NY Times: Google Envy Is Fomenting Search Wars. Propelled by Google envy, new players and Internet industry giants are rushing into the online search market, setting off a burst of activity that contrasts sharply with the lull after the dot-com collapse. To fend off its challengers, Google has furiously intensified efforts to add new services to its brand.
Posted by: notaregularNYTreader on October 18, 2004 07:35 AM
Dan, where are we at with the suggested modification to show the poster’s URL at the top of the posting rather than at underneath it? I am regularly reminded of the need to skip drivel.
Posted by: Dan Gillmor on October 18, 2004 07:53 AM
I’ve asked for this modification, but I’m not sure what the status is. You’re right that we should do it.
Meanwhile, let’s all remember not to feed the troll.
Posted by: query on October 18, 2004 08:07 AM
Riiiight. Dan doesn’t want to feed “the troll”. But in the just prior thread, he’s feeding the worst sort of demagoguery, posting a link to political ads comparing Bush to Hitler.
Sorry, he can’t blame anyone else this time. They’re right there, images of Bush and Hitler, he knows they’re there, and by linking to them, Dan Gillmor reveals himself for the extremist HACK he is.
Posted by: Doug on October 18, 2004 08:27 AM
Here’s hoping the next product is better than G**gle Desktop – maybe I’m not the target audience for that but I found it pretty anticlimactic.
BTW, error on submission of the comment: “Your comment could not be submitted due to questionable content: G**gle”
And yet so much other spew gets through. Go figure. 🙂
Posted by: James Salsman on October 18, 2004 11:44 AM
I keep hoping that G__gle starts listing anonymous FTP urls (which are perhaps more expensive to spider, but now they’ve got their market credit approved), .txt files, and directory listings.
Perhaps G__gle needs a preference checkbox for each of those things, or would one for all three be better?
Posted by: James Salsman on October 18, 2004 11:46 AM
In case anyone is wondering why I am suddenly posting ad-libs, I got this error message:
“Comment Submission Error
Your comment submission failed for the following reasons:
Your comment could not be submitted due to questionable content: Goog|e
Please correct the error in the form below, then press POST to post your comment.”
Posted by: Dave Buster on October 18, 2004 12:20 PM
You can’t say g__gle? Guess not… what about Yahoo? Guess so.
Posted by: Stan Krute on October 18, 2004 12:22 PM
The funny quotes, to me, and the most
brain-dead, are the ones that say search
will just become a marketing war.
Sorry. Wrong.
It’s a technical war. And G–gle (sorry,
I had to change that because the post was
refused for “questionable content” because
it contained the non— form) is
way ahead. Their server farm, algorithms,
and implementation are not within reach
of Microsoft unless the MS culture has
a serious re-adjustment. Think bloat
and kitchen-sink versus lean and mean.
stan
Posted by: Doug on October 18, 2004 12:47 PM
Stan – I wish it were so, but when MS integrates search with the OS in a smarter way it won’t have to be *better*. Outlook and Outlook Express aren’t better, they’re just the most accessible. In the beginning, IE wasn’t better – in fact it was significantly worse – but it took over because it was ubiquitous and eventually got “better.”
As always: IMHO.
Posted by: Peter G on October 18, 2004 01:07 PM
A few things to consider:
1. The “desktop search” gap exists on the already released Microsoft OSes. If and when Microsoft releases a new OS with a decent desktop search, it will be limited to new installs.
2. Goo-gle (and others) are shipping a “good enough” free desktop search today, available for win2k and xp. The niche is open today, and will be filled before (if) Microsoft ships a WinFS-based OS.
3. The tie-in between desktop search and web search is unproven. “Switching” web search providers is so trivial that comparisons with the browser wars don’t work.
4. Microsoft needs new features to get people to upgrade to the new OS, so they won’t ship a win2k/xp installable desktop search capability. This is a strategic error, because it takes Microsoft out of the game until the next OS release (2006?). There’s some speculation that they acquired Lookoutsoft just to get it off the market.
Posted by: James Salsman on October 18, 2004 04:50 PM
Dan, where do we go to laugh at the people who won’t let your respondents type Goog|e?
Posted by: Dan Gillmor on October 18, 2004 07:35 PM
I’ve alerted the tech folks. The comment spam filter somehow decided to exclude Google, and they’ve fixed it.
Posted by: Stan Krute on October 20, 2004 10:26 AM
Hi Doug
You’re right about the power of MS to win
markets due to their broad distribution
powers.
In the search battle, though, they’ve got
a number of hills to climb.
[1] Google’s first-mover advantage. Nobody else
is near them in terms of search excellence at
this point. We who search, and advise others on
learning how to search, are going to need a lot
of motivation to shift and advise others to shift.
[2] The clean/minimalist design of Googleware
versus MS tendencies towards kitchen-sinkish
bloat. MS has to perform a tough coding cultural
shift. Non-
trivial.
[3] The toughness of the problem. Search can look
easy to smart nerdals until they start diving into
it seriously. Easy to be over-confident about things before the doing gets done.
stan
Posted by: joe on October 22, 2004 12:39 PM
What is the big stink about the desktop search thing? Is it really going to be that HUGE?
Posted by: query on October 18, 2004 06:39 AM
Fascinating. A simple link to a top-line NYT business story.
Either (i) Dan has absolutely nothing to say on this subject, as he had nary a word to say in comment to this article, (ii) he thinks his readers don’t read the Times before doing a drive-by on blog (ROFL) — substance-free, inane Democrat drivel that it is –, or both.