A new feature that I particularly keyed in on is Creative Suite’s ability to recognize human speech contained in a video.  That is awesome!  This means that if you create a video, you can compile the spoken words in that video into searchable metadata.  How long before the Search Engines are able to crawl videos and pull out speech for use in indexing?  Cool stuff.

Another new tool is the Rotate View tool which will allow the user to view images at any angle with no distortion.  More cool stuff.

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Currently, the Beta version is only released for use by a targeted group:

• Yahoo! Store
• Yahoo! Developers (Y!OS)
• Yahoo! Head Advertisers (Microsites)

If you do not fall into at least one of those categories, “No soup for you”.  You will have to be patient and wait your turn.

You can, however, visit the Yahoo! Web Analytics website and signup to receive updates and get a sneak peek at some screenshots of the dashboard.

Dennis Mortenson explains on his blog:

…this is not a free-for-all-come-and-get-it launch, but a carefully planned controlled access launch, which will keep all of our functionality in place and even enhance it. There is no dumbing down of the tool in any of the engagements above – and we will be working hard to add to the list of customers who can get access. So expect the above list to grow rapidly over the course of 2008.

Michael Stebbins also reported on this on his web analytics blog, which is a must read.

Until everything is released to the masses, we will just have to wait and keep using Google Analytics and ClickTracks.

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Microsoft also announced that it was going to be increasing its $600 million/yr European research and development budget.  They are also anticipating employing several hundred including software developers.

The center in Paris is expected to be open in March 2009 and they are getting some pretty nice tax breaks too.  Microsoft will get 30 euros back for every 100 euros it invests.

Speaking in Paris, Balmer said:

We are the challenger, not the leader, in search, but we believe strongly that search is in its infancy and there is so much room for innovation. For companies like Microsoft search is the key for unlocking huge new opportunities in advertising.

In the US, Microsoft barely has 8% of the search market share, compared to Google’s 62%.  But in Europe, Microsoft’s share is even less at 2 percent.

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It was a novel approach to attempt to increase search engine market share.  Currently, Google has a commanding lead at about 63%.  Yahoo! is second with just under 20% and Microsoft is third at just over 8 percent.

The latest “pay to search” program from Microsoft is called SearchPerks and it works pretty simply:

1. Visit the site using Internet Explorer 6 or higher and sign up for SearchPerks.
2. Download and install the tracking program to a Windows PC.
3. Use Microsoft Live Search and earn “search tickets” every time you search – up to 25 per day.
4. Redeem those tickets for prizes.

The first time you signup, you are credited with 500 tickets and the first prize point is 5 music downloads for 525 tickets.  You can even get things like airline miles.

It could be worth a check because it is sort of like Microsoft giving you $5 to use Live Search.  If you download music, typically each song costs about $1 (5 songs = 5 bucks).  So, signup for SearchPerks, use Microsoft Live Search for a few days and redeem your 525 tickets for 5 music downloads .

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Then in June ‘08, the alpha was re-launched.  They knew the results were bad and needed to improve before they could become a real player in the search engine market and they expected the results to begin to show improvement within a few weeks.

So, what do we think now that about 2 months have passed since Alpha relaunch?  Well, wow, it is bad.

Here is what a search for “buy computer online” will show:

1. An article about Best Buy from Wikipedia.  Ok, fair enough if you want to give props to Wikipedia first above all else, even though that does not help me buy a computer online.  Maybe a link to Dell or HP or something like that would be more helpful.
2. A link to ebay’s main search page where I have to retype my search query “buy computer online”.  Well, at least it is possible to actually buy a computer from the site you directed me to.  But could you not at least direct me to the Electronics category or even, *cough* the Computers category?
3. A link to about.com where I can download computer games.  But wait, I have not even bought my computer yet – I am trying to make a purchase first and then I can download and install games.  Proverbial “cart before the horse” I think.
4. A link to Apple’s home page where I can at least see a computer, eventually, after I first wade through the gaudy iPhone pitch and then stumble on the little button at the top that says, “Mac” – assuming I know what a Mac is and am not a complete computer novice.
5. A link to a site that will tell me how to make money online (refer to comments on #3 listing).
6. A link to oreilly.com where I can download PDF files and a bunch of other stuff that is no help because I still do not have a computer yet.
7. A link to the Scottsdale Public Library, which is possibly where I am physically located because I still do not have my own computer and am using one of theirs.
8. I give up…

What’s is more, at the top of my search page is a small graphic that prompts me to see results from Google and Yahoo.  Wait, I thought that was one of the points behind WikiaSearch – to take market share away from Google and Yahoo.

Anyway, I would not hold your breath on a Beta launch of Wikia Search anytime soon.  They are way behind nearly every other search engine in the Internet and the main way the intend on improving is by having you and I edit their search results telling them when we find something irrelevant.  I think the concept is good, but I don’t have time to do that.  A search engine is not a destination; it is a waypoint.  I want to type in my query and move on.

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As one might expect, an announcement of a new search engine has created a pretty good buzz around the Internet, but many searchers using Cuil are less than impressed.  You can easily find comments about it taking minutes to return results and about it returning zero results for popular terms.  Many of the feedback that I have seen has been quite negative, which one might expect in today’s “instant gratification” Internet where you have only seconds to make an impression.

However,  I tend to be ever-so-slightly enthused with Cuil for two basic reasons:

• The are at least trying to come up with a new way of presenting results and are supposedly indexing more of the web than Google (although I have not heard Google making any claims as to how many pages it indexes).
• Their GUI is somewhat refreshing.  I like the colors and I like the “Explore by Category” box that breaks down information related to your search into categories.  I think the entire interface is well done.

Having said that, I certainly think that the returned results leave something to be desired.  Many of the searches that I did returned completely unrelated results on the first page, which would indicate an issue with the ranking algorithms.  I am sure they will sort that out, but I can’t help but wonder how much testing they did before launch.  For example, a search for “cuil search engine” on Cuil will not even list cuil.com in the search results.  Hmm.

Another issue is the slow response time for some searches.  It would appear that their servers are not currently up to the challenge of being a real threat to Google, or even Yahoo! or MSN.

Those last two points make me wonder how much testing they did and how exhaustive it really was.  One would think that success in those two areas would be the very foundation of a modern search engine and, therefore, would be top priority.  But maybe it was just a case of first day jitters.

All-in-all, I think it is unfortunate that there has been so much negative publicity surrounding Cuil.  They have some bugs to work out and that is to be expected.   I think that their algorithm will get smarter and their servers’ response times will improve.  In fact, a few of the searches that I tried early yesterday, which returned woefully unrelated results, were vastly improved when I tried them last night.  That is a step in the right direction and I would expect that things will get better.

Google competitor?  Not at the moment.  Threat to Google?  Not at the moment.  Should Yahoo! and MSN pay attention?  Not right now, but don’t get too comfortable.

TechCrunch and Search Engine Land have some extensive reviews of Cuil.

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Even though Yahoo and the other search engines lag way behind Google in market share, they still have approximately 20% of the market.  So, you can’t completely ignore them when they make changes.

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When you search for a products, you will see links displayed that have the little graphic shown here. Make your purchase through one of those links and you will be credited with a rebate sent to an account setup by Microsoft.

Not sure if something like this is enough to boost Microsoft Live Search up from third place in the Search Engine war, but I think it is a pretty cool idea.

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In a letter sent over the weekend, Roy Bostock and Jerry Yang had a few barbs sent Microsoft’s way:

As a follow up to a recent meeting among our respective legal advisors we had on this topic, and at your request, we provided to you on March 28 a list of additional information we would need to further our understanding of the regulatory issues associated with any transaction. To date, you have still not provided any of the requested information…

We consider your threat to commence an unsolicited offer and proxy contest to displace our independent Board members to be counterproductive and inconsistent with your stated objective of a friendly transaction. We are confident that our stockholders understand that our independent Board is best positioned to objectively and knowledgeably evaluate our Company’s alternatives and to maximize value.

In conclusion, please allow us to restate our position, so there can be no confusion. We are open to all alternatives that maximize stockholder value. To be clear, this includes a transaction with Microsoft if it represents a price that fully recognizes the value of Yahoo! on a standalone basis and to Microsoft, is superior to our other alternatives, and provides certainty of value and certainty of closing.

Seems pretty clear to me. Yahoo is not opposing ANYTHING that brings value to its stockholders, including a purchase by Microsoft. Although, if Microsoft buys Yahoo, it will probably be a big blow for Open-Source software since much of Yahoo’s platform is open source and Microsoft wants the whole world to only use it’s clunky software.

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Last week Google announced it will sell off the Performics portion of DoubleClick:

It’s clear to us that we do not want to be in the search engine marketing business. Maintaining objectivity in both search and advertising is paramount to Google’s mission and core to the trust we ask from our users. For this reason, we plan to sell the Performics search marketing business to a third party. We believe this will allow us to maintain objectivity and the search marketing business to continue to grow and innovate and serve its customers. While we have not yet identified a buyer, we’ve received preliminary interest from a number of our current partners. Search Marketing will continue to run as a separate entity until the division is sold.

Of course, looking back, it seemed obvious that Google would do that. It was the right thing to do and failure to do that would have shed a bad light on Google. Danny Sullivan was one who openly expressed the desire to see Google do that and is glad they did.

Couple the sale of Performics and the reported layoff of 300 of DoubleClick’s employees and that means about 500 people share the distinction of briefly being Google employees. That fact still looks nice on a résumé…

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