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July 25, 2006

Yahoo Invests In Social Search Research

Reuters reports Yahoo hired Dr. Raghu Ramakrishnan as vice president and Yahoo research fellow. Dr. Ramakrishnan is a well-respected database expert who has joined Yahoo to study "links between computer and human-aided Web search." Honestly, I am excited what this can potentially mean for social search. Yahoo has so many properties that can be tightly integrated with social search; Flickr, Del.io.us, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Video, web search, desktop search, Yahoo Groups and so on.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:31 AM | Permalink

January 23, 2006

BusinessWeek on Yahoo and Social Search

BusinessWeek's Ben Elgin takes a look at social search, focusing on Yahoo, in his article: Yahoo's Social Circle.

Ben's article offers a review of recent "social search" purchases from Yahoo including WebJay, del.icio.us, and Flickr.

Elgin writes: These deals are key building blocks in one of Yahoo's biggest bets. By cultivating online communities -- and encouraging people to tap into the collective knowledge of these groups -- Yahoo is hoping to change the way people find information online.

Let's also not forget the introduction of homegrown services like Yahoo 360 (beta), MyWeb, and Yahoo Answers.

He goes on to say: Social search aims to shift power from Web publishers, who create these links, to everyday Internet users by examining their bookmarks or giving them tools to express their opinions.

The article also focuses on those who are skeptics to the whole social search "thing." They include that, at least to this point, "most Internet users haven't even heard of Flickr or del.icio.us, let alone spent time sharing photos online or posting bookmarks of their favorite sites." He also correctly (IMHO) that it takes effort and time (something many people don't have enough off) to make social search work well for both the individual and group as a whole.

Vivisimo/Clusty CEO, Raul Valdes-Perez is quoted saying that the wisdom of crowds might not trump what "raw" computing power can offer.

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