Microsoft and Yahoo -– together at last! Oh well... should Google be scared?

Given below is a comment from Ovum on the Yahoo-Microsoft deal.

While a lot of noise has been made about Microsoft's Bing, I personally don't feel that it is such a great search engine. I've tried searching for various things several times, and haven't been really impressed. All those add-ons, etc. are of little help, if I as a user am not satisfied with the results. Am sure that this is a rule of thumb that applies equally to every other user.

So, I don't really know how Yahoo stands to gain from this deal, or whether Google should be scared!

What's interesting is that, earlier, it was Microsoft that everyone wanted to beat! Then Google happened, and well, left Yahoo behind in the search engine space. And, then, it has taken on Microsoft as well in certain areas!

Now, the wheel has turned a full circle -- the two erstwhile competitors -- Yahoo and Microsoft -- have joined hands to take on the might of Google. Remains to be seen whether two are better than one (Ek se bhaley do!) ;)

What I also don't quite really enjoy is the idea of having Yahoo! Mail, which I've been using since 1997, to be part of Hotmail or something else. Perhaps, time for me to give up those Yahoo! IDs forever! Oh well...

Nevertheless, it is up to the end users -- like you and me -- who search for stuff on the Internet to decide who would go on to lead! Enjoy this Ovum comment!!

Comment from Mike Davis, senior analyst at Ovum

It was a long time coming
UK: Microsoft’s original bid for Yahoo back in January 2008 made the most popular Internet destination in the world worth $47.5 billion. The offer was rejected by then CEO Jerry Yang, resulting in Microsoft walking away from the table.

Yang then attempted to tie up Yahoo with Google and use that company’s search technology. However, that deal fell at the regulatory hurdle. Yang’s subsequent departure and the drop in quarterly earnings resulted in the layoff of 5 percent of Yahoo’s workforce in April 2009 and showed that new CEO Carol Bartz had to do something.

When Microsoft’s new search engine Bing was released in June, with technologies gained from the FAST and Powerset acquisitions, outgunning Yahoo seach capabilities, Bartz knew that that something had to be dramatic.

Microsoft should be happy; Google should be a bit worried
Under the terms of the agreement (and still subject to regulatory approval on both sides of the Atlantic), Yahoo gets to use Microsoft’s Bing search engine rather than its own, and Microsoft gets to pay Yahoo 88 percent of search revenues arising from Yahoo sites for five years -– but of course Microsoft also gets to keep $47.5 billion in the bank.

Microsoft gains exclusive licence to Yahoo’s search technologies, which Microsoft will be free to integrate into its own. It also gains access to all of Yahoo’s long-standing and loyal customers –- this author has trusted and relied upon Yahoo! Mail for over ten years –- and Yahoo’s self-serve advertising will migrate to Microsoft AdCenter. Basically, both companies are playing to their core competencies: Microsoft to the technology and Yahoo to its domain knowledge in advertising and media.

As Ovum has previously stated, Bing is not a ‘Google killer’. However, with the addition of Yahoo’s customer base and its targeting of higher-yield advertising, the new so-called ‘decision engine’ should start to give Google a serious run for its money, and provide better competition on price for prospective advertisers.

Furthermore, as Ovum has previously described, the now bitter rivalry between Google and Microsoft should ensure that improvements to the functionality and usability of the respective search engines will continue apace.

Nothing will happen tomorrow -– certainly not in Asia
Even if it gains regulatory approval, Yahoo’s use of Bing will not start until 2010 –- and then on a geographical basis, with the priority being the US and then Europe.

This will give Baidu, the strong Chinese Internet search provider, and Naver, the most popular player in South Korea, plenty of opportunities to reinforce and expand their positions in that geography. Given the potential size of that market, this could be a missed opportunity.

Yahoo and its shareholders appear to be the losers
While the deal is cited as boosting Yahoo’s operating income by $500 million and reducing costs by $200 million, the company’s shares are currently trading at only half the value offered by Microsoft in January 2008, and fell a further 10 percent after this announcement.

This does give Yahoo’s CEO Carol Bartz a period of time and some money to develop the organisation into its vision of being the world’s “largest online media company”.

However, 10 years is a very long time in the true market that is the Internet, and the use of Bing will not start until early 2010. Microsoft, or others, might still take the opportunity to buy the former Internet search leader at a marked-down price in the near future if Bartz cannot deliver that vision.

Clouds gather over Google with Hulbee launch?

SWITZERLAND: Leading Swiss software company, Grossbay AG, has launched its new search application http://hulbee.com to challenge the dominance of Google by providing users with a more intelligent search capability.

Based on the Hulbee knowledge management programme developed by Grossbay to assist companies in managing their knowledge databases, Hulbee provides the first truly “intelligent search” facility, allowing users to access information intuitively via a data cloud.

Users searching via http://hulbee.com will not get the normal long list of pages containing their search words, but will instead get a data cloud containing a number of other key words that will help the user define their search in a more natural way.

This new way of searching narrows results by searching for thematic connected keywords, which are then displayed as a data cloud. This enables the user to see the complete context of a search term, which otherwise would still be hidden in long lists of results.

Hulbee uses knowledge management software, originally developed to assist enterprises in managing their information by proposing related topics when a search word or term is entered, therefore narrowing the results. Hulbee builds on the comprehensive search indexing provided by its partner company, Yahoo!

If you carry out a topical search for “swine flu symptoms” on http://hulbee.com, you would see a data cloud as a result (see visual below). From that cloud you are then able to refine your search more easily without having to open up endless websites hoping to find the information you want.

Andreas Wiebe, CEO of Grossbay, said: “Searching for information on the internet is taking too long: there is just too much. Hulbee reduces search times by presenting information in a manageable list. It’s intuitive so everyone will find it easy to use.”

Hulbee adds to the search engines list

If you thought you'd had enough of search engines, wait, there's a new one on the block -- HULBEE! In fact, my attention was drawn toward Hulbee via a discussion forum on one of my groups on LinkedIn.

Interestingly, the discussion was started by a gentleman who calls himself Mr Hulbee, Owner, Hulbee, from Ireland, with the question: can it change the way we search?

Quite interested, I headed for Hulbee!

In its 'About' page, Hulbee states: "Hulbee is a new search solution empowered by Grossbay map technology. Hulbee has high-usable intuitive interface and is using Yahoo API. With Hulbee building of search query is a matter of a few clicks.
Now there is no need of puzzling over query exact wording because Hulbee offers a set of suitable words to pick." There's much more on the page, if you care to read.

Currently, Hulbee has a very low Alexa ranking, so it seems to be a brand new search engine that few have heard about! So, it will take time to catch on.

On the home page, there's a search block, followed by a tag cloud -- perhaps, of the key words that people have been searching on Hulbee. Or maybe, those are popular words, according to the site. Either way, I am not sure.

I did check the search engine and received good results. The search works quite fast too! Along with the search results, it also throws up interesting tag clouds with the related search. Maybe, you should check Hulbee out as well! Happy searching!!

Google SearchMasters Conference 2009 is here!

I consider myself really lucky and delighted at being invited to attend The Google SearchMasters Conference 2009, which will be held this Saturday in Bangalore.

It will present me a great opportunity to learn all about how Google functions, or at least, how its well known search engine functions.

It will be wonderful opportunity to learn about how Google's webmaster resources can help folks develop and build better websites. Attendees will learn how to leverage the different webmaster support tools and improve their website's performance.

There's this brilliant resource from Google for Webmasters. They can connect with the webmaster community, and research and ask specific questions. Users can also learn and see how others are reaching their websites. Besides, you would get to learn how to make your website more search engine friendly. I would surely like to know a bit more about Google Analytics.

Well, I certainly look forward to the Google SearchMasters Conference 2009!

KartOO -- search and see your own maps on Internet!

I stumbled upon KartOO -- a visual meta search engine! Quite easy and quick to use, you must have flash player installed to be able to draw and see your search maps!

A quick check on Alexa revealed a current rank of 78,405 with the description -- "Displays results in chart or classic list form. Options include different language interfaces and basic or expert version."

For instance, if I type my name, it shows up the results -- as you can see below in the search map!Well, I liked what I saw!

When you do a mouseover above each block of the search map, you can see a whole lot of options like Open this page, Related sites, More pages of this site, Modify/Watch, Erase, and Copy. Of course, you can zoom on the search map as well!

A list of topics on the top left half are shown quite nicely. If you do another mouseover above each topic, I believe the search map shows up all of the points where that topic is heaviest -- in terms of density.

On the top menu bar, you have features like Options -- parental filter, search the web, etc.; open, save the map, print and bookmark! The site lists eight languages for displaying search results -- German, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, US and UK English, Brazilian and French!

This is a indeed a very good effort! However, I don't really know what the web site owners are doing about the promotion of this search engine. Do check it out! Even if it is for fun!