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IBM Joins The Search Game

Recently, IBM sold off its PC division, effectively ending the early 1980s-2004 PC era, which it started and eventually lost control of to Microsoft and Intel, and lost market leadership to Dell. What very few expected was that IBM, famous for presenting new and innovative technologies, was planning on making its stand in the new PC era, that of the internet and, more interestingly, search.

In today’s New York Times, James Fallows writes about his visit IBM’s research center just 20 miles north of New York, where the company hopes to create “the future of search”. IBM has recently released OmniFind, its intranet search middleware (think desktop search times 10,000). OmniFind can, in under a second, search intranets, extranets, corporate public websites, relational database systems, file systems, and content repositories, analyzing HTTP/HTTPS, news groups (NNTP), file systems, Domino® databases, Microsoft® Exchange public folders, DB2 Content Manager, DB2 UDB, DB2 UDB for z/OS, Informix®, and Oracle databases. It can scale for millions of documents, thousands of users, can fit into any security setup, and works in Windows and Linux.

OmniFind is an incredibly powerful and scalable corporate search system, that aims to go toe to toe with Google and its search appliance. The key to making it all work is search relevancy, and that is where IBM is pouring in its R&D dollars. For that purpose, IBM is working on third generation search.

First generation search is simple keyword matching. Second generation is Google, matching keywords and other advanced data. The third generation is what IBM unstructured information management architecture (UIMA). The idea is a search index that contextualizes based on the meaning of items, ignoring the medium or file type (databases, e-mail files, audio recordings, pictures or video files) and even the language, and just grouping together together everything that means the same, and returning all those results ranked properly. A large part of this is based on natural language processing, translating everything and bringing all the data in the world into a single format.

Essentially, IBM aims to beat Google to the next revolution, a search engine that understands what you want. Google changed search when everyone thought it was done, bringing the second generation and completely wiping out the rest of the market. Now, everyone thinks search is done again, and if IBM can prove them wrong, it stands to steal the search lead. Rest assured, IBM’s technology, if successful on the intranet scale, will make its way to the internet, and Google will never be the same. The processing power required for such a project would need to dwarf Google’s by several orders of magnitude, but will be doable by the end of the decade (and IBM always thinks long term). As great as Google is, the semantic web is bigger, and IBM wants to get there first.
(via Slashdot)

December 26th, 2004 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Desktop Search, Search, General | no comments

Jeremy Doesn’t Like Google/Flickr

Jeremy Zawodny gives his opinion on a possible Google buy of community photo service Flickr which I spoke about last week.

As a Flickr user and an out of the closet Flickr fan, I’m always worried when anyone talks of great little companies being bought by a Big Company. Why? Big Companies have a way of buying cool services and then making them way less cool. One of the best examples I read of that is the story of Nullsoft.

I think Google has a good track record in this department so far (namely Picasa and Blogger), but I’d just hate to see a great service like Flickr get screwed up before its time.

I wouldn’t necessarily say its the best thing for Flickr, just that its a good move for Google.

December 26th, 2004 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Google Images, Picasa | 9 comments

Larry & Sergey Big Winners In 2004

Lubbock Online lists its winners and losers of 2004, and right at the top of the list of winners:

• Larry and Sergey

Google co-Founders Sergey Brin, left, and Larry Page are seen prior to a press conference at the International Book Fair in Frankfurt, central Germany, Thursday, Oct. 7, 2004. Long known as iconoclasts of the Internet, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, both 31 years old, set out to break the mold of the traditional IPO as well.

Just as the letter “o” in Google’s logo multiplies when the search engine returns bountiful results, so have the number of zeros grown next to the dollar sign in the fortunes of the dot-com darling’s founders since they took Google Inc. public in August. Long known as iconoclasts of the Internet, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, both 31 years old, set out to break the mold of the traditional IPO as well, forcing investors everywhere to “Google” the term “Dutch auction” to figure out just what the heck they were up to. When all was said and done, the Google guys were set to ring in the New Year with a paper net worth of about $6.5 billion each. Certainly, these old acquaintances will not be forgot.

They’re in good company, with Donald Trump and Steve Jobs. On the other side of the coin? Losers Martha Stewart and Ken Lay.

December 26th, 2004 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Stock Market, General | no comments

What Should Google 2005 Look Like

What does Google plan for the future?

This is the single biggest question myself and many other Google-watchers are asking these days. Google, the seemingly invulnerable company, has been looking more Jimmy Olsen than Superman these last couple of weeks, getting one upped by Lex Luthor on a weekly basis. Does Google have the plan necessary to fight off the company that never loses?

First read my recap of the past year.

What do we see? Well, by all accounts, Google had its best year ever. In fact, remove MSN’s last six weeks, and Google had a great year, with no real bumps. The problem is, removing MSN would be like removing the fuel from a plane and expecting to fly properly. Microsoft is the eight hundred pound gorilla that Google has never had to stare down, and it has made an excellent showing over just a few weeks. Microsoft’s on a pace that makes Google look slow and confused.

Microsoft also has a better corporate philosophy. Surprised? You should be. Google’s corporate culture was supposed to be a strength. It’s young, brilliant, and savvy. Instead Google is looking more and more elitist. Its geeks-first attitude could alienate typical users as much as John Kerry alienated middle Americans.

If Google is the blue state search engine, then MSN is the red state search engine. The problem is, the internet economy is almost entirely red state. Blue users don’t click on ads. Microsoft’s products appeal to your grandpa, your sister, your postman, the guy who built your car. Google only appeals to the Slashdot crowd. In thirty years, the entire net will be tech-savvy, but for now, Google is ahead of its time.

Microsoft is going to beat Google not by stealing its core, but by building a much bigger core from everyone Google is ignoring. If Google wants to win this thing, it needs to learn to appeal to those people better than Microsoft will. Google needs a lot of things. It needs a portal. It needs original content. It couldn’t hurt to buy Flickr, but it needs to combine its services.

Integration is the first key. If Google can get its services to work together in an efficient way, it can use that as a selling point to grab customers. Picasa needs to work with Blogger, Hello needs to go 2.0 and create a community, Orkut needs to fixed or dumped for something better, Groups needs to work with Blogger. Google has no page that users can go to and see everything they can do with Google and the reason they should stick with Google. Give me one reason someone should stick with Google. I guarantee you the people who don’t read this blog have no idea what you’re talking about.

Information is the second key. People need to know what Google offers. For god’s sake! Buy a commercial! Tell people that Google is great and they have a reason to stick with it. Why doesn’t Google have a real slogan? Why don’t I see bus ads that say, “Google: The World’s Most Accurate Search Engine”? Why isn’t Google making an effort to let the public know what Google is all about? Microsoft plans to spend a ton of money promoting MSN Search. What about Google?

Innovation is the third key. Google needs something, anything, to take the focus from MSN Search. MSN has been hammering away at Google, and Google needs to give people a reason to remember that Google is supposed to be the industry leader. Picasa 2.0 is a start, but Google Desktop Search is where its at. Desktop search is overrated, but it is where the battle is most visibly fought, so Google needs to not be getting its butt kicked. GDS is so far behind MSN Desktop Search, it should be embarrassed. Just update something. Add a feature or two, post a press release, and hear how grateful everyone is that you guys aren’t asleep. MSN has been open and responsive to the blogging community. That vaunted Google “wall of silence” just doesn’t cut it anymore.

Google is at a huge crossroads. Either it starts to become a real corporation, with commercial needs and marketing and an idea of what its customers need, it is in for a very bad 2005. I have faith in Google. I believe they will pull it together, change their hurtful corporate culture, and win this thing. The problem is, Google is more of a religion than fact. I believe in Google; I have faith; and I have no evidence. I have no reason to show how Google will survive this challenge. I only have my faith.

December 26th, 2004 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Orkut, Groups, Froogle, Microsoft, Picasa, Desktop Search, Desktop, General | 16 comments

Google’s 2004 Year In Review

What happened this year?

January
Google has had an excellent year. At the beginning of the year, Bill Gates famously said, “They kicked out butts” about Google’s domination of and enormous profits on search, but promised a MSN Search engine within a year. Google began the process of going public. Yahoo freaked out and announced its new search engine and plan to dump Google as its results provider the next day. Google released Orkut, which everyone was convinced was the next big thing is social interaction.

February
In February, Bill Gates vowed, “We will catch them”. Google won “Brand of the Year” from BrandChannel, and I think everyone agreed they had a powerful brand. They were also named fifth best internet property by Media Metrix. Google’s overall index (web search, images, groups, print) reached a milestone with 6 billion items indexed and searchable.

March
March brought Froogle Wireless and the beginning of an issue that would dog Google all year, (and still does) sensitive information available on Google). Google Local launched, a model that would be eventually emulated by every major search engine. A man sued Google because his vanity search said terrible things about himself. MSN announced Newsbot. At the end of the month, Google got a facelift.

April
Gmail was the big news for April, and everyone thought it was an April Fools joke. It’s combination of unprecedented free storage and invite-driven exclusivity made it the hot thing through the summer. It also brought a new trend: privacy advocates vs. Google. Gmail’s scanning the text of messages for ads presented the first of many battles Google would have with privacy hawks. Google began scanning academic papers, a project that would eventually become Google Scholar. Amazon launched A9 in beta, putting itself in competition with Google at the same time it was using Google search results. Google announced it would allow the selling of trademarked terms in ads. At the end of the month, Google did the one thing that could be bigger news than Gmail: it filed for its initial public offering.

May
Google’s IPO dominated the conversation well into May, as the odd dutch auction style was debated among analysts and armchair stockbrokers all over the net. Google “joined the conversation” and launched the Google blog. Google brought out Google Groups 2 Beta, an attempt to expand Google’s Usenet archive to be like Yahoo Groups. Geico sued Google for selling its name as an ad keyword. Google topped the Wired 40.

June
June saw Hotmail announced increased email storage, something Yahoo unveiled the month before, as a response to Gmail. Google had such a slow month, it actually published a recipe for Buttermilk Fried Chicken Elvis Loved on the Google blog, the pre-IPO quiet period taking its toll. AOL bought Advertising.com.

July
Google shut down Gmail account sales in July, while adding address book importing. Google choose the NASDAQ for its IPO, which seemed so imminent that it could be any day. Google bought Picasa, then gave away its software for free, but is still developing its big plan for the software. MSN released Newsbot. Google announced its price range for the IPO, an astounding $108-135, and opened the dutch auction registration process as the month closed.

August
All through the beginning of August, speculation mounted, as everyone wanted to know if Google was worth its high asking price. As the IPO neared, Google settled its patent dispute with Yahoo/Overture, giving Yahoo 2.7 million shares of their stock. There was also a major flap when an interview with Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s interview with Playboy was printed during the quiet period. Google submitted its IPO for final approval, and wound up with a much lower price target of $85-95, and with a smaller number of shares. Google opened at $101, and has never dropped to double digits. Yahoo started its own blog. Yahoo sold its Google shares at $82.62, losing, at current prices, just under $300 million. Microsoft announced WinFS, its searchable file system, wasn’t going to make it to Longhorn, something it had hidden for months as it developed MSN Desktop Search.

September
September began with a return to business as usual as Google decided it would be fun if its ads started saying ‘Ads by Goooooogle’ for no particular reason, a dumb idea which continues to this day. It also allowed up to 3 AdSense ads per page. MSN began girding for battle, as Steve Ballmer said Microsoft was “hell-bent and determined” to beat Google. Google celebrated its sixth birthday. Google Alerts came out of beta, with a neat interface for Web and News alerts. Google Local got a major interface upgrade, while Yahoo bought MusicMatch and A9 finally went live, but the biggest move was Jeeves, which upgraded a lot of services, adding MyJeeves.

October
October was Google’s last big month. Before “it” happened, MSN held its Search Champs, flying in search experts to test out the new engine months before it launched. Clusty launched, Yahoo Local went live, I finally got noticed when I posted about Gmail Atom feeds, the MSN Search Preview went online, My Yahoo launched, Bill Gross launched Snap, Google Print got bigger, Evan Williams said nice things about me, Yahoo uncluttered (somewhat), Yahoo revenues increased 212%, Larry and Sergey went to India, Howard Dean shilled for Yahoo. But on October 14, I attended Digital Life and saw firsthand the release of Google Desktop Search, which everyone treated like the second coming, and got a lot of notice for my post on Hello, Google’s instant messenger in Picasa. For the next several weeks, it seemed like Google was rocketing upwards, with a 105% increase in revenues, boosting Google stock to $175, a number it has stayed near for most of the time since, even though it approached $200. Google bought Keyhole, added merchant ratings to Froogle, Page and Brin hit the Forbes 400. Jeeves reported very good earnings. In a snapshot of things to come, MSN accidentally leaked its new search interface.