Searchblog Takes a Vacation

I'm off early Saturday to Florida, visiting relatives, giving a talk, hanging with my family, and focusing on writing. So Searchblog is taking a week off, save the occasional drop in to clean up comment spam, or to note major news (like Google buying Microsoft, or something). I'll be back at it, sunburned, rested, and ready, next weekend. If you need me, drop a line at jbat at battellemedia dot com. (Yes, I've already voted, and I hope you all will as well!).

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:10 PM
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Joho Sez: Could Be a World Browser

Interesting speculation from David Weinberger on what Keyhole might mean if mixmashed with the Google Browser rumors.

It would not be a Web browser. It'd be a world browser. It would find pages on the Web, of course, but it'd also find the ones on my desktop (Google desktop). It would know about my email (Gmail). It would know that my own photos are categorically different from all the other jpgs on the planet (Picasa). It would let me browse the physical earth (Keyhole) and show on a map the documents that talk about any particular place (Keyhole + Google Local).

And it wouldn't be just a browser. It would let me work with the information I've found: Manage my photos (Picasa), manage my desktop files, translate documents (Google Languages), shop...

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:39 AM
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JotSpot Finds A Need

Pleased to report that Joe and Graham's JotSpot, which launched at Web 2.0, has nearly 3000 beta users since launch, and is really starting to take off.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:30 AM
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Ram Shriram on Google, Mistakes

Silicon Beat has an overview of a recent talk given by Ram Shriram, early Google investor and Board member.

-- It’s all in the grooming. Shriram set out to made sure Page & Brin hired only the very best, or “A” people. He cited the well-known Silicon Valley tenet: Hire only A people, and they’ll hire other A people. If you hire the B person, they’ll hire C or D people. Someone asked a good question: How did Shriram decide who are a so-called “A” people? Grooming is a part of it. “I try to find out who their mothers are,” he said. If they are raised well, they’re more likely to make good citizens, employees and entrepreneurs.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:26 AM
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One Man Decides To Forego The Google Gauntlet

Google is famous for their hiring practices, it's apparently not a picnic to get hired there, and they clearly are looking for very specific things. Russell Beattie, who is pretty well known for his chops in the mobile space, writes from the heart about his decision to bail on the whole Google hiring process. Interesting to see how Google is being viewed by those who might join it.

• Posted by John Battelle at 4:07 PM
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Yang on Search

Jerry Yang on the future of search over in Yahoo's Search Blog. Nothing mind blowing here, save it's sure nice to see Jerry blogging.

Ten years ago, we were focused on a simple yet vast problem: finding better ways to aggregate and organize information so people can find it. Today, the challenge is different. On the one hand, there's a lot more information to aggregate and it's not just more in terms of quantity; there's a larger variety of content as well -- from products and images to news and business information. In addition, we're pulling content from more sources than ever before.

On the other hand, our user's expectations have also changed. It's no longer enough to simply provide a structure for users to find what they want on the Web. Today, people expect to find precisely what they're looking for exactly as it relates to them. It's the old example of the "Java" search query. Are you looking for coffee or for the programming language? People want to define what's relevant to them in their own personal way. They also want to tap into the source of their information at will and they want to manage it all to personally suit their needs.

That's what is exciting about where we are today. Search as a problem is still far from being solved. The user is in the driver's seat: they want an experience that is increasingly personal, more relevant, and ties into their task more integrally. Search is just a way to get that integrated experience, but it's all about what the users want - when they want it, how they want it, and who they want it from.

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:28 AM
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Search For Contributors In Your (Or Whoever's) Neighborhood

Fundrace: Now this is what I call geolocation search. Search for contributors in your area to either Democrats or Republicans. All based on public records. Powerful stuff.

Update: Gary posts and points to this site as well as others...

Hat tip: Metafilter.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:34 AM
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It's Hard to Sell Ads to Plumbers

For some odd reason I find the Yellow Pages interesting, always have. There's something about them that just reeks of...opportunity. Apparently Google agrees. They inked a deal with BellSouth's Yellow Pages unit, a deal which let's BellSouth resell AdWords. In other words, this is a new strategy for Google - BellSouth is the first ever company to have rights to resell Google's AdWords. If it works, it may have far reaching implications.

So why did they do it? Local, local, local. It's very hard to sell AdWords to plumbers. The Yellow Pages have reps who already sell ads to them. It's all about the trenches in the Local market.

I've covered the YP before, here and here and here.

Release in extended entry. Also, see SEW coverage.

BellSouth's Alliance with Google Connects RealPages.com Advertisers to Local
Consumers

RealSearch Customers Can Take Advantage of Google AdWords

ATLANTA & MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - October 28, 2004 - RealPages.comR from
BellSouth (NYSE: BLS) the Southeast's leading online yellow pages and
Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG), developer of the award-winning GoogleR search
engine, today announced an agreement whereby RealPages.com will become the
first yellow pages publisher authorized to sell advertising through Google
AdWordsR to small and medium-sized local businesses.

Under the multi-year agreement, BellSouth will include Google AdWords as an
integral part of its RealSearch offering, a patent-pending search engine
marketing service designed for small and medium-sized local businesses. By
aligning with the BellSouth salesforce, Google can now reach more small and
medium-sized local businesses in the Southeast with Google AdWords. With
AdWords, Google's performance-based search advertising program, advertisers
present marketing messages to potential customers at the precise moment they
are looking for information related to the products and services the
advertiser offers. Google AdWords enables select RealSearch customers to
generate leads across the Google Network, which reaches more than 80 percent
of U.S. Internet users through sites such as Google.com, AOL, BellSouth.Net,
and Earthlink among others (source: MediaMetrix, September 2004).

"Helping our advertisers grow their businesses is at the core of The Real
Yellow Pages and RealPages.com's success," said Elmer Smith, president of
BellSouth Advertising & Publishing. "We believe this partnership will allow
RealSearch customers to take advantage of the extensive reach of the Google
Network, which will aid them in attracting more and more customers."

"Our relationship with BellSouth enables Google to leverage an established,
market-leading salesforce to reach small and medium-sized local businesses
across the Southeast," said Sukhinder Singh, general manager of Google Local
and Third Party Sales. "Google is excited to add a new way to reach
prospective advertisers, while continuing to provide users with relevant
local information and advertisements."

Google currently provides advertisers with the ability to reach customers in
local markets through a variety of AdWords targeting options including
regional and city level, as well as through an address-based radius feature
or by specifying latitude and longitude points.

With RealSearch Engine Solutions from BellSouth, advertisers reach potential
customers when consumers are actively looking for information about products
and services online. BellSouth offers a full-service solution that sends a
guaranteed number of targeted visitors from search engines directly to a
customer's website.

Smith said by managing the local search solution for advertisers, BellSouth
is saving its customers time and money and allowing them to benefit from
search engine marketing while maintaining focus on their day-to-day business
operations.
"The phenomenal growth of local search, combined with BellSouth's
one-of-a-kind RealSearch product incorporating Google's AdWords, positions
BellSouth as a primary partner for our online advertisers," Smith said.

According to The Kelsey Group, provider of strategic research, analysis,
data and competitive metrics on yellow pages, electronic directories and
local media, the local paid search advertising market generated $45 million
in 2003 and is expected to reach as high as $2.5 billion by 2008 in
advertising revenue.

Businesses interested in more information on RealSearch Engine Solutions
from BellSouth can visit www.advertising.realpages.com.

The agreement is the expansion of an alliance that was announced earlier
this year. In April, the two companies announced an agreement whereby
Google's search results and targeted advertisements were made available
through BellSouth's Internet services home page www.bellsouth.net for
Internet customers.

About BellSouth Advertising and Publishing BellSouth Advertising &
Publishing Corporation (BAPCO) is the leading provider of print and Internet
Yellow Pages products in the southeast. BAPCO and LM Berry Company, a wholly
owned subsidiary of BellSouth, publishes 63 million copies of the print
Yellow Pages in more than 500 editions in the nine-state BellSouth region.
Users referred to The Real Yellow PagesR from BellSouth nearly 2 billion
times last year and made nearly 160 million searches on RealPages.comR
(www.realpages.com). The Real Yellow Pages is a powerful information
resource, linking buyers and sellers, with approximately 85 percent of
consumers who reference the directories' most frequently used headings
making a purchase based on their findings.

About BellSouth Corporation
BellSouth Corporation is a Fortune 100 communications services company
headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. BellSouth serves nearly 50 million local,
long distance, Internet and wireless customers in the United States and 12
other countries.

Consistently recognized for customer satisfaction, BellSouth provides
complete communications solutions to the residential and business markets.
In the residential market, BellSouth offers DSL high-speed Internet access
and long distance, advanced voice features and other services. The company's
BellSouth Answers package combines local and long distance service with an
array of calling features; wireless data, voice and e-mail services; and
high-speed DSL or dial-up Internet service and Cingular Wireless. In the
business market, BellSouth serves small, medium and large businesses
providing secure, reliable local and long distance voice and data networking
solutions. BellSouth also provides online and directory advertising services
through RealPages.comR and The Real Yellow Pages from BellSouthR. BellSouth
owns 40 percent of Cingular Wireless, the nation's second largest wireless
company, which provides innovative wireless voice and data services.

About Google Inc.
Google's innovative search technologies connect millions of people around
the world with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D.
students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in
all major global markets. Google's targeted advertising program, which is
the largest and fastest growing in the industry, provides businesses of all
sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience
for users. Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout
North America, Europe, and Asia. For more information, visit www.google.com.

# # #

Google and AdWords are registered trademarks of Google Inc. All other
company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with
which they are associated.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:59 AM
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Biz 2 Column: Dave Dorman

Dave Dorman is a hoot to talk with. Who else would call his competitors a "leper colony"?
This interview is in this month's Business 2.0.

TITANS OF TECH
Dorman's Calling
The CEO of AT&T is on a mission to restore his company to greatness. His plan: Use the Internet to unplug the competition.

By John Battelle, November 2004 Issue

Is David Dorman a telecom lifer or a startup survivor? In truth, he's both. He started out working at Sprint, then became CEO of Pacific Bell, where he created the first regional-phone-company Internet service provider. He then took a detour into the dotcom world, where he led PointCast, a much-hyped "push" technology company, until shortly before it went under. Chastened, he returned to the business he knew best: telecom.

But as it turned out, someone who'd tried out an untested new business model was exactly who Ma Bell would need. When Dorman joined AT&T (T) in late 2000, then-CEO Michael Armstrong held a grand vision for integrating what Dorman calls the "magic five" -- local, long distance, high-speed data, wireless, and video. But things didn't turn out as planned. Instead of reigning over a vast telecom empire, Dorman ended up leading AT&T through the most perilous period in its 127-year history. Teetering finances forced Armstrong to divest wireless and cable. Factor in a recent regulatory decision that Dorman claims left him no choice but to abandon AT&T's residential phone business -- which represents about 25 percent of the company's revenue -- and it's no wonder Wall Street is tepid about AT&T's prospects.

Dorman responds by pointing out that AT&T is the clear leader in providing networking to Fortune 500 companies, and, he says, his competitors are in shambles. More intriguing, he has a strategy to put AT&T back on top.

It's clear that Dorman grasps the disruptive nature of the Internet. Right now the Net is changing voice -- Dorman really lights up when you ask him about CallVantage, AT&T's voice-over-IP service. But at some point, it could lead to video-over-IP, a potential competitor to cable. Add it all up -- the old long-distance and high-speed data businesses, CallVantage, a new wireless play, maybe even video -- and Dorman may be rebuilding AT&T into the company he once thought he would lead, one magic-five application at a time.

When you announced you were leaving the residential telephone business, your share price dropped. Why do you think the markets reacted negatively?

We don't have to have residential telephone business to be a successful company. So many of the stories I've seen say, "They're going to go away. It's over."

That question's on my list here ...

This is a $30 billion company, and consumer is $8 billion of that. I've got the best business-services franchise in the world. And I've got a leper colony of competitors. We know what MCI's been through. Sprint -- they're a wireless company, just ask them. And you look at the rest of the guys -- Qwest (Q), XO Communications, Wiltel, Level 3. Is a major company like Citigroup (C) or J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM) going to bet on someone like that vs. going with us?

Your industry has not covered itself in glory these past five years -- MCI, for starters.

You know something people didn't understand? A big part of Tyco's (TYC) value was TyCom -- an optical network. And Enron had $30 billion-plus of its market cap based on its broadband-trading business. So the three biggest frauds in American history had a direct impact on telecom. Add Qwest and Global Crossing, and we had five major catastrophes in the industry. AT&T didn't cause that; we just have to deal with the aftermath.

Must be fun to be a telecom CEO.

It was a great thing 10 years ago. We're in a cycle. The most frustrating, gut-wrenching thing for me is, I can't tell you how long the cycle's going to last. But the overcapacity will get reconciled. If we didn't have Qwest fighting for its life and MCI fighting for its life, prices would stabilize.

(more in extended entry...read on, it's a fun one)

You're leaving the residential business because the government let stand an FCC ruling that favored the Baby Bells. What do you wish the government would do?

The telecom industry for 14 years had no policy. AT&T wrote its own divestiture accord and came up with this idea to separate local and long distance -- in order for AT&T to compete with IBM (IBM) in the computer business. I mean, that was the thesis: "We want to keep Western Electric because the future is computers."

That didn't work out so well.

The way I look at it is, you can't keep changing your mind, right? Now I'm not even going to try to argue more regulation or less regulation. I'm not going to try to outguess the next sitting chairman of the FCC or the next president. I have to make decisions that last through administrations.

So what do you think of FCC chairman Michael Powell? He's prone to saying that regulation is not needed, as technology solves the market's problems.

Michael Powell is a smart guy, but he has an aspirational model for competition that most Americans can't take advantage of. If you really want to be just super-ass generous, 4 million people today buy local telephone service from a cable company or a VOIP provider. But 20 million people once bought service on phone lines leased from the Baby Bells.

So when you decided to stop marketing traditional residential service, those customers lost.

I have an amazing ability to produce long-distance minutes, but I don't own a local network. If I don't have access to the Bells' network on a cost-effective basis, how am I going to provide local service in the short term? Powell's answer is, Go do broadband over power line, or go do Wi-Max. I say, "OK, great, how much will it cost? Can I get the approvals? Can I relocate the ham-radio operators?"

If I went out tomorrow and said, "You know what, I'm going to be a real man. I'm wiring L.A. Tomorrow the backhoes are showing up; we're going to do it," how long do you think it would take me? Ten years!

Yet with CallVantage, your new VOIP product, and recent announcements about a new wireless business, it doesn't sound like you're leaving the consumer marketplace.

We have a great brand. The question is, Can that brand work for other people? Look at how Intel's (INTC) brand, for example, helps Dell (DELL). Today we carry more than 50 percent of the wireless industry's long-distance minutes, between T-Mobile, Verizon, Cingular, and guys like that. The consumer doesn't know he's using AT&T, but we carry the traffic. I think in VOIP we have the same kind of opportunity.

And while AT&T spun off its wireless business, you now have a deal where Sprint will be the network provider for a new AT&T-branded wireless service.

This is opportunism. Day one after the Cingular deal closes, I can start selling the AT&T Wireless (AWE) name again. There are 22 million consumers who made an affirmative decision to buy something from AT&T Wireless. Virgin Mobile is a reseller of Sprint's network. They pioneered the concept of taking a brand that works and applying it to wireless. We think there's a segment of the marketplace that will pick an AT&T-branded product.

Like Virgin, you can build a business on Sprint's network.

Eureka!

Are you getting credit for that plan yet in your stock price?

We're getting zero. We haven't given the Street details.

Let's step back a second and review how you ended up running AT&T. As I recall, you got this job by asking your board to shut down Concert, a joint venture between AT&T and British Telecom you were running.

They had committed to doing an IPO to finance the business. AT&T and BT were very distracted. My point was, "Look, if you're not going to do this, we're better off not going any further." I was prepared just to walk away. That's when Armstrong said, "I've got these other problems …"

But when you took the AT&T job, you had to believe you were going to be running a massive cable/telephone play. Now you've got less debt but also fewer companies.

Armstrong believed that he could accomplish a complete remake of AT&T. He had the right pieces, but it needed to be managed better. He largely kept wireless, cable, consumer, and business as separate operating entities. To me the great value was consolidating the consumer franchise, having one place where you sold it all. A bundled set of assets, the magic five: local, long distance, high-speed data, wireless, and video.

So do you wish the cable divestiture hadn't happened?

Well, I wish that wireless hadn't happened more, because wireless I think was more central to the core business. But I'd love to have had both of them.

Why, in the end, did AT&T sell off wireless and cable?

By the summer of 2000, Chuck Noski, the CFO, had pretty much pegged it: We cannot finance these three businesses with $65 billion in debt. We had $5 billion of interest expense. Coming up on 2001, MCI was starting to shudder, the whole bubble had burst. It was getting ugly. In October, AT&T said, "We're going to break the company up."

So you knew what you were getting into.

We were going to IPO the wireless business -- it wasn't clear that we were going to spin it off. And cable, we said, we will probably IPO in another year. I think in Armstrong's mind it meant that he could still keep it together. Then, of course, Brian Roberts did his bear hug.

What's your view of Comcast? You're partners now, right?

We have a marketing agreement selling cable voice-over-IP. It has proven to be a fairly good operator in an environment that is changing dramatically. The wild cards of Dish Network and Rupert Murdoch's DirecTV, the telcos overbuilding, downloads from the Internet, the DVR -- all of that is dramatically changing its core video business.

Why should I keep giving $115 a month to Comcast if I can download video to my TiVo over broadband, right?

I think you're right, in the long term. And Murdoch's launching more satellites and completely transforming the viewing experience with all kinds of camera angles. The cable guys fear Murdoch. He has an inverse model to theirs -- maximize content value, make others pay highly.

Cable has built its defensibility on a gatekeeper model: "We own the path video takes to the home."

Absolutely. And the cable model is forever altered by new distribution mechanisms for content owners who have every incentive to give you different ways to get to them.

The same goes for the Baby Bells as well, right?

Yes. Ultimately they have to own broadband to your house. When they lose it to cable, it's really tough to get it back, and that's the reason they're selling DSL cheaper and cheaper. If they don't win this, they lose it all.

And what about you? Will you go after cable's business again? When video-over-IP becomes a reality, perhaps?

We're an application-hosting business. We have giant servers and giant storage. We're clearly capable of delivering video over our network; we're doing it now.

To finish, let's do a little exercise. I'll say a word and you give me the first thought that comes to your head. OK?

Sure.

OK. Skype.

Disruptive technology.

Lucent.

Tough hand.

The government.

Impedance.

Baby Bells.

Monopolists.

The Internet.

The universe.

The telecom industry.

Perfect storm.

John Battelle is program chair of the Web 2.0 conference and author of "The Search" (Portfolio, 2005).

Find this article at http://www.business2.com/b2/subscribers/articles/0,17863,710051,00.html

©2004 Business 2.0 Media Inc. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

• Posted by John Battelle at 2:16 PM
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KeyGoog Update: Hanke speaks

Just off the phone with John Hanke, former CEO of Keyhole, now GM of the Keyhole unit of Google. We spoke about the implications of Keyhole's acquisition. A few things stand out.

First and foremost, Keyhole is in the Holy Crap That's A Lot of Data business - that alone is reason for Google to be interested. Their database stands at 12 terabytes and growing. It covers more than 50 percent of the earth's population, and includes satellite imagery, mapping data, topographic overlays, and, pay attention here, geolocation-based content tags. In fact, in his presentation at Web 2.0, Hanke showed an application, which he called geoblogging, which allows folks to fly around Keyhole's data and annotate various things they see. "They identify a spot, then talk about it, upload pictures they took there, whatever," Hanke told me. "That then becomes an icon, a point in the Keyhole database" that others can view and comment upon. (Want to check it out? Head here.)

The idea is to bring the Force of the Many and the Architecture of Participation(caveat, PDF download) to a visualization of the earth. Jaw dropping yet? But wait, there's more. Hanke also showed the overlay of real time traffic information from third party sources, like the CalTrans traffic feed. Mapping data to geography will allow for multitudes of such applications. Imagine Google scaling Keyhole to all web surfers for free, and then opening up the APIs for all to develop on.

Yowza.

Hanke told me that when he started Keyhole he and his team had a dream of building a revolutionary product that "touched millions and millions of people." Reality intervened as the bubble burst and resources became dear. But with Google now in the picture, that dream is once again alive, Hanke says. "We could have remained an independent company," he told me. "But the power of the Google brand, the infrastructure..." Not to mention, Hanke added, Google's mission, which fits nicely with Keyhole's.

Will Google let Hanke realize his dream, and keep doing all the cools things Keyhole was attempting to do? I asked Hanke if it'd be a fair assumption to make that he'd only sell his company to someone who shared his passions and his dreams. His response? Yup, that's a fair assumption.

NB: Gary notes in his post that there are other players in this field, notably TerraFly. Take note, Yahoo....

Hat tip: Jeremy for blogging the conference, thanks.

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:56 AM
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Yahoo Mobilizes

Yahoo announced a "new suite of services for the mobile user" today. More details, head here.
Release is in extended entry.

Yahoo! Search Goes Mobile

to Help Consumers Find Local Information, Images and Resources Whenever and Wherever They Want

Yahoo! is Combining its Leading Search Technology and Mobile Internet Expertise

to Deliver a Unique Search Solution for Consumers on the Go

San Francisco, CA – October 27, 2004 – Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO), a leading global Internet company, announced the debut of a new suite of search services for mobile users at the CTIA conference today.  As part of Yahoo!’s commitment to extending its leading services beyond the desktop, this new search offering enables mobile consumers to search for local information, images and Web resources on mobile devices. The service launches today on Yahoo!’s wireless Internet portal on several major carriers across the United States.

“The launch of Yahoo! Search for Mobile is a crucial step in providing consumers with a new and powerful point of access to our search products,” said Dan Rosensweig, chief operating officer for Yahoo! Inc.  “With the launch of Yahoo! Search for Mobile devices, we’ve taken our expertise in providing mobile Internet services and our Yahoo! Search Technology, and combined that with our understanding of consumer’s wants and needs.  We are empowering consumers to get what they want, how they want it, when they want it and where they want it.”

Take Yahoo! Search with You
Yahoo! Search (search.yahoo.com) has created a new mobile Web search experience for consumers, on multiple devices and across multiple networks, that is easy to use, and presented in a full-color, graphical way. Yahoo! Search now brings relevant, comprehensive and useful information to the mobile environment for consumers on the go. Consumers can get started using the service on a data-enabled mobile device by going to Yahoo!’s Mobile Internet site or simply typing in mobile.yahoo.com. For more information on carrier and device availability from the desktop go to http://mobile.yahoo.com. Key features of the new mobile search include:

Yahoo! Local
▪ Local information about businesses across the country – from the Web’s the No. 1 destination for people looking for local information online
▪ Everything from restaurants to dry cleaners – including business name, address, phone number and a full-color map with driving directions.
▪ Access to saved and recently used locations from desktop and ability to directly place a call from the search results page
▪ Professional and community generated ratings

Yahoo! Image search
▪ Search for and view thumbnails of more than one billion images

Yahoo! Web search
▪ Access to relevant and comprehensive search results powered by Yahoo! Search Technology (available only on html capable mobile devices)
▪ “Search Shortcuts” that enable quick access to information, including weather, stock quotes, sport scores, flight information and more. For example, consumers can search for the latest score on a baseball game by typing in a team name and the word score, and the first result will be an updated score of the current game along with the time left in the game.

Extending Yahoo! Beyond the Desktop
Through Yahoo! Mobile, Yahoo! focuses on extending key Yahoo! services beyond the desktop, providing an integrated PC-to-Mobile experience and making the most of the mobile environment. As the number of mobile consumers continues to grow rapidly, Yahoo! Mobile has rolled out mobile extensions of key services in the past year such as Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Photos, across multiple carriers. Yahoo! continues to improve and innovate on its offerings for mobile consumers and works closely with the major mobile carrier partners to deliver these to the widest possible audience.

“Yahoo! is committed to partnering with carriers to give consumers the most robust and integrated Internet services across mobile devices,” said Doug Garland, senior vice president, Yahoo! Mobile. “By bringing together our strong consumer relationships and knowledge with our deep experience in successfully developing mobile services that integrate the desktop experience we have built truly differentiated and relevant mobile search experience.”

About Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is a leading provider of comprehensive online products and services to consumers and businesses worldwide. Yahoo! is the No. 1 Internet brand globally and the most trafficked Internet destination worldwide. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Yahoo!'s global network includes 25 world properties and is available in 13 languages.

# # #

Yahoo! and the Yahoo! logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Yahoo! Inc.

All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners

Contacts:
Yahoo! Inc.
Nicole Leverich, 408-349-5583
nicolelw@yahoo-inc.com

Fleishman-Hillard for Yahoo! Inc.
Tara Kirchner, 415-318-4121
kirchnet@fleishman.com

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:03 AM
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Google Buys Keyhhole: Mapping Ho

One of the most jaw dropping presentations at Web 2.0 was by the folks at Keyhole, who have some amazing technology for manipulating satellite images of the earth. The images are incredible, but the implications of their tech is what makes your jaw drop. In short, the application seems to turn the world into a searchable visualization. Hmmm.

Today, Google purchased them. More soon. Release in extended entry.

Google Acquires Keyhole Corp

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - October 27, 2004 - Google Inc. (Nasdaq:
GOOG) today announced it acquired Keyhole Corp., a Mountain View,
Calif.-based digital mapping company.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"With Keyhole, you can fly like a superhero from your computer at
home to a street corner somewhere else in the world - or find a
local hospital, map a road trip or measure the distance between two
points," said Jonathan Rosenberg, vice president, Product
Management. "This acquisition gives Google users a powerful new
search tool, enabling users to view 3D images of any place on earth
as well as tap a rich database of roads, businesses and many other
points of interest. Keyhole is a valuable addition to Google's
efforts to organize the world's information and make it universally
accessible and useful."

With an Internet connection, users enter an address or other
location information and Keyhole's software accesses the database
and takes them to a digital image of that location on their computer
screen. The interactive software then gives users many options,
including the ability to zoom in from space-level to street-level,
tilt and rotate the view or search for other information such as
hotels, parks, ATMs or subways. Unlike traditional mapping
technologies, Keyhole creates a dynamic 3D interface for geographic
information.

Keyhole's technology combines a multi-terabyte database of mapping
information and images collected from satellites and airplanes with
easy-to-use software.

Google also announced, effective immediately, a price reduction for
Keyhole 2 LT from $69.95 to $29.95.

Keyhole was founded in 2001. Keyhole customers include consumers,
large and small businesses and public agencies. Current Keyhole
users will benefit from the expanded resources and operational scale
made possible by the integration into Google. Their service will
continue uninterrupted.

For a free, seven-day trial of Keyhole, please go to www.keyhole.com.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:50 AM
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Gary Finds MSN Interface

The inestimable Gary Price noodled around the MSN search preview site and found something he probably wasn't supposed to. The page has since been taken down, but Gary has screen shots (here and here too) and a summary of the MSN search interface he found there. Good work Gary!

...what I found most interesting, an option to use three "sliders" to manipulate the ranking of pages. In other words, add or reduce the weight of certain ranking factors. Some might even call it personalization since the results I see might be different than the ones someone else views for the identical search.
The sliders are labeled:
+ Updated recently--Static
+ Very popular--Less popular
+ Approximate match--Exact match

• Posted by John Battelle at 3:59 PM
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Meeker on Digital World: Blogs, Yahoo Are Winners

Sure, Mary Meeker raised her target on GOOG recently, which her company Morgan Stanley helped take public, but she's seen the future of search, and there's a lot of blogging in it. From her October "Update on the Digital World" (caveat: PDF download):

The Internet has become a leading source for news and information over the past decade, but we believe the emerging acceptance (by users and publishers) of Web content syndication services will drive even broader / deeper usage of the Internet as an increasingly relevant news and information medium. We see three factors that are combining to drive momentum: 1) rising usage of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) by content providers as a standard distribution platform for online content; 2) ramp in the creation of blogs and other user-generated content; and 3) Yahoo!’s easy-to-use integration of RSS feeds (including blogs) that was rolled out in beta to its distribution channel of 25MM+ My Yahoo! users in late September.

While Google’s search engine and advertising tools set the pace for new ways of searching information, we believe that Yahoo! may be setting the pace for new ways of serving information...

It usually takes years for new technologies to develop. Then, a very easy-to-use way to use the technology is launched and—seemingly overnight—related products become mainstream. Two recent examples include the Web browser, which brought the Internet to the masses, and the Apple iPod, which is doing the same with digital music. Today, this type of mainstream push for delivering syndicated news and information to consumers may be driven by Yahoo!’s newly redesigned My Yahoo! personal page...

....In our experience, if there is value in something that is also easy / friendly to use, people will use it. Consider iTunes for legal music downloads or TiVo for digital video recordings—in both cases, a clean interface and intuitive controls spurred adoption. The simplification of blogging tools, such as those offered by Blogger.com, has allowed anyone with an opinion and an Internet connection to become a publisher, journalist, and editor (our humble definition of a blogger)...Despite all the noise and random content in blogs, many bloggers have become sources for breaking news, fresh ideas, and expert commentary....

...And if there are hundreds or thousands of thought leaders and motivated, interested parties on the Internet with the ability to publish news or insights into any number of local or global issues, then it is safe to say that these blogs often become both the first source of news, a vital proving ground for authors and a source of potential community for other interested parties. For example, you’re probably going to get far more Boston Red Sox specific-content from a blog about the Red Sox made by a die-hard fan than you will from a random sports page, especially if you’re after opinions and community.

Mary then goes on to note that with blogs, the Power of the Tail comes into play (see Tim and my presentation regarding this and other trends at Web 2.0):

The mainstreaming of Web syndication technology such as RSS through easy-to-use and popular services such as My Yahoo! could create a new business model / revenue stream for companies such as Yahoo!, as well as independent freelance Web journalists / content providers. We believe that blogs represent the traditionally hard-tomonetize tail of content, and the barriers to monetization are slowly being overcome. ... By integrating blogs with search, and by making it easy for end-users to find and add blogs, Yahoo! is playing a key role in driving blog readership and RSS usage among endusers.

Meeker then shows us another chart, which makes the "more music, less Britney" point:

This is another way of saying that the internet lets thousands of "bands" flourish, each supported by their own economies of scale.

Which is why I'm interested in and excited by Feedburner, Kanoodle, AdBrite (recently renamed from MarketBanker), and the like. In her report, Mary talks a bit about the potential for all this to mean money to someone (after all, she's a Wall St. analyst) and she concludes:

We believe syndication technology is one of the tools that through a virtuous cycle should propel Internet leaders such as Yahoo! further into the forefront of all media, albeit slowly and steadily. High-quality, unique, and cutting-edge content is critical for the growth of any medium. We believe advertising and fees for syndicated content present a potential business opportunity for the Internet leaders and content providers.
...We would like to think that the popularization of syndicated content could further fulfill some promise of an engaging, useful and vibrant user-generated medium on the Internet. This does not suggest the endof mass media, either broadcast or narrowcast, but it could represent significant changes in consumption andmonetization. If the Internet is a marketplace of ideas, then the best ideas should float to the top, with traditional mass media perhaps serving as a tool for legitimizing/establishing discourse. The driver for Yahoo!, eBay, Google, Microsoft and Amazon.com’s Internet successes has been their never-ending quest tocreate the perfect, seamless user experience—in other words, they do right by their users. What open syndication shows is that by doing right by their users and independent publishers, they also have the potential ability to do right by investors, in our view.

I think Mary outlines trends in this space well, her report is a must read for all of you interested in the business implications of blogging. Her conclusion: This blogging thing, it got legs. And that's a fine way to end my 1,000th post here on Searchblog.

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:34 AM
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The Rule of Ten

Caveat: Totally off topic (sort of).

For some reason, I grow uneasy if I have more than ten emails unanswered in my inbox. I'll stay at my computer late, I'll forego creature comforts, if it means I can get the message queue down to ten or less before I sleep.

Lately this has become difficult, as the number of fun and/or important time requests, or reads/groks/responds, or emails that force other actions have risen to the point where my inbox often demands more of me than I can reasonably give.

A quick spin through my inbox reveals: A great paper to read from a colleague; I can't respond to him till I read it, so it stays in my queue. There's an appointment to book when I next go to New York, and a Very Important Person who's emailed me wondering if we're on. But I can't confirm till I get an email from someone else, so...it stays in the queue. A voicemail from another New Yorker (I get vmail as email, thanks to VOIP), which I can't delete till I call them back, and it's too late to call, so the email stays in the queue. There's an invitation to a breakfast panel, but I am attempting to limit my time now, as it's All About the Book. Still, the person asking is great, and I would very much like to be in the company of smart people, it always proves fun and worth the time. I can't make up my mind, so ... the email stays in the queue. There are three comments from smart Searchbloggers, each with valid and interesting points which merit followup, but they require that I think, and think judiciously, and it's late, and my kids are home so... their email stays in the queue. And so on. I'm down to 15, but I can't seem to kill the last five....

Am I insane? Does anyone else manage their life this way? More to the point... does anyone have a better way?

PS - This is post #999 of Searchblog. Cool!

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:35 PM
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Is The Google IPO Rubbing Off?

Or is Shopping.com going to pop on its own accord? It priced at the top of the range today...and will trade shortly. Lead underwriter: Goldman. Ticker symbol: SHOP.

Shopping.com's IPO priced 6.87 million shares at $18 per share, the underwriter said. Earlier in the day, the company raised the expected price range of the offering to $16 to $18 per share from $14 to $16 per share.

Note that back in March, when they filed (wow, back in March!) I pegged this as a search IPO....

More on the IPO at IPOHome:

Shopping.com is the largest online comparison and consumer reviews shopping service in the U.S. with more than 20 million users per month. It is also the fourth largest online shopping destination behind only eBay (EBAY), Amazon (AMZN) and Yahoo!, and it now comes to market with a track record of growth and earnings. Over the last three years, annual revenue increased from $13 million in 2001 to $67 million in 2003. More importantly, losses have turned into earnings with 2003 marking its first full year of profitability both on a GAAP and proforma basis. For the twelve months ended June 30 2004, the company generated almost $16 million in operating cash flow (or EBITDA) on $84 million in total revenue.

Also: Hoovers and Gary.

It will be very interesting to see if this pops like GOOG did. If it does, I'd warrant it's frustrated wanna be GOOG investors, who didn't get in on that gravy train, jumping on this one... just in case. This does not feel right to me. On the other hand, it feels...familiar.

UPDATE: It popped, yup it did.

• Posted by John Battelle at 6:20 PM
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The GooBrowser Won't Die

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, says they won't build a browser.

But still some Slashdotters see a browser under Google's bed, after grokking this Mozillanews.org story. What if...well...what if they don't build a browser, but rather, well, lease one from Mozilla?

The juicy bits:

...after weeks of analysis, this is where we think Gbrowser is headed.

The overlap is looking like a Google branded and customized Firefox based browser. To help set it apart from the rest of the browser crowd, they're integrating a lot of their own technologies. Since Firefox does not contain a mail app, they're integrating Gmail for email access, with a built in new-mail notifier. Interestingly, mailto: urls will work with Gmail, allowing peple to click email links in pages and have Gmail open a new mail to that address, as well as IE-like buttons on the toolbar for composing new mail from scratch.

Newsgroups will be built in similar to Gmail with the Google Groups service, and possibly the ability to select groups to watch, like in a full fledged newsreader (like Mozilla Thunderbird). And Google News will also have built in access from the browser along with Google Alerts or a similar, RSS-based feature.

Other features include better search integration, with the extra features such as Image Searching by right clicking on an image or selected word. As Silicon.com found there is also a Google branded IM service on the way as well, and could be a Jabber or rebranded AIM also coming bundled with the browser.

There are other, extra-browser features that will most likely come with it, and tie into the browser, such as Google Desktop Search, Picasa (with links to the browser for web-related sharing, searching, etc.), and Google Toolbar features that IE users currently enjoy...

• Posted by John Battelle at 4:56 PM
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Yahacrobat

Yahoo and Adobe announced a partnership to incorporate Yahoo search into Adobe products. The most important part of this? What SEW Blog noted Tim Cadogan saying in the AP Story:

For San Jose-based Adobe, the partnership will add online features to one of the software maker's core products, Acrobat. The program is used by more than 500 million people and has become a common format for viewing documents over the Web and in e-mail attachments.

Under the deal, Adobe will first introduce a cobranded Yahoo browser toolbar that users can choose to install on their computers when prompted to download an update of Acrobat Reader. The toolbar an increasingly popular method of online search engines to stay constantly visible on a user's Internet browser will feature links to Yahoo products and services as well as Adobe's Web-based subscription service that lets people convert documents into the Adobe PDF file format.
Later, the companies said, the toolbar will add features such as the ability to quickly convert Web-based content into Adobe PDF files. Yahoo search will also be built into a future version of the Acrobat Reader, allowing users to search for more information from within the document without going through the extra steps of launching a Web browser.

"We call it being available at the point of inspiration," said Tim Cadogan, Yahoo's vice president of search.

In other words, search is breaking out of its box, so to speak, and moving into applications far and wide. This will not be the last such announcement you hear in this vein.

Hat tip: SEWBlog.

• Posted by John Battelle at 4:39 PM
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Hey Yahoo: Ours Is Bigger

CBSMW: Google market cap is now larger than Yahoo's.

Hat tip: Andy.

• Posted by John Battelle at 4:33 PM
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Playing With Feedburner

Many of you may recall my comments in the past about RSS and business models, I've brought the topic up a lot over the past few months. More than half of many blogs' traffic comes from RSS, and most of that traffic is blind - we don't know who is reading or why, or how much. Also, unless you stick ad postings onto your site (a practice I'm not really into), none of that traffic sees your sponsors or advertising, should you have any. Net net, not a great business model for serious publishers.

Feedburner is an application that promises to change at least some of that. (Dick Costolo, the CEO, had been a prince helping me set it up. He's the guy who co-led our RSS Business Models workshop at Web 2.0). I'm playing with it starting this weekend. For every second post over 50 words, Feedburner will burn in an Amazon advertisement. If anyone actually buys something from clicking on those ads, I get a few coppers in my affiliate account. Loyal Searchblog RSS readers don't have do do anything to see this new feature, it happens automatically.

Again, as with the advertising on the upper right of the site itself, I am not doing this to get rich (any profits made will be given to schools), but to learn about the options and get smarter on the whole new ecosystem. It won't be long, I predict, before Feedburner and services like it start rolling Overture-like ads into feeds. Then, perhaps, we can change this lame "headlines and summaries only" RSS approach taken by most of the mainstream publishers.

So, feed on, and let me know what you think of the service, and if there are any problems with it. I think the approach of affiliate PPS (Pay Per Sale) is interesting, and we'll see if it pans out.

• Posted by John Battelle at 12:07 PM
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MSFT: Oh No, You Don't...

MSFT will soon launch its own desktop search tool, thank you very much.

Hat tip: SEW Blog.

BTW: There's much afoot in the developer community, banging on the GDS. Very interesting.

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:17 AM
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Friday Sketching: TV and Search Merge

As I've promised in the past, from time to time I will test your collective patience by running some sketches up the flagpole and seeing what you all have to say. So this post will be a bit longer than usual, but I'm trying to imagine a scenario where search's business model infects television, and for whatever reason the Google Desktop application gave me an idea as to how. So here goes (remember, this is a *future* scenario)....

Compared to the unpredictable and untraceable value of a magazine ad or television spot, search looks pretty damn compelling. But at the end of the day, three lines of text sitting next to a set of results is a pretty meager way to declare your brand or inform a consumer about your new products or services. Clearly, there is room for both kinds of advertising – intent-based (search), and content-based (TV). But what if the two were to merge?

Before you dismiss the idea as mere speculation, let me lay out a scenario in which such a beast exists. First, imagine that a majority of households have a digital video recorder of one kind or another (such an event is predicted to occur by the year 2009, according to Forrestor). Further, imagine that this DVR has a “search history” of everything you’ve watched and are planning to watch (this is already done by most DVRs). Further still, imagine that this history is – with your tacit approval - blended with an edited profile of your online searching habits, forging a marketing precise of your likes and dislikes, your wants and needs (doing this is a matter of a marketing deal between DVR providers and search engines). Perhaps you use Google Desktop Search, or A9, or Ask, or Yahoo - it matters little, all of them create a search history already.

Now, let’s set this scenario in motion. Let’s say you are a young father to be (as I’ve been a few times). It’s 9 pm and your wife has settled, uncomfortably, onto the living room couch. Clearing her throat, she politely reminds you that you’ve been a bit distant lately, that you haven’t done a hell of a lot to help her around the house. You cringe. She continues: she’s eight months pregnant, for God’s sake, and when are you going to get around to reading that copy of “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” that she’s left none to subtly in your briefcase six months ago?

Now, you’re in your den, avoiding dealing with the sheer terror of becoming a father by checking your email for the tenth time in so many minutes, but a pang of guilt finally reaches your venal heart. So you start searching the web, trying to get smart quick. You Google “pregnancy baby” and head to the first link, Babycenter.com, where you read up on the eighth month. You then find a link to an article that lists ten things you can do to be a better husband. The fourth suggestions reminds you to read the books your wife has purchased, so you head to Amazon and buy another copy of What to Expect…, as you left the one your wife gave you next to the Gideon bible on your last business trip.

“I’ll read it, I promise,” you tell your wife, and then add – “I’m on Babycenter right now, in fact.” Pleasantly startled, your wife springs off the sofa – well, lumbers, perhaps – and peers over your shoulder. In a flash of inspiration, you intuit that there might be something you could watch together on TV that relates to the whole parenting thing. “Let’s see if there’s anything on TV that might be good,” you say.

You click over to your Tivo homepage, which lets you manage your television service much as you manage your weblog reading – through a search-based interface. You search on “parent childbirth newborn” or somesuch and find that there are five shows in the next week that focus on the course of pregnancy, three of which are on the Learning Channel. You tell Tivo to record them all, noting that the first one will be available to download tonight, in half an hour, no less.

In the background of your computer, as you jump from site to site and page to page, several marketing-related actions are occurring. A cookie previously set by your local cable company notes that you’ve visited several sites that trigger “marketing potentials” – Amazon.com, Tivo.com, and Babycenter.com, all sites that indicate significant intent to purchase products or services. You’ve also alerted the system that you intend to download five new programs, and the system takes note of content tags associated with those programs, cross referencing them with your recent search history.

The cable cookie shares this information with a marketing application running in the background of your computer, perhaps as part of that Google Desktop Search program you recently downloaded. Alerted by the marketing potential that your recent surfing has created, GDS instantly uploads these potentials as database entries in Google’s central advertising marketplace – a marketplace that looks and works an awful lot like AdWords works right now.

Up on Google’s ad marketplace, millions of similar entries are aggregated and presented to hundreds of thousands of advertisers for sale in a computer-mediated real time auction. Most of those advertisers have preset their spending levels, demographic preferences, and most importantly, intent-based targeting profiles. In the time it takes for an average Google search to complete – less than a second – three advertisements have already been sold against each of the five programs you’ve selected.

Half an hour later, you and your wife turn on your television to catch the Learning Channel show. As it starts, a small box appears on the bottom of the screen, alerting you to several advertisements that have appeared in your programming feed. You know that should you decide to watch them, your local cable bill will be reduced by a buck or so (or, alternatively, you’ve selected the programming option that gives you free cable, but requires that you review ads at preset intervals). No matter, that’s not really the reason you might want to pause the show and check out the ads. Turns out, you rather like watching them, as they are often extremely relevant to your wants and needs, not to mention informative, linked as they are to robust websites and interactive features. So you pause the show, hit the ads button, and scan the commercials. Only, they’re not just commercials, they’re offers as well. The first is from Gerber for a free month’s supply of formula (pass, you and your wife have agreed that breast feeding is the way to go). Next up is a Pampers ad offering a free box of diapers (sure, why not, you accept that one, click the box which allows the system to send your details to the Pampers marketing machine). Then comes the killer ad: “Click here for $50 off a Peg Perego Stroller. Ships in 24 hours!” Huh, you think to yourself. That’s the one my wife said was the “Mercedes of strollers.” Maybe I can afford one after all.

“Sweetheart,” you ask her, “What do you think, should we go for it?” Her eyes light up (you had said no to this exact request twice - $300 for a f*cking stroller?!! – were your exact words) and you click to accept the offer. Your wife snuggles into your side, pleased that for once, her husband actually gets it. You return to the program, and…scene!

Is such a scenario possible? While the details will inevitably vary, I honestly think this scenario is not only plausible, it’s inevitable. And it is the infrastructure of paid search as we understand it today, coupled with tiny desktop apps like GDS - that will make it happen.

• Posted by John Battelle at 4:27 PM
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Google Opens In MSFT Backyard

Via Greg. Expect a MSFT search office in the Valley soon.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:54 AM
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GOOG: Up 24 points and Rising

Sure, the earnings were great. But a 24 point jump in morning trading? This is starting to feel bubbly.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:42 AM
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Yahoo Buys Stata

Old news, but much happens when you leave your keyboard for half a day to venture into the real world. Yesterday Yahoo bought Stata Labs, which I've written about here and here.

You may recall my conversation with Raymie Stata:

"I see search as falling behind," Stata told me. "So much is accessible now." He continued: "I don't see how traditional search - crawl, take a 2.5 word query, and display ten results - can get much better."

Our conversation focused on what search might teach us as we think about a post-Windows interface. Now Yahoo is clearly thinking about this as well (Google sure is). Seems to me this was a person and technology acquisition, rather than a product one. Yahoo does not plan to support the Bloomba product past next year.

Ross has more, as does Jeremy.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:35 AM
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GOOG Earnings

I'll be away in meetings when GOOG reports earnings, but if it's after 1.30 PST, click here and here for details....webcast can be found here. Stock is up to nearly 150 on anticipation. Yikes.

Update: Press release in extended entry.

Google Announces Record Revenues for Third Quarter 2004
Company Reports Revenues of $805.9 Million, up 105 Percent Year over
Year in First Post-IPO Quarter

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Oct. 21, 2004--Google Inc. (Nasdaq:GOOG)
today announced financial results for the quarter ended Sept.
30, 2004.

- Google reported record revenues of $805.9 million for the quarter
ended Sept. 30, 2004, up 105 percent year over year.

- Income from operations, on a GAAP basis, was $11.1 million, or 1.4
percent of revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2004 compared to
$66.6 million or 16.9 percent of revenue for the prior year's
quarter. Income from operations includes the effects of a non-
recurring, non-cash charge of $201.0 million related to the
previously announced settlement of warrant and patent disputes with
Yahoo! Inc.

- Without this non-recurring charge, Google would have realized
income from operations of $212.1 million or 26.3 percent of
revenues for the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2004, compared to $66.6
million or 16.9 percent of revenues in the prior year's quarter.
Income from operations includes a $68.0 million non-cash stock-based
compensation charge compared to a $73.8 million non-cash, stock-
based compensation charge in the prior year's quarter.

- Net income on a GAAP basis in the third quarter of 2004 was $52.0
million or $0.19 per share on a diluted basis. Net income before
certain non-recurring items was $125.0 million or $0.45 per share on
a diluted basis. The non-recurring items are the settlement charge
and its associated tax benefit, as well as a reduction to our
provision for income taxes related to certain stock-based
compensation charges recognized prior to the IPO.

- Net cash provided by operating activities for the nine months
ended Sept. 30, 2004 totaled $608.9 million as compared to $308.9
million last year during the same period, an increase of 97.1
percent.

- Adjusted EBITDA, another liquidity measure, increased by
approximately $44 million or 16 percent to $321 million (or 40
percent of revenues) in Q3 from $278 million (or 40 percent of
revenues) in Q2.

"We are very pleased with the results of this quarter. Record
revenues, robust margins and cash generation all illustrated strong
performance and execution over the last quarter," said Eric Schmidt,
Google chief executive officer. "Our commitment to users and to the
development of quality products and services for them clearly
translated into robust financial results. That dedication to our
users, combined with our relentless technology innovation and market
opportunity make us very optimistic about our company's future."

Financial Highlights

Revenue - Revenue in the quarter totaled a record $805.9 million,
representing a 15 percent increase over the second quarter of 2004
and a 105 percent year-over-year gain. This revenue growth reflects
strong traffic and monetization growth in the quarter as well as
advertisers' growing recognition of the Internet as an effective
advertising medium.

Google-Sites Revenue - Google-owned sites generated $411.7 million
or 51 percent of total revenue. This represents an increase of 99
percent over the third quarter of 2003.

The Google Network - Revenue generated on Google's partner sites,
through AdSense programs, contributed $384.3 million, or 48 percent
of total revenue, a 120 percent increase over the Network revenue
generated in the same quarter last year.

TAC - Traffic Acquisition Costs or the portion of revenue shared
with Google's partners increased to $302.9 million or 79 percent of
Google Network revenue. This compares to total payments to partners
of $143.5 million in the third quarter of 2003, or 82 percent of
Google Network revenue.

Income from operations - Income from operations in the quarter, on a
GAAP basis, totaled $11.1 million or 1.4 percent of revenue, and
included a non-cash charge of $68.0 million for stock-based
compensation as well as a non-cash, non-recurring charge of $201.0
million associated with the previously announced settlement of
disputes with Yahoo. Without the non-recurring charge, income from
operations would have been $212.1 million, or 26.3 percent of
revenues as compared to $66.6 million or 16.9 percent of revenue in
the same period of 2003. This improvement in operating margins,
before the settlement of disputes with Yahoo, was primarily due to
proportionately lower advertising revenue from Google Network
members' sites, which resulted in lower traffic acquisition cost as
a percentage of total revenue. A lower stock-based compensation
charge, on a percentage basis, also contributed to the improvement.

Income Taxes - Google recorded a net income tax benefit of $37.0
million on its income statement in the third quarter compared to a
$90.4 million provision for income taxes and a 53 percent effective
tax rate last quarter, primarily as a result of a $46.0 million
benefit recorded in the third quarter against the provision for
income taxes related to certain stock-based compensation charges
recognized prior to the IPO. This tax benefit was recorded as a
result of our transformation from a private to a public company.

Net Income - Net income on a GAAP basis increased to $52.0 million
or 6.5 percent of revenues in the third quarter as compared to $20.4
million or 5.2 percent of revenue in the third quarter of 2003.
Earnings on a diluted per share basis were $0.19 as compared to
$0.08 in the third quarter of 2003. Net income included the after
tax effect of the non-cash and non-recurring settlement charge of
$119.0 million and a tax benefit of $46.0 million related to certain
stock-based compensation charges recognized prior to the IPO. Net
income before these non-recurring items was $125.0 million, or $0.45
per share.

Operating and Free Cash Flow - Net cash provided by operating
activities totaled $608.9 million for the nine months ended Sept.
30, 2004. Free cash flow is an alternative measure of liquidity to
GAAP net cash provided by operating activities and is calculated as
operating cash flows less capital expenditures. Free cash flow for
the nine months ended Sept. 30, 2004 totaled $349.0 million.

Adjusted EBITDA - Adjusted EBITDA is defined as EBITDA before the
non-cash stock-based compensation charge, the non-cash and non-
recurring settlement charge and in-process R&D.; It is another
alternative measure of liquidity to GAAP net cash provided by
operating activities. Adjusted EBITDA increased by approximately $44
million or 16 percent to $321 million (or 40 percent of revenues) in
the third quarter from $278 million (or 40 percent of revenues) in
the second quarter. The reconciliation of adjusted EBITDA to the
GAAP measure of liquidity, net cash provided by operating
activities, is set forth at the back of this release.

Cash - At the end of the quarter, Google had a cash, cash
equivalents and short-term investments balance of $1.86 billion.

On a worldwide basis, Google employed 2,668 full time employees as
of Sept. 30, 2004, up from 2,292 as of June 30, 2004.

Webcast and conference call information

A live audio webcast of Google's third-quarter earnings release call
will be available at http://investor.google.com/news.html. The call
begins today at 1:30 p.m. (PDT)/ 4:30 (EDT). This press release, the
financial tables as well as other supplemental information including
the reconciliations of certain non-GAAP measures to their nearest
comparable GAAP measures, are also available at that site. A replay
of the call will be available beginning at 7:30 PM EDT through
midnight Monday, Oct. 25 by calling (888) 203-1112 in the United
States or (719) 457-0820 for calls from outside the United States.
The required confirmation code for the replay is 825570.

Forward looking statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve
risks and uncertainties, including statements relating to Google's
market opportunity and future business prospects. Actual results may
differ materially from the results predicted and reported results
should not be considered as an indication of future performance.
Factors that could cause actual results to differ from the results
predicted are included in Google's quarterly reports on Form 10-Q
and from time to time in other reports filed by Google with the
Securities and Exchange Commission.

About non-GAAP financial measures.

To supplement Google's consolidated financial statements presented
in accordance with GAAP, Google uses certain non-GAAP measures of
financial performance and liquidity. These non-GAAP measures are
comprised of income from operations, net income and net income per
share before material non-recurring items, as well as free cash
flows and adjusted EBITDA. Google's management believes that income
from operations before material non-recurring items and net income
before material non-recurring items provide meaningful supplemental
information regarding the company's core operating results because
they exclude amounts that are not necessarily related to those core
results and are of a non-recurring nature. Google's management
believes that free cash flows and adjusted EBITDA provide meaningful
supplemental information regarding liquidity. Google believes that
both management and investors benefit from referring to these non-
GAAP financial measures in assessing the performance of Google's
ongoing operations and liquidity and when planning and forecasting
future periods. These non-GAAP financial measures also facilitate
management's internal comparisons to Google's historical operating
results and liquidity.

Google computes its non-GAAP financial measures using the same
consistent method from quarter to quarter and year to year. The
accompanying tables have more details on the GAAP financial measures
that are most directly comparable to non-GAAP financial measures and
the related reconciliations between these financial measures.

Google Inc.
Unaudited Consolidated Statements of Income
(In thousands, except per share amounts)

Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended
September 30, September 30,
------------------- --------------------
-
2003 2004 2003 2004
--------- --------- --------- ----------
-

Revenues $393,942 $805,887 $953,759 $2,157,722

Costs and expenses:
Cost of revenues 170,390 362,099 374,986 1,003,874
Research and development 32,774 57,409 62,771 138,190
Sales and marketing 36,575 65,512 79,164 170,193
General and administrative 13,853 40,774 36,415 87,857
Stock-based compensation
(a) 73,794 67,981 144,377 219,215
Non-recurring portion of
settlement of disputes
with Yahoo - 201,000 - 201,000
--------- --------- --------- ----------
-
Total costs and expenses 327,386 794,775 697,713 1,820,329
--------- --------- --------- ----------
-

Income from operations 66,556 11,112 256,046 337,393
Interest income (expense) and
other, net 464 3,866 1,183 2,668
--------- --------- --------- ----------
-

Income before income taxes 67,020 14,978 257,229 340,061
Provision (benefit) for
income taxes 46,594 (37,005) 178,835 145,042
--------- --------- --------- ----------
-

Net income $20,426 $51,983 $78,394 $195,019
========= ========= =========
===========

Net income per share - basic $0.14 $0.25 $0.58 $1.14
========= ========= =========
===========
Net income per share -
diluted $0.08 $0.19 $0.31 $0.73
========= ========= =========
===========

Shares used in per share
calculation - basic 141,412 205,007 134,820 170,511
========= ========= =========
===========
Shares used in per share
calculation - diluted 257,948 274,735 254,664 268,394
========= ========= =========
===========

(a) Stock-based compensation is
allocated as follows:
Cost of revenues $3,008 $1,996 $5,821 $9,618
Research and development 43,878 42,120 82,115 134,222
Sales and marketing 15,819 11,580 30,530 39,156
General and administrative 11,089 12,285 25,911 36,219
--------- --------- --------- ----------
-
$73,794 $67,981 $144,377 $219,215
========= ========= =========
===========

Google Inc.
Consolidated Balance Sheets
(In thousands)

Dec. 31, Sept.
30,
2003 2004
--------- ----------
-
(1)
(unaudited)
Assets
Current assets:
Cash and cash equivalents $148,995 $344,469
Short-term investments 185,723 1,513,887
Accounts receivable, net 154,690 233,057
Income taxes receivable - 115,070
Deferred income taxes 22,105 48,455
Prepaid revenue share, expenses and other
assets 48,721 105,273

Total current assets 560,234 2,360,211
Property and equipment, net 188,255 362,609
Goodwill 87,442 101,815
Intangible assets, net 18,114 43,660
Prepaid revenue share, expenses and other
assets, non-current 17,413 20,223

--------- ----------
-
Total assets $871,458 $2,888,518
=========
===========

Liabilities, Redeemable Convertible Preferred
Stock Warrant and Stockholders' Equity
Current liabilities:
Accounts payable 46,175 49,557
Accrued compensation and benefits 33,522 53,841
Accrued expenses and other current liabilities 26,411 44,185
Accrued revenue share 88,672 101,973
Deferred revenue 15,346 21,888
Income taxes payable 20,705 -
Current portion of equipment leases 4,621 3,026
--------- ----------
-

Total current liabilities 235,452 274,470

Long-term portion of equipment leases 1,988 63
Deferred revenue, long-term 5,014 6,344
Liabilities for stock option exercised early,
long-term 6,341 7,206
Deferred income taxes 18,510 -
Other long-term liabilities 1,512 11,412

Redeemable convertible preferred stock warrant 13,871 -

Stockholders' equity:
Convertiable preferred stock 44,346 -
Class A and Class B common stock 161 273
Additional paid-in capital 725,219 2,497,299
Note receivable from officer/stockholder (4,300) -
Deferred stock-based compensation (369,668)
(292,690)
Accumulated other comprehensive income 1,660
(2,230)
Retained earnings 191,352 386,371

Total stockholders' equity 588,770 2,589,023
--------- ----------
-
Total liabilities, redeemable convertible
preferred stock warrant and stockholders'
equity $871,458 $2,888,518
========= ===========

(1) Derived from audited financial statements

GOOGLE INC.
CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS
(in thousands)

Nine Months Ended
September 30,
--------------------
-
2003 2004
--------- ----------
-
(unaudited)
Operating activities
Net income $78,394 $195,019
Adjustments:
Depreciation and amortization of property and
equipment 28,203 85,620
Amortization of intangibles and warrants 8,975 10,393
In-process research and development 11,618 950
Stock-based compensation 144,377 219,215
Tax benefits from exercise of warrants - 144,971
Non-recurring portion of settlement of
disputes with Yahoo - 201,000
Changes in assets and liabilities, net of
effects of acquisitions:
Accounts receivable, net (54,574)
(78,361)
Income taxes, net 8,120
(182,415)
Prepaid expenses and other assets (29,156)
(54,134)
Accounts payable 35,175 3,369
Accrued expenses and other liabilities 15,545 42,148
Accrued revenue share 57,991 13,301
Deferred revenue 4,234 7,871

--------- ----------
-
Net cash provided by operating activities 308,902 608,947
--------- ----------
-

Investing activities
Purchases of property and equipment (120,310)
(259,915)
Purchases of short-term investments (105,229)
(2,877,309)
Maturities and sales of short-term investments 130,149 1,548,334
Purchases of other investments -
(4,999)
Acquisitions, net of cash acquired (39,958)
(10,833)

--------- ----------
-
Net cash used in investing activities (135,348)
(1,604,722)
--------- ----------
-

Financing activities
Proceeds from exercise of stock options, net 10,649 10,159
Proceeds from exercise of warrants - 21,944
Net proceeds from initial public offering - 1,161,446
Payment of note receivable from
officer/stockholder - 4,300
Payments of principal on capital leases and
equipment loans (6,435)
(3,521)

--------- ----------
-
Net cash provided by financing activities 4,214 1,194,328
--------- ----------
-

Effect of exchange rate changes on cash and cash
equivalents (104)
(3,079)

Net increase in cash and cash equivalents 177,664 195,474
Cash and cash equivalents, beginning of the
period 57,752 148,995
--------- ----------
-
Cash and cash equivalents, end of the period $235,416 $344,469
=========
===========

Reconciliations of non-GAAP results of operations measures to the
nearest comparable GAAP measures

The following table presents certain non-GAAP results before material
non-recurring items (in thousands, unaudited):

Three months ended September 30,
2004
-----------------------------------
-
Actual Adjustments Non-GAAP
Results
-------------------- -----------
-

Income from operations $11,112 201,000 (a) $212,112
====================
============
201,000 (a)
(82,036)(b)
(45,950)(c)
-----------
Net income $51,983 73,014 $124,997
====================
============

Net income per share - diluted $0.19 $0.45
=========
============
Shares used in per share
calculation - diluted 274,735 274,735
=========
============

Nine months ended September 30,
2004
-------------------------------
-
Actual Adjustments Non-GAAP
Results
--------- ----------- ---------
-

Income from operations $337,393 201,000 (a) $538,393
========= ========
==========
201,000 (a)
(82,036)(b)
(45,950)(c)
--------
Net income $195,019 73,014 $268,033
========= ========
==========

Net income per share - diluted $0.73 $1.00
=========
==========
Shares used in per share calculation -
diluted 268,394 268,394
=========
==========

(a) To eliminate $201.0 million of charges related to the
non-recurring portion of settlement of disputes with Yahoo.

(b) To eliminate $82.0 million of tax benefit recognized related to
the non-recurring portion of settlement of disputes with Yahoo.

(c) To eliminate $46.0 million of tax benefit recorded in the third
quarter related to certain stock-based compensation charges
recognized prior to the initial public offering.

Reconciliations of non-GAAP liquidity measures to the nearest
comparable GAAP measures

1. Reconciliation from net cash provided by operating activities to
free cash flow (in thousands, unaudited):

Three Three Nine
months months months
ended ended ended
June 30, Sept. 30, Sept.
30,
2004 2004 2004
--------- ---------- ---------
-
Net cash provided by operating
activities $162,559 $238,343 $608,947
Less purchases of property and
equipment (96,246) (77,632)
(259,915)
--------- ---------- ---------
-
Free cash flow $66,313 $160,711 $349,032
========= ==========
==========

2. Reconciliation from net cash provided by operating activities to
adjusted EBITDA(a) (in thousands, unaudited):

Three As a Three As a
months percentage months
percentage
ended of ended of
June 30, revenues Sept. 30, revenues
2004 2004
--------- ----------- ---------- ----------
-
Net cash provided by
operating activities $162,559 23% $238,343
30%
Changes in assets and
liabilities, net of
effects of acquisitions 116,471 17% 175,674
22%
Provision (benefit) for
income taxes 90,397 13% (37,005)
(5)%
Interest income (expense)
and other, net 1,498 0% (3,866)
(1)%
Tax benefits from
exercise of warrants (93,244) (13)% (51,727)
(6)%
--------- ----------- ---------- ----------
-
Adjusted EBITDA $277,681 40% $321,419
40%
========= =========== ==========
===========

Nine months As a
ended
percentage
Sept. 30, of
2004 revenues
----------- ----------
-
Net cash provided by operating activities $608,947
28%
Changes in assets and liabilities, net of
effects of acquisitions 248,221
12%
Provision (benefit) for income taxes 145,042
7%
Interest income (expense) and other, net (2,668)
0%
Tax benefits from exercise of warrants (144,971)
(7)%
----------- ----------
-
Adjusted EBITDA $854,571
40%
===========
===========

(a) Definition of adjusted EBITDA: Earnings before interest, taxes,
depreciation, amortization, stock-based compensation, in-process
research and development and non-recurring portion of settlement
charge.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
Contact:
Google Inc.
David Krane, 650-623-4096
david@google.com
Steve Langdon, 650-623-4950
slangdon@google.com

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:52 AM
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All Local Is Search

This short piece in MediaPost is a reminder of how important mobile is to Local search.

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:29 AM
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Yahoo Image Search Upgrades

This will be announced officially later today, but Yahoo Image Search has upgraded its service, now sporting more than a billion images.

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:18 AM
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Pattern Recognition

I'm a William Gibson fan. Back at Wired, I even got to work with him a bit (this piece got us banned in Singapore, which was sort of our goal...). Gibson restarted his blog a week or so ago, and today he reports that Pattern Recognition, his latest novel, may well turn into a film by Peter Weir. Yippee! Finally, something to look forward to out of Hollywood!

But Gibson warns (perhaps remembering Johnny Mnemonic, which Keanu aside I actually rather liked...):

I should warn you, should you happen to bump into me in the meantime, that I don't regard films of novels as being the ultimate form in which a novel may be lucky enough to manifest. I regard *the novel* as the ultimate form in which the novel manifests. And if I should suspect that you think otherwise, I'm liable to snap at you.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:32 AM
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Point-To TV

As I was reading Fred's post on Digital TV, it reminded me of the recent Jon Stewart/Crossfire phenomenon (see here for more if this is news to you). As I've pointed out lately with regard to print, the same goes for TV: You don't want to make "Must See TV" - you want to make "Must Point To TV". Television will be driven by the conversation, just as will print.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:16 AM
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Implications...

More thinking about GDS. When I read Stefanie's short piece on Google fixing the security flaw in GDS, it rang another bell. How much does this sound like the drumbeat of stories we've heard about Microsoft over the past few years? Change the names, and it's spooky. Welcome to the OS world, Google.

According to a report posted to the Bugtraq Security Focus list on Wednesday, (insert target company name here)'s new (insert target company application name here) tool did not prevent a hacker from inserting JavaScript, a programming language, into the Web address of its page image, or logo. That vulnerability could have allowed any rogue third party to change the appearance of (insert target company name here)'s Web page to ask for personal data such as credit card numbers from its visitors, what's known as a phishing scam, according to the warning.

(insert target company location here)-based (insert target company name here) said it has fixed the problem.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:04 AM
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Happy Anniversary To Searchblog

Today marks the one year anniversary of my first post on Searchblog. As I posted on October 20th, 2003:

I'm in New York, seeing old friends, interviewing folks for the book. In some cases they are one and the same.
I suppose this first post should outline the goals of this blog, but to be honest, that feels far too forced. Suffice that here I'll post this and that which I find noteworthy or interesting, in particular as it relates to search, the subject of my first book, and secondarily as it relates to the warp and weft of traditional media as it intersects with technology.

Well, it's been nearly 1,000 posts since then, and I've learned more from this conversation than I could possibly have imagined. I thought, when I started, that this site would be a huge success if I could pull a few hundred kindred souls together in a semi-regular way, to talk about search and media. Turns out, according to the stats my webmaster gives me, that nearly 60,000 people visit this site each month, at a rate of about 9-10,000 a day. Last month Searchblog passed the million pageview /month milestone (at least, that was a major milestone for us at Wired and thestandard.com). This kind of attention is not only a great honor, it's also a responsibility I take seriously, though never so seriously (I hope) as to get all up inside my head. After all, I've already been there.

Along the way, I've written something on the order of 200,000 words here on this site, and another 65,000 or so for the book. And honestly, there is simply no way I could have even begun the process of writing the book, which is now about two thirds finished, were it not for the public sketch pad this site has become.

But in the end, what I've learned in this first year is how important it is to be in the conversation, as opposed to dictate it. Thank all of you who lend me your ears, voice, and insights. I hope you'll keep visiting, and I'm excited about what the next year might bring.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:07 AM
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Chronicle Scoop: Google Forecast Leak

One day before Google is set to announce its first public quarter, the SF Chronicle gets a hold of leaked internal documents which allege that Google has internal forecasts which show the company nearly tripling its advertising base over the next five years.

Google, a company that refuses to make financial forecasts, expects to add 372,000 advertiser accounts over the next four years, according to internal documents obtained by The Chronicle.

Coming as it does one day before earnings, I have to wonder about the how and why of these documents being leaked. The numbers are credible, in that the kind of growth Google is allegedly forecasting is reasonable, if you add together all possible new local, email, AdSense, and AdWords advertisers (plus more for whatever they come up with next). But how did the reporter get this info? I wonder, was this leak intentional, or a mistake?

Update: Google claims the numbers are "inaccurate."

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:46 AM
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Schroeder on Local

Good piece on how Google and Yahoo differ in their approach to local search.

I think that there is a significant difference from when one wants to search for a research paper on World War II, and when one searches for an Italian restaurant in D.C.

In the former, you want a pretty wide swathe to ensure that you aren't missing something or you are trying to expand your investigation. In the latter, you want to know what Italian restaurants are out there, where they are, how much they cost, and whether they are right for you. Locally, precision is key.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:34 AM
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WSJ Responds

In Mark Glaser's OJR piece covering how major online publishers are dealing with what I've come to call "joining the conversation," I was pleased to see that Mark asked Bill Grueskin, managing editor of the Wall Street Journal's online site, about my post suggesting the Journal allow deep linking.

Here's his response, with additional thoughts from Jay Singh, EIC of News.com:

Grueskin told me there's a balancing act between opening up a couple stories and giving away the whole store.
"It's more an issue of at what point are you providing so much to people that they don't feel they need a WSJ.com subscription," Grueskin said....."Ultimately, if our journalism fails to meet the first criteria -- is our own content worthy of even coming to our site? -- if we fail at that, then it doesn't matter if we have Extra or not," Singh said. "Over time, if you feel that we're saving you time and hassle, if we're helping you with the signal-to-noise ratio, then you'll come back again."

Well, yes and no. To clarify, I did not suggest the Journal give away the whole store, I suggested it allow bloggers to point their readers to one story at a time. The Journal currently makes one story a day (ie, one story to all, not one per) available to bloggers, a practice I find a bit imperious - it misses the point of this multi-faceted conversation - the power is in the tail, not the head, and the tail needs more than one story to power it. I've been talking to a lot of folks lately in the newspaper business, preparing for a talk I'll be giving next month to the Online Publishers Association (and finalizing the portion of my book that talks about the impact of search on traditional media models). And I've come to the conclusion that any publisher who is building their site as a destination is working under the wrong assumption.

Sure, you want your readers to read your stuff, and you want your site to be well visited. But if that's your main goal, you're missing the - er - point. Editors should not be worried about whether their content can "bring people to our site" - that's simply not a realistic approach anymore. The goal is to make content that is worth pointing to. If you're feeding the conversation, as I said in my post, the rest will then follow.

(By the way, RSS as disaggregator problem, I think, will be solved by feed-based advertising within a year.)

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:19 AM
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Kottke Counts Ads: The Revolution Will Be Advertised

(illo courtesy of Sifry, who presented this and more at Web 2.0)

Jason notes that of the top 100 sites on Technorati, just 16 are ad free.

As someone who has had a hand in this (at BB), I can only add that I hope we get this right. What do I mean by right? Well, that we pursue ads that are endemic and respectful of the conversation between author and audience. It's early, very early, and many models will be tested and fail, and many "types" of sites will evolve. Net net, however, I very much believe that we're well on our way to new, lightweight publishing models that point the way toward a very compelling future.

Oh, and of course, many of the most interesting sites are in the tail, as opposed to the top 100 (the head...).

• Posted by John Battelle at 3:33 PM
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Speculation on What's Next For Google Desktop

From Boing Boing:

BoingBoing reader Adam says,
There's some idle suspicion that Google intends to expand their functionality to include sharing of desktop files. This seems pretty likely given their acquisition of Picasa, which included something called "Hello" - an IM-like application for chatting and sharing pictures. Moreover, if they decide to merge this with orkut, to allow file sharing just with your friends network, then that's a pretty compelling offering.

HOWEVER... The orkut terms of service are still extremely unfavorable to the end user. This is not too bad when it just applies to your profile and to chats on their message boards. It is REALLY bad when it applies to other forms of personal content that may be shared using the system.

For some reason I found myself thinking late last night about what it means when there are millions of local google HTTP servers running on millions of individual PCs, yearning to be connected. What kind of innovation might spring from such an ecology? Of course uploading your local content - just that which you want to upload, of course - to Google's index is one possibility. If you could do that, you could pretty much wipe out hosted solutions for micropublishing (ie blogs), for example. Your machine, given advances in broadband and computing power - would become your web server, just as it was in the beginning, when there was so little traffic on the web (before the hosting business took over...). GDS could also lay down the framework for some killer distributed computing hacks, stuff that Google has demonstrated an affinity for in the past (Google Compute is built into the Toolbar).

But thoughts fail me. What comes to mind from you all when you think of a world where all our hard drives can seamlessly be connected to the Mother Index/Platform?

• Posted by John Battelle at 3:15 PM
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How Do You "Celebrate" Firefox? Run An Ad in The New York Times

I can't quite put my finger on why the word "irony" comes to mind here. But in any case, from a Mozilla press release:

Firefox Web Browser Advocates to Buy Full-Page Ad in the New York Times

(PRWEB) October 19, 2004 -– A group of community volunteers today launched a drive to purchase a full-page advertisement in The New York Times. The effort, endorsed by the Mozilla Foundation, will celebrate the launch of Firefox 1.0 – the Mozilla Foundation’s innovative new web browser – and include the names of thousands of small-donor contributors who will support product launch activities.

The advertisement is one component of a larger community marketing campaign, dubbed “Spread Firefox.” The campaign is the world’s largest community marketing effort ever undertaken for open source software.

The original idea for the ad campaign as well as all of the research, development and design has been done by volunteers.

In just four weeks, the SpreadFirefox.com site has swelled to coordinate the community marketing activities of close to 25,000 registered users. The site’s first goal of one million downloads of the most recent pre-release version of Firefox was surpassed within three days. To date, more than 5 million copies of the latest version of the open source web browser have been downloaded in just over one month.

“Since introducing Firefox 0.8 last February, we have seen a tremendous surge of grassroots interest to support the Firefox web browser,” said Bart Decrem, a spokesperson for the Mozilla project. “The Firefox 1.0 launch will be a celebration – both for a great new open source product and for the large open source community who made it happen.”

The New York Times ad will run following Firefox 1.0’s widespread availability this fall.
....

ABOUT SPREAD FIREFOX
Spread Firefox is the community marketing campaign of nearly 25,000 Firefox advocates worldwide. Community members can submit ideas and join volunteer teams by visiting http://www.spreadfirefox.com.

...

On the other hand, I'm all for Firefox, and pleased as hell I can now make the GDS work, for the most part, on a Mac due to it....

• Posted by John Battelle at 2:49 PM
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Hambrecht: Big Banks Low-Balled Google IPO

Bill Hambrecht (founder of the firm credited with popularizing the Dutch Auction system) calls the big bankers out in this Bloomberg piece:

Hambrecht says Google underpriced its shares in the Aug. 18 offering, which at $85 raised $1.92 billion, a record for any Internet company. Google allowed big investors, with Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse First Boston Inc., the banks leading the IPO, to dominate the bidding, he says.

``All the institutional business had to channel through CSFB and Morgan Stanley,'' says Hambrecht, 69, whose San Francisco- based WR Hambrecht & Co. was one of the eight co-managers. ``The institutions came in and said, `I want a 15 percent discount so I'll bid $85.' And they got it.''...

... Hambrecht says the bid totals, or ``stacks,'' from his firm's clients ranged up to $120 per share.

``Before they announced the price reduction, our bid stack predicted the stock would sell between $110 and $120,'' Hambrecht says. ``After the price reduction, the mean of our bid stack was $97. Our bid stack clearly showed that the price could have been higher.''

Hambrecht does allow that Google achieved its aims with its IPO, however.

Hambrecht says the offering achieved Google's objectives even though it was underpriced, because the auction allowed customers and other small investors to buy shares.

``It was never their objective to get the highest price,'' says Hambrecht. ``The company is awash with cash. They wanted marketability. They wanted access to their customer base.''

• Posted by John Battelle at 2:15 PM
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The More You Search, The More You Buy

Here is a slide from Gian Fulgoni's presentation at Web 2.0, which can be found here.

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:12 AM
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Neat: IM Interview

The folks over at the Alarm Clock IM'd me and ran the transcript as a feature on their site. Neat idea - IM as interview. Subject is Web 2.0....

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:57 AM
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Always Read Markoff Closely

...as he always has a scoop somewhere in any story he does on Google. This time, it's at the end, where (after he quotes some guy who runs a blog - really, a "Cambrian explosion"!?) he quotes a source:

"If you drive by the Google buildings in the evening," said a person who has detailed knowledge of the company's business, "the lights that are still on are the ones on the floor where they are working on the browser."

So maybe there's life yet in the Google browser rumors, despite protestations from very senior folks at Google (sources of mine and others) who claim Google is not interested in fighting that particular battle.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:51 AM
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Google Code Jam Winners

Last Friday was the second annual Google Code Jam. I find it interesting what tasks (as well as who) the company chooses to reward. Last year they announced it was a geolocation hack, as I recall. But this year, far as I can tell, they didn't announce the actual hacks, just the winning hackers. Hmmm. A bit more research (and a reading of this Slashdot thread) has me thinking that this year they didn't look for hacks, but rather had a standardized set of problems that folks coded against. That sounds far less interesting, IMHO.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:40 AM
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Friday InfoPorn

I'm resuming my writing-the-book myopia, so posting will be light over the next weeks. However, when I find fun facts and such from my writing/research, I just have to share it. This graph comes from Mary Meeker's research report on Search. It shows how PPC on particular terms has rise, and the raw potential of paid search against mutliple-word keyphrases.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:57 AM
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Google's IM Client

Yeah, they've got one, got it when the bought Picasa. InsideGoogle has the details. (Good review of Picasa too).

Picasa and Google's little secret, and it sure as hell shouldn't be. Picasa is a way of storing and indexing your photos. Hello is about interacting. Hello was created as a way to share those photos Picasa spent so much time indexing, but it does so much more. Do you want an instant messenger from Google? Well, Hello is an instant messenger, complete with buddy lists and bots and smilies and sounds. The difference is that Hello is optimized for sending photos. It can automatically resize a photo so it sends properly. You can jump back and forth from Hello to Picasa to send your photos and share your albums. But most strikingly to most of my readers, it is an instant messenger in a Google product, and its a good bet that as Google integrates Picasa better with the rest of its services, Hello will be its chat client, with full feature support for Gmail and Google Desktop. And if you are worried about security, Google claims it's more secure than AOL Instant Messenger.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:33 AM
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AOL Says: We Play Too

Long rumored, AOL has been spurred to declaration today by the ever increasing noise in the desktop search/personalization/browser space. Cnet has the goods:

America Online on Thursday confirmed that it is testing a new search engine that scans for files on a PC's hard drive, mirroring a similar product unveiled this week by Google.

AOL's desktop search was not developed in-house but is powered by a third-party's technology, according to a source familiar with the plans. While the source would not reveal AOL's desktop search partner, this person said it was not Google.

The desktop search tool is currently being offered as a feature within a test version of a standalone Web browser that AOL is developing, the source said.

AOL spokeswoman Anne Bentley confirmed that the desktop search tool is being tested alongside the AOL Browser but declined to elaborate further. She said the AOL Browser will launch as early as November.

The site itself got a makeover today as well, though you need to be a member to see it.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:27 AM
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Desktop Search: More and more....

Rael has a great write up:

The Google Desktop is your own private little Google server. It sits in the background, slogging through your files and folders, indexing your incoming and outgoing email messages, listening in on your instant messenger chats, and browsing the Web right along with you. Just about anything you see and summarily forget, the Google Desktop sees and memorizes for you.

And it operates in real time.

Great detail. Also, Danny rounds up a bunch of coverage here.

And many, many folks have emailed me reminding me that LOADS of other folks play both in desktop search, as well as the "Stuff I've Seen Before" arena. All true. Copernic, X1, Microsoft, Ask, the list is very long...

Also, check Scripting News for some interesting questions raised, though net net Dave seems to like it...

An open architecture desktop search app is a requirement. I must be able to write a plug-in that teaches it how to index formats it doesn't understand.

Erik Speckman: "Google desktop search is a disappointment."

Erik makes a good point. It only indexes Microsoft mail data. I would like it to index my object databases, that's where all my content is. This could all be solved if they had a driver architecture that allowed us to teach it how to index file formats they don't understand. Now that we're on the desktop this becomes possible, as does a richer API. Google's concern for server bandwidth goes away when the software is running on my desktop.

(thanks, Scott...)

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:27 AM
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News: Google Drops The Other Shoe - Google Desktop Search Launches

I have not had a chance to play with this, as it is limited to Windows/IE, but that's OK, Danny has, and his very thorough write up is here. What I'm interested in is what this all means for the big Chess Game That Is Search, and frankly, this is A Very Big Move on the part of Google.

Recall, if you will, about a year ago, when Google launched the Deskbar, which integrated into IE and allowed for search from within that environment. Recall further the rumours of a desktop search tool (back in May, broken by Markoff at the Times.) All of this fed understandable speculation about a Google browser. Well, the other shoe is dropping this morning. It's not a browser, but it is a significant desktop client application: Google Desktop Search. With this launch, Google is focusing on placing a desktop application on your computer that *makes your browser seem smarter.* The browser (IE only for now) becomes the interface front end to a major Google incursion into the PC hard drive, a space that heretofore has been owned by Microsoft. Google isn't competing with Microsoft on the browser front - that would be madness. It's competing with Microsoft on its own terms and its own turf: by integrating the desktop into the web browsing experience. More specifically, but integrating it *into the Google experience* as understood through search.

This is the part that's important: As far as the user is concerned, Google's Desktop Search seamlessly integrates your hard drive into Google.com. "Desktop" becomes another tab, right next to "Web", "Images", and the like (your data stays on your hard drive, of course, but to most mere mortals, it might seem like in fact it lives "out there on the web.")

Yes, this is a Big Deal. For many reasons. Assuming you download the client and use Google Desktop Search:

One, it means Google will have a major beachhead on users' computers - an index of *everything on your hard drive.* Yes, this raises privacy concerns, but Google has outlined their stance on this in the documentation, and (compared to Gmail) seems ready to handle this issue this time.

Two, it means that index will be viewed *in the native Google interface* - for all intents and purposes, it treats your hard drive as an extension of the web (or, vice versa...it hardly matters which). MS Word, Powerpoint, Excel files? Just results in the Google interface. How's that for a lightweight OS?***

Three, it means that Google can build upon that knowledge of your personal data to make *all* search more relevant for you - this is Google's first major foray into truly personalized search.

Four, it means that everything is now searchable: your email, your Word documents, your music, your IM sessions, and - pay attention here - your SEARCH HISTORY. That's right, the Google Desktop Search automatically hoovers out *every site you visit* from the IE logs and adds it to you overall searchable index as cached pages. "Take that, A9, Yahoo, and Ask," Google is saying. "We're playing here too...Oh, and by the way....we're Google."

And Five, this provides Google a major new platform to build upon - a client application that integrates with the web. Can I imagine upgrades to that app that include spiffy new features like - oh - a lightweight word processor so you can take notes on your searching, or a calendar? Better yet, can I imagine Google opens this platform up to third party developers, to do what they do best? Yes, I sure can.

As I intonated before, Google is playing to its strengths, leveraging its power as the defacto interface for finding things on the web over to the desktop. Once it begins to know more about you (recall that John Doerr hinted at this just last week at Web 2.0, saying "Google will become the Google that knows you"), expect a hell of a lot more innovation from Google on this front. Yup, that means, eventually, lessons learned from millions upon millions of aggregated individuals' search histories (and desktop usage patterns) will start to inform Google's overall approach to relevancy. How could it be otherwise?

I reached Google's director of consumer web products Marissa Mayer at 9 pm last night as she was catching a red eye to New York, where Google is announcing Desktop Search at the Digital Life conference (a consumer-focused event starting today). Marissa is known as a superwoman at Google, she works constantly, and only travels on the red eye so she won't miss a business day. (Yikes....I remember those days...).

After she caught her breath, I asked her these questions:

- Why did you develop this product? Did this bubble out of the labs like News, or was it more deliberate?
We view this as an important development and it's just the start of many new innovations. Our users have been asking us for this feature from us for five years. We started working on it about a year ago. Steve Lawrence is the lead researcher. (So no, it was not a Labs project).

- Was this a response to all the other competitive announcements in personal and desktop search?
No. The technical details of this product are stunning. It only uses of 8 megs of RAM to run. It's a 400 Kbyte file! Our first build was in February, and we had a lot of testing and revision. We targeted launch for October because we are sponsoring Digital Life and this is perfect product for that conference.

- Do you think this will quell all the Google browser rumors?
We were trying to fulfill a user need. In 1995 the browser model worked fine - you could find what you were looking for by browsing a directory like Yahoo. But over time as the web scaled that model didn't scale. It broke, which is why search (became the metaphor for finding things on the web). We are seeing the same thing happening now on personal computers (which have far more storage than even five years ago). The distinction between the hard drive and the net is becoming blurred. We want this application to be a sort of photographic memory for your screen. (She ducked this question...but then again, she was running to catch a plane...)

- How does the Google Desktop Search do ranking on a person's hard drive?
The default rank is by date. (When we tested, we learned that) people understood the context of "when they did see this"? The results list the last time you accessed any particular document. However you can also sort by relevance. The desktop relevance scheme lacks Pagerank (of course), but it does incorporate the other 150 factors (Google uses on the web) - factors like are the (keywords) together, in bold, related, things like that.

- How will you incorporate what you learn from this into overall relevance drivers for Google?
As we see the distinction between the hard drive and the net blur, people don't want to have to choose between the desktop and the web. You can issue your regular search and to the extent there is relevant information on your desktop, we'll write it to the browser. (Again, she didn't really answer that one...)

Net net: This is a major initiative for Google (they ain't rolling this one out quietly through Labs!), and it will be very, very important to the company that this be widely adopted by millions and millions of users (privately, Google employees have told me they were disappointed with the number of their Toolbar downloads over the years). If it is, it will set the stage for a very Web 2.0 battle for the hearts and minds of searching consumers - and that means all consumers - everywhere. In the end, if search becomes the interface for how we navigate our computing space, regardless of where that space is, there is no doubt the power of Microsoft will be diminished. On the other hand, there is no way Microsoft, which bought a desktop search company earlier this year, or Yahoo for that matter, will stand still. This move, I sense, is the true starting gun of a major race to win in search, and at the interface level for all of computing. It should be a fun few years!

PS - Let's not forget that Google laid down policy on desktop applications a while back. This is worth re-reading in light of this announcement...

***- On the OS/Interface stuff, recall what I wrote back in April, after going to MSFT for the day: On the platform idea (point three), my general thesis is this: Over time, more and more of a typical user's desktop real estate is devoted to web-enabled apps. I am an extreme example of this trend (and I'd wager the same is true of most of Searchblog's readers): at any give moment, I've got ecto (a blogging tool), NetNewsWire (RSS reader), Firefox and/or Safari (browser), mail, and Office open. All these applications are web-enabled (Office is the lamest of the bunch, but not for long). Even OSX makes web calls - if only for software updates for now. So if you look at my screen, at least 80 percent of it is web applications. Compare that with five years ago, where it was just email and the browser, or ten, where it was just email.

Now, all these applications are migrating to the portals, and the portals are migrating to the model Cole described: software-based platforms replete with tools and applications - mail, calendar, blogging, rss readers, the works. At some point (and this certainly is not a new idea) the very idea of the "desktop" will become pretty old school. We're building an entirely new architecture on top of our OSes. So...what does that mean for the traditional OS? In essence, it loses the glory role, in the eyes of the consumer. The OS does the hard stuff - files systems, security, connectivity, etc., but the interface, the stuff the user sees, is migrating to the web.

UPDATE: Even though an ad for the Google Desktop appears when you search for the term, so far the site is still not up. Stay tuned.

UPDATE 2: An astute source of mine who works for one of the other Big Portal companies points out that while Google's announcement is a big deal, companies that allow folks to search across their data on servers and services - ie MyYahoo, Amazon, social networks (or implied ones), etc. - may have a leg up in the long run.

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:03 AM
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The Browser Wars: Looking at the Wrong Thing

OK, so now AOL is getting back into the browser wars, says eWeek. And the speculation about Google entering the game is overwhelming. Well, Doerr said at Web 2.0 it ain't gonna happen, and I don't think it will. At least, not in the way the traditional narrative might have it. I've concluded that the point is not the browser, it's the platform, and Google already has one to build on. It's the web (and IE, in fact).

SEW blog points to Google's strategy: building on top of the browser.

From an Indian web site pointed to by SEW:

Internet search service company Google today said that it was engaged in developing technology that was aimed at bringing about improvements in web browsers.

''There has been much speculation. But our work is focussed on improving the browsing experience,'' Google co-Founder and President (Technology) Sergey Brin told reporters here.

The world's most popular search services outfit touched off a flurry of speculation that it was planning to introduce a web browser after it registered the domain name gbrowser.com in April.

''Today's browsers are doing a pretty good job, but they can be improved. What we are looking to do is to enhance the quality of the browsing experience,'' he said.

What does that mean? It means that the browser is a commodity. Note while the journalist said "improving the browser", what Sergey said in fact was "improving the browsing experience." This is an important distinction. Google will build something else, something which will presume the browser as a starting point, and make *what is being browsed* more valuable. There are already plenty of folks who are making the browser valuable. Google's play is in what the browser shows you, not the browser itself. That was the brilliance of Google 1.0, and I'd warrant the same will be true of version 2.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:33 PM
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Slate (Well, Steven Johnson) Says: Wise Up, Candidates

And start using paid text ads. Goodness, it's about time.

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:11 PM
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A Peek at What's Coming from MSFT Search Labs

Again, I'm late on this but...Via Mamamusings, Elizabeth Lane Lawley's blog. She was one of the "Search Champs" invited up to MSFT last week to see what's on there.

Susan Dumais from MSR is our first presenter today, and explicitly released what she’s showing from the NDA. Yay!

She’s showing some really nifty stuff, including a personalized search tool that lets you do a web search, then drag a slider to make the results more customized based on what your local computer knows about you. It’s a split screen result, so you see the original results on the left, and the increasingly personalized results on the right. Very, very cool.

(Thanks, Pete)

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:56 AM
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Still Catching Up...

News and fun items from the past week that I missed:

Cops use Google to ID hit and run victim (AP). Neat anecdote, not very interesting in reality. Any cop who isn't using Google already should be fired.

Google announces code jam finalists (Google PR). No details, but the big competition is October 15.

Google's Print DRM is breakable, here's how (Boing Boing). Slashdot has some tips for those with time on their hands.

Kayak travel search engine launches beta (ClickZ). "Google-like objectivity." Where have I heard that before? Gary likes it.

PPC information from Fathom Online (MediaPost). Average PPC for finance category: $3.17. For telecom: $1.09.

Yahoo has a good quarter (Bloomberg). Some of that has to do with selling Google stock...otherwise it would have had an inline quarter.

Yahoo streamlines its home page (Yahoo PR). Jerry and I talked about this at Web 2.0, he says UI is a big big deal at yahoo (coverage here at BWeek).

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:51 AM
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Comments Now Have Permalinks

Astute readers of this site (are there any other kind) may note that I've implemented permalinks for all comments. Thanks to Eric Case for the pointer to doing this, and to Scot Hacker, my extraordinary webmaster, for making it happen.

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:00 PM
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Google's Web 2 Demo and the UI Plunge

As many have already noted, last week at Web 2.0 Peter Norvig, Google director of search quality, demonstrated word clustering, "named entities," and machine translation technology to the audience. The translation software was impressive, but somehow lacked zing - "good enough" translation doesn't seem like much of a revelation anymore. That in itself is an extraordinary achievement - Norvig showed translations from Arabic and Chinese - both significantly distinct languages compared to English. Google already has translation features built into its engine (from a third party), but this hand-rolled stuff was far more powerful, it seemed to me.

In any case, the demos that really got the audience going (and me, to be honest) was the named entities and the clustering technology. Seeing anything behind the veil of Google's real research and development is of course a revelation, but seeing something that was so clearly ready for prime time felt rather close to a declaration of where Google is heading, in particular given the recent moves in the personalization and clustering space from Amazon, Ask, Vivisimo, and Yahoo.

"Named entity extraction" is a relatively new project called which Norvig said Google had been working on for about six months. As Norvig explained the concept - essentially identifying semantically important concepts and the meaning wrapped around them - I couldn't help but think of WebFountain and my wish (near the end of the post) that Google would add a bit of IBM's semantic peanut butter into its PageRank chocolate.

Norvig also showed an entertaining (and live) demo of clustering, which he claimed was the "largest bayesian database of clusters" extant. Hmmm.

From the eWeek story covering the news:

For example, Norvig said, researchers are looking for ways to break down sentences by looking for a phrase like "such as" and grabbing the names that follow it. The goal is to not only pull out the name but also its clusters, so that a name such as "Java" can be associated both with the computer language and with language in general, Norvig said.

"We want to be able to search and find these [entities] and the relationships between them, rather than you typing in the words specifically," Norvig said.

This has potentially interesting implications in next-generation ranking methodologies, for one, but combined with clustering, it signals that Google is serious about taking what one might call the UI plunge.

What do I mean by that? Well, of all the major engines, only Google has strictly maintained what might be called the C prompt interface to search: put in yer command, get out yer list of results (Google Local is a departure, but it's still in beta). Yahoo, Ask, A9 and others have begun to twiddle in pretty significant ways with evolved interfaces which - by employing your search history, your personal data, clustering, and other tricks - deliver more filtered and intentional results (though it is still arguable if they are more relevant). I sense it's only a matter of time before Google takes this approach as well, and Norvig's demo certainly points that way. After all, it's not that often Google decides to give us a glimpse behind the curtain, and coupled with Google Board member John Doerr's semi-announcement the day before (he told the audience that Google would become "the Google that knows you") I think the UI plunge might come sooner than we all expect.

If you want to know more about how Google is thinking about clustering, here's a paper written by a Google team, courtesy of a link from Don Park.

Update: Lazy linking on my part, the clustering paper is about hardwaree (though it is really interesting...)

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:31 AM
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Jeremy Is Back At It...

Yahoo's most well known blogger Jeremy Zawodny is back on the Search team at Yahoo, but this time, with a new remit. From his post today:

Well, believe it or not, I'm going back to the Search Team[1] but in a very different role this time. Instead of hacking away on software bits, I'm going to be working to:
• make sure our products kick the necessary amount of ass
• better communicate what we're thinking about and building
• incorporate outside feedback and ideas into what we're doing
• recruit more smart people

And other stuff as it comes up, I'm sure.

He also includes a FAQ of sorts, which is a hoot. Excerpts:

Q: Does this mean your blog will be full of "check out this great Yahoo feature" posts? Will you still complain about things Yahoo doesn't do well?

A: No, my blog will not turn into a corporate marketing tool. And yes, I fully intend to be honest about what I think we're doing well and what we're not. I'm still a harsh critic--both of our services and others. Hopefully anyone who has read my ramblings long enough knows this already.

Q: Will you still bash Google?

A: Heh. From time to time, I may. But I know a lot more people who work there now, so I've tried to tone it down a bit. They're not that evil. ;-)

Q: Did your blog have anything to do with getting this new job?

A: Yes. A lot.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:56 AM
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Neat.

Biz 2.0, where I wear a columnist hat, has rendered its entire current issue in a quickly readable web format. I like it, though I'm not sure how I'd work it into my daily reading (I am sure that problem is being worked on...). In any case, it's compelling to see it all on screen. Course it helps that I recently got a spiffy Apple 21-inch flat screen...Here's my column, pictures and all.

UPDATE: Oops, you can't link deep into the magazine, making it impossible to point, as I tried above, to a particular page. You have to navigate through the table of contents. Gotta get that one fixed, guys!

• Posted by John Battelle at 2:21 PM
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From Pull to Point: How to Save The Economist and The Journal from Irrelevance

The night after the conference ended, I decompressed in my hotel room with Jonathan Weber, my editorial partner in the Industry Standard, and Steve Ellis, who runs an innovative music company called Pump Audio. Talk turned to what constituted "quality writing" in a journalistic sense. I'm not without a dog in this particular hunt, as it's been the central premise of both my previous magazine launches, and is at the center of a new venture I'm noodling now that the conference is over. Steve, who is British, asked Jonathan and I if we thought the Wall Street Journal represented the paragon of American newspaper feature writing. And I thought, Jesus, I haven't read that paper for months. I pay for the online version of the paper, but given how my reading habits have shifted from pull to point*, the Journal simply has not crossed my radar enough to register.

Jonathan and I agreed that the Journal pretty much defined the American standard of good page one feature writing, and I copped to being "Journal blind" for the past few quarters. Talk then moved to The Economist. Goodness, it had been ages since I read that magazine as well. I used to subscribe to the paper version (same for the WSJ), and when I did, I signed up for a few email newsletters as well. But for whatever reasons those came intermittently, and they were not very good. Why, I wondered, were these two august bastions of journalism falling off my reading list?

You've already guessed, of course. Both require paid subscriptions, and therefore, both do not support deep linking. In other words, both are nearly impossible to find if you get your daily dose of news, analysis and opinion from the blogosphere.

Sure, The Wall Street Journal supports RSS feeds, but I've been a subscriber for two years, and they've never bothered to tell me that. (I found out when I went searching for them while writing this post). As far as I can tell, the Economist does not support RSS at all. Even if I did read the Journal's feeds, I wouldn't refer to them in any posts of mine, as my readers and community can't read what I read. More and more, I find that if I can't share something (i.e. can't point to something), it's not worth my time. (Please take note, RIAA...)

Simple RSS support is not the real issue here. The real issue is how paid registration is handled. I find, increasingly, that sites which wall themselves off are becoming irrelevant. Not because the writing or analysis is necessarily flawed (though honestly, I don't trust journalists who eschew the blogosphere), but rather because their business model is. In today's ecosystem of news, the greatest sin is to cut oneself off from the conversation. Both the Economist and the Journal have done that.

So what is to be done? My suggestion is simple: Take the plunge and allow deep linking. Notice I did not say abandon paid registration, in fact, I support it. Publishers can let the bloggers link to any story they post, but limit further consumption of their site to paid subscribers.

I'd be willing to wager that the benefit of allowing the blogosphere to link to you will more than make up for potential lost subscribers. First off, if you as a publisher do not offer additional paid subscription benefits beyond the articles themselves, you're not paying attention to your community. And in any case, many folks will pay to subscribe to a site which is continually being linked to. In fact, I'd wager that the landing pages from blog links might be the most lucrative place a publisher can capture new subscribers. It's a massive opportunity to convert: the reader has come to your site on the recommendation of a trusted source (the blog he or she is reading). It's pretty certain that if you make that page inviting, and use it as an opportunity to sell the reader on the value of the rest of your site, that that reader will eventually feel like the Journal is worthy of his or her support.

Why? In short, if a reader finds him or herself pointed to the Journal on a regular basis, that reader knows that by subscribing to the Journal, he or she would be more in the know. After all, all of the blogs read and point to the Journal, the reader thinks, so perhaps I should read it too. Before subscribing, the only time a reader might find out something in the Journal is if someone points to it (a far sight from where things stand today, by the way). But if they subscribe, they can get their own RSS feeds, and be first to know something. And, in the end, isn't that what drives subscription sales?

Net net, I think allowing deep linking will drive subscription sales, rather than attenuate them.

I'd be interested in Searchbloggers' take on this idea. I think it just might work.

*"Pull to point" - I find that I read more things that have been pointed to by others, rather than only those which I pull down myself.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:04 AM
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At Least They Didn't Move to the Valley

News from last week: The heralded one man search engine is getting bigger - both in its index, and its staff. Gigablast increases its index to 650 million pages....and is growing its staff and office space as well. I'm kind of a little sad to see it, in a way, as it was always fun to point to Matt's work as evidence of what one guy in New Mexico can do. Now it's a few folks. Still not bad....

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:40 PM
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Some Caution In Web 2.0

Jason Fried of Basecamp/37 Signals reminds us to stay lightweight, and don't believe the hype. I very much hope the conference, which certainly was upbeat, was not considered hype. It's true, I focused on that which I found interesting, astounding, important, and new...which really does create a bit of novelty exhaustion, as Kottke puts it, over the course of a three-day event.

In any case, I certainly agree with Jason Fried's advice:

My advice to these new companies with their new products and fresh-faced enthusiasm… Keep it small. Start small and stay small. Borrow from yourself before you borrow from someone else. You can have an impact with just a few people. You can build great products with a small team. You can do it on your own. You can.

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:19 PM
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But before I drift off to sleep...

This is a very interesting post on the future of eBay, by Brian Dear. He keys off a question I asked Louis Monier on stage Weds...

One of eBay's main selling points for years has been: trust and safety. You're gonna be fine if you buy or sell on eBay, even if the other person in the transaction is a total stranger halfway across the world. And that is true. Most of the time, things are fine. Fraud happens occasionally, but the vast majority of the time, even big transactions like computer and car sales go smoothy.

But now think 2005. Why might we need eBay less and less?

Consider craigslist with RSS, or, better yet, a notification service tied to RSS or email. "Notify me when a sofa with the following attributes and in the following price range and in the following general geographical area goes on sale."

And maybe hours or days or weeks or months later, you get that notification, and your dream sofa is for sale, by someone you don't know, but who lives nearby.

Why do I think it might be nearby? Consider for a moment how much PC/Internet household penetration there is now. And how much high-bandwidth penetration there is now. There's a much better chance in 2005 that a whole lot of people who live in your own neighborhood or general vicinity will have stuff you want, and you certainly will have stuff they want, and both of you will have ways to find out about each others' haves and wants. Does eBay's trust and safety cushion still offer as much value in such a world?

• Posted by John Battelle at 3:44 PM
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Posting to Resume...Tomorrow!

It was a splendid event, but it left me exhausted, and I'm taking much of today off. However there is much to report from Web 2.0, and plenty of other news as well. I expect to get on it starting Saturday. Thanks for your patience with my time off. And to all the Searchbloggers I met at the conference, thank you so much for coming. It means the world to me.

• Posted by John Battelle at 3:38 PM
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B 2.0 Column: Erik Blachford, CEO of IAC Travel

TITANS OF TECH
A Man Who's Going Places
Erik Blachford controls half of the online travel market -- and Barry Diller's Net ambitions are riding on his shoulders. So why is the CEO of IAC Travel so relaxed?

By John Battelle, October 2004 Issue

Within Barry Diller's online empire, InterActiveCorp, there's no business more vital than IAC Travel -- which makes Erik Blachford his most important lieutenant. Overseeing Expedia, Hotels.com, Hotwire, and other travel properties, Blachford is responsible for 37 percent of IAC's revenue and more than two-thirds of its profits. Still, even as IAC Travel's growth has been extraordinary -- it's now the third-largest travel agency in the world -- it's feeling the pressure from any number of competitors, including its suppliers, competing online services, and even portals and search engines. To keep growth going, Blachford is expanding into Europe and Asia and has dived into the $100 billion corporate travel market. But what he's really dreaming of is re-creating the perfect travel agent online.

Barry Diller was once asked about IAC Travel, and he replied by saying something to the effect of "You think this is the future of travel; I think it's the future of everything." Does he see what you're doing in travel as indicative of the future of the entire Internet?

InterActiveCorp, at the highest level, is just a big bet on consumers using the Internet for more stuff. If you fundamentally believe that the Internet is going to provide people with richer and better information for making decisions, then you have to make bets across a pretty wide variety of things. We've got high airline ticket prices, and hotel rooms are expensive, so the dollar figures involved get pretty eye-popping pretty fast, and that's one of the reasons people like to point to the travel category.

I understand that more than 20 percent of the travel business is now booked online.

It's closer to 25 percent this year. It's probably going to around 35 percent by 2006. By the time you get to 2010 or 2011, we think between one-half and three-quarters of leisure and unmanaged business travel -- everything not handled by corporate travel agencies, that is -- should be online.

With growth prospects like that, why did IAC take a hit in the last quarterly earnings? Why does Wall Street not give it the same earnings multiple as its peer group?

Well, you had a couple of different things going on. On the one hand, the whole category did get beaten up pretty badly. So there is something to be said for people just looking at the overall growth trends quarter over quarter in online travel and saying, "Boy, that didn't seem quite as quick as we were expecting."

(continued in extended entry)

With the war and SARS in 2003, you had a lot of cheap hotel rooms to sell, right? That wasn't true this year.

I don't know that any of us have done a really good job of explaining that -- mea culpa. I think that's part of it; with a surprise like that go questions about what's coming up. If this just means we have to execute for a bunch of quarters in a row, and that's what it takes to get people feeling good about the business again, that's OK.

What are you planning to do to keep growth going?

Travel's a global business, so we have to be a global company. We've made a concerted push to go beyond the borders of the United States. We've done very well in North America and we've got a leadership position in Europe, and we've just entered the Asia-Pacific region, which is the third-biggest travel market in the world.

In the past few years, we've seen explosive growth, but almost all of it has been on the leisure travel side. Now we're very focused on moving from the leisure market into the corporate travel market. That's a different business -- servicing travel management needs from corporations -- but it does line up awfully well with the core technology and service we've built.

Corporate travel -- you really think you can crack that nut?

If you're running a corporate travel department, your job is to save the company money. We decided we had the right combination of technology -- which we can bring over with some modification from the leisure side -- and service, which we actually acquired through a company called Metropolitan Travel in Seattle. By putting the two things under one roof and really paying attention to integrating them, we can deliver a lower-cost solution and pass the savings on to the corporate customers. Corporate travel is a classic example of a business that just costs too much. The typical travel management company will charge $40 or $50 per transaction. We charge $5 for an online booking and $20 for phone transactions.

So you make money the same way as with leisure -- on deals with travel providers -- but also on the service fees?

That's correct. We save the companies money on the fee that we charge, and then we actually find them better prices too. The merchant model we have in hotels, for example, allows us to deliver better prices on the front end to customers, and then we also make a good margin on the back end.

In the merchant model, you actually buy rooms at one rate and sell them at another, making money on the margin instead of a flat commission. Is that model why the InterContinental hotel chain recently announced that it didn't want to play anymore -- you were taking too much of its margin?

Hotels are like any other businesses. They're going to have times when it's easier to get business and times when it's tougher. Over the last few years, the travel industry's found it a little tougher to get business. This year the economy's doing somewhat better and most of the hotels are a little fuller. A lot of the hotels are looking at the marketing mix they use to bring in bookings, and some of them are finding that they don't need to put rooms on sale quite as much. But the InterContinental case is a bit different. I think the best way to think about it is as a price negotiation that's broken out into public view.

So, at the end of the day, whom do you serve? Are you a champion of the consumer or a distributor to your suppliers?

The answer is, it depends. There are definitely cases where the interests align and the best way to make sure a consumer gets the best deal is by pushing the thing that happens to be on sale from a distributor. A consumer never minds being merchandized to if it's going to save him a bunch of money. People don't like to have stuff pushed in their face. On the other hand, we have to make some judgments about what to put at the top of various lists, and we try to mix together what we know about what our customers want with the best prices that we can find in the market. The exception is air travel, where we actually start with the lowest price and sort downward from there because that's the consumer default.

Will you be adding anything to the site that gives consumers the upper hand?

We're going to launch user reviews of hotels. Consumers can browse through and get a good understanding of what other consumers think about different hotels, and hotels can look and see how they're being rated by our customers on our site. The best way for them to improve their rating is by treating their customers better.

Can anything save the big airlines -- American, United, and all these other megacarriers? Are we going to see these huge brands give up the ghost?

The bottom line is that the country needs a certain amount of airline infrastructure to keep moving properly. But it's easy for me to imagine some restructuring. Some of the carriers have been making pretty good strides in restructuring and trying to get more competitive with the low-cost carriers. Right now, though, there really is a crisis based on fuel costs. And the low-cost carriers, because of their financial stability, have been better able to hedge fuel costs. That's making life difficult for a lot of the larger carriers. A higher-cost carrier might have to match prices even if it's uneconomical to do so. One of the ways they afford that might be by giving up landing slots in airports. Of course, that gives the low-cost carriers new entry into those airports, and the cycle repeats again.

Some of the largest low-fare airlines refuse to sell through online travel sites, yours included. What are you doing to bring them into the fold?

Of the established low-cost carriers, only Southwest and JetBlue currently restrict online sales to their own sites. We sell the other low-cost carriers and a great selection of full-service carriers. Our customer purchase volumes indicate that our carrier selection works pretty well. We're always ready to talk to Southwest and JetBlue about distributing through our sites, and we believe that as the low-cost airlines compete more against one another for share, our distribution reach is going to look even more attractive.

You lobbied hard against Orbitz when the airlines first backed it. Why? Are you still as concerned about Orbitz?

In its early incarnation, Orbitz had exclusive access to airlines' Web-only fares, and a series of interlocking contracts made it unattractive for any carrier to put any seats on sale anywhere other than Orbitz. That structure became less relevant with the decline of Web-only fares over the past few years. All we ever wanted was a level playing field.

What would you like to be able to do in your business that so far is not possible?

There's this mythical really good travel agent -- a breed rarely seen in the wild -- somebody out there who knows you, knows your family, what you like, what you don't like, where you've been, how it went, your preferences about weather, your cost sensitivities, that you like to splurge on a few things, and what those things are. That person can guide you through the trip-planning process. That's what an online travel site should be eventually.

What other trends in travel do you see from where you stand?

You see a tendency in the United States toward shorter vacations. People are less interested in the traditional seven-day break and more interested in four- and five-day weekends. That's having a real impact on pricing and policies, especially on traditional tour operators. We've seen a lot of receptivity to the dynamic packaging of travel on the Internet. People are not that happy with the old models, which haven't adapted to fit the way people want to travel today. About 10 percent of people will take a package vacation across the industry, but online it could go north of 30 percent. It's also happening in Europe.

The same thing is playing out there? I can't imagine they'd give up their six weeks of time off!

In Europe you've got a situation where tour operators have had much more impact on vacations than they have in the United States. But that model is being eroded by exactly the same force. People want more flexibility, and they realize the only way to get it is on the Internet.

FIVE-STOP SHOPPING
IAC's offerings range from online to off and low bucks to deluxe.

Expedia
The No. 1 travel site leapt ahead by selling flight-and-hotel packages.

Hotels.com
Lists 13,000 properties worldwide for budget-minded lodging seekers.

Hotwire.com
Offers deeply discounted flights and rooms for flexible travelers.

Classic Custom Vacations
Need a private jet to an exclusive resort in Maui? Classic can book it.

TV Travel Shop
IAC plans to import this British cable-TV network to the United States.

John Battelle is program chair of the Web 2.0 conference and author of "The Search" (Portfolio, late 2004).

Find this article at http://www.business2.com/b2/subscribers/articles/0,17863,696379,00.html

©2004 Business 2.0 Media Inc. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

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Google Gets Mobile, Launches "Google SMS"

Blogging from the show floor, but got this email from the Googleplex:

Greetings...

Today, Google announced the beta release of Google SMS, a new offering that enables people who are away from their computers to quickly and easily get instant, accurate answers to specialized queries through text messaging. Using a cell phone or handheld device such as a Blackberry, users can obtain local business listings, dictionary definitions, product prices and more--all available through Google.

Google SMS returns specific information related to a user's query as a text message to their mobile device. For example, to find a pizza joint in a specific neighborhood, users can send a text message to the 5-digit U.S. shortcode 46645 (also GOOGL on most mobile phones) with the query and city or query and zip code, i.e. [pizza 94043], and immediately receive the name, address, and phone number of local pizzerias in that area. This type of concise information can help mobile users find exactly what they're looking for anywhere and any time.

Using Google SMS, people can:
. Find names, addresses and phone numbers for local businesses and residences
. Look up dictionary terms to get definitions, expand their vocabularies, or even settle bets
. Compare online product prices with those they find in retail stores, i.e. to find the price of an iPod, users can enter the message [price ipod 20gb]

Google SMS, currently in beta on Google Labs at http://sms.google.com, extends the reach of Google's search services to mobile phones and devices, while staying true to Google's mission to bring more of the world's information directly to users. Google SMS currently works with wireless providers in the U.S. only, including AT&T Wireless, Cingular, Nextel, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint PCS.

Google is continually developing innovative ideas to improve our users' search experience, and as always, we welcome your feedback. For instructions on how to get started, users may send a text message to 46645 with the word [help]. More information about Google SMS can be found at http://sms.google.com.

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Thanks, Feedster!

Really cool of the folks at Feedster to give the Web 2.0 feed such prominence on the home page, and to create an XML feed for coverage! Here's the link, and thanks guys...It's been a great event so far.

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:48 PM
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Open Thread

In the tradition of Dan Gillmor, I'm going to ask that you readers comment on this post, and add a twist - how about you guys tell *me* what the news is? I'll be in the haze of Web 2.0 all day, but I know big things are brewing, and I'll check into this post. Go ahead, comment away! (You might start with the Google Print news - migod, as if A9 wasn't enough reason to call Amazon a competitor...)

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:29 AM
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Web 2.0 Day One

Wow, what a first day. Amazing workshops, and then really fun sessions. Bill Gross unveiled Snap, a very cool new engine that you can check out here (yeah, Snap, uh huh, in an earlier incarnation it was a failed Web 1.0 portal from CNet and NBC). And then early Google investor and Board member John Doerr, in a great interview with John Heilemann, let us know that Google was not going to sit on its hands w/r/t personalization, in fact, he said there will be announcements very shortly about Google's next phase of personal search. Also, Rojo debuted, and we still have Marc Cuban to go tonight...

More to come, and much more on the web 2.0 site, where coverage is aggregated....

• Posted by John Battelle at 6:54 PM
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Kanoodle Throws Hat Into AdSense Ring

Kanoodle today launched BrightAds, an AdSense like play that differentiates on categorization. Wish I had more time to talk about it - Boing Boing is playing with it. As soon as I have the time post-conference I'll post on this again. Release in extended entry, quoting from it:

Kanoodle, a leading provider of sponsored listings for search results and content pages, today announced the launch of BrightAds™, a self-service tool for small- to medium-sized content publishers that will enable them to run Kanoodle’s content-targeted sponsored links on their sites. With the launch of BrightAds, it is now easy for independent Web publishers to add highly relevant sponsored links advertisements to their sites and generate immediate revenue.

Kanoodle’s listings have until now only been available to the Web’s largest content publishers, currently running on a number of the Internet’s most well-known and respected sites, including CBS MarketWatch, MSNBC.com, USAToday.com and others.

A unique benefit of BrightAds is that it maps ads by “topics” rather than keywords, which prevents core keyword mapping challenges and provides publishers with ads that are more relevant to their site’s content.

Contact: Mark Josephson
Kanoodle.com, Inc.
212-931-5238
markj@corp.kanoodle.com

Jessica Schweitzer
Hill & Knowlton
212-885-0388
jessica.schweitzer@hillandknowlton.com

Kanoodle Launches BrightAds™ Automated Content-Targeted Sponsored Links Solution

Launch Extends Success of Content-Targeting with Web’s Largest Publishers to Small- and Medium-Sized Publishers

First Self-Service Sponsored Links Offering Built Expressly to Address All Pages of Content Sites

NEW YORK, October XX, 2004 – Kanoodle, a leading provider of sponsored listings for search results and content pages, today announced the launch of BrightAds™, a self-service tool for small- to medium-sized content publishers that will enable them to run Kanoodle’s content-targeted sponsored links on their sites. With the launch of BrightAds, it is now easy for independent Web publishers to add highly relevant sponsored links advertisements to their sites and generate immediate revenue.

Kanoodle’s listings have until now only been available to the Web’s largest content publishers, currently running on a number of the Internet’s most well-known and respected sites, including CBS MarketWatch, MSNBC.com, USAToday.com and others.

A unique benefit of BrightAds is that it maps ads by “topics” rather than keywords, which prevents core keyword mapping challenges and provides publishers with ads that are more relevant to their site’s content. This protects the editorial integrity of publishers’ sites, ensuring that the ads appearing on each page are directly related to the context of the reader and are not dependent on arbitrary keywords. Furthermore, BrightAds is the first self-service network to combine the scalability of dynamic targeting with the integrity of editorial review. Relevance generates more clicks and more conversions to sale for advertisers, ultimately resulting in higher revenue for the publisher.

“BrightAds offers small- to medium-sized publishers the ability to monetize all of the pages on their sites using the same leading suite of content-targeting products enjoyed by the Web’s leading publishers,” said Doug Perlson, SVP and General Manager of Kanoodle. “BrightAds was created directly from the feedback we received as part of our ongoing dialogue with publishers about what they wanted from an automated network – it was specifically built to be the most publisher-friendly product in the market.”

Key features of the BrightAds network include:
• The ability for publishers to monetize their entire site, even on dynamic content pages;
• An easy to navigate sign-up, review and code generation process;
• The confidence that Kanoodle provides only paid ads, so publishers running ads are always generating revenue;
• A variety of adaptable ad units, giving publishers the flexibility to seamlessly integrate listings into their sites;
• A clearly defined revenue share; and
• An easy payment program, currently including PayPal.

Perlson continued, “At launch, publishers in the BrightAds network will have access to Kanoodle’s ContextTarget listings. We intend to roll out our BehaviorTarget listings, our RSS targeting solutions and our subsequent targeting products, in the very near future.”

Publishers can join the BrightAds network by visiting http://www.kanoodle.com/about/brightads.cool, filling out an application and then selecting the topics that are most relevant to the content appearing on their site. They can then expect to begin generating revenue immediately upon their application approval.

For additional information on BrightAds, please visit www.kanoodle.com.

About Kanoodle
Kanoodle provides advertisers an unparalleled opportunity to leverage text-based, cost-per-click sponsored links to reach their customers on the Web's search engines and content destinations. Kanoodle’s products -- KeywordTarget™ for search-targeted sponsored links, ContextTarget™ for context-targeted sponsored links and BehaviorTarget™ for behavioral-targeted sponsored links -- are distributed on networks of high quality search and content providers, including CBS MarketWatch.com, MSNBC.com, USAToday.com, CNET’s Search.com, the InfoSpace search properties and Kanoodle.com. Kanoodle was founded in 1999 and has offices in Amherst, NY and New York City.

# # #

• Posted by John Battelle at 7:43 AM
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News: Yahoo Bows New Personalized Search

It's been pretty busy at Yahoo lately, a new My Yahoo, new Local, and now, new My Yahoo search beta. (As of 9 pm PST 10/04/04, it's not quite live...)

This release marks a major step in Yahoo's commitment to the concept of what I've dubbed the PersonalWeb - it supports the creation of a "personal web index" (via "saving searches), search "communities," annotation, and sharing of search results. Interestingly, the beta also lets you block sites, a form of refinement that may prove important as this whole field starts to march forward. So does all this sound familiar? Yup, it should, you've seen versions of this movie before, and quite recently - A9 last month, Ask Jeeves even more recently, the sale of Furl to Looksmart, and reliable sources tell me more is on the way. (IE: Watch this space).

From the PR info I was sent:

My Yahoo! Search is an extension of Yahoo! Search, to help users better find, manage, and share search engine results.... Yahoo! understands that users want greater flexibility and control of their media and information, and is committed to providing a personal search experience that can be tailored to meet the highly specific needs of the individual.

This is a developing story, and I am sure many others will cover it before I can pull away from Web 2.0 again....Yahoo's blog post is here...

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:06 PM
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A Googler, Nee PyraHead, Leaves

Evhead is leaving Google. His company was purchased by Google back in 2003. A sign of things to come? Yes and no. Yes, liquidity creates opportunity for folks to leave and follow their bliss. But OTOH, I sense Evan would have done this anyway.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:28 PM
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Searchblog: Tumbleweeds Ho

I won't promise it, but I'll wager Searchblog will be looking pretty unlived-in this week, as I'll be focused on producing Web 2.0. When I am doing a conference, I tend to get in a kind of zone, and I forget about pretty much everything else. It's three straight days of live stagecraft, and we have more than 60 speakers presenting, which is the most I've ever managed in one event. We also have evening events, from Google, Morpheus, and Yahoo, so the usual burst of late night items might be slow as well.

We invited a lot of press and bloggers, so I expect there will be plenty of places to grok the goings on. In fact, you might start with Google News, and perhaps check out who's linking to us over at Feedster. Andy, Ross, Jeff, Wade, and I am sure others will also be blogging it. We'll also put a link to all the coverage on the main site, once the event gets going.

I'm excited that this event, which began as an idea Tim and I shared nearly a year ago, is actually happening, and is so well attended. We hoped for 400-500, and we have more than 550 registered (yes, you can still come, but today is the deadline for the pre-show price. Walk in tix are quite dear). We hoped for 5-6 sponsors, and we have 15. And much of the support came in the last couple of months, as momentum built. It's been a great education preparing for this. Thanks to everyone who is coming, and to all you Searchbloggers for putting up with my absence. There will be a killer search panel on Weds afternoon, and some news on search from Bill Gross, Yahoo, and others - so stay tuned!

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:13 AM
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Yahoo Local Is Live

The Beta tag is off, and the Local product, which has new interface features and many improvements driven from its limited beta period, is now live and integrated into the home page. I am on the Yahoo Local advisory council, an unpaid and informal group that Yahoo pinged for feedback during the process.

I'll be prepping for Web 2.0 Monday, but Chris will have the scoop here.

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:15 PM
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Good(man) Point

Andrew Goodman makes a fine point: with all the hype around Google's possible entry into the browser wars, many have missed the fact that Yahoo looks more than ever like a player in the Web-as-Desktop field.

• Posted by John Battelle at 1:48 PM
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The MS Hegemony Erodes?

Thanks to Gary's pointer, I'm looking forward to trying out this new Opera-based tool, the Opera Show Generator, which allows you to use your browser as a web-based slide player, a la Powerpoint. Again, a very Web 2.0 development.

• Posted by John Battelle at 1:35 PM
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Om Finds Another Yahoo/Google Patent?

Over on his site Om finds a new patent in Yahoo's arsenal that might have implications along the lines of the supposedly settled Yahoo/Google lawsuit. The patent Om found covers "displaying paid and unpaid listings on the results page after a search term is input."

The settlement gave Google access to a whole bunch of Yahoo patents, but I am not sure if this one - US Patent # 6,704,727 - was part of the deal. I have already sent emails to the PR folks at these two fine companies, and probably would know more on Monday.

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:23 AM
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More News of Note

Yes, I'm crushed by Web 2.0, but so much going on....

Google Launches Froogle UK(Cnet)
SFO Expansion, Ho.
FindWhat Launches AdSense Rival(ClickZ)
Category based, rather than contextual
Blinkx 2.0 Coming(InternetWeek)
Note the lengthy comments in my earlier post on Blinkx
Gary and Greg Grok(Searcher)
Gary Price interviews Greg Linden
Rifkin Riffs on the PersonalWeb
How big is your PersonalWeb? He does the math!
Google Should Be In the Browser Biz Bizweek
"No-brainer."
Technorati Does a Hackathon At Web 2.0
Details in the post.
The Next Big Thing (USA Today)
Feel that bubblicious press love
TiVo and NetFlix Join at the Hip(PVRBlog)
VOI anyone?
EFF Kicks Diebold's Ass(Boing Boing)
On a roll...
Genocide at a Buck a Click (Ethan Zuckerman)
Who cares about Africa, he asks.

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:20 AM
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