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Category Archive for ‘Search Engines’ rss

Marissa Mayer Clarifies: Search Is Only 10% Done, Not 90%

by on Sep 10, 2008 (0) Comments

I spoke to Google’s Marissa Mayer at TechCrunch50 on Monday (a little after she we celebrated Google’s 10th birthday with cupcakes) and asked her about the search is “90-95%” solved story over the weekend. She said she’d be posting a clarification on the Google blog. That clarification just went up, here.

In the original article, published in the LA Times, Marissa says search is “90 to 95%” solved:

Search is an unsolved problem. We have a good 90 to 95% of the solution, but there is a lot to go in the remaining 10%. How do we monetize new forms of content as they come online such as video, maps and books. How do we help content providers transition their businesses online and build healthy businesses.

Today Marissa clarifies, suggesting that her real point is that the first 90% of the search problem is solved, but that was the easy part. The last 10% will actually be 90% of the real work, she says, and it will take decades or longer to complete it. She also compares search today to the fiields of biology and physics in the 1500s or 1600s.

A Call to BtoB Marketers — Integrate Search Now!

by on Sep 10, 2008 (0) Comments


Strictly Business - A Column From Search Engine Land

Regular readers of
Strictly
Business undoubtedly know that search marketing does not happen in a
vacuum. Instead, it both impacts, and is impacted by, other forms of
marketing. In fact, search has the inherent ability to both capture the
demand created by other marketing channels, as well as to drive prospects
who seek products and services online to convert offline. So why then do
BtoB marketers make it so damn hard for prospects to connect the dots
between their search marketing efforts and their other marketing
initiatives?

Click to continue reading…

How To Figure Out What Parts of Your Website Aren’t Being Crawled

by on Sep 10, 2008 (0) Comments

When Google took away the supplemental index last year, they killed one of the key diagnostic tools in the SEO’s toolbox, the ability to identify which parts of a site were unimportant (and being infrequently crawled) in a search engines eyes. However with the use of some structured text and clever searches I’m going to [...]

A New Way to Search: Use Your Mouse

by on Sep 08, 2008 (0) Comments

KallOut

Here at TechCrunch 50, there are a slew of interesting companies worth writing about on-stage. But I came across one in the Demo Pit that’s just as noteworthy.

Called KallOut, the service allows you to search the Web without minimizing the screen and going to the Web and replaces that with a couple clicks of a mouse. According to the company, its research shows that users can search the Web up to ten times faster by using KallOut. I’m not sure it’ll be that fast, but it’ll definitely improve efficiency.

Is Search Really 90% Solved?

by on Sep 07, 2008 (0) Comments

Jessica Guynn has an excellent interview with Google’s Marissa Mayer today about Google’s first ten years (today is arguably Google’s tenth birthday). Good stuff in there – Marissa talks about Google’s accomplishments in search and advertising, and looks forward to a future where cloud computing becomes pervasive. Marissa also says she hopes to still be at the company in another ten years.

But one thing caught my eye. Marissa says search is “90 to 95%” solved:

Search is an unsolved problem. We have a good 90 to 95% of the solution, but there is a lot to go in the remaining 10%. How do we monetize new forms of content as they come online such as video, maps and books. How do we help content providers transition their businesses online and build healthy businesses.

Here’s the thing. I don’t think search is even close to being solved yet. In a May 25 post I talked about how early I think we are in search, and why a competitive search market is so important to make sure innovation keeps happening:

Greenseng: A Green Search Engine That Actually Conserves Energy

by on Sep 02, 2008 (0) Comments

We’ve seen a few sites attempt to help turn the web green, but most of them have been little more than gimmicks. Blackle purports to conserve energy by offering a “black” version of Google, which it says uses less energy than the engine’s standard white. But Google has gone on to say that black may actually increase the amount of energy consumed by visitors (of course, this didn’t stop Google Israel from turning its site black in honor of Earth Hour).

Today, Y Combinator startup CO2Stats has launched a search engine that aspires to be truly green. Greenseng (sounds like Ginseng) is a standard search engine, pulling results from Google’s Custom Search to produce results. But instead of relying on a dubious method of energy conservation, CO2Stats measures the amount of energy used by its servers and the computers of its users and purchases renewable energy certificates (similar to carbon credits) to offset the environmental toll.

No Joke: Google Introduces Its Own Browser, With A Cartoon

by on Sep 01, 2008 (1) Comments

Google Blogoscoped has published a lengthly cartoon sent to them by Google and drawn by Scott McCloud that provides the first public details about Google Chrome, an open source browser based on WebKit and powered by Google Gears that has been rumored but never before confirmed.

According to the cartoon (which can be seen in its entirely here – thanks Marshall), the Google Chrome project has already undergone a substantial period of development with engineers working to create a product that’s secure, user friendly, fast, stable, safe, and easily testable. No word yet, however, on when it will be released.

This is a straight shot over the bow of Microsoft, which has tightly integrated its Live Search offering into its dominant Internet Explorer browser (and which, surprise, is in turn tightly integrated into Windows). It also makes for an awkward relationship with Mozilla, whose Firefox browser Google basically funds.

The cartoon breaks down Google Chrome’s features into the following four topics.