looking M. Mohaniok wrote:
Just in time for Bing launch, one of Microsoft engineers has built a “Blind search” engine, which allows to compare search results from Google, Yahoo! and Bing without branding (and without all helpers, like “universal” aka News/Video/Images, or spelling correction, unfortunately). The concept isn’t new, but I don’t know other public implementations.
Mr. Mohaniok summarized his tests. Bottom-line:
So, total count on difficult queries: 15 for Google, 1 for Yahoo!, 1 for Bing, 1 draw. If we include Yandex for Russian-language queries, it steals one win from Google.
Not a scientific test, but I find the results suggestive.
Stephen Arnold, June 15, 2009
Bing and the Yahooligans
June 14, 2009
I don’t know the Star, and I have no way of knowing if the information in the article is spot on. What I want to do is present what the Star said in the article “Within a Week, Bing Gets More Searches than Yahoo”. The Star made the point that Bing.com has had some success and tallied more searches than Yahoo’s search system. The Star reported:
According to StatCounter, Bing has gained 5.62% of the global search engine market which is a considerable market share that it has grabbed from Google. In the first week of June, Google’s market share declined to 90.45%, while Yahoo had 5.13% and Bing had the rest.
My take is that Yahoo is more vulnerable to Bing.com in the short run. Yahoo’s search system is a side show compared to the dozens of services that Yahoo pushes in my face. When I read mail, I have to click click click click before I see the messages. My tests of Yahoo reveal that third parties who use Yahoo’s search results deliver a more useful slice of the Yahoo’s index. Check out the little known http://www.cluuz.com.
Yahoo, in my opinion, is likely to find its tail feathers singed. Googzilla in the meantime will be “waving” to the crowd.
Stephen Arnold, June 14, 2009
Yahoo Hadoop
June 11, 2009
Short honk: The Yahoo Developer Blog Network published “Announcing the Yahoo Distribution of Hadoop” here. IBM and Yahoo teamed on a version of OmniFind that is free. When I installed the system, I found it had a document limit. Bummer. Will the Hadoop distribution have a limit of some type that’s not in the Apache version? With all of the commercial pressures on Yahoo, what business is the company pursuing: online ads, banner ads, open source software, for fee email, or any of the other services available from the splash page? I’m puzzled. Anyone care to direct my thinking?
Stephen Arnold, June 11, 2009
At Yahoo Is Bartz Topedoing Search or Search Torpedoing Bartz
June 9, 2009
I read a long analysis by Dan Sullivan here called “Bartz Continues Torpedoing Yahoo Search”. I found the information useful because it provides a run down of recent announcements and developments in the ossifying world of Web search. I urge you to read the essay. I found this comment quite suggestive:
Geez, it’s like Bartz handed a gift to Microsoft. Here Microsoft wants to build awareness that there’s an alternative to Google, and Bartz effectively tells people that Yahoo’s out of the game. It was somewhat similar to how Ask screwed up last year … and now still struggles to be counted among the major search engines. Who thought Yahoo would shoot itself the same way?
Several thoughts crossed my mind.
First, the analysis touches only indirectly on the issue that I think is adding basil to Ms. Bartz’s recipe for a Yahoo turnaround—cost. If one can look beyond the posturing, Ms. Bartz has access to the cold hard facts of the cost of search at Yahoo and how those costs match against Yahoo’s actual revenues. My hunch is that the business of search is one that is one rooted in how much money it takes to operate search, feed the warring engineering factions, and manage the set up. Leaving cost out of an analysis means that Yahoo is able to conduct business in a predictable way in terms of operations. I think costs toss predictability out with the burned vegetables.
Second, the mixing of signals is neither unusual nor unexpected. Yahoo is a mini AOL but it has a different series of revenue streams. Dealing with these strong currents is confusing job, just ask any corporate captain who has had to deal with incomplete or flawed financial information and projections. One day the weather is clear; the next Matilda is knocking on the door.
Finally, the search market is ossified. Now I know that there’s considerable hope for the start ups in search like Wolfram Alpha. I know that Microsoft is spending $80 to $100 million to supplant “just Google it” with “just Bing it”, but Google’s market share continues to creep upwards. I think the data that suggest Google has a 60 to 70 percent market share are wide of the mark. Think in terms of 80 percent in the US and 90 percent in some other areas such as northern Europe. A big push in search is going to yield exactly what return? My hunch is that when cost is factored into the equation, Ms. Bartz is doing a pretty good job of keeping investors reasonably stable while she tries to make sense of the Web’s Balkan conflict.
Just my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, June 9, 2009
Yahoo Signals a Turn Inward
June 8, 2009
The Times of Oman reported here that Yahoo wants to build traffic and may not need a life saver from Redmond to thrive. “Yahoo! Doesn’t Need Microsoft Deal: CEO” reported:
“Yahoo! doesn’t have to do anything with Microsoft about anything,” Bartz said at a conference here of technology analysts. “Yahoo! actually has a bright, bright future, probably cleaner and simpler future without thinking there’s any Microsoft connection,” she said. “We’d be better off if we’d never heard the word Microsoft. “Forget about the Microsoft stuff, it’s honestly not that relevant,” she said.
With the release of Bing.com and the PR blitz, Microsoft may want to paddle up the search rapids without the Yahoo technical anchor snagging rocks and limbs. On the other hand, Yahoo is long in the tooth. Search is so-so, but until Bing.com what were the alternatives? My thought is that one should not spurn money when the costs of the present operation threaten to be tough to control.
Negotiating ploy or bold new vision? Clarity by the end of the year in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, June 7, 2009
Yahoo 1.1 Revealed
May 28, 2009
At the categorical affirmative “All Things Digital” Conference, Yahoo 1.1 was revealed. In an interview with Carol Bartz (Yahoo’s new CEO) conducted by Kara Swisher, information about Yahoo Version 1.1 was reveled. A blizzard of posts appeared on Megite.com but I gravitated to John Paczkowski’s “Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz: We’re a Different Company than Google” here. For me, the killer comment in Mr. Paczkowski’s story was this explanation of Yahoo:
We use great technology to deliver search, content, advertising.
Mr. Paczkowski included a remarkable bit of local color, noting that Kara pointed out that former Yahooligan Terry Semel and Yahooliganette Sue Decker were in the audience.
Other points I thought interesting included:
- Ms. Bartz wants improve and integrate Yahoo’s services
- Yahoo email has to be made more simple
- Social network services are of interest
- Buying online ads must be made less complex
- Google “does not have the positioning and reach” of Yahoo.
In my opinion, Yahoo has a technology challenge. No large company will have homogeneous systems. The key is to have more homogeneity than stray cats and dogs. My analysis of Yahoo considers ads, traffic, and brand, but the iceberg that sank the Titantic looked small until it sank the ship. Yahoo’s iceberg is the cost of its technology; that is, there are costs that are tough to control due to the tech cats and dogs. As a result, Yahoo has fewer degrees of tech freedom and runs the risk of a cost spike that can puncture the hull of Yahoo 1.1.
Time may be running out, and it is not clear if a sugar daddy can rescue Yahoo. Yahoo is hanging tough. Yahoo may be following the same path that AOL took in its quest to become the Internet portal of choice. Didn’t work at AOL. Will it work at Yahoo? Ms. Bartz has confidence and a great track record. That technology iceberg is a threat that may be tough for a management strategist to deal with. I am not so sure about the “great technology” assertion. It’s Yahoo 1.1., not Yahoo 2.0 in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, May 28, 2009
Ramp Time for Web Killers: Google to Alta Vista, X to Google
May 26, 2009
Harry McCracken’s “How Long Did It Take for the World to Identify Google as an Alta Vista Killer?” here asks an interesting question. His write up provides some examples of early positive Google evaluations in trade and news publications. His conclusion was that no one figured out how good Google was until several years raced by. I agree with his concluding remark:
A Google killer may well be out there even as we speak. We may even be saying nice things about it. But it would amaze me if we’ve figured out yet that it’s going to kill Google…
Several ideas raced through my mind as I reviewed his chronological list of early Google references; namely:
- Google pushed into search at a time when the leading Web sites were becoming portals, an evolutionary arc that reached its zenith with Yahoo.com and the MSN.com Web sites in the mid 2000s. Both companies were in effect mini-AOLs with search relegated to a “search box” that wasn’t all that useful or interesting to me
- The leading Web search engines were running aground on two well known problems to those familiar with Web indexing: the cost of scaling to keep pace with the growing volume of new and changed content and the baked in problems of traditional server architecture. Google tackled input output, failure, and cheap scaling early in its history. The company did not reveal what it did until the job was done. This put the company several years ahead of its competition at the time of its 2004 IPO
- Existing search vendors were looking for exits from Web indexing. The most notable challenger after Hewlett Packard muffed the Alta Vista project was Fast Search & Transfer. At the time of 9-1-1, Fast Search had indexed breaking news before Google, and the Fast Search system was, in terms of Web indexing, the equal of Google. What did Fast Search do? It sold its advertising and Web search business to concentrate on enterprise search. A decision that cut a path to the financial quagmire in which Fast Search became stuck and the police action about which most people know nothing.
- Other search vendors ran out of cash, ran into index updating problems similar to those encountered by Excite and Lycos, or changed business direction.
Google’s emergence, as I have written in my Google trilogy here, was a combination of several factors: luck, technical acumen, talent availability from the Alta Vista effort, and business savvy on the part of Google’s investors. Killing Google, therefore, will take more than a simple technical innovation. A specific moment in time combined with other ingredients will be needed.
For some of the big players today, time has run out. A Google killer may be in someone’s garage, but until the other chemicals are mixed together, the GOOG has won. Every time I make this statement, I get howls of outrage from conference organizers, venture firms, and pundits. I stand by my claim that Web search is not effectively in Google’s paws. Let me excite some readers on a related front: Google is poised to pull the same 70 percent market share trick in other business sectors. Digital goodies from Yahoo and the Microsoft Bing Kumo play notwithstanding, embrace Googzilla or stay out of its way.
Stephen Arnold, May 26, 2009
