Apple & Google Defrag Starts

Defrag Starts with Look at Strategic Intuition of Apple, Google

Google and Apple took pages out of the playbooks of other companies to create the powerhouse desktop computers and search engines we benefit from today, Columbia Business School Associate Professor William Duggan says. At the Defrag conference, Duggan discusses what he calls the strategic intuition of Steve Jobs, Larry Page and Sergey Brin that led to their accomplishments.

DENVER—Apple and Google revolutionized the PC and search engine markets, respectively, but company leaders borrowed their key concepts from others who came before them.

That was the crux of the Defrag opening keynote speech here Nov. 3 from Columbia Business School Associate Professor William Duggan.

Duggan, whose speech covered the gist of his 2007 book, "Strategic Intuition: The Creative Spark in Human Achievement," said one thing Napoleon Bonaparte, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Apple CEO Steve Jobs, and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin had in common is flashes of insight into how to improve an existing practice.

Bonaparte helped cultivate the art of war. Edison set the mass production of electric light bulbs in motion. Ford did the same for mass assembly of cars.

Jobs saw the future of computing in another company's GUI. Brin and Page combined existing data mining, Web crawling and early online advertising concepts to create Google.

To illustrate his point regarding modern high-tech innovation, Duggan showed the Defrag audience a short clip of Robert Cringely's 1996 film "Great Artists Steal." In it, Jobs discussed how he visited Xerox's PARC lab in 1979 and was blown away by the GUI the company employed for its personal computer. Jobs said in the movie:

I was so blinded by the first thing they showed me, which was the graphical user interface. I thought it was the best thing I'd ever seen in my life.

This, Duggan said, is the language of someone who experienced a "flash of insight."

Similarly, Google's Page saw something in AltaVista's search engine that flipped a switch in his own brain. That something was the process of links that "find pages that link to your site," Duggan said.

Page used reverse links, recreated AltaVista's search technique and combined it with Brin's data mining efforts, and Google as we know it was born.

To make money, Page and Brin mimicked Overture's process of listing advertisements alongside Web pages, which led what is Google's massive $16 billion-plus search keyword business today.

These flashes of insight, or strategic intuitions, in which entrepreneurial leaders combine a number of innovations to revolutionize an industry, are fueling the high-tech market, Duggan said.

Microsoft's Bill Gates was also famous for such flashes. Duggan did not mention Microsoft, though he discusses Gates in his book.

Duggan concluded his speech by saying Defrag attendees could experience those flashes of insight. Dare to dream!

Source - eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/Defrag-Starts-With-Strategic-Intuition-of-Apple-Google/

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft (Semanti Offers Search Plug-in)

Semanti's SemantiFind browser plug-in lets Google, Yahoo and Microsoft search engine users leverage semantic technologies to refine their research results. The free tool, which sits on users' browsers as a toolbar, lets users virtually bookmark Web pages they found useful for future users. Crowdsourcing at its finest in cloud computing.

Semanti Nov. 3 has joined Gogimon and TigerLogic as the latest in a raft of software providers looking to augment search results from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft with a browser add-on.

One key difference: Semanti's free SemantiFind plug-in employs semantic search to help users refine their search results and boost the activity for those Web sites by ranking them as useful with one click.

The add-on, which plants a toolbar on users' browsers, was originally offered for Google and received so-so reviews from ReadWriteWeb in September. Semanti added Yahoo and Microsoft support today, giving it coverage of some 90 percent of the search market.

Semanti provides a demonstration of the tool using Google in a video. Semanti CEO Bruce Johnson did a search for "Porsche mileage" on a browser augmented with SemantiFind. When he entered Porsche into Google, he saw pop-up definitions of Porsche, and two definitions for mileage, one for distance traveled and one for fuel economy.

Upon hitting enter, he saw search results from SemantiFind at the top of the page, with Google results underneath. Google results were ambiguous, which Johnson said illustrates the problem with traditional search engines. Because SemantiFind takes into account the multiple meanings of search queries, it was able to provide more accurate results for the user.

Johnson also did a search for "Porsche fuel economy." Google provided different results, but SemantiFind yielded the same results as the "Porsche mileage" search because it understands the user's intent behind the search. Moreover, SemantiFind helps users filter out the noise associated with Google results by graying out the inaccurate results.

How does SemantiFind get its results? Crowdsourcing, of course. Searchers can boost the ranking of quality Web pages they found useful through SemantiFind by clicking the Semantify button in the SemantiFind toolbar.

This action remembers the search queries a user entered so the next time a user searches for something comparable, the Web page will show up in the SemantiFind results. This will work for not just the searcher who entered the results, but for anyone doing searches in the future. Think of it as a virtual bookmark of sorts.

In short, the searches you do on SemantiFind today will influence the searches you or someone else does tomorrow. This is great in theory, but it also means SemantiFind needs to have a lot of people searching on it to boost the value of the plug-in.

SemantiFind is essentially providing semantic search results on Google, Yahoo and Microsoft without a whole new search engine, which is an interesting value proposition.

Johnson told eWEEK Semanti didn't want to be another Hakia, Ask.com or Powerset, all of which created their own search engines. He said the current searches people are accustomed to are good enough for 80 percent of Web searchers.

SemantiFind is free for users, mainly because you can't charge for a general search engine and expect to make money and Semanti wants to build out a big user base.

In the future, Johnson said he hoped to make money through placing ads alongside SemantiFind results. No small double-edged sword here: Some users are already worn out from ads alongside Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Adding them alongside the SemantiFind plug-in may alienate users. We'll see.

Source - eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/Semanti-Offers-Free-Semantic-Search-Plugin-For-Google-Yahoo-Microsoft/

Google, Yahoo Is Still Open to a Deal with Microsoft

Minus Succor from Google, Yahoo Is Still Open to a Deal with Microsoft - Yang Considers Future in Wake of Failed Google Deal
( Page 2 of 2 )
When Battelle asked Yang about what happened with Google, Yang confirmed that Google walked away from the companies' proposed search ad deal, but told Battelle he'd have to ask Google why.

Google clearly decided that they did not want to stay with [the deal]," Yang said.

Yang also said the DOJ did not understand "our industry" and that the agency's definition of the search advertising market was too narrow. “Things like this have unintended consequences on the ... industry,” he said.

Now Yahoo is back at square one. Yang said the company is not in negotiations with Microsoft but declined to comment on any dealings with AOL. The company's stock price is $13.93, nearly $20 less than what Microsoft was willing to pay.

Despite this, Yang declined having regrets over the last 15 years. He characterized what Yahoo has been through in 2008, including the failed acquisition bid, the mass employee exodus and the plummeting stock price, as "extraordinary."

This is a characterization that should interest Yahoo investors, who lost millions of dollars on the company. GigaOM's Om Malik provides a guilt trip post here.

The embattled chief also rebuffed Battelle's suggestion that Yang's ego kept the Microsoft bid from succeeding, noting that he is not adamant about Yahoo remaining independent. Again, this is contrary to media reports that Yang wanted to turn Yahoo around internally instead of aligning with Microsoft.

Whether this has always been the case or not, we may never know. What is clear is that Yang's cooperative stance is easy to take now that both Microsoft and Google have left Yahoo without a suitor.

The question now becomes: Can Yahoo turn itself around with Yahoo Open Strategy, the company's plan to rewire Yahoo and effectively open up its cores search and other Web services to the distributed intelligence of outside programmers?

Source - eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/Minus-Succor-From-Google-Yang-Says-Still-Open-to-a-Deal-With-Microsoft/1/

Google, Yahoo Is Still Open to a Deal with Microsoft

Under fire since failing to come to terms with Microsoft on an acquisition for Yahoo, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang braves the crowd at Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Among other things, Yang said he'd still strike a deal with Microsoft, though one is not pending; Google bailed; and the Department of Justice doesn't grasp the online advertising space.

SAN FRANCISCO—Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang said he regrets that Yahoo and Microsoft couldn't come to terms on a merger earlier this year and that the best thing for Microsoft to do would be to buy Yahoo.

Yang, speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit Nov. 5, exhibited a Zen-like calm for a leader under fire for the last several months. The statements, made to a packed house at the Palace Hotel, seem startling given that Yang was reported to be thoroughly opposed to joining Microsoft.

Still, in answer to Web 2.0 Summit co-host John Battelle's question about what happened with the Microsoft takeover bid, Yang said, "To this day I would say the best thing for Microsoft to do is to buy Yahoo. I don't think that is a bad idea at all."

Battelle broke in, suggesting "just at $40 per share," which was what Yang and the rest of Yahoo's board asked Microsoft to pay when Microsoft made its $33-per-share bid Jan. 31. "Oh no, I think that at the right price, whatever the price is, we were willing to sell the company."

Yang added the Microsoft walked away from the offer. Yang's stance clashes spectacularly with the legacy of media coverage of the back-and-forth between the companies after the deal collapsed. Many media outlets quoted sources close to Yahoo as saying that Yang was fiercely determined to keep Yahoo as an independent company.

Reports said Yang was particularly adamant about not doing such a deal with Microsoft, which is a traditional software company trying to become a provider of popular Web services. That, of course, is what Yahoo became famous for.

Google swooped in to the rescue. Google and Yahoo June 12 struck a search ad deal proposal designed to both enable Google search keywords to run alongside Yahoo results and keep Microsoft at bay.

When the U.S. Department of Justice pushed back on the deal because it believed the deal wouldn't maintain a level of fair competition in online advertising, and seemingly balked at Google and Yahoo's concessions, Google bailed.

Source- eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/Minus-Succor-From-Google-Yang-Says-Still-Open-to-a-Deal-With-Microsoft/

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft - Only Problem is

Only Problem with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Search Is It's Awful

It is still too early to know how this is faring, but Chi noted that SearchMonkey is Yahoo's stab at investing in an ecosystem to attract folks interested in indexing structured data. Opening the platform has paved the way for MySpace, LinkedIn, Yelp and others to influence search.

Ultimately, Yahoo wants to create world in which people with "distributed intelligence" cooperate to improve search because even the thousands of programmers at Google, Yahoo and Microsoft "won't come up with everything" regarding search, he said.

One imagines Allen, Tague and Murphy breathed an internal collective sigh of relief. These men and their companies are all working on providing vertical search beyond the 10 blue links the general search vendors currently offer.

Tague said there will be a place for vertical search engines in the future and these won't necessarily cannibalize top-line search, and he is optimistic that these vertical searches will reap some ad revenue. He also said companies will have to resolve how the social graph interoperates with search in an age in which walled gardens keep data tethered.

Allen said Siderean wants to help assemble search and discovery tools on demand in a business context, which is something Google and co. won't do at this point. He said he anticipates that the paradigm of search being about getting a Web page is evolving to help users find people, places and things, so that results pages will reflect an aggregated analysis of what you want to get back.

In short, through semantic technologies that divine the meaning behind queries and the application of the social graph to search technologies, search will get smarter.

One audience member asked the panel whether and when we will be able to "skip the search results page" and receive geographically dispersed data in some other way, thanks to "folksonomies" and other relevant groupings of behavior.

Such a solution seems like some hybrid of search, social networking and wikis. Wikia and others seem to be moving in that direction, but the search results page remains.

In conclusion, no one knows what the next-generation search engine will look like, although the panelists agreed that semantics and social collaboration will play a role. Do you have any ideas?

Source - eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/The-Only-Problem-With-Google-Yahoo-Microsoft-Search-is-That-Theyre-Awful/1/

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft - Only Problem is ..

Only Problem with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Search Is It's Awful

Search engine experts at the Defrag conference say they believe the future of search engines and corresponding Web services will involve semantic technologies and the social graph. But will this mean the gradual fading of general search results pages as we know them from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft? What will searches look like to users if this is the case?

DENVER—The search engine market is on the precipice of some great innovation, but no one knows exactly what next-generation search engines will look like, four search experts concluded during a panel on the future of search at the Defrag conference here Nov. 5.

The conversation, which included Yahoo's Tom Chi, Siderian Software's Bradley Allen, Thomson Reuters' Tom Tague (for the OpenCalais Web service) and Isys Search Software's Derek Murphy started with the basic agreement that current search engine results from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are flooded with too much noise.

This is noise in search: Allen said while running he heard two women talking about doing Google searches and not knowing what to do after receiving millions of results. "It's wonderful technology and when it works it's great, but there is no guidance" as to what to do if users can't find what they need within the first 10 blue links, he said.

Chi, whose company is the second-leading search engine behind Google and has drastically overhauled its process to change that, was less kind about the current state of search. "The only problem with search is that it's awful, but other than that it works pretty well," he said.

That blatant oxymoron aside, Chi said search is generally stupid. When he checks search logs, he said, he notices that people are still doing navigational searches for Ebay.com, which is "ridiculous."

But rather than take steps to make search more intelligent on behalf of users, Chi said, major players—Google, Yahoo and Microsoft—are not highly motivated to do this because if a user spells eBay wrong and does a spelling correction to get other results, search engines still profit from those mistakes thanks to online advertising clicks.

Yahoo is positioning itself to change this by attempting an ambitious broad stroke. Yahoo earlier in 2008 opened up its search platform, which it calls SearchMonkey, to let objective outside programmers build applications that augment search for users.

Source - eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/The-Only-Problem-With-Google-Yahoo-Microsoft-Search-is-That-Theyre-Awful/

AMD Slashes Another 500 Jobs to Save Costs

Advanced Micro Devices, which has been struggling to regain its financial standings for nearly two years, announced that it will cut another 500 jobs as its looks to "break even" by the start of 2009. The additional job cuts come after AMD already announced that it would reduce its work force by 10 percent earlier this year. In addition to these cost savings, AMD has spun off its manufacturing division into a new company has sold underperforming divisions within the company.

Advanced Micro Devices is eliminating another 500 jobs, including more than 150 positions at its Austin, Texas, facility, as the company looks to regain its financial standings after nearly two years of losses.

In a statement released Nov. 5, an AMD spokesman announced that the chip maker decided to slash an additional 500 jobs from its payroll. Earlier this year, AMD announced that it will eliminate 10 percent of its global work force to reduce costs and make the company more competitive against larger rival Intel. After the current cuts, AMD will now have about 15,000 employees worldwide.

The cost cutting comes just a month after AMD announced it will spin off its manufacturing division into a new company, which should save the company millions of dollars in costs. While this week’s job cuts are not directly related to the spin-off, it shows that AMD is doing all it can to save money while rebuilding its business around its core strengths of CPU and graphics design.

AMD is also eliminating underperforming parts of the company. In October, AMD announced that it had sold its Digital Television division to Broadcom for $141 million.

Michael Silverman, an AMD spokesman, wrote in an e-mail that these layoffs are aimed at helping AMD achieve its $1.5 billion “break-even” revenue point. As 2009 approaches, Silverman wrote that AMD is looking at other ways to save even more costs.

“Today’s announced headcount reduction is an unfortunate but necessary part of this process to help us align our people with the focused programs that achieve our objectives, eliminate duplication of efforts and allow us to operate more efficiently,” Silverman wrote.

“As we prepare for 2009, we will continue to assess AMD’s programs, activities and staffing needs, in order to ensure that we align with our global market realities, and set the company up for consistent profitability,” Silverman added.

In October, AMD reported another round of disappointing financial results. In the third quarter, the company reported a loss of $67 million, or 11 cents per diluted share. The company’s net revenue stood at $1.78 billion.

While AMD is cutting workers, Dell announced earlier this week that it will look to reduce costs by asking employees to take voluntary, unpaid vacations and the company will offer a series of buyouts for other workers. Dell is also starting a hiring freeze that could save additional costs.

Source - eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/AMD-Slashes-Another-500-Jobs-to-Save-Costs/