Future of search rides on relevance

Future of search rides on relevance | CNET News.com

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Search engine providers are working to catalogue every corner of the Web, but what they really want is to get a better idea of what's going on in your mind.

A panel of industry executives gathered to speak at the Harvard Business School's ongoing Cyberposium conference here Saturday roundly endorsed the idea that making search tools more relevant in customers' lives will be the most important factor in driving their companies' success.

"Our future products will be defined not by what we feel users need, but rather by what sort of information they really want to find," said Rahul Lahiri, vice president of search and product management at Ask Jeeves. "People are usually coming to us looking for a specific answer. The focus for us can't only be on adding new kinds of content, like audio or video, to search--it has to be centered on what the users are really looking for."

Other companies represented at the conference included search heavyweights Google, Yahoo and MSN. And despite their different approaches to developing search tools, the executives here agreed that it will be ordinary folk outside the industry that have the most influence on its continued development.

Initiatives focused on the push to create a more personalized search engine are already under way at all of the companies represented here. The experts said that garnering more involvement from people doing searches, and convincing those people to trust the companies with greater amounts of personal data, will be crucial to future search technology.

Bradley Horowitz, director of media search at Yahoo, said that his company's portal approach, in which it offers an array of personal services such as Web-based e-mail and shopping in addition to search capabilities, is helping to convince customers that they can help shape new offerings.

"The user is expanding the amount of personal data they share with us in the form of their address books, e-mail accounts, or their shopping habits," Horowitz said. "By gathering this information we already have and studying that behavior, we can see a significant opportunity to apply the existing user relationship into new tools."

And the personalization trend won't apply just to creating new search engines, according to the experts. By allowing people's online habits and preferences to influence advertising, a key source of revenue for search companies, the speakers said everyone involved will benefit

Skype readies business telephone offering

Skype readies business telephone offering | CNET News.com

In fact, as much as Skype presents a budding competitive challenge to the old-line companies, it's also looking for ways to cooperate with them. The start-up voices lofty goals of expanding the way people communicate, but it still faces the down-to-earth demands of broadening its own sources of revenue.

Because of its peer-to-peer architecture, Skype requires absolutely no infrastructure and only minimal capital investment compared with phone companies that own their own lines and switches. Rather, Skype's 750,000 daily users create the network on the fly, sharing computer resources to manage traffic flow and ensure call quality. Skype claims its network can grow organically without the need to add new equipment to support increased traffic demands.

This "network free" concept is unprecedented, even for Net phone providers that are already turning the century-old telephone industry on its ear. With Skype, one no longer needs a few hundred thousand dollars in start-up costs typically associated with Net phone service, let alone the billions of dollars in investments to become a traditional phone company.

Skype has turned heads for its unique blend of technology and rapid grassroots adoption. The company claims more than 22 million downloads since the software was first made available in August 2003. It is currently signing up about 60,000 new registered users every day--numbers that draw comparisons to free software downloads that swept the Internet during the late 1990s, such as the ICQ instant messaging service.

"Its growth rate is sky high," said Tim Draper, managing director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, which has invested $9 million into the company. "I don't think there's been this speed of adoption since Hotmail. We are thrilled with what Skype's been able to do. We think it's a global phenomenon that will change communication for the better."

Like Kazaa, Skype uses peer-to-peer technology that connects PCs and turns them into a powerful, collaborative network without the need for central servers to direct traffic or otherwise administer the system.

With Skype, people can place phone calls without touching the traditional phone network. That means callers can avoid long-distance charges, regardless of the destination, provided both caller and receiver have the Skype software.

Can Skype live up to the Net phone hype?

Can Skype live up to the Net phone hype? | CNET News.com

In fact, as much as Skype presents a budding competitive challenge to the old-line companies, it's also looking for ways to cooperate with them. The start-up voices lofty goals of expanding the way people communicate, but it still faces the down-to-earth demands of broadening its own sources of revenue.
Because of its peer-to-peer architecture, Skype requires absolutely no infrastructure and only minimal capital investment compared with phone companies that own their own lines and switches. Rather, Skype's 750,000 daily users create the network on the fly, sharing computer resources to manage traffic flow and ensure call quality. Skype claims its network can grow organically without the need to add new equipment to support increased traffic demands.

This "network free" concept is unprecedented, even for Net phone providers that are already turning the century-old telephone industry on its ear. With Skype, one no longer needs a few hundred thousand dollars in start-up costs typically associated with Net phone service, let alone the billions of dollars in investments to become a traditional phone company.

Skype has turned heads for its unique blend of technology and rapid grassroots adoption. The company claims more than 22 million downloads since the software was first made available in August 2003. It is currently signing up about 60,000 new registered users every day--numbers that draw comparisons to free software downloads that swept the Internet during the late 1990s, such as the ICQ instant messaging service.

"Its growth rate is sky high," said Tim Draper, managing director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, which has invested $9 million into the company. "I don't think there's been this speed of adoption since Hotmail. We are thrilled with what Skype's been able to do. We think it’s a global phenomenon that will change communication for the better."

Like Kazaa, Skype uses peer-to-peer technology that connects PCs and turns them into a powerful, collaborative network without the need for central servers to direct traffic or otherwise administer the system.

With Skype, people can place phone calls without touching the traditional phone network. That means callers can avoid long-distance charges, regardless of the destination, provided both caller and receiver have the Skype software.

Slew of Fears Slows Open-Source Uptake

Slew of Fears Slows Open-Source Uptake

Roadblocks
# Why open-source adoption stalls: Difficult to acquire
# No integrated systems
# No system dependability commitment
# No mission-critical support.

AP Wire | AOL Enhances Search Function on Free Site

AP Wire | 01/21/2005 | AOL Enhances Search Function on Free Site

America Online Inc., seeking to boost traffic to its free Web site and generate more advertising dollars as its paid subscriber base declines, said Thursday it is enhancing its search functions.

Search queries will now generate a group of results called "snapshots" - editorial content and relevant information for a wide range of topics including local movie showtimes, sports statistics and current events. It will include options to find a flight or a restaurant.

AOL's searches can now group relevant results by topic.

The company is also introducing a tool to help users narrow their search queries. For instance, a user who types the word "eagles" can select from such options as "The Eagles" (the band), "The Philadelphia Eagles" (football team) or "eagles" (the bird).

AOL also said it has signed a licensing agreement with Copernic Technologies Inc. for a desktop search tool. Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. already have released similar software for cataloging and scanning hard drives for information.

With the expansion, AOL is trying to build on a longstanding partnership with Google, whose Internet-leading search engine distributes text-based ads to AOL's Web site. AOL will continue tapping Google's giant index to supplement search results.

AOL also unveiled a new way of selling ads. Working with a San Francisco startup, Ingenio Inc., AOL will charge for some ads based on how many telephone calls, not Web clicks, they generate for a business.

Boston.com / Business / Technology / Google bypassed in search deal

Boston.com / Business / Technology / Google bypassed in search deal

In a blow to Google Inc., which provides general Web search for America Online members, AOL yesterday said it has chosen Fast Search & Transfer to power a revamping of its local search service.

Riaz said Fast employs an advanced "geosearch" family of algorithms that enable "contextual navigation" to connect queries with their context. "We provide the invoice number, the customer name, the cake recipe that individuals want," Riaz said. By contrast, he said, "Google has thousands and thousands and thousands of servers that run on one simplistic model and provide the same results for everyone."

AOL, a unit of Time Warner Inc., already offers search in conjunction with its local content such as CityGuide, MapQuest, Moviefone, and AOL Yellow Pages. Its local search update will pool all the data and create a more intuitive search experience for members, said Gerry Campbell, general manager and vice president of search and navigation for AOL in Dulles, Va. "When you start with a geographically focused Web crawl, the local relevance will be much higher," Campbell said. "The Web is at the point now where there's lots of great information in everybody's area."