Gilgamesh, Search, and Immortality

Why Search?

On a fine sunny morning, not long after the birth of my third child, I typed “immortality” into Google and hit the “I’m feeling lucky” button.

In an instant, Google takes me to the “Immortality Institute,” dedicated to “conquering the blight of involuntary death.”

Not quite what I was looking for. So I hit the search again, but this time I took a look at the first ten results, etched in blue, green, and black against Google’s eternal white. Nothing really caught my eye. Cyronics stuff, a business called Immortality Inc. – pretty much what you might expect. I couldn’t put what I was looking for into words, but I knew this wasn’t it.

Then I noticed the advertising relegated to the right side of the screen.

There were four ads. The first was someone who claimed to have met “immortal ETs.” Pass. The third and fourth were from eBay and Yahoo! Shopping. These mega sites had purchased the “immortality” keyword in some odd and obliquely interesting hope that people searching for immortality might somehow find relief through…buying shit online. (In fact what Yahoo and eBay were doing was a sort of secondary search arbitrage – buying top positions for a search term on Google and then creating a link to the exact same search term on their own site). Interesting, but I wasn’t searching immortality so I could go buy stuff. I took a pass on those as well.

But the second paid link pointed to the Epic of Gilgamesh, “mankind’s first epic,” which I hazily recalled as the first story ever written down – in Sumerian cuneiform, if memory served (and it did, thanks to my mother, a middle school English teacher for 25 years). I clicked on the link – by that action earning Google a few ephemeral pennies – and landed on an obscure bookseller’s page. The Epic of Gilgamesh, the site instructed me, recounts mankind’s “longing stretch toward the infinite” and its “reluctant embrace of the temporal. This is the eternal lot of mankind.”

Bingo. I didn’t quite know why, but this was the stuff I was looking for. My vague desire to understand the concept of immortality had brought me to the Epic of Gilgamesh, and now I was hooked. But I didn’t want to buy a book, I wanted to read the epic, right there, right now. So I typed the title itself into Google, and once again found myself larded with options. But this time the organic results nailed it: The first two offered direct translations of the stone tablets upon which the Epic is written. Clicking on the first link, I found a Washington State professor’s summary of the Gilgamesh story, a summary which echoed much of my own inarticulate thoughts about the importance of search:

Gilgamesh was an historical king of Uruk in Babylonia, on the River Euphrates in modern Iraq; he lived about 2700 B.C. Although historians (and your textbook) tend to emphasize Hammurabi and his code of law, the civilizations of the Tigris-Euphrates area, among the first civilizations, focus rather on Gilgamesh and the legends accruing around him to explain, as it were, themselves. Many stories and myths were written about Gilgamesh, some of which were written down about 2000 B.C. in the Sumerian language on clay tablets which still survive….written in the script known as cuneiform, which means "wedge-shaped." The fullest surviving version, from which the summary here is taken, is derived from twelve stone tablets… found in the ruins of the library of Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria 669-633 B.C., at Nineveh. The library was destroyed by the Persians in 612 B.C., and all the tablets are damaged. The tablets actually name an author, which is extremely rare in the ancient world, for this particular version of the story: Shin-eqi-unninni. You are being introduced here to the oldest known human author we can name by name!

In my search for immortality, I had found the oldest known named author, within thirty seconds I came to know his name and his work. This man, Shin-eqi-unninni, now lived in my own mind, and in a sense, has through his writings, with an assist from Google and a university professor, become immortal. Even stonier, if you will, Gilgamesh's story is one of man's struggle with the concept of immortality, and the story itself was nearly lost in an act of literary vandalism.

The opening lines of the first tablet certainly resonate:

The one who saw all [Sha nagba imuru ]I will declare to the world,
The one who knew all I will tell about
[line missing]
He saw the great Mystery, he knew the Hidden:
He recovered the knowledge of all the times before the Flood.
He journeyed beyond the distant, he journeyed beyond exhaustion,
And then carved his story on stone. [naru : stone tablets ]

What does it mean, I wondered, to become immortal through words pressed in clay – or, as was the case here, through words formed in bits and transferred over the web? Is that not what every person longs for – what Odysseus chose over Kalypso’s nameless immortality – to die, but to be known forever? And does not search offer the same immortal imprint - is not existing forever in the indexes of Google and others the modern day equivalent of carving our stories into stone? For bloggers, in particular, I believe the answer is yes.

Loyal readers know they must suffer through my tendencies to wander off into the desert of joint-after-midnight meanderings (even if the joints have not been formally broken out), but there you have it. I searched for immortality, and dadgummit, I think I found it.

• Posted by John Battelle at 4:13 PM
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The Google IPO Site Is Live...

Gentlemen, start your engines....once you input your zip code and state (for US residents only though no verification so far is made), there is a bunch of fun stuff here.

A management presentation in text and video....featuring Eric, Larry, and Sergey....

The video is grainy but fine. After some legal stuff and a short intro from Eric, the video is set up as a Q&A; with Larry and Sergey to start. It's really quite striking how similar Larry and Sergey's voices and cadences are. They are clearly playing it very straight, but address the same major questions as the S-1. Then Eric gives an overview of the Google business, insisting Google is first and foremost driven by technology. Then George Reyes, the CFO comes in and goes over the numbers and the auction process.

Hat Tip: Gary.

• Posted by John Battelle at 2:52 PM
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Make Announced

One of the cool projects I'm pleased to be associated with is Make, a new O'Reilly publication that was announced today at O'Reilly's OSCON conference. I helped O'Reilly flesh out the model and editorial concepts for this great new title, and I'm pleased Mark Frauenfelder, of Boing Boing and other fame, will be its Editor in Chief. For more info on Make, check Mark's post here, or contact me if you're a sponsor interested in knowing more (I'm also helping them on that side of things.)

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:28 AM
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Self-INDUCE

Joi and Larry and others point to BitTorrent file of the hearings on the INDUCE Act, the latest salvo from the morons who brought us DMCA and DRM. I like this observation from Joi:

BitTorrent is one of the most efficient p2p systems and is great for distributing movies and other large files. The Induce act is trying to make illegal basic technologies such as p2p which "could induce" people to break copyright.

With more powerful cameras and PCs, video and Flash have become important mediums for free speech. They are increasingly being used for political action. The integration of blogs and p2p technology for sharing these videos like the BitTorrent link above from Lessig are a good example. I believe this is substantial non-infringing use.

In other words, the INDUCE act could kill a lot more than p2p (or the iPod or even search), it could kill free expression and political discourse. Like, for example, the use of BitTorrent to discuss with and inform the public about an important political development...

And if you want to get smart on INDUCE, here's Boing Boing's Xeni on NPR...and the EFF's fake complaint showing how ludicrous this proposal is...and Corante's (Ernest Miller's) INDUCE related stuff ....There's much much more... I think we may have to go to the ramparts on this one....

• Posted by John Battelle at 4:11 PM
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Wiki WriteUp

A reader (thanks!) sent me this link to a Journal article (sub required) - written by Kara Swisher - good to see Kara covering this space again - about Wikis. I've been using Wikis for the past 9 months or so on a couple different projects and I certainly see the potential, but far as I can tell, they are not quite there yet. However, there are some developments in the works, one of which will be demonstrated at Web 2.0, that are very exciting (Joe Kraus will be there with his new company Jot). From the piece:

Now, venture capitalists are funding several startups that are attempting to take the idea to a bigger and more lucrative general-business audience. Their goal is to try to solve one of the workplace's most vexing problems: how to have employees collaborate and communicate better electronically....
....Getting average people to think about controlling the Web as comfortably as they might an e-mail or a Word document has not been easy. But the rise in popularity of Web logs known as blogs and other "social software" is changing that. Blogging, say wiki proponents, has revived the idea that a Web site can be an ever-changing organism that can be linked with other Web sites to create a larger and more informative picture....
....Jot's Joe Kraus says that to make wikis more widespread, companies like his and Mr. Mayfield's must make wiki software simple to integrate into existing applications that workers commonly use, add more features beyond document editing and make it even more enticing for people to deploy them. "People have to perceive that they only need to add a little information in order to get a lot out of it," says Mr. Kraus.

• Posted by John Battelle at 12:07 PM
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Interesting Analysis of the Google/Overture Suit

As you will recall, Overture sued Google back in 2002 for allegedly infringing its patented ad matching technology. This suit has been pretty quiet for a while, but internetnews.com's Susan Kuchinskas has a good piece on where the suit stands and the key issues apparently informing it. Particularly interesting is this passage:

As Google's IPO approaches, the rivals are waiting for a critical ruling by Judge Jeffrey White of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. His so-called Markman order will define key words in the patent, drawing lines of battle.

"[A] Markman ruling defines the terms in the claim, which in turn define the scope of the invention, how broad or how narrow it is," said Lee Bromberg, an intellectual property attorney with Bromberg & Sunstein. "It's customary for each side to try to pick out certain important terms and to argue for their view of how they ought to be defined," he continued. "It's the judge's job to decide what those terms mean. Sometimes the judge can define a term in a way that either establishes infringement or makes it impossible for infringement."

In this case, the Markman hearing focused on two key terms: "database" and "search result list."

According to its legal briefs, Overture wants to define "database" as "a collection of related data, organized in such a way that its contents can be accessed, managed, and updated by a computer." Google has a counter-argument for that, but it asked the court to hide its argument from the public, citing trade secrets.

As far as what a "search result list" consists of, Overture claims that search result lists can include banner ads. This interpretation would draw AdWords into infringement territory.

Google argued that a search result list is an ordered series of entries and "inherently excludes banner ads and other items that are not responsive to the searcher's search."

The judge must decide whether AdWords are more like banner ads or more like search results, since they are delivered in response to the searcher's search.

It's interesting that Google wants to define "search result list" to "inherently exclude banner ads and other items that are not responsive to the searcher's search." It's philosophically consistent with the company's long standing claim that search results must be independent of editorial or organic results. Yahoo, on the other hand, has long taken the stance that the two can and should be intermingled.

While it's true that a searcher is not looking for specific ads when typing in a request, it's also true that the ads are directly responsive to a searcher's request. It's all in how the judge defines it. And upon the definitive head of these pins, billions of market value may well dance.

• Posted by John Battelle at 1:02 PM
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Google Preso at Waldorf: Mixed Reviews

Bloomberg reports on this week's NY road show:

Google Inc. founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page came to New York in dark suits to sell their company's $3.3 billion initial public offering to investors at the Waldorf Astoria's Grand Ballroom. The presentation drew mixed reviews....The Google founders, escorted by bodyguards to the meeting, didn't talk about future products, earnings or strategy, people who attended the meeting said. Brin and Page made no comments as to what the price of the IPO may be or when the share sale may happen. Reporters were barred from the meeting.

``Given the hype and hoopla surrounding the IPO I thought the presentation failed to live up to expectations,'' said Eric Grollman, an analyst who attended the meeting and asked that his firm not be named.

I don't blame the Google team for being terse and sticking to a set of Powerpoint slides. I imagine if they launched into a verbose riff, Wall St. would have torn them a new one. Play it down the middle till the deal is done....

• Posted by John Battelle at 12:34 PM
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$12.5 Billion to $95 million. Ouch.

Early reports indicate Terra has sold Lycos to an unnamed South Korean company for $95 million. Terra bought the company for $12.5 billion in 2000. Holy sh*t. Reminds me of AltaVista....

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:11 AM
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Google IPO Headline Roundup: The Press Lashes Back

I get a daily news roundup on the term "Google IPO" from, yup, Google News. In any case, the headlines that just crossed my desk are pretty uniformly...cranky. A sampling:

WHY not to bid on Google IPO
San Jose Mercury News (subscription) - San Jose,CA,USA

GOOGLE IPO May Hasten Staff Turnover
San Jose Mercury News (subscription) - San Jose,CA,USA

JUST Say No to Google IPO
eWeek - USA

GOOGLE'S IPO: Asking Too Much?
BusinessWeek - USA

BEHAVIOUR experts see pitfalls in Google IPO frenzy
Stuff.co.nz - New Zealand

VIRUS Puts Damper on Google IPO Pricing News
NPR (audio) - USA

Next up: the"Bloom Is Off The Google Rose" article. If history is any guide, it is already being prepped at any number of publications.

• Posted by John Battelle at 4:16 PM
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MSFT Newsbot: Take That, Google News

MSFT launches Google News competitor today, Newsbot. Reviews from Greg Linden (of competitor and original Findory) here. Cnet coverage here. Chris Sherman's take here.

Related: AP is looking to get into the same game....

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:53 AM
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Which Business Do You Want To Be In?

WSJ (sub required) quotes a Jupiter report stating the obvious: Online advertising will eclipse magazine dollars by 2008. Mark my words, it will happen faster than that. Via the Inquirer.

• Posted by John Battelle at 11:48 AM
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Overture's Search Optimizer

Overture today unveiled its Search Optimizer, company officials gave me an overview of it yesterday. This tool - built on top of their Marketing Console and an extension of the technology Overture/Yahoo acquired with Key Lime - is aimed at search marketers who manage a lot of keywords - in the hundreds, if not thousands. It provides one analytic view of a campaign, and has an automated feature that, based on business rules you input, will optimize your campaigns for you. I'm no expert in this field, but I find it a worthy development in that it addresses the extraordinary complexity which has become a reality in search marketing these days. I suggested they make it free, but for now they're charging an average of $500 a month for the service.

As opposed to the blunt instrument of, say, TV buys, the numbers trend toward the infinite when you are managing thousands of keywords against scores of creative executions in multiple channels (ie Google, Yahoo, FindWhat, etc) across demographic, behavioral, daypart, and other variables. And it will only get more complex in the future. Smaller firms (such as Key Lime) have sprouted up which focus on addressing this issue (and they keep getting bought), but it's good to see Yahoo also in the game. I imagine Google will need to respond in kind.

By the way, if anyone has experience using this or similar tools to manage a lot of complexity, and has an extraordinary story to tell of how your marketing plans/return/approach shifted due to them, I'd like to talk to you for my book. jbat at battellemedia dot com, thanks!

ClickZ's coverage.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:37 AM
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Watch the Road Show?

I've heard rumors of a Google IPO roadshow via webcast lately, but dismissed them as there are so many regulatory hurdles to such an event, it probably won't happen. However, Gary recently posted his monthly list of domains registered by Google, and while it's still uncertain we'll be able to tune into a Google road show, the domains they've grabbed certainly seem to imply the folks at Google have thought about it...

video-1pogoogle.com              
1pogoogle.com         
ip0google.com       
video-ipo-google.com        
video-ipogoogle.com        
videoipo-google.com        
videoipogoogle.com        
www-ipo-google.com        
www-ipogoogle.com       
wwwipo-gooogle.com  
video-ip0google.com        
video1p0google.com         
video1pogoogle.com         
videoip0google.com        
www-1p0google.com        
www-1pogoogle.com
www-ip0google.com        
www1p0google.com        
www1pogoogle.com
wwwip0go1p0google.com
video-1p0google.com

Update: JH points out that the Journal took the time to read the entire filing, of course, and:

In another indication of its unconventional plans, Google disclosed that it will offer a "virtual" roadshow on a Web site, and included a transcript of the presentation in its SEC filing. Google said the site (ipo.google.com) will begin accepting investor registrations in the coming days. The registration period, expected to begin as early as today, will last about five business days, according to a person familiar with the matter. Once the registration period has closed, Google will accept bids for as many as 10 business days, according to people familiar with the situation. Then it will determine the offering price, with the shares expected to begin trading roughly two to three weeks from now, according to these people.

• Posted by John Battelle at 2:45 PM
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The MyDoom Attack(s)

Gary and others alert me to the depth and approach taken by what Andy has noted seems to be denial of service attacks on Google - in fact, it's a virus that uses search engines in a clever and rather simple way to find more addresses. From a message forwarded to me by Gary (full text in continuation below):

MyDoom.O searches user files (DOC TXT HTM and HTML) for domain names, then
uses search engines (Lycos, AltaVista, Yahoo and Google) to search for
"e-mail" and the harvested domain in order to gain access to other email
addresses.

There is a strong likelihood that web-based lists such as phone books,
memberships, discussion boards and general user home pages will be
harvested by the machine and in turn infect others.

A search on Google using the same "e-mail" + domain method has generated a
"Forbidden" message, which may indicate activity on the part of the search
engines to thwart the virus.

----- Forwarded message from MailingLists@messagelabs.com -----
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 21:13:59 GMT
From: MailingLists@messagelabs.com
Reply-To: MailingLists@messagelabs.com
Subject: MessageLabs Virus Advisory: W32/MyDoom.O-mm
To: Alerts Subscriber

MyDoom.O Designed to Target Search Engines

New York, NY – July 26, 2004 (3:00 pm ET) - MessageLabs, the leading
provider of managed email security services to businesses worldwide, is
advising computer users that W32.Mydoom.O contains multiple search engine
URLs and is using them to harvest additional domain email addresses.

MyDoom.O searches user files (DOC TXT HTM and HTML) for domain names, then
uses search engines (Lycos, AltaVista, Yahoo and Google) to search for
"e-mail" and the harvested domain in order to gain access to other email
addresses.

There is a strong likelihood that web-based lists such as phone books,
memberships, discussion boards and general user home pages will be
harvested by the machine and in turn infect others.

A search on Google using the same "e-mail" + domain method has generated a
"Forbidden" message, which may indicate activity on the part of the search
engines to thwart the virus.

“Because MyDoom.O contains web site links and directs recipients to
specific and targeted sites, this virus is in essence creating distributed
Denial of Service attacks against Lycos, AltaVista, Yahoo and Google,”
said Mark Sunner, Chief Technology Officer of MessageLabs.

The specific URLs contained in MyDoom.O are:

http://search.lycos.com/default.asp?lpv=1&loc=searchhp&tab=web&query=%s

http://www.altavista.com/web/results?q=%s&kgs=0&kls=0

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%s&ei=UTF-8&fr=fp-tab-web-t&cop=mss&tab=

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%s

According to initial intelligence now circulating, MyDoom.O can also
harvest emails from any Outlook Windows active on the compromised machine.
This will lead to additional propagation via SMTP even after a peak
infection period.

General Details

Name: W32/MyDoom.O-mm
Number of copies intercepted so far: 23,000 within first five hours
Time & date first captured: July 26, 2004; 4:40 AM ET
Origin of first intercepted copy: UK

MyDoom.O is a mass-mailing worm with an SMTP engine that sends emails to
addresses harvested from infected machines. The sender’s From: email
address is forged, and therefore does not indicate the true identity of
the sender. MyDoom.O may also spoof from the mailer-daemon@ address,
which is typically used to indicate a delivery failure, thus enhancing its
social engineering trickery.

The executable file is approximately 27,648 bytes in size. The virus is
also packed with UPX v1.0x and stored in a ZIP attachment.

NB: The virus is also being referred to as: MyDoom.M, I-Worm.Mydoom.M,
I-Worm.Mydoom. R, and W32/Mydoom.L.

File Types:
- PIF
- SCR
- DOC
- EXE
- HTM

Email Characteristics
From: Spoofed email address (including mailer-daemon@,
noreply@)
Subject: Random (see below)
Text: Various
Size: 27,648 bytes

Subject
· hi
· delivery failed
· Message could not be delivered
· Mail System Error - Returned Mail
· Delivery reports about your e-mail
· Returned mail: see transcript for details
· Returned mail: Data format error instruction
· MAILER-DAEMON
· "Mail Administrator"
· "Automatic Email Delivery Software"
· "Post Office"
· "The Post Office"
· "Bounced mail"
· "Returned mail"
· "Mail Delivery Subsystem"

Detection
MessageLabs detected all strains of this virus proactively, using its
unique and patented Skeptic™ predictive heuristics technology.

About MessageLabs
MessageLabs is the leading provider of managed email security services to
businesses worldwide. The company currently protects more than 8,500
businesses around the world from email threats such as viruses, spam and
other unwanted content before they reach their networks and without the
need for additional hardware or software. Powered by a global network of
control towers that currently spans 13 data centers in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia and Hong Kong,
MessageLabs scans millions of emails a day on behalf of customers such as
The British Government, The Bank of New York, Bertelsmann, Bic, CSC, Conde
Nast Publications, EMI Music, Diageo, Orange, Random House, SC Johnson and
StorageTek. The company has more than 300 channel partners, including BT,
Cable & Wireless, CSC, IBM, MCI and Unisys and publishes real-time data
and analysis on viruses, spam, phishing scams and other email security
threats. MessageLabs’ statistics and experts are frequently quoted in
media outlets around the world and its executives regularly speak at
industry conferences. For more information on MessageLabs and its
industry-leading email security and management services, please visit
www.messagelabs.com.

About MessageLabs Intelligence
Through MessageLabs Intelligence, the company provides continuous and
regularly updated information, statistics and analysis on a range of email
security threats worldwide. MessageLabs Intelligence is based on live data
feeds pulled from our global network of control towers that scan millions
of emails daily. It is widely referenced and considered to be the latest,
most comprehensive data available on email security threats.

• Posted by John Battelle at 2:36 PM
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Search Africa

I know very little, no, less than very little, about the state of search in Africa. But Jamboweb is the first site to cross my desk in that space, so I'll bite and let you all know about it...

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:10 AM
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New S1-A; "GOOG" to Price as Early as Today

Google filed another amended S-1 today, this article from the FT claims the company will price its shares shortly, also points out that there has been considerable (and predictable) friction between it and Wall St. It also notes that shares in net companies have tumbled lately.

So what's new in the S-1A? "We anticipate that the initial public offering price will be between $108.00 and $135.00 per share." They are selling more than 14 million shares, and individuals are selling another 10.5 million. Proposed symbol? GOOG. There's probably a lot more, but I haven't time to read the whole thing right now...

Update: The WSJ (sub required) notes that a senior Google official is in trouble with the Feds for some past life stuff:

Google also disclosed that David C. Drummond, its vice president of corporate development, secretary and general counsel since February 2002, was advised by the SEC staff this month that it intends to recommend that the SEC bring a civil injunction action against him, alleging violation of federal securities laws. Google said the SEC's recommendation arises out of his prior employment as chief financial officer of SmartForce, and "involves certain disclosure and accounting issues relating to SmartForce's financial statements." None of the allegations involve Google, the company said.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:12 AM
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Next B 2.0 Column: Henning Kagermann

I had a great conversation with Henning, and while it's not directly search-related, it was fun, and I thought you all might enjoy it too...

TITANS OF TECH
The No-People Person
SAP's Henning Kagermann says you'll soon run your business by remote control. Then you'll have no one to blame but yourself.

By John Battelle, July 2004 Issue

Henning Kagermann isn't an avid jet pilot and sailor like Oracle's (ORCL) Larry Ellison, or a showman and provocateur like Salesforce.com's Marc Benioff. Now the chairman and CEO of Germany's SAP (SAP), the world's second-largest software firm, Kagermann, 57, used to be a physics professor. And from the way he talks, it's as if there were still chalk dust on his shoulders. But ask him about his competitors and he becomes hyperaggressive, dismissing his peers as preening chest thumpers who have lost touch with their customers. He may have something there: In the market for software that runs business operations, SAP is larger than the next two firms put together. That's not a theoretical equation, since one of the two, Oracle, has been trying to acquire the other, PeopleSoft (PSFT) -- a deal that's been blocked by the U.S. Department of Justice on antitrust grounds. As archrival Oracle prepared for a trial contesting the ruling, Kagermann reflected on SAP's role in the business-software market, the company's recent flirtations with Microsoft (MSFT), and why robots will replace offshore labor.

Oracle's lawsuit seems unprecedented. It's rare for a company to dispute an antitrust finding in court. What's your view?
On the one hand, even if Oracle and PeopleSoft were combined, they would be less than half our size. So we still wouldn't have a competitor that's close to us. But we don't like artificial definitions of markets. It's not a good precedent.

So there's a part of you that agrees with Larry Ellison.

Why focus on finance and HR applications, as they did in this case? Why not enterprise resource planning, for example?

During the trial some things came out regarding merger discussions that SAP had with Microsoft. Can you tell us more about that?

Microsoft approached us, we were listening, and then they discontinued the talks. I believe they felt it was a little too complex. That's it, that's all. Not a story.

Hypothetically, then, is there some logic to the idea?

[Laughter] I can sit here and say nothing for 30 minutes if I have to!

The American tech industry seems to thrive on bravado. PeopleSoft's Craig Conway, for example, has taken you on personally, accusing you of cribbing his speech material.

Why do people even listen to this stuff?

Maybe it's more interesting to watch rich guys take potshots at each other than to talk about software.

But enterprise software is sold on trustworthiness, not glamour. All this chest pounding, it's only for the press; it's not for the customer, believe me.

It seems that Tom Siebel, Marc Benioff, and Larry Ellison would disagree with you. These men are well known for being flamboyant ...

Yes, but what is their success in this market? Larry claims that he will overtake SAP. But just look at the facts. Who's gaining market share? It's all bullshit. Just look at the figures.

(continued....)

Perhaps they believe customers want to go with whoever looks like a winner. Is this just an American thing?

If a person can execute on his promises, then he's a winner. It's a good thing that these guys very often can't execute on their promises. When I tell somebody personally that something will work, it works.

But the general rap on enterprise software is that it doesn't work -- it's late, it's over budget, and it doesn't deliver.

Look, running an enterprise is extremely frustrating. Everywhere you look, you see things you can improve. So now you buy software that helps you run the enterprise better. Will you ever be happy with the software? I wouldn't be, any more than you're ever happy with the enterprise.

So, do customers blame the software when they should just blame themselves?

That's it. Because, look, software doesn't perform miracles. Success is a combination of the software, how people are using it, and the enterprise itself. A CEO once said to me, "That's not good; you're blaming me back," and he was right. If you're the CEO of a company, you -- not the software -- run the company.
SAP has a reputation for being inflexible. What's your response to that charge?

We get that a lot. And the reason is that our software is highly integrated into critical enterprise functions. And by definition, integration and flexibility are a contradiction. We once had a competitor called Baan that introduced its financial software by saying, "Our system is flexible. You can do whatever you want with it." And I said, that is all bullshit. If your books are not right, you're in trouble. It has to be so tightly integrated that people can sleep at night.

In other words, being inflexible forces companies to get their books in order?

That's where I'm coming from. If your accounting is not OK, you're out of business. For us a nightmare would be a newspaper story that said SAP's accounting was not right. And has that happened? Never, ever, ever.

Most would agree that "flexible accounting" isn't such a great idea, but I think your critics are referring to the process of decision-making that comes from the gut rather than rules.

People say the best decisions come from the gut, and therefore it might be difficult to automate business processes. But business is not about the complete flexibility and freedom of the individual. There are business rules: The company is first, and the individual comes second.

What's your view of Salesforce.com's pitch -- the supposed "death of software" in favor of Web-based applications?

I don't want to rush out and do it just to do it. I do believe there will be services or bundles of services that you can offer to clients over the Web. But these offerings will never become the backbone -- the mission-critical, value-generating piece of your business.

What's the most important trend in information technology these days?

One important trend has to do with software taking over in the real world. Software will become more and more important to coordinate various components of a business. It will be important to integrate the software that's running the enterprise -- the business -- with the software that manages the real, physical stuff.

You're talking about a new layer of software that lives outside the traditional enterprise applications that SAP produces?

Right. We don't want to build this layer, but we want our software to talk to it. If you see what's happening with flexible manufacturing, with robots on the factory floor, for example, we have started to connect our software directly to the software in the robots. If you think about that, it means your customer-relationship management applications talk to your enterprise-resource planning applications, and then ERP talks to the robot on the actual assembly line. So when a customer calls and orders a red car instead of a blue car ...

Now wait a minute. Microsoft has an ad here in the United States showing something like that happening, and claiming it has the software to do it.

Yes, Microsoft has that ad. But its software can't do it.

What impact would this software have on the manufacturing world?

I predicted some time ago that there would be nearly peopleless factories. I still believe we will have virtually no people in plants, yet the plants will still react in real time. I see what's happening as we export manufacturing to China, and I ask myself, Is this the only option we have? First the Americans went to Mexico, now they go to China. What's next -- Thailand or the Philippines? It's all because of the cost of labor. If we could have a lower percentage of labor and the rest in technology, wouldn't we keep these plants locally and keep the investments and the infrastructure and the jobs here?

What do you think most people say your management style is?

Too much brain. Not emotional enough.

Tell me how you ended up at SAP.

I applied for a job in 1981. I liked being a physics professor, but there was no impact. [Laughter] I think, at the time, there were maybe 50 people worldwide working on the same thing as me.

Which was?

Statistical mechanics around plasma physics.

I have no idea what that means.

Exactly.

So today, would you, as CEO of SAP, hire a theoretical-physics professor to run development?

No. But they did.

Eyes on the Enterprise (Source: IDC)
CompanySAPPeopleSoftOracleEnterprise software sales, 2003$5.0B$1.7B$1.4BMarket share, 200320%7%6%Sales growth, 
2002-200317%-8%8%StrengthsAccounting, manufacturingHuman resources, supply chain, retailDefense, government
John Battelle is a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley and author of "The Search" (Portfolio, late 2004).

Find this article at http://www.business2.com/b2/subscribers/articles/0,17863,661543,00.html

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

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Back in Business...

...sort of. After trying one place, then a second, I'm pleased to report that I have gotten my data back, a month after the crash. However, it's going to be a long rebuild, as I've learned, you create an entire ecology when you live through the screen, and things don't work so hot when it all goes to hell, then gets recovered. I have to port all the data to a new system, sync, etc. Not fun, but still, many many thanks (and a lot of dough) to Ontrack for doing what others could not, and to all of you who sent me great tips and well wishes.

I'm also back from my vacation, and continuing to work on the book. I've gotten a lot of writing done, and will continue to make the book, plus Web 2.0 (just added: Jerry Yang, Danger Mouse, Google, many others), my priorities for the next couple of months. Thanks for bearing with my lighter postings...

• Posted by John Battelle at 2:59 PM
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Google Hit With Another Suit...

Google has been hit with another lawsuit....this one by an ex employee who claims age discrimination.

And in other legal news, Google's challenge to "Froogles.com" suffered a setback this past week, calling into question whether Froogle.com can continue as a trademark.

(hat tip to Gary, who has recently taken a job as SEW's news editor, congrats!)

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EBay and Search: Just an Example...

...of how important search is to commerce. Rafat finds this job listing....

The eBay Natural Search Initiative is a cross-functional effort to allow eBay pages to rank well in natural search engines. The Internet Marketing team is looking for a motivated individual to manage the companys natural search projects while developing the overall natural search strategy. As a key member of the team running one of the industry's largest online advertising programs, you will play a vital role in driving the growth of eBay's revenue and profitability....

This trend noted previously here and here....

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Blog Search = Political Analysis

From Dave Sifry's blog (he's the founder of Technorati):

A few minutes ago CNN announced that Technorati will be providing real-time analysis of the political blogosphere at next week's Democratic National Convention. I will be on-site in CNN's convention broadcast center, along with Mary Hodder, and I'll be providing regular on-air commentary on what bloggers are saying about politics and the convention. And on Sunday, July 25, we'll launch a new section of our site for political coverage: politics.technorati.com. This site will make it easy for bloggers,
journalists, and anyone interested in politics to see the postings of the most linked-to political bloggers, to track the ideas with the fastest-growing buzz, and to monitor conversations in thousands of other political blogs. CNN.com will link to this site, and we'll be updating the CNN site with the latest from the blogosphere.

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We Should All Have Such Problems....

Ad space is running out (pdf download) on search engines. Damn....

Why do we care? It means the demand has outstripped supply. And that means very good things for high quality community driven web sites. Blogs? Yes.

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Blinkx to Launch

The parade of would-be Google dethroners continues, with the launch of Blinkx this week. In the extended entry is the release, I posted on it earlier here...

For Immediate Release

By Making The Engine Invisible, Blinkx Ushers in A New Search Era

New Web and Desktop Search Tool Brings Search Results Before You Ask

JULY 22, 2004 -- SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- A free new search tool that thinks and links for you, eliminates the need for keywords or complex search methods, easily finding the information you seek whether it is on the Web, in the news or buried deep within files on your PC.

Launched today, Blinkx (www.blinkx.com) uses the latest self-learning algorithms to understand the context of what you are reading on your computer screen, such as documents, e-mails, Web sites, news articles, blogs and even videos. As you scroll through the text, Blinkx works in the background to instantly connect to related information on the Web and on your PC.

According to Blinkx co-founder, Kathy Rittweger, Blinkx is more than a search engine: “When we were developing Blinkx, we learned that people really just want to get to their destination. They’re not interested in the machinations and complexity of the engine…so we simply put the engine back under the hood where it belongs.”

“By eliminating the mechanics of search, such as keywords or sorting through dozens of unqualified results, we drive users more quickly to their goal: finding something, even if they didn’t know it was there!”

Blinkx Gives PC Users Complete Control Over Information on the Web and on the Desktop


Blinkx is FREE to download at www.blinkx.com. Once loaded, Blinkx continually reviews what you are reading and sweeps the Web and your computer – silently and in the background – to generate links related to the concepts. These links change and refresh as you scroll through your information. By highlighting a word or paragraph, Blinkx will restrict its search only to information related to the selected text.

There are two ways to work with Blinkx:

Reactive Search generates recommended links without the user having to do anything – just click the mouse on the toolbar on top of the screen and a pop-up menu provides a collection of links to related information and summaries of their content.

Proactive Search allows users to click on an icon that rests in the system tray to input ideas using a natural language query (or old-fashioned keywords) to manually search for related concepts. These concepts are delivered according to where the information is available, on the Web, in the news or on your computer. You can even specifically search for things just in your email, or for only Word documents etc.

Blinkx Features

Blinkx channels scout for information in all the places relevant to you. Links to information are provided through five dedicated Blinkx channels:

• General Web sites
• Web-based news sources
• Web-based video and audio sources
• Web logs (blogs)
• Your local hard drive

The company will continually be introducing new Blinkx channels dedicated to commercial Web-based information, products and service providers.

Blinks scouts for information in all locations relevant to you. Blinkx not only searches the Web, but your local hard drive. In the near future, Blinkx will offer the ability to search other data locations, such as an attached hard drive or networked PC.
Blinkx scouts for information in all digital formats relevant to you. When searching various data locations, Blinkx will search for over 200 media types, such as Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents, attachments to e-mails, Acrobat PDF files and even video and audio clips. 

Blinkx respects privacy. Blinkx does not collect any personal information about a user. The application is stored entirely on your computer and searches in an outbound fashion. As a result, we do not collect information about what is on your machine, where you have visited --not even an e-mail address or a cookie. We simply provide links based on what you see on your screen.

Today, Digital Information… Tomorrow, Digital Lives

As users grow to commonly access more and more information digitally through their PCs, Blinkx will evolve with them, allowing them to intuitively and immediately access other media such as DVDs, music, digital photographs or home movies.
“With a future where much of our life will be digital and portable, Blinkx will continue to evolve to reflect the growing need to make sense and link together all our digital world,” said Suranga Chandratillake, co-founder of Blinkx.
About Blinkx
blinkx (www.blinkx.com) is a new company that is extending the way people find and use information on the internet and their own computer. In addition to traditional search such as that from Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), Ask Jeeves (Nasdaq: ASKJ), Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO), and AOL, Blinkx understands and links relevant information anywhere and in any format: on the Web, in the news or on the desktop - automatically, accurately and quickly. Founded in 2003, Blinkx is a privately held firm headquartered in San Francisco.

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Wide Open?

Cnet today runs a piece on click fraud, the practice of driving revenue through fake clicks on paid search links. This has been something of a whistling-past-the-graveyard issue for the entire paid search field (see here and here). Stefanie Olsen reports. Worth a read.

....some marketing executives estimate that up to 20 percent of fees in certain advertising categories continue to be based on nonexistent consumers in today's search industry.

In one recent example of the problem, law enforcement officials say a California man created a software program that he claimed could let spammers bilk Google out of millions of dollars in fraudulent clicks. Authorities said he was arrested while trying to blackmail Google for $150,000 to hand over the program. He was indicted by a California jury in June.

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Feedster Hits the Cosmos

Feedster has a new look and new features (chief among the a "links" search not unlike T'rati's Cosmos) and an overall faster back end. Congrats, Feedsterfolk!

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:30 PM
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MSN Buys Lookout

News: Microsoft has purchased Lookout, an Outlook mail search application (it also searches your desktop.) Hmmm....indeed.

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Classic GoTo Page From Internet Archive

You gotta read this. 1998 "Who We Are" page for GoTo. Does it sound...familiar?

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As We May Rant

Another rehash on "the future of search" - this one from Fast Company. OK, ready? It's...contextual, behavioral targeting, and local. Whoa. I have to keep in mind that the readers of larger magazines are not search enthusiasts, but still...the cliches ("Meet the future of advertising!"), the careworn anecdotes (they trotted out the Adsense-displays-luggage-ads-next-to-suitcase-murder story, gleefuly planted by Overture last summer), the lack of analysis. Is this how you justify shipping atoms around the nation? At least my "intent over content" meme gets a boost, from Charlene Li, at Forrester. "You could never target intent before, in any medium," says Li, capturing what's exciting about the new method. "You just put your message out there around content that seemed likely to attract the right people and hoped it worked."

Glad to see that idea spreading.

• Posted by John Battelle at 4:24 PM
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Is Subscription the Next Thing?

Adam Pennenberg does a fine job of beating up the Times in this Wired News piece. He points out that folks go to Google (and others) to find things, and that, for the most part, you can't find the Times in Google. He then critiques the Times' current business model, but offers no viable alternative, suggesting only that the Times figure it out.

Well, I agree. But how about we suggest some alternatives?

Adam points out: The Times attracts 9 million unique visitors a month, while only about 1 million read the daily paper. But the dot-com makes a scant $11 per user, while the printed paper earns the Times a whopping $900 per reader (in subscription fees and advertising).

Why is this? Why, because of print advertising, of course, as well as print subscription fees. That's where the money is. Value always trails usage. Martin's digital unit has been growing every single year, and is making tens of millions of dollars in profit. But the true chasm crossing moment is still to come. To win online, they will have to abandon print and its business model, and make it their archive available free. Right?

Maybe not. I am quite sure that the major engines, Google and Yahoo in particular, have been and will be again in pretty deep conversations with "traditional" publishers to figure out a model whereby their content can pass through search portals in a manner that allows value to be fairly apportioned. How might this happen? Danny Hillis has some ideas about that, which will appear in an upcoming column of mine, but it has to do with subscription models and aggregation.

A summary of his thinking with my spin goes like this. What revenue stream accounts for the lion's share of search's margin? Advertising. That's a one legged stool ready to tip over. As the search giants become more and more media companies, they must develop subscription services, and because users won't want to pay for something they already believe is free (searching) search engines will have to figure out a way to become middlemen to paid content. After all, they own distribution, so they should become...distributors. Were they to execute this service in a scaled and elegant fashion, it might be viewed as a benefit - in many cases, subscribers will get more content for less than they were paying in the past (that's the benefit of volume).

Many internet users have one or two paid relationships with content providers already, a smaller but richer percentage have far more than that. Imagine a service where you can subscribe to one simple paid channel, a channel that has all your favorite paid content, including, say, the Times archive. You pay one sub fee, and use it as you wish. The content providers to the paid channel get paid by the search engine based on usage patterns over time (neat how the search engine can track your usage, eh?).

The only companies with the gravitas to pull off such a system are the search portals (or Microsoft through IE and MSN). And such a system would only work if folks like the Times and the WSJ give it their blessing. But once it starts rolling, it could really, really scale. I'd guess, and it's just that, a wild guess, that such a system is already in development at both Yahoo and Google. Can I imagine giving Google $40 a month to get the WSJ, Times archives, BBC archives, all my favorite blog archives, and whatever other universe of paid content I might want to add elegantly served up in a Googlish interface? Yup. No brainer. Sign me up.

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Report: Google Audio/Visual Search Coming

The NY Post reports that Larry and Sergey talked up an upcoming multimedia search capability while at the Allen & Co. retreat this week.

Google is planning to launch a new feature to allow users to scour the Internet for audio and video clips, The Post has learned.

The company has yet to announce plans for the new service, but Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page made no secret of it during talks with investors and media executives at an annual retreat hosted by investment bank Allen & Co. in Sun Valley, Idaho...

...When it comes to multimedia searches, Mountain View, Calif.-based Google trails some of its competitors.

Yahoo's AltaVista, one of the oldest search engines, already allows users to search for audio and video. Time Warner's AOL, which has paid-search partnership with Google, bought Singingfish earlier this year in a move to offer multimedia search capabilities.

In the past, Google and other search engines have expressed some trepidation about listing audio and video files because of legal concerns that some of the content may have been illegally copied and downloaded.

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Google Acquires Picasa, Now I Can Say It...

I've been waiting for an excuse to claim that Google was going to compete with Ofoto and everyone else in the photo handling biz, after all, it's one of the more intractable information/search problems we have, and it requires a massively scaled platform with sh*tloads of storage. Sound familiar? So today AP reports that Google purchased Picasa, which was Blogger's photo uploading partner. By the way, it's also an IdeaLab company, and IdeaLab is where Overture was born....so Bill Gross now has a bit of Google stock!

So now let me state the obvious: Google will compete in the photo management/storage/search/untangle-the-shoebox market. And by extension, let me state the not so obvious: I think travel is next.

Press release in extended entry below.

Tip o' the Hat: Andy.

Google Acquires Picasa

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - July 13, 2004 - Google Inc. today announced
it acquired Picasa, Inc., a Pasadena, Calif.-based digital photo
management company. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"Picasa enables users to easily manage and share digital
photographs, and its technologies complement Google's ongoing
mission to organize the world's information and make it universally
accessible and useful," said Jonathan Rosenberg, vice president,
Product Management. "Picasa is an innovator in the field of digital
photography, and we're excited that the Picasa team is joining
Google."

Picasa was founded in October 2001. In May 2004, Picasa announced a
technology partnership with Google's Blogger service to make
publishing digital photos with Blogger faster and easier. Further
product integration plans have not been announced. Picasa users will
not experience any interruption in service.

About Google Inc.
Google is a global technology leader focused on improving the way
people connect with information. Google's innovations in web search
and advertising have made its website a top Internet destination and
its brand one of the most recognized in the world. Google maintains
the world's largest online index of websites and other content, and
Google makes this information freely available to anyone with an
Internet connection. Google's automated search technology helps
people obtain nearly instant access to relevant information from its
vast online index.

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Bitoogle

Via Google Blogoscoped, it's Google for BitTorrent; Bitoogle. Site was very very slow when I went...

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:03 AM
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Why The Archive Matters

Those of you who know me well are familiar with my fascination with all things archival, especially as it relates to the archaeology of the web. I am quite sure that in my golden years I will retire to a pith helmet and meerschaum pipe, evolving into a full time armchair anthropologist of the PastWeb. Interesting case in point comes to us from TechDirt, which reports on a LawMeme post about a run of the mill business lawsuit. The twist? The plaintiff "tried to amend its complaint to accuse on of the defendant's lawyers of hacking Archive.org (Bewster's Internet Archive)." Seems there was incriminating stuff on past versions of a site in question, stuff the plaintiffs did not want preserved through the eternity of time. The defendants, according to the suit, tried to "hack" archive.org to find the lost data. This I love - someone trying to plumb the Eternal to prove a point in the present. Priceless.

PS - Neat new interview with Brewster here. (Thanks Gary.)

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:45 PM
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July Column: GM (GM!)

Sure, Searchbloggers may find the CTO of GM something of a stretch for this space and...well...yeah I agree. But I enjoyed meeting Tony Scott and talking about the future of cars. It's a nice diversion from search ... and yes, in fact, we did talk about search, it just didn't make it into the piece...imagine search+GPS+geolocation+hydrogen cells+0-60 in 3.2 seconds....not quite the Fifth Element, but we're getting there...

PS - if you want to get seriously carsick, check this out....works best after a bottle of good red...

TITANS OF TECH
The CTO in a GTO
Don't like your car? In the future, says General Motors's Tony Scott, you'll just download a new one.

By John Battelle, July 2004 Issue

Tony Scott has a simple message for people who make hardware and software: Listen to your customers or risk losing them. As both carrot and stick, General Motors's (GM) affable chief technology officer wields an annual IT budget of nearly $3 billion. It's that kind of spending power that led many to credit Scott with prompting the recent détente between Sun (SUNW) and Microsoft (MSFT).

Some in Silicon Valley fear that the area is turning into the next Detroit. (Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer grew up there and saw the decline firsthand.) But turning into Detroit could be a good thing, Scott argues: Remember that the auto industry pioneered interoperability, industry standards, and -- egad -- warranties. The two industries are a lot closer to merging than you might think. Software and electronics already account for a third of the cost of the average car, and given GM's billion-dollar investment in the Hy-wire, a hydrogen-powered concept car (see "GM's Race to the Future," October), high-tech and hot rods are only going to become more intimately entwined. How so? Read on.

I hear you're entirely to blame for making peace between McNealy and Ballmer.

[Laughter] It's really interesting the way urban legend evolves. We never said, "Sit down and go smoke a peace pipe." But GM has spoken with a very loud voice to Microsoft and Sun and others about interoperability. We've been diligent about making our pain known in that space -- it's very costly to make incompatible technologies work well together.

Can you give me a specific example?

We use Microsoft Active Directory to let employees sign on to their PCs. That has to interface with LDAP [an Internet directory protocol], which we use for applications in every other environment. In the past, that's required a lot of custom integration. And every time there's a new release -- of the Microsoft environment or LDAP or our own applications -- we have to go solve that problem again. It's the same for everyone else: Ford (F) has to go solve that problem, Procter & Gamble (PG) has to go solve that problem. It's been the full employment act for contractors and consultants. It's silly. These things should just work together.

Why don't they? Is it that each installation is unique and requires customization and ongoing service?

I think a lot of those customized requirement claims are hogwash. I don't believe it. Now, I don't have a problem with having a service relationship. We have a very profitable service business in the automobile industry. But it's very different from where the software industry is today. Software has no standards for quality and no standards for interoperability. The industry hasn't had to do it -- the customers didn't demand it and the market conditions were such that there was no reason for them to do so.

And that's changing?

Yes. I participated in a trip to our major IT vendors earlier this year. And for the first time, instead of pitching us about some new capability or feature, every single one of them said to us, "Here are the things that we have done as a company to make our products cheaper to install, cheaper to operate, and easier to support."

Is this a sign that the IT industry is maturing?

It's maturation, standardization, and commoditization. The industry is going through a transformation -- one the auto industry and railroads and other big industries have already been through. I'll make a car analogy. Imagine if GM shipped you a car that you had to assemble yourself, and mechanics had to come to your house just to put it together, and it had no warranty. I think somebody would come along pretty quickly and say, "We've got a better idea on how to make and sell cars."

When you go to a gas station now, you can stick the nozzle into the gas tank and it works. But in the early days of the auto industry, there were 2,000 car companies, nothing was standardized, and demand far exceeded supply. In that early era, you could do whatever you wanted. The tech industry has by and large been in that same mode. But that's now changing.

People in the Valley are terrified of the idea that Silicon Valley might turn into Detroit. In that scenario, innovation and growth slow, and margins look more like -- well, GM's margins. The whole culture here has been built on startups and innovation.

Well, let me correct a few misperceptions. Yes, Silicon Valley probably will become more like Detroit, but it's not the grim picture that many would paint. Automobile innovation is very profitable, but insulated -- there's a tremendous amount of testing and quality that gets built in before it ends up facing the customer. It shows up in a high-quality, highly integrated, supported manner. I think that's the model for what's going to happen in the tech industry.

Can you name a major IT project that has dramatically improved GM's business?

Yes -- vehicle design. In 1996 our vehicle development process took in excess of 48 months. IT played a huge role in reducing that. We're down to about 18 months now -- and when you're in that range, you can not only follow fashion but actually lead. That's huge.

You have a strategy that calls for completely outsourcing your IT work. Why?

It enables speed. If we want to go do something new and innovative in the IT space, all we have to do is put out an RFP. Then we hire the best minds to do it. We don't have to worry about an internal staff of programmers who may not have the right skill sets, or who have other demands and can't respond to what we need. Very few internal organizations can muster the sort of resources and global deployment capability that's needed to do what we need to do. Especially in cases where you need those resources for short periods of times. You can't build an internal staff in Argentina, say, for a six-week project.

So your IT organization is basically mostly management?

Yes. It's 1,700 or so people who manage the contracts with the outsource vendors all around the world.

And if you were to do it in-house?

Oh, it'd easily be times 100 or more.

You've streamlined IT at headquarters. What's happening in the cars themselves?

Today in the typical car, and it doesn't matter whether it's a GM or a Honda (HMC), electronics and software represent roughly about a third of the cost of the car, more than the labor or the steel. They're the single biggest cost in a car today -- and rising. The power train, for example, is very highly computerized. There's a set of very finely tuned algorithms to meet emission control and mileage standards.

With all this technology, are we losing the ability to "get under the hood" and customize our cars?

I think there are some interesting possibilities. Let's look to the future. We've put more than $1 billion into our fuel-cell program, and we think by 2010 there'll be fuel-cell vehicles that you can buy. These cars are pretty exciting from a user tweakability perspective.

How so?

Their inherent design opens up possibilities. In these fuel-cell vehicles, you don't have a traditional power train, a big engine and transmission up front. The chassis is very thin, maybe 8 inches -- think of it as a magic carpet. The things you can do with the interior of a vehicle, the layout and display, change the whole user experience, and that experience can be customized.

So is the gasoline car destined to be the vinyl record of the auto industry -- ultimately abandoned to the hobbyist market?

We had some of the fuel-cell vehicles out on our test track, and I walked up to a guy who had just gotten out of one. I asked how he liked it. He said, "Oh, it really was fantastic." So I asked him if he'd buy one. He scowled and said, "I'm never driving a car that sounds like that." What he missed was that throaty exhaust sound. His mental model of what a car should be was that it should make a certain noise. When you step on the gas, you should hear the engine, you should feel the vibrations ...

Well, you have room for a great sound system, so why not the auto equivalent of a laugh track?

Exactly. People are going to want feedback that's more analogous to what they're used to. Maybe in one of these future vehicles, you dial in a 1965 GTO look, feel, and sound. In the future, if I ask, "What do I want my car to sound like?" -- well, I could download it.

John Battelle is a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley and author of "The Search" (Portfolio, late 2004).

Find this article at http://www.business2.com/b2/subscribers/articles/0,17863,646044,00.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 Files Another S-1A

In case you're interested...updates on changes to come...The FT reported recently that the company is trying to make its debut by the end of this month...

Update: So far, the news is they chose Nasdaq. Not exactly interesting. Unless you're the NYSE.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:53 AM
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Huh. I suggest...

...everyone take off at least ten days from blogging at least once a year.
It's rather interesting to see how your filters shift when you leave the Feed for a while.
Of course, it helps if your hard drive is totally fried at the outset and you lose all your feeds, all your email contacts, your entire ecology of computing/communicating (including all my music...grrrr). Thanks to all who sent me replacement mail and encouragement as I try to rebuild (keep it coming at jbat at battellemedia dot com if you haven't already!). I did have a nice week in the Sierra, fishing and such with my family, and that is impossible to lose to a faulty hard drive.

I am still in the process of rebuilding. Before the crash, I bought copies of Ecto and Shrook, but I am now back on the 30 day trials, as of course my proof of payment were...in my email files, which are still in terminal limbo. That is quite a story, yet to be resolved. I'm somewhere in Act Two. There is not yet resolution. But I've decided to ignore my past life - all 40 gigs of it - and move on. I backed up most of my important writing work - I lost only about two weeks, not bad considering - and I'll consider it a blessing if Ontrack can fix it. Drivesavers, alas, could not.

Here's the frustrating part: My data is just fine. No fires, no trucks rolling over my drive, didn't trip and toss my laptop into a mountain stream. Nothing like that. Just a bad tape between my motherboard and my drive, which shorted out some random part that - I'm told - is very very hard to replace, as it's rev'd about sixty times a year, and only the rev *I* had in my particular machine can be used to make the drive spin again. Jesus.

Anyway, I'm back, sort of. I missed you all. I'll be less than prolific, as my next two months will be focused on writing again, but then again, I've said that in the past, and then ended up posting every day. Thanks Andy, Gary, Danny, et al, for taking good care of all the Searchbloggers out there while I was gone.

• Posted by John Battelle at 9:03 PM
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Yahoo's New Search Results Page...

(Logging in from BookLand with more news...) Yahoo has tweaked its search page....click on the gif at the left for a larger shot...this will fully populate Yahoo's servers by later this week, I'm told. The main changes: slightly muted colors, slightly cleaner design, and the "Related" searches have been moved and renamed "Also try..." This feature (which is not a new idea, but still, this is Yahoo...) was found to be very valuable but underutilized in its previous form. I think it's a neat feature, it adds another beat to the search process - rather like the "Did you mean?" approach in spellchecking. It's based on analysis of logfiles for possibly related searches.

According to the PR folk from whom this tip came, "This tool helps identify what the user intention is when they are searching and provides suggested search query terms to assist the searcher when he/she isn't exactly sure how to best phrase their query. This illustrates a crucial reason why Yahoo redesigned these pages, to get closer to what the searcher's intent is, and to provide better search results that are more relevant and comprehensive through enhanced presentation."

I'm also told that Windows users can see the new interface by clicking on the link above the "web" icon in Yahoo Search. I can't see it, of course, as I'm a non-conforming Mac Safari guy (and for some odd reason Firefox is crashing on my new machine...)

I note that the PR folks are playing to my weakness for anything in which user intent is seen as currency. Time will tell if they've done a good job on relevance and UI....

Update: Yahoo has given me a new URL that shows the new UI: http://new.search.yahoo.com/...

• Posted by John Battelle at 2:02 PM
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Iowa Electronic Markets Trades In Google IPO Contracts

IEM has been making interesting markets for years, most notably in Presidential election outcomes. Now they are making a market in Google's future IPO. There are two such markets, described here and here and quoted in real time here.

The upshot: the market's only been open for a few days, but it's already guessing that Google will close on its first day with a market cap of between $25 to $39 billion. That's the bid/ask spread. I've sent email to a couple folks I know to see if they can ascertain any more insights...

Thanks, Tipster Who Will Remain Anonymous!

• Posted by John Battelle at 10:33 AM
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So That's Why No One Is Asking to Be My Friend Anymore...

Not a happy thing - Wired News reports Orkut is causing legal headaches at Google. Lawsuit: Google Stole Orkut Code.

The suing company is Affinity Engines.

• Posted by John Battelle at 8:42 AM
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