SES Chicago - December 7-11, 2009

January 30, 2008

SEW Experts: The New Age of Search Marketing

One of the more misunderstood parts about the Web environment today is just how much the user is in control. In today's By the Numbers column, "The New Age of Search Marketing," Eric Enge offers three reasons this shift in control to the consumer is happening.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

September 14, 2007

SEW Experts: Baking SEO into a Full Fledged Interactive Work Plan

In today's Outsourced column, "Baking SEO into a Full Fledged Interactive Work Plan," Chris Boggs discusses where SEO belongs in a strategic online marketing plan. If you think you know the answer, you may be surprised by this week's Outsourced column.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

September 5, 2007

SEW Experts: How Search Will Save Online Advertising... Again!

In today's Searching for Meaning column, "How Search Will Save Online Advertising... Again! ," Kevin Ryan says that the credit crunch might have some casualties, but search won't be one of them.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

August 20, 2007

ComScore to Expand qSearch Measurement Service Beyond Traditional Search Sites

Market research provider comScore today updated its qSearch 2.0 measurement service to dramatically expand the number and kinds of properties being measured.

Besides the usual measurement of traffic to major search engines, this expansion now brings in additional measurement of the top 50 most-trafficked sites where search activity is observed. This includes many social media sites, portals, and e-commerce sites where search plays an integral role in their site or the site itself plays a role in the search landscape.

New sites being measured include eBay, Amazon, Expedia, and MySpace. qSearch will also begin counting partner search behavior, such as queries done on affiliate partners that lead to a search engine's results pages. It also will include local search sites like maps, directions, and local directory listings.

"This allows us to take a more comprehensive view of search, and report on some sites that people wouldn't consider as classic search engines," said James Lamberti, SVP of search and media at comScore. "Basically, we can track any open query data anywhere on the Web. That can include things like map searches, Internet Yellow Pages, or job searches."

The expansion to include the top 50 Web properties has another effect, according to Lamberti: it takes the onus away from comScore to determine what should be categorized as "search," he said.

The new data will be reported separately, so clients that want to consider it can include it in their reports, and those that do not want to include it can ignore it. The move opens up the market for comScore to begin providing data to new clients among the top 50 sites. It also sets comScore up to be ready to report on vertical markets for existing clients, Lamberti said.

In addition, qSearch now also includes new geographic areas, with an expansion from a U.S.-centric measurement model to a truly global one, Lamberti said. qSearch now offers individual country reporting for the U.S., Canada, Mexico, U.K., France, Germany, Japan, China, and Korea. Additional countries will follow.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:00 PM | Permalink

July 9, 2007

SEW Experts: The Beginning of the Fragmentation of Search

In today's Search Ads column, "The Beginning of the Fragmentation of Search," Tony Wright ponders the evolution of search marketing from its heady first years to the competitive situation today. Can this be the beginning of the fragmentation of search?

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:01 AM | Permalink

May 19, 2007

Will Ad Targeting Change?

Whenever there are big ownership shifts in the ad business, it seems like a good time to ask for changes. Now that the ad network/server companies are shifting around, we should make our online ad targeting dreams come true. Here are three dreams.

Get keywords assigned to ads. Have your ad network assign the right keywords for search ads. We think these companies know a lot about what is getting searched. There's so much data and modeling horsepower. Let them do much more work for advertisers.

Buy banners with keywords. Port your search keywords over to your displays buys. Imagine not having to buy based on demographics or interests, which are tendencies anyway. We think you can keep the CPM buying model intact, but make social or contextual placements across the board.

Banish the spam. Harness the collective interests about web site visitors, even anonymously. Megaliths should offer these opportunities to increase eCPMs for publishers, where it wasn't possible before. Then make run of network, spam ads a dark and distant memory.

There are several different players, when it comes to the ad networks. In this oligopoly, my hope is that they will compete to fulfill our proverbial dreams.

Posted by at 4:31 PM | Permalink

April 17, 2007

Yahoo Profits Up, Search Percentage Down

March was a bad month for Yahoo though their stock price is not being effected by it. They were the only one of the top tiered engines whose search usage percentage dropped last month, according to comScore reports.

Google picked up 0.2%, as did Ask, while Microsoft picked up 0.4%. Time Warner (AOL) grabbed 0.1% more than the previous month. Yahoo dropped 0.6%.

Interestingly Yahoo just released their financials for Q1 2007 and they actually increased revenues by 7% compared to the same quarter last year.

The interesting part of this is that virtually all of the increase in profits came from International revenues. There was a 22% increase from the same quarter last year. Great job Yahoo International.

The fact international was responsible for the increased profits also reflects the importance that people should be placing on international traffic.

Another coincidental fact - Yahoo revenues for the quarter were a little more than what Google paid for YouTube.

Posted by Frank Watson at 5:21 PM | Permalink

March 6, 2007

Indian Portal Starts Keyword-Powered Ad Platform

ByIndia.com, an Indian portal owned by Web2Corp, announced it will offer a Google-like keyword/ad platform March 15.

William Motley, CEO of Web2Corp is confident the Indian market will help grow his traffic rapidly.

"We will be able to gain significant market share in India quickly, because we're the first serious contender in their social media market. This is crucial both for ByIndia and for advertisers because early movers will have the opportunity to get a large share of the average Indian web user's mindshare quickly and at a tiny fraction of the price of advertising in more developed markets” Motley stated.

Posted by Frank Watson at 1:23 PM | Permalink

March 5, 2007

Global Strategies International Acquired by Ogilvy

Search marketing firm Global Strategies International, led by frequent search event speaker and author Bill Hunt, has been acquired by Neo@Ogilvy, the digital and direct media arm of the Ogilvy Group. Hunt, along with partners Jeremy Sanchez and Andy Weatherwax, will join Neo@Ogilvy, but keep GSI as a separate unit within the agency. IBM is a major client for both Ogilvy and GSI.

In an interview with Mediapost, Neo@Ogilvy COO Greg Smith said that the integration of GSI into the Ogilvy team would help them implement paid and organic search strategies alongside other digital marketing efforts. Smith also expressed a desire to use data on searcher behavior to gain insight into other marketing programs: "Search for us is this incredible focus group, and we want to use that as one of our diagnostic tools to learn about consumers and their behavior."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:56 AM | Permalink

February 26, 2007

Niched Portals and Vertical Search: The Catch Phrases of 2007

Seems 2007 is going to be the year of niched portals and vertical search.

Microsoft is buying Medstory, a health information search engine, and furthering their move into niched portals and vertical search. In China they have started development on a job search engine.

Yahoo is doing the same thing: business search in China, community portals covering specific audiences like Pontiac owners, investors and health sites.

Yahoo seems to be using the portal, community model with search ads as part of the monetization. Though they are trying to develop a business search engine as their primary perspective for the Chinese market.

Yahoo has created entertainment community pages for the Oscars; car fan sites using the manufacturers as support and advertiser.

This seems to be a repeating theme in the two months so far of 2007. Let's see where this all ends up.

Posted by Frank Watson at 4:56 PM | Permalink

December 21, 2006

Dow Jones adds Blinkx video search

Michael Cohn of Red Herring reports that video search specialist blinkx teamed up yesterday with Dow Jones to make financial news videos available from Dow Jones properties like The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, and MarketWatch via blinkx and its customer Lycos.

Cohn notes, "While most of the content on the Wall Street Journal Online as well as Barron's Online is available by paid subscription only, the video content is freely searchable."

Posted by Greg Jarboe at 10:27 AM | Permalink

September 4, 2006

Google To Fingerprint Voices With PC Microphones

This weekend The Register published an article named Google developing eavesdropping software. The article describes how Google uses existing PC microphones fingerprinting technology to show relevant ads that appeal more to you. The article goes on to explain how the sound fingerprinting works; it "breaks sound into a five-second snippets to pick out audio from a TV, reducing the snippet to a digital "fingerprint", which it matches on an internet server." Privacy folks are worried about the repercussions of such software.

Postscript Barry: I should link to Google Paper Explains Listening To Your TV Can Help It Put Ads & Info On Your Computer we covered back in Jun. 9, 2006.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:50 AM | Permalink

June 14, 2006

Minority Report-Like Interactive Google Earth

Via our SEW Forums, a great find. Check out this video showing how PhD candidate Edward Tse of the Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs at the University of Calgary rigged Google Earth into an interactive tabletop display:

 

The video shows how using your hands, you can spin the world, zoom in, give it voice commands like "fly to boston" that flies you there within Google Earth and more.

Expect a Google job offer to be coming, Edward. Expect that tabletop display to be showing up in the Googleplex, which has been woefully lacking in cool stuff for visitors lately.

The Google search query display in the lobby, the map showing search activity around the world, the lava lamps, the white board with the Google Master Plan (see here and here). Old news. Besides, you can interactively play Warcraft III on the table, as well.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:55 AM | Permalink

June 9, 2006

Google Paper Explains Listening To Your TV Can Help It Put Ads & Info On Your Computer

There are many people discussing a recent patent Google was awarded for picking up on ambient audio from your TV and pairing those sounds to your computer to serve up ads based on what you are watching (or something like that). Google Research Scientists, Michele Covell & Shumeet Baluja, described the technology as;

We showed how to sample the ambient sound emitted from a TV and automatically determine what is being watched from a small signature of the sound -- all with complete privacy and minuscule effort. The system could keep up with users while they channel surf, presenting them with a real-time forum about a live political debate one minute and an ad-hoc chat room for a sporting event in the next. And, all of this would be done without users ever having to type or to even know the name of the program or channel being viewed. Taking this further, we could collect snippets from the web describing the actors appearing in a movie or present maps of locales within the movie as it takes place (no matter if users are watching it as a live broadcast or as a recoded broadcast).

There are two additional articles that have good coverage of this, that I am aware of. The first is at Small Biz Pipeline and the second is at TechCrunch. I particularly like how TechCrunch pulled out the four main points of the paper, as such;

+ Personalized information layers Here?s what Tom Cruise is wearing in the show you are watching and here's where you can buy the same clothes in your zip code. + Ad hoc social peer communities If you would like to chat about this show, ten of your college friends are watching it right now as well. + Real-time popularity ratings Nielsen requires hardware and the results aren't available in real-time. You might want to know if there is a spike in viewers watching the show on channel 9 right now. Advertisers might want to know that too. + TV- based bookmarks Click to save a show or clip into your video library and there will be more than just a few shows available for watching later.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:43 AM | Permalink

May 15, 2006

eBay To Test TV Ad System; Not Google

MediaPost reports that eBay was awarded the bid to test an online auction system for buying and selling TV ads. The Association of National Advertisers announced today that they "will work with its membership to explore opportunities around the development of an Online Media Exchange." Those on the testing committee are listed here. Forbes has a nice recent article from last week on the possibilities of this happening. What happened to Google providing this system? I guess eBay was more qualified.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 4:38 PM | Permalink

May 10, 2006

TiVo Getting Into the Ad Serving Business

While TiVo is well known for allowing television watchers to skip advertising, they are hoping they can entice viewers to watch branded advertising that provide entertainment value or user interest within the commercials. The program, called Product Watch, allows viewers to actually search for ads in various categories and there are already has 70 advertisers signed up.

The ads range from cooking advice and how-tos from Kraft to Suze Orman talking about loans by Lending Tree. Some of the ads are quite heavy on the advertising, such as GM spotlighting their vehicles. Ford, on the other hand, has taken the low key approach with Penn & Teller doing one minute tricks on a golf course with a vehicle in the background. The ads are much longer than traditional 30 second spots, instead they range from one minute in length to one hour.

This model is based on pay-per-view, only instead of the end viewer paying to view, the advertiser is paying for each video download. The Wall Street Journal says this approach is attractive for smaller advertisers who may not be able to afford to target an entire audience of a network or show, yet are able to show their ad to those who are specifically chosing to watch it, meaning they are able to target that ad very well to the audience they want.

ClickZ also reports that the next phase of Product Watch will allow viewers to request more information directly from advertisers on a cost-per-lead basis.

Robin Good has detailed screenshots showing the Product Watch interface and implementation on TiVo.

Posted by Jennifer Slegg at 1:06 AM | Permalink

May 2, 2006

Mazda's Google Earth Game

Philipp Lenssen points to Mazda EarthSearch sweepstakes game. You basically download a KML file that runs on Google Earth and follow the steps from there. The game shows you hints of historic landmarks, you use your search skills to locate the landmarks on Google Earth. So far they have two steps, where you locate two different landmarks. I located both and now I await an email for next week's continuation to the game.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 1:51 PM | Permalink

April 18, 2006

Yahoo Buys Meedio, Gains TiVo-Like Tech

SiliconBeat reports that Yahoo has purchased Meedio, a company that creates home automation software that runs on TVs, PCs, touchscreens, and wireless PDAs. The official announcement is posted on the Meedio homepage, and it shows that Yahoo bought the Meedio "team". The team includes David Brott, Pablo Pissanetzky, Victor Koosh and Pedro Navarro. Pablo explains he "envisioned a day when it [Meedio Software] could be used as the "new browser"," and he says that day has come. Questions are being asked on how this impacts the Yahoo - Tivo deal.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 2:16 PM | Permalink

April 11, 2006

Time Warner Cable Can Auction Off TV Ads

Reuters reports that Time Warner Cable currently has the ability to run AdWords like auction based selling for its video-on-demand channels. Time Warner Cable Chief Executive Glenn Britt said, "We can start doing what Google does -- auctioning off spots." Reuters provides an example; A "car manufacturers or dealerships could bid to put their ads on the television screens of viewers who favor the Speed Channel." For other discussion on auctioning off TV spots, see Danny's blog entry from last week named The Future Of AdWords For TV?.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:12 AM | Permalink

April 3, 2006

The Future Of AdWords For TV?

No, it's not search. No, Google's not connected or even rumored to be involved with this company. But See Spot Run from BusinessWeek caught my eye. It's about a start-up company called Spot Runner that does quality local TV commercials for small businesses. Pick your industry, do a quick cheap modification to a commercial template, then run your ad on cable stations in your local area. The story felt a lot like how small businesses initially got into paid search through programs from Overture/Yahoo and Google. Now that Google's doing radio ads, this model feels a lot like how it or other search players might go into video and TV ads.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:09 PM | Permalink

March 27, 2006

Yahoo & 60 Minutes Debut Tiger Woods 60 Minutes Interview

Rand Fishkin describes how he was flipping through the channels and noticed the mention of the Yahoo & 60 Minutes deal at play. Rand says he was watching the "tail end" of 60 minutes, where they asked viewers to search for "Tiger Woods" at Yahoo Search. At the top you will see a "Yahoo! Shortcut" with links to http://news.yahoo.com/60minutes, which currently has exclusive footage of the Tiger Woods interview. You will also see a link to Tiger Woods profile page at Yahoo PGA and a link to the Yahoo TV listings for 60 Minutes.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:38 AM | Permalink

January 6, 2006

Search Convergence Arrives

Google and Yahoo Aim at Another Screen from the New York Times, Internet search meets the gadget from News.com, Google, Yahoo steal spotlight without even saying a word from the San Francisco Chronicle and Yahoo on Your Phone, TV, PC from BusinessWeek are all a series of articles looking at the buzz Yahoo and Google are making at their CES debut because of how they are taking search off the web and into devices and new areas. Developments With Consumer Search from me that came out this time last year explained how and why this was going to come and how especially Google and Yahoo have become "consumer search" providers, or "search utilities" that plan to plug into any device or any location that requires search.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:37 AM | Permalink

Yahoo Go Puts Yahoo Services Into Cell Phones, TV & PCs

Yahoo has launched Yahoo Go (link via PaidContent), a suite of products designed to let people reach information whether they're on their PCs, phones or using TV. The suite will be formally announced by Yahoo CEO Terry Semel at CES keynote today

Yahoo Go Mobile currently works only for Nokia Series 60 phones. It will allow you to sync your contacts, photos and mail with Yahoo. Yahoo says that in the near future, Yahoo Go Mobile will be preinstalled on the Nokia 6682 from Cingular Wireless. Beyond Yahoo Go Mobile, plain old Yahoo Mobile has a wide range of services, some of which involve no special software at all.

Yahoo Go TV is a coming application for Windows XP machines that allows you to see photo slide shows, listen to internet radio stations, search for movie info and clips and find video from the web. What's the TV part, then? It will work with a PC-enabled TV, News.com reports. Or, I suspect, a PC that displays TV in addition to a PC desktop, such as the Windows Media Center does. This application looks to tap into existing Yahoo products but perhaps make them easier for users to be aware of through a more customized software interface.

Yahoo Go Desktop / PC is another coming application that looks incredibly similar to the Google Sidebar. It allows you to apparently tap into and sync more easily with existing Yahoo services such as Flickr photo sharing, blogging on Yahoo 360 and Yahoo Mail. A new "social browser" is also promised, though this seems to be the sidebar or dashboard-like application I mentioned. From various reports, Yahoo Go Dashboard appears to be the name of this.

Yahoo To Launch Go Initiative; Mobile, Connected TVs & Desktop Access over at PaidContent has a nice summary, and via Russell Beattie, a number of articles have some additional details.

Yahoo goes mobile over at News.com says Yahoo Go Mobile will work in 10 different countries (I suspect this actually means it will work with 10 different Yahoo country specific editions, such as Yahoo US versus Yahoo UK). Yahoo Go TV is promised for download before April and remote recording of TV shows is planned.

Yahoo Launches Content Service for Phones from the AP covers Yahoo working with Motorola to bring Yahoo Go into its phones, though Google still looks to be the preferred search provider for Motorola, given its deal announced today.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:33 AM | Permalink

November 28, 2005

TiVo To Offer TV Ad Search

TiVo Users Soon Can Search for Ads from the Wall Street Journal covers a new "feature" from TiVo planned for next spring to let people search for ads of interest to them. So say you're interested in BMW ads. You could search for that, then watch 30 second spots. Oh, and advertisers might get to bid to make their ads come up tops. OK, we'll see how great this might turn out to be.

Seriously, if you're interested in buying a BMW, do you really want to watch a 30 second ad on your TiVo? Wouldn't you rather do a web search to get some more substantial information? And if so, hmmm -- we've already got those ads through Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves and MSN.

Yes, they don't fit the video medium of TiVo or television. But that's the difference between TV, which is good for branding and desire (see the cool BMW ad -- now maybe you want one) and search, which is good for delivering up ads that match a person's existing demand (been thinking about a new car -- better do some research on types and prices).

That's why I long ago called search as a "reverse broadcast system," where searchers broadcast their desires. Maybe a TiVo ad search service will tap into that by letting advertisers tap into those broadcast desires as viewers search. But realistically, they'll dish up the same 30 second spots designed for generating desire rather than informing, missing what the searcher really wants.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:44 PM | Permalink

November 7, 2005

Program Your TiVo via Yahoo

You could see this coming and I'm sure it's just the beginning and not just for Yahoo.

Yahoo and TiVo (another verb for many, just like Google) have announced a partnership that will allow users of TiVo Series2 recorders to program their TiVo box via a special site on Yahoo. You'll need to have an email address and Yahoo account.

From any Yahoo TV episode page, users can click the "Record to my TiVo box" button, the companies said. The request is automatically sent to your home the next time your TiVo box connects. The companies suggest allowing for one hour of lag time if the TiVo is connected to broadband through a standard home network. Dialup users have to wait 36 hours for a request to take effect if the TiVo uses dialup.

More in the News.com article: Yahoo plans to connect services with TiVo.

Postscript: A visit to the Yahoo TV page will show to "schedule now" on TiVo. Instructions here.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:48 AM | Permalink

April 18, 2005

TiVo Talks to Google and Yahoo

Can you name another service that here in America that has become a verb as quickly as Google has? I can, it's TiVo.

Stefanie Olson and Richard Shim at News.com report in TiVo courts search giants that unnamed sources are saying that the digital video recording company is in talks with both Yahoo and Google about some type of partnership. Another source says that TiVo is also talking to both companies about a possible equity investment. No one from TiVo, Google, or Yahoo would comment on the story. Stay tuned. (-:

Last month, TiVo announced a major partnership with Comcast (a major cable tv company in the U.S.), that will allow Comcast customers that opportunity to use TiVo services.

"...a TiVo deal might allow Google or Yahoo users to find video files on the Web and then watch them on their televisions. Web surfers might provide some personal information, including their TiVo serial box number, in order to download video directly to their TiVo box. A credit card number might also be required, if the video had an associated fee. TiVo would collect a share of the fees from either customer payment or from advertising-supported video."

On a related note (in the sense that it involves video) is news that Sony Pictures Entertainment will announce that they will soon begin building a digital library of its film content.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:23 AM | Permalink

January 27, 2005

Yahoo! and Showtime: Something "Big" Coming Soon

TV Week is reporting (subscription only) that Showtime, a cable TV network and Yahoo! have plans to announce a content and promtion deal. The news came during a panel discussion with Robert Greenblatt, president of entertainment at Showtime, at this week's NATPE (National Association of Television Programming Executives) conference.

He [Robert Greenblatt] was asked whether the network is considering previewing and promoting its shows over the Internet, similar to the way The WB premiered "Jack & Bobby" on AOL. Mr. Greenblatt said Showtime is going to do something "much bigger" with Yahoo...

Yesterday, we learned that Yahoo! has just leased space for a new media group office in LA and last week Danny blogged about and Yahoo! renewing a promo and product placement deal with the company that produces The Apprentice.

Posted by Gary Price at 7:11 PM | Permalink

January 23, 2005

Ask Plans Mobile Search In 2005

I said several times in '04 that mobile search and access to info would continue to grow in both usage and the number of mobile services available.

An IDG News story: Ask Jeeves Developing Wireless Search Service, reports that the butler will have a mobile search tool available sometime in 2005. I think mobile access to Ask's Smart Search technology (ANSWERS not only links) will be a plus for the mobile searcher since research time and other issues are major considerations when searching via a mobile device.

In developing its wireless search services, Ask Jeeves will focus on providing very specific information to queries and not try to replicate the conventional Web searching experience, given the nature of wireless communications and devices, he [Daniel Read, Ask Jeeves' vice president of product management] said.

The second half of 2004 was a busy time for mobile search. We saw new releases from Yahoo (who already had a very robust platform), Google, Smarter.com, and others. Btw, RSS and other syndication formats also work very well on mobile devices. Bloglines already offers a special interface for mobile web users.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:52 PM | Permalink

January 6, 2005

Web Search Into Consumer Search & Other Reflections

In today's SearchDay article Looking Back, Looking Ahead: Developments With Consumer Search, I review some major developments I saw in search during 2004 and try some looking forward into 2005.

In particular, I think this year will be one of web search morphing into consumer search, where major search companies offer a robust range of ways to search for information in specialized areas.

In the article, I also reflect on:

  • How legal issues will continue to impact the maturing search industry.
  • How personal search has erupted as a significant new force for change.
  • How vertical search features will continue to usurp general web searching.
  • Why search marketers need more support from search engines.
  • Why everyone should understand search doesn't mean just paid search and that contextual isn't search at all.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:38 AM | Permalink

Convergence: Yahoo! and Microsoft Announce Relationship

Yahoo! has announced in this news release that:

+ The "Best of Yahoo" (including My Yahoo! and Yahoo! Premium Video) will be available to consumers through Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.

Yahoo! today announced an agreement with Microsoft to extend Yahoo! services to Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, Microsoft's version of the Windows operating system designed to provide all-in-one, digital entertainment experiences. Under the agreement, consumers will be able to access Yahoo! services optimized especially for the digital home environment. Yahoo! expects to deliver a variety of services and content over the course of the coming year via Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, with the first offerings being made available in the coming weeks.

Very interesting to see two of the "big guys" partnering on something. Also, worth noting the MS use of My Yahoo! versus the personalization that MSN currently offers.

+ The launch of the Yahoo! Digital Home Developer Program

The Yahoo! Digital Home Developer Program will allow consumer electronics companies and other software integrators to make Yahoo! content and services accessible to their Internet-enabled stereos, televisions and other home electronic devices.

Posted by Gary Price at 8:29 AM | Permalink

January 5, 2005

Bill Gates: "Today's Search is Nothing"

News.com has just posted a Q&A interview with Bill Gates on a variety of issues including search, web browsers, and why he doesn't have a blog.

After saying the MS was in the search business before Google, Gates says Microsoft has a, "commitment to build unique search technology across the board," and points to the work being done at Microsoft Research (see: Microsoft Research Gets Serious About Search and a compilation of several MS Research search-related papers and patents I compiled in July.)

Gates goes on to say, "...our research agenda will allow us to take today's search from ourselves and Google and make what we have today look like a joke." Later in the interview he talks about search being a "significant" business (aka "big revenue") for MS and again says that, "today's search is nothing."

When the interview turns to talk about desktop search Gates says, "...we want to compete on the desktop because that's a key innovation area for Windows...we think the competition between ourselves and Google and Yahoo will improve things." This is after he says that most of the reviews he has seen gives MSN Desktop higher marks than Google Desktop.

We're planning our own comparative review of desktop search tools for Search Day but I can say that I've been impressed to this point when using MSN's desktop tool. Of course, this comparative review from Slate published yesterday, places Copernic's desktop search product (one I've liked and used since day one) at the top of the list while giving MSN a higher grade than Google.

Finally, Mr. Bill says that local search (finding your local pizza parlor) isn't all that good these days and says again that search in 2005 is not very good. In this instance he uses the word "crummy."

On the topic of weblogs he says that MSN Spaces has nearly one million users and because of RSS the decay rate (people starting and stopping blogs) is improving. Gate says he's toyed with the idea of blogging but doesn't want to start something he can't finish. That said, he's keeping the idea of starting a blog in mind.

OK, those are a few of the highlights that I took away from the interview. When it comes to search I think that a major issue Mr. Bill has to deal with (at least for now) is public perception (right or wrong) of Microsoft versus the almost always positive (maybe even an understatement) things that the public and the press have to say about his search competitors. Innovation in the research lab is one thing but getting the masses (not early tech adopters) to try something new, understand how it might be useful to them, and then want to use it on a regular basis, is something else. They'll also have to deal with the press wanting to compare whatever they offer with what Google has done, is doing, or will/might/could offer in the future versus looking at the product. Of course, throughout all of this Google, Yahoo, Jeeves, and all of the others will also be innovating. Plus, I believe that vertical search tools will continue to offer plenty of new search options. Bottom Line: Yes, this is going to be fun.

As MS rolls out more in the way of search, we will begin seeing plenty of "traditional" advertising. This is somewhat ironic since Google has been able to build its brand and reputation without having to do any of it.

Posted by Gary Price at 7:41 PM | Permalink

January 3, 2005

Yahoo!, SBC, and Others Partner to Create Home Entertainment Box

Convergence 2005!

About six weeks ago I posted that Yahoo and SBC were planned to extend the types of services available via their partnership.

Today, we're learning about some integrated services that will be available by mid-2005. Say hello to the SBC/Yahoo set-top box.

+ A new set-top box that integrates, "satellite TV programming, digital video recording, video on demand, and Internet content including photos and music [via Launch]."

+ "The service will include a satellite TV receiver [via Dish Network], digital video recorder (DVR) and storage for digital photos and music...and will allow customers to access photos and music and to schedule their digital video recorder (DVR) remotely from any Web-connected computer through the SBC Yahoo! user interface." Plans have also been announced that wireless access will eventually be available.

It wouldn't be at all surprising to see Yahoo also provide video and other search technology via the box in the future.

More in this Reuters story.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:38 PM | Permalink

November 18, 2004

SBC Will Offer Access to Some Yahoo Services via Television

More convergence. This time involving television and wireless access to some Yahoo services.

I'm wouldn't doubt that Yahoo television search (keyword access to actual television programs) and another venue for Overture advertising, especially local ads, is also in the works.

Jeffry Bartash reports in the article: SBC and Yahoo team up in TV, wireless that the companies have announced a deal where customers can acess some Yahoo services via their tv set and wireless devices. Look for it to begin sometime in 2005.

"Customers want communications that revolve around them, not the other way around," said Edward Whitacre, SBC's chairman, in a statement.

Instead of transferring an address book from one device to another, for example, a customer would create a list in his SBC Yahoo account and be able to access it from any device -- laptops, wireless phones or even TV sets.

Similarly, customers could check e-mail, voice mail or faxes from any one device.

Once SBC rolls out its television service, customers could set up programs to record from their work computer or even from a cell phone. They could also set parental controls from any device to monitor their children's Web-surfing, viewing and listening habits.

"This alliance advances the SBC strategy to evolve the 'digital home' into the 'digital lifestyle,' " Whitacre said. "What you see on your SBC Yahoo Internet home page is coming to a TV set or wireless phone near you."

SBC and Yahoo have partnered on a broadband service for several years.

More in this news release.

A few weeks ago, Nathan at InsideGoogle speculated about how Google might be developing "television" applications. I also posted about several tools that currently allow you to search tv content.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:33 AM | Permalink

October 23, 2004

Search Meets TV

A twofer on the concept of search meets TV. First, Bambi Francisco weighed in earlier this month with Tomorrow's Internet. She touches on the idea that we might search for video clips of what was said during a presidential debate using our remote control or similarly seek out what someone may have said on a chat show.

In fact, such things are possible to some degree now, though not through your remote. Gary gave a rundown on some in his Interview with Search Engine Researcher post, including the fee-based ShadowTV.com site that lets you search for video clips based on the closed-caption information associated with them.

We list a number of other useful tools such as Singingfish on our Multimedia Search Engines page, including some past articles on the topic of audio-visual search.

Along with existing tools, IBM's Marvel project also aims to enter the space: Marvel at IBM's New Multimedia Search Tool. And Chris previously noted that cable company Comcast is looking at blending search and TV: The Next Search Titan: Comcast?

John Battelle brought in his own thoughts on the subject yesterday in Friday Sketching: TV and Search Merge. The key component here is video on demand meets search targeted advertising. By knowing your interests, and programs you have searched for, perhaps ads might be automatically inserted into the programming.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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