Searching for search and finding Godot

The battle for search eyeballs is heating up again. The model has been shown to work and Google is now Ad Mogul extraordinaire. Microsoft in classic fashion has tried, learned and is trying again. Yahoo has had much publicized struggles. Even new players are coming into the space. The buzz about Wolfram Alpha is everywhere.

What this next level of competition is about is relevance of information. The reason Google initially made inroads with search was their optimization routines and ability to give people search results that were relevant to what they wanted. Recent additions such as the ability to promote and bury links based on your own preference are continued iterations of this optimization. Similarly iGoogle and personalized history of search with functions like returning the link you clicked on last time you searched for something are again continued iterations.

The next generation of search is taking more of that sea of information that is out there and turning it into something useful. This is both good and bad. It's good/great in terms of making things digestible and understandable, especially when you are researching a particular topic. But it is less so when what is important is being determined for you and you loose some of the outliers. Outliers are where innovation happens. This is not to say that results don't get buried with a raw information return because they certainly do but just as with code and layers of abstraction, with great power comes great responsibility and the need to know what is going on behind the scenes. In many cases this behind the scenes is proprietary information and algorithms that companies (rightly) don't want to share as their secret sauce. What a dilemma.

Wolfram Alpha is the new kid on the block and have gotten a lot of Internet love with an effective launch that you could watch in video live. It's cool for checking out what happened on the day you were born, doing research on specific items and generally getting a quick easy view of relevant data to concrete topics.

Microsoft Live didn't really live up to what was desired by Microsoft but they are back and ready for round two with their new search engine Bing. (I thought that was the sound the Southwest ads used for new deals?) Bing is in pre-launch and is supposed to do a lot of what Wolfram does and use other proprietary correlation tools to give better and deeper results. ComputerWorld has a nice Visual Tour of the functionality to give a good idea of what is coming.

That leaves Google. Google's new exciting new news is the pre-pumping of Google Wave. If buzz on the Internet is any indicator there is a lot of excitement and potential here as well. If it wasn't clear why there was rumored interest in Twitter from Google it is now. Wave is intended to be a merge of... well... everything Just In Time.

So, it looks like the observation that the next generation of systems are about visualization and the presentation of information, not just finding it. Boy won't this be fun to watch.

Microsoft bid to buy Yahoo

It has been in the rumor mill for a while now that Microsoft was seeking to buy Yahoo. When there is sufficient smoke there seems to be fire and now the deal is officially proceeding. There are reasons for it and reasons against it. Apparently Live has not pulled in the traction that Microsoft wants and the desire for ad revenue and internet traffic control as a business model is

Google brings up some interesting points on the combination having more webmail and portal traffic than anyone else and Microsofts track record of following the path of Embrace, Extend, Exterminate when it comes to competition. But that input from a competitor is unlikely to bring about any sort of block of the deal. In fact some reports are even suggesting that the deal could be good for competition.

I am not 100% decided on the deal and it's positive or negative effects. Microsoft has a long record of proven execution and when they really set their eyes on something they can make it happen. There is a wide range of incredibly bright people there that when unified to a cause can deliver. The big change that I see though is in release management. Microsoft has a history of classical software development with releases taking years and subsequent patches taking months. In the internet world, and Google is a great example of this, change is constant, the ability to roll out new versions and try new approaches every week is key to success. This will be a big change from the default Microsoft dev approach. Will this Agile development change cross over into Microsoft's standard products? Another one of those much discussed items, SAAS Software As A Service suddenly becomes a lot more of a potential reality. To me this is the real reason for the desired purchase. Ads and Eyeballs are great to monetize and transform what Microsoft has done for a long time.

No matter what finally happens, this aught to be fun to watch.

Disruptive Technologies that make you go hmmmm

Two separate events in the past few days have made me consider disruptive technology and it's impacts. While fun for those standing on the sidelines it has to also be a terrifying event for those who are in the middle of what is being disrupted.

• Disruptive Tech 1: The iPhone
• Disruptive Tech 2: Google Apps

Disruptive Tech 1: The iPhone. Yes, the often referred to Apple foray into the cell phone business (in some cases referred to as the "Jesus Phone" it's PR is so big) is a great example of a disruptive technology. It is already wrecking havoc with phone manufacturers and not because it is the worlds best phone, but it is slightly off from today's phones. The NY Times put out a great article late Tuesday night as the phone was hitting the general population with the compelling headline "The iPhone matches most of it's hype". Gizmodo posted a good summary of "Finally Confirmed: What the iPhone doesn't have" [Songs as Ringtones • Games • Any flash support • Instant Messaging • Picture messages (MMS) • Video recording • Voice recognition or voice dialing • Wireless Bluetooth Stereo Streaming (A2DP) • One-size-fits-all headset jack (May have to buy an adapter for certain headphones) • 3G (EV-DO/HSDPA) • GPS • A real keyboard • Removable battery • Expandable Storage • Direct iTunes Music Store Access (Over Wi-Fi or EDGE)]

That's quite a list for something that is still going to change the phone world. It has a controlled UI and OS. You can't load things on it and Jobs has made no bones about confirming that will remain the case. But it has a paradigm changing interface, consolidates devices for those with iPods and Phones and PDAs, even smart phones. As eloquently stated by David Pogue in the times article "It’s substance; it’s style. It does things no phone has ever done before; it lacks features found even on the most basic phones."

Personally I am going to hold off getting one. I recently purchased an 8525 (YAY I get to skip my Blackberry across a lake) and I have been quite happy with it. (heck I have already customized the snot out of it and have my Yodeling cow ringer going) But the geek in me covets parts of the iPhone and I may end up with one when I next need a phone... when it uses the faster Edge network and apps to get to business email are actually available. In any case, the reactions from the "old school" cell phone makers is going to be a blast to watch.

Disruptive Tech 2: Google Applications. I have to admit that when Google first rolled these out I thought to myself "ok... that's nice... why do people even try to beat Microsoft in this space?" Well a quiet little post on the Google blog made a light bulb go off for me. Google isn't trying to hit Microsoft at the desktop (well not right away) they are hitting them squarely in the admin.In the blog post Google indicates how they are going to give free access to advanced features of the full Google office to schools. The standard package for individuals is free already but a Premier Edition, targeted at companies is also available for $50/user. Now the Education Edition also includes the ability to integrate with existing facilities, conference and resource scheduling and other premium services.

Educators want to educate. They don't want to run systems for email etc etc. Now, they can get email, integrated chat and other niceties for free. This is where giving it away starts to make sense. It's not just about giving it away to the individual consumer in hopes of pushing ads. It's about pushing it into corporations... wow, now that has to be a scary thought. As with the iPhone, it may not truly change the world, but the potential is there and it will be fun to watch. (By the way, although corporate email isn't available via the iPhone... if you use gmail you are good to go... hmmmm)

Friday Link Day - Microsoft to buy Yahoo!?

News has started to come out that Microsoft is looking to resume talks to buy Yahoo! I think someone has Google envy.

Along the lines of the silicon related post from earlier this week... IBM announced that they have devised a way to create vacuum spaces in chips that will allow them to use less power and run faster. The chips even "assemble themselves" to a certain degree.

Getting tired of the laws of physics holding them back with silicon Intel is working on Laser chips now. NEC is saying that laser chips could power petaflop-class chips. Optical chips may still be a few years away but the idea sure is fun.

Friday Link Day - 2007-04-20

Does Apple + Google = Love? It is a high interest geek story and makes for attractive rumors. The enemies err... competitors for both are often the same. My personal thoughts are that there will be much collaboration but no marriage. The Forbes article brought to you in pictures certainly is a fun read no matter what the eventual outcome.

Speaking of a marriage... Like the MAC? Or at least the UI? Check out this Blog post with a style sheet that allows you to put a MAC interface on Google Reader. (If you are looking for an RSS Reader I recommend the Google Reader BTW.)

Then to keep the Google theme for the day Google shows us the first tenet of innovation in action. The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas. Apparently Froogle didn't fall in the good category so Froogle is dead... long live Google Product Search.

Now that I have posted about Google and praised them in several regards I will point
out how silly that is. The Halo Effect is the general belief that because a company is successful it is successful because it is brilliant, innovative, has a great culture, [insert appropriate praise here]. Conversely when that same company stumbles it is because they have "fallen away
from that brilliant, innovative, great culture, [insert appropriate praise here] that made them great. Therefore management books, methods, papers, research, Blogs (heh) are written on this company and how you can be successful like them by following "these 12 easy steps".

The reality of the situation though is rarely that either one of those items is absolutely true. Good companies can have problems, and bad companies can have success. A recent article in the McKinsey Quarterly even suggests that "Suggesting that companies can follow a blueprint to achieve lasting success may be appealing, but it’s not supported by the evidence." and "The delusion of lasting success is a serious matter because it casts building an enduringly high-performing company as an achievable objective. Yet companies that outperform the market for long periods of time are not just rare but statistical anomalies whose apparent greatness is observable only in retrospect."

Wow.

This effect is referred to in psychology as the Halo Effect. Just we tend to be nearly binary in how we view others attributing positive traits to those we like and negative traits to those that we don't. Rarely viewing the people with a mix of positive and negative. The book The Halo Effect: ... and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers covers this topic in some detail and relates it to businesses

So what does that mean? It means that success is hard... go figure. It means that you need to constantly adjust your strategy and approach to be relevant to the times and business environment in which you find yourself. The approach that got you where you are today simply won't continue to work. It means that if you stand still, you die. From a corporate perspective and a management and directional challenge perspective this is a whopper of a concept.

A great quote on this topic from US Treasury Secretary and Goldman Sachs executive Robert
E. Rubin “Once you’ve internalized the concept that you can’t prove anything in absolute terms, life becomes all the more about odds, chances, and trade-offs. In a world without provable
truths, the only way to refine the probabilities that remain is through greater knowledge and understanding.”

That's almost grounds for a philosophy debate. Up there with "Only the insane have the strength to determine that which is sane."

What if Google...

How many conversations start off with the phrase "What if Google...". When businesses try to do something different, especially something innovative or disruptive one of the quick lead in questions to that conversation starts with "What if Google were trying to do this?" or "What would we do if Google entered this market?".

It seems that Google is the fairly universally viewed as the thought leader of the current business age. There are even books available such as The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture and others. Google approaches
things differently. They give their engineers one day a week to "do whatever"... just suggesting that as a possiblity in many companies will at a minimum get you a look like you have three heads.

One of the questions that DeMarco asks in Slack is "Is Google in a Hurry?" Certainly, from an outside point of view they don't appear like they are. If they were how could they spare time to let their developers chase ideas for a full 20% of their time? Google rolls out releases on a regular basis sure, but accross a very large product line and they are small. When they do roll out new products or significant releases they roll out a beta first, let people volunteer to move, thus getting a willing guinee pig audience who will tolerate some experimentation. Once the beta is solid they start to migrate people. (With the recent Blog reader full interface change they even let people flip back to the old interface for a period of time as long as they gave feedback on why.)

All of that doesn't amount to being in a rushed state, running at 120%. But, if you ask anyone about productivity they will certainly be mentioned and there is absolutely no question they are successful.

This trend has been seen in other companies as well. Apple for some time has been viewed as a company that runs at full throttle and approaches things differently. Amazon for a long time held the distinction of being the "What if Amazon entered this market?"