Google Opens Up (Some) Search Algorithms
After years of closely guarding the formula for its search algorithms, Google is opening up a little. The search engine company has kept its search formula a closely guarded secret for two reasons: competition and to prevent abuse, said Udi Manber, Google’s vice president of engineering, search quality, in post on the corporate blog. Manber said the blog post is the first part of a renewed effort at the company t
o open up a bit more than we have in the past.” Manber said the most famous part of Google’s ranking algorithm is PageRank, an algorithm developed by Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. While PageRank is still in use, it is a “part of a much larger system,” he said. “Other parts include language models (the ability to handle phrases, synonyms, diacritics, spelling mistakes, and so on), query models (it’s not just the language, it’s how people use it today”), time models (some queries are best answered with a 30-minutes old page, and some are better answered with a page that stood the test of time), and personalized models (not all people want the same thing),” he said.
Excerpt from the google blog
“The heart of the group is the team that works on core ranking. Ranking is hard, much harder than most people realize. One reason for this is that languages are inherently ambiguous, and documents do not follow any set of rules. There are really no standards for how to convey information, so we need to be able to understand all web pages, written by anyone, for any reason. And that’s just half of the problem. We also need to understand the queries people pose, which are on average fewer than three words, and map them to our understanding of all documents. Not to mention that different people have different needs. And we have to do all of that in a few milliseconds.
The most famous part of our ranking algorithm is PageRank, an algorithm developed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who founded Google. PageRank is still in use today, but it is now a part of a much larger system. Other parts include language models (the ability to handle phrases, synonyms, diacritics, spelling mistakes, and so on), query models (it’s not just the language, it’s how people use it today), time models (some queries are best answered with a 30-minutes old page, and some are better answered with a page that stood the test of time), and personalized models (not all people want the same thing).
Another team in our group is responsible for evaluating how well we’re doing. This is done in many different ways, but the goal is always the same: improve the user experience. This is not the main goal, it is the only goal. There are automated evaluations every minute (to make sure nothing goes wrong), periodic evaluations of our overall quality, and, most importantly, evaluations of specific algorithmic improvements. When an engineer gets a new idea and develops a new algorithm, we test their ideas thoroughly. We have a team of statisticians who look at all the data and determine the value of the new idea. We meet weekly (sometimes twice a week) to go over those new ideas and approve new launches. In 2007, we launched more than 450 new improvements, about 9 per week on the average. Some of these improvements are simple and obvious — for example, we fixed the way Hebrew acronym queries are handled (in Hebrew an acronym is denoted by a (”) next to the last character, so IBM will be IB”M), and some are very complicated — for example, we made significant changes to the PageRank algorithm in January. Most of the time we look for improvements in relevancy, but we also work on projects where the sole purpose is to simplify the algorithms. Simple is good.”
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Google could pick Git to manage Android code
Releasing 8.6 million lines of source code and expecting open-source programmers to join Google in its development is a technological challenge. But when Google does make its Android mobile phone software an open-source project later this year, it looks likely it will take a page from the Linux playbook and use a tool called Git to manage that part of the work.
Linux leader Linus Torvalds originally developed the Git source-code management software in 2005. He didn’t like available open-source tools for the chore, but encountered resistance in using a proprietary tool, BitMover’s BitKeeper. Torvalds liked the distributed approach enabled by BitKeeper and Git, in which individuals could maintain their own “trees,” variations of a project that branch off a main trunk. Git also can be used to track and manage software patches sent “upstream” by contributors working on code branches to the programmers responsible for maintaining various open-source projects.
Google currently uses a source-code management tool called Perforce to manage Android, but the company is moving to another code repository technology in preparation for moving Android into an open-source project, said Android leader Andy Rubin.
“We need an open-source repository. Currently we’re on Perforce. That has to be moved to Git,” and there’s an effort now to make the transition, Rubin told me in an interview about Android. That sounded to me like Android had settled on Git, but Rubin wasn’t willing to go that far. “We have no announcements at this time,” he said.
Maybe we’ll hear more at the Google I/O conference next week for programmers interested in Google’s work. One theme of the conference is Android. Benjamin Lynn of Google’s developer programs group offered a basic guide to Git on a Google open-source blog posting this week. And Google uses Git elsewhere, for example, to help Linux kernel programmers with support for Qualcomm mobile phone processors.
Junio C. Hamano currently maintains Git.
One choice Google won’t pick for source code management is the centralized Subversion software. “Subversion we don’t think is enough of a repository to handle 11 million lines of code. If this is adopted, and there are 10,000 people checking out, it’ll die,” Rubin said. (Android today consists of about 8 million lines of Linux code plus 11 million lines of higher-level code; of the latter, about 8.6 million will become open-source software.)
Video: Linus Torvalds visits Google to share his thoughts on git, the source control management system he created two years ago (Thanks RadonPL on Digg)
Microsoft to lure search users with cash
According to Todd Bishop’s blog, Microsoft is all set to to lure search users with cash!
Microsoft has tried almost everything to get more people to pick its search site over Google, without much luck. So maybe a little cash will do the trick.
A screenshot of the Live Search cashback site.
That is the idea behind a new Microsoft program that will return money to online users who find and buy selected products through its Live Search engine. It’s an unusual move that illustrates the lengths to which the Redmond company is willing to go in its struggle to gain ground on the Internet search king.
Microsoft’s “Live Search cashback” site, set to be unveiled Wednesday, promises to pay back a portion of the purchase price — ranging from about 2 percent to more than 30 percent — to people who use it to find designated products and buy them online from participating retailers.
The company has signed up a long list of merchants to participate in the program - including the online sites of large retailers such as Barnes & Noble, Sears, Home Depot, J&R Electronics, Office Depot and others.
The company is expected to unveil the Live Search cashback program at a conference in Redmond where Bill Gates will be speaking to online advertisers. Microsoft last weekend said there would be a major
search announcement but declined to provide specifics. A Microsoft spokesman declined to comment Tuesday evening.
However, the Seattle P-I discovered an informational portion of the Live Search cashback online site — spelling out the new program in detail — that was publicly accessible as of Tuesday.
One snippet on the site also makes reference to moving a user’s “cashback and payment service from Jellyfish to Live Search.” Jellyfish Group is a U.K.-based search advertising firm that specializes in a type of payment model for advertisers that is similar to the one the new Microsoft service will use.
The nature of Jellyfish’s involvement in the initiative wasn’t clear as of Tuesday evening. Microsoft has been making a series of acquisitions in an effort to bolster its online efforts.
A list of frequently asked questions on the Microsoft site includes one that many potential users will no doubt ask: “Why are you paying me cashback?”
Answer: “We want to earn your loyalty and reward it with cashback savings for your everyday online shopping. We are ‘The Search That Pays You Back’!”
Cashback programs have been tried by smaller search engines, with mixed results. Because of Microsoft’s big online presence, its new initiative could get lots of attention in the industry and among consumers.
“Assuming that the rebate amounts are enough to be appealing to people, which it sounds like they are, that definitely could attract a fair number of consumers,” said industry analyst Van Baker, a Gartner Inc. research vice president, when the site was described to him. “But what they may do is just go to that site when they’re thinking about buying something, and use Google the rest of the time.”
It’s not clear how much money Microsoft has allocated to the cashback program, or how long it is scheduled to last.
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Microsoft, Yahoo may team up on Web search
NEW YORK - Microsoft Corp., the software maker that scrapped a $47.5 billion bid for Yahoo! Inc. this month, may forge a partnership with the Internet company in the search-advertising market to challenge Google Inc. Microsoft, which abandoned its takeover attempts May 3, said Sunday that it’s exploring a transaction with Yahoo and may renew attempts to buy the entire company. The two may combine units that sell ads that run next to Internet search results, said Morningstar Inc. analyst Toan Tran. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is pressuring Yahoo to ally itself with Microsoft to compete with Google, which dominates the Internet search market. Icahn, backed by investors such as hedge-fund manager John Paulson, plans to oust Yahoo’s board if Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang fails to sell to Microsoft. ‘Carl Icahn is in this to make a quick buck, so whatever helps him make money he’ll be happy with,’ said Tran, who is based in Chicago and doesn’t own shares of either company. ‘What Carl Icahn definitely wants is an outright sale of Yahoo to Microsoft at some price higher than what it is now.’ Microsoft has offered to buy Yahoo’s search unit and take a minority stake in the company after Yahoo gets rid of its holdings in Asia, Reuters reported Monday, citing a person familiar with the talks. Microsoft spokesman Frank Shaw declined to confirm or deny the report, while Yahoo spokeswoman Diana Wong declined to comment. Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, fell 53 cents to close at $29.46 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo rose 2 cents to $27.68, while Google dropped $2.55 to $577.52. The new talks may bring Microsoft closer to a full acquisition of Yahoo, said Mark May, an analyst at Needham & Co. in New York. On Monday, he changed his recommendation on Yahoo’s stock to buy. He had advised clients to hold on to the shares since April 2007. ‘Microsoft sees an opportunity where their negotiating position has improved,’ May said. ‘They clearly have some very large shareholders on their side now and they realize that they can make some moves.’ Icahn, 72, owns 10 million shares and options to purchase 49 million more. He proposed a slate of board nominees last week including Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and former Viacom Inc. CEO Frank Biondi Jr. Icahn didn’t return phone messages. Paulson said last week that he would back Icahn’s slate and that he was disappointed Yahoo didn’t reach a deal with Microsoft. Paulson & Co. owned 50 million shares of Yahoo as of March. All 10 of Yahoo’s directors are up for re-election at the annual meeting July 3. Yahoo and Microsoft trail Mountain View, Calif.-based Google in Internet search traffic. Together they account for about a third of total Internet searches in the U.S., or about half of the share Google has, according to research firm ComScore Inc. Google CEO Eric Schmidt and co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are meeting in Britain to discuss Google’s response to the Microsoft talks with Yahoo, according to a British Broadcasting Corp. report. They were traveling to attend an event for the company’s European operations, the BBC said. Google didn’t respond to an e-mail. With reporting by Crayton Harrison in Dallas.
Google outgrowing it’s shoes with Google Health?
Google on Monday launched a beta test of its Google Health service to archive medical records and find medical services.
The site is a personal portal that can be used to upload, store, and view personal information, retrieve records from partners, investigate health matters, set alerts such as a reminder to take medication, and run applications that can help your well being.
Google has been talking about the health initiative for a year. Now, “we actually have the product,” said Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience.
The service will never sell a patient’s information and will only share it with the patient’s permission, Zeiger said. And a user can revoke rights to share at any time. “No Google Health user will ever find their Google Health information as search results anywhere on Google. That information is yours,” Zeiger said. To join, users must agree to various terms of use, including this: “When you provide your information through Google Health, you give Google a license to use and distribute it in connection with Google Health and other Google services.”
A small issue: the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) doesn’t govern what Google does, and after that, the only recourse is trying to get the Federal Trade Commission to enforce companies’ privacy policies. From the ToS:
When you provide your information through Google Health, you give Google a license to use and distribute it in connection with Google Health and other Google services. However, Google may only use health information you provide as permitted by the Google Health Privacy Policy, your Sharing Authorization, and applicable law. Google is not a “covered entity” under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and the regulations promulgated thereunder (”HIPAA”). As a result, HIPAA does not apply to the transmission of health information by Google to any third party.
I don’t understand all the legal jargon. I don’t understand the implications of sharing data with Google. And if for some reason Google screws up, what are my options?
Till now, I have been comfortable sharing my emails with Google (I use Gmail) as there is nothing too confidential, can sharing my search preferences and patterns with Big G, etc. etc. But my health data? Unless the reasons and motivations are too compelling, I am not going to do that. And today, it is far from compelling.
Google addresses the HIPAA concerns in a blog post and features a chart (shown below) outlining the differences between HIPAA and its privacy policy. Anyone sharing health data with Google should read both the post and the explainer on the differences.
Thanks Google for putting up the portal with information on health 101. But I prefer to play it safe - and am not sharing any medical records. Not in foreseeable future.
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HIPAA |
Google Health |
| Do individuals have access to their medical records and health information? | Under HIPAA, patients can request a copy of their medical records from their health care provider. This typically requires completing release paperwork and may require a printing or copying fee. In some circumstances, availability of certain records may be limited. | In Google Health, users have free and immediate web access at all times to the medical records and health information they store in their account. |
| Are individuals informed of how their information is used and protected? | Health care providers must provide patients with written notice of their HIPAA privacy rights. | Google provides users with a privacy policy when they sign up for Google Health.
The policy is also posted online, along with Frequently Asked Questions, allowing users to reference it at any time. |
| What information is protected? | Under HIPAA, personally identifiable information is protected.
De-identified patient information is not protected. Aggregate, de-identified patient information can be published and shared with third parties. |
Under the Google Health privacy policy, personally identifiable information is protected.
De-identified information, including our anonymous logs data, is restricted and cannot be shared with third parties. Aggregate, de-identified user information can be used to publish trends. |
| When is information sharing permitted? | Health care providers may share information with patient authorization, and may share without authorization, for certain purposes, such as:
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Google Health may share information with explicit user authorization, and may share without authorization in certain limited circumstances, such as:
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| When is information sharing required? | Under various federal and state laws, health care providers must share patient information to comply with court orders and subpoenas.
HIPAA itself also allows health care providers to voluntarily share patient information with law enforcement without a subpoena and without permission from or notice to the patient. |
Under various federal and state laws, Google must share user information to comply with court orders and subpoenas. When possible, we notify the user in order to give them the opportunity to object.
Under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), Google may not voluntarily share most user information with law enforcement. |
| How does the individual authorize sharing? | Patient authorization is not required for institutions to share information in the case of certain permitted disclosures, described above. When authorization is required, patients provide consent to share information through a written authorization form that must satisfy certain HIPAA requirements. Sharing is revocable under HIPAA. | Users must request and give Google permission to share information through electronic authorization in their Google Health account. Sharing is revocable at any time. |
| Is information protected when used by third parties? | If the third party is covered by HIPAA, HIPAA rules apply. If the third party (e.g., a patient’s family member or employer) is not covered by HIPAA, HIPAA rules do not apply. | If the third party is covered by HIPAA, HIPAA rules apply. If the third party (e.g., a patient’s family member or employer) is not covered by HIPAA, HIPAA rules do not apply.
Online services not covered by HIPAA that wish to integrate with Google Health must comply with Google Health’s Developer Policies, which establish strict privacy standards for how they collect, use, or share user information. |
| Can information be seen or used internally by a health care provider’s or health plan’s personnel or by Google employees? | Employees in particular job functions may have access to patient information without patient authorization as reasonably necessary to carry out duties relating to treatment, reimbursement, or health care operations, such as to communicate about health benefit plans or to recommend alternative treatments or therapies. | A limited number of employees in particular job functions may have access to user information in order to operate and improve Google Health. Users consent to this limited internal use when they sign up for Google Health. |
| Do individuals have a right to correct inaccurate information in their records? | Patients can request corrections in their records, and the service or doctor can reject or accept the request. | Users can delete any of their health information stored on Google Health and edit any information they have entered in their account at any time, and their account will reflect their changes immediately. They can also edit information entered into their account by a health care provider with the provider’s approval. |
| Can individuals find out who has viewed or added information to their records? | Patients can request to see to whom their information has been disclosed in the last six years by requesting this information in writing from their health care provider. However, most disclosures, such as those for treatment, payment, and health care operations, do not have to be reported in response to such a request. | Every time data is added to a user’s profile, the user is updated with a ‘notice’ on the main page of their profile. Users can see their full list of notices at any time.
Users can view a full list of anyone that can currently view or add information to their account at any time in the settings tab of their Google Health account. This list does not include those who previously had access but from whom the user later revoked reading or editing privileges. Additionally, individual items that have been added to a user’s account include a source–the name of the health care provider or institution that added the information –even if the source no longer has reading or editing privileges on the account. |
| How is information kept secure? | HIPAA requires that health care providers and other services maintain a minimum standard of “reasonable and appropriate safeguards to prevent intentional or unintentional use or disclosure of health information”. | Google Health secures information by:
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| Who enforces privacy protections? | Under HIPAA, the Department of Health and Human Services enforces HIPAA privacy protections through civil and criminal penalties. Read more information about HIPAA enforcement from the HHS Office of Civil Rights. | Under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, the FTC enforces privacy protections in the Google Health privacy policy through civil and criminal penalties.
State attorneys general and district attorneys have similar authority under general consumer protection laws. |
Best of Google Holiday Logos
| Google celebrates Einstein’s birthday - March 14, 2003 |
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| Earth Day - April 22, 2008 |
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| Earth Day - April 22, 2007 |
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| Earth Day - April 22, 2006 |
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| Earth Day - April 22, 2004 |
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| Alexander Graham Bell’s Birthday - March 3, 2008 |
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| Happy Valentine’s Day - February 14, 2008 |
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| Veteran’s Day - November 11, 2007 |
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| Happy Halloween - October 31, 2007 |
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| Father’s Day - June 18, 2006 |
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| Happy Mother’s Day - May 13, 2007 |
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| Edvard Munch’s Birthday - December 12, 2006 |
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| World Cup, US - June 9, 2006 |
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| Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Birthday - May 22, 2006 |
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| 250th Birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - January 27, 2006 |
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| Martin Luther King Jr. Day - January 16, 2006 |
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| Louis Braille’s Birthday - January 4, 2006 |
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| Anniversary of Lunar Landing - July 20, 2005 |
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| National Teacher Day - May 3, 2005 |
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| Leonardo da Vinci’s Birthday - April 15, 2005 |
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| Google celebrates Vincent van Gogh’s Birthday - March 30, 2005 |
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| 2004 Summer Games in Athens |
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| Happy Birthday Picasso! - October 25, 2002 |
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| Dragon Boat Festival, China - June 15, 2002 |
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| When Google was in beta |
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Which is YOUR favorite? Leave a comment and let us know…
Source: Google
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Google Overtakes Yahoo As Most-Visited Web Property
As if Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang didn’t have enough to worry about, Google has now overtaken Yahoo as the most-visited website property, according to comScore.
April saw Google Sites attain the number one spot in the Top 50 U.S. Properties ranking for the first time in its history with a total audience of more than 141 million visitors.
Yahoo Sites ranked second with 140.6 million visitors, followed by Microsoft Sites with 121.2 million visitors.
Superpages.com Network and CareerBuilder both jumped eight spots in the ranking to positions 18 and 30, respectively.
Content categories showing gains in April included job search, career resources, and television sites.
The top-gaining categories in April were Pharmacies and Retail-Food, both up 8 per cent from March.
According to comScore, Google’s unique U.S. audience in April was up 18 percent from the same month in 2007, while Yahoo’s audience grew 7 percent.
However, according to the Associated Press, Yahoo still leads in page views, meaning visitors spend more time there or return more often. Many Google users make a simple search request and quickly go elsewhere based on the results. Yahoo had 33.6 billion page views to Google’s 28.7 billion.
Google May Run Display Advertisements With Image Search Results
Google is considering running illustrated advertisements alongside the results of Web queries for pictures, moving beyond its text-based ad business. Matching graphical-display ads with image searches “represents a large opportunity, and there’s lot of potential for advertising revenue there,” Marissa Mayer, a Google vice president, said.
Google is seeking new sources of revenue as growth slows for the four-line text ads that generate almost all of its sales. We haven’t found a proper way to monetize image search to date,” said Mayer, who oversees search products. “You may see us roll out an ads-image search in the future, but when we do you’ll know that’s because we found a way that ultimately enhances user happiness with the product.”
Google calculated in 2006 that it was giving up as much as $200 million a year by not including text advertisements with its image search results, and that figure has probably increased since, Mayer said. Trials showed that text ads drove people away from conducting image searches, and Google dropped that idea.
Display ads may work better with image searches because they seem more natural to people looking for pictures, Mayer said. While the company has done mock-ups of how it might present the ads, it hasn’t tested them on users, she said.
News Source Bloomberg
My question: Can they do that without violating copyright and ownership rights of image owners?
FLurry of Data Interoperability announcements…
TechCrunch has an interesting post that Google is going to launch a product called “Friend Connect” on Monday. MySpace launched Data Availability on Thursday, and yesterday Facebook Connect.
Why this flurry of activity in opening up APIs for 3rd party apps? All these initiatives will allow securely sending personal profile data, including friend lists, presence/status information, etc., to third party applications. The primary benefit of these services is to allow users to maintain a single friends list and to coordinate social activities across different sites that perform different services.
“The reason these companies are are rushing to get products out the door is because whoever is a player in this space is likely to control user data over the long run. If users don’t have to put profile and friend information into multiple sites, they will gravitate towards one site that they identify with, and then allow other sites to access that data. The desire to own user identities over the long run is also causing the big Internet companies, in my opinion, to rush to become OpenID issuers (but not relying parties).”
While the motivations are good (I don’t need to sign up everytime I visit a new website), there are bound to be privacy issues. Wait for one 3rd party to mess it up, willingly or unwillingly.
And the biggest gain for Google? They would now be able to target ads on individual profile level. Is that good? I am not too sure how much info I’d like to share with anyone, be it Google, Facebook, Myspace, Yahoo, Twitter…
Let’s wait and see.
Yahoo Shareholders Aim To Reignite Microsoft Deal
The Los Angeles Times reports, “Yahoo Inc. shareholders are so mad about the company’s failure to cut a deal with Microsoft Corp. that several said they would consider a proxy fight to oust Chief Executive Jerry Yang and Yahoo’s board of directors if that would bring the Seattle suitor back to the table.” An opposing board slate “would get ‘overwhelming’ support from shareholders, said Larry Haverty, portfolio manager with Gamco Investors Inc., whose funds own 1.2 million shares apiece in Yahoo and Microsoft.” The Times continues, “But time is not on their side. In an apparent effort to blunt the shareholder firestorm, Yahoo on Monday set its annual meeting for July 3, giving investors little time to nominate a slate.” On Tuesday, “several large Yahoo shareholders burned up the phone lines in a campaign to persuade Yahoo’s independent board members to reconsider Microsoft’s offer. They also made overtures to Microsoft, which withdrew its sweetened $47.5-billion offer over the weekend.”
The AP reported, “After fending off months of threats by Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc.’s directors still will have to fight for their jobs as the company’s own irate shareholders plot a mutiny. … ‘We are hoping to turn that (meeting) into ‘Independence Day’ for Yahoo’s shareholders,’ said Eric Jackson, president of Ironfire Capital.”
The Financial Times reports, “Hopes that Yahoo would be forced back to the negotiating table with Microsoft lifted its shares in heavy trading yesterday, with the stock rising 5.54 per cent by the close in New York.” The share price rebound “follows strong criticism of Yahoo from some of its biggest shareholders, who have argued that it was wrong to hold out so strongly for a price of $37 a share from Microsoft, which had offered $33 a share.”
The Christian Science Monitor reports, “After the collapse of Microsoft’s acquisition bid and the plunge in its stock Monday, Yahoo’s management is now under pressure to avert a shareholder revolt. Some shareholders simply decided to sell. One activist investor called for the overthrow of the current board. Others are pursuing shareholder lawsuit, with more expected.” The Monitor notes, “The possibility that disillusioned shareholders may sell or overturn the board, however, puts pressure on Yahoo’s CEO Jerry Yang to give them some hope of a turnaround. That might involve wooing a different buyer, like Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Or, Yahoo may continue to pursue a partnership with Google.”
James B. Stewart, a columnist for SmartMoney magazine, writes at the Wall Street Journal, “As a Yahoo shareholder, I was furious over its bungling of a potentially lucrative sale to Microsoft, especially after Yahoo shares plunged Monday on the news. Nothing in Yahoo’s official statement from Chairman Roy Bostock made me feel any better. It seemed especially disingenuous for Mr. Bostock to say ‘we are pleased that so many of our shareholders joined us’ in the view that Microsoft’s bid — its latest was $33 a share — had undervalued Yahoo. And just who might those supportive shareholders be? No names were mentioned. No one asked me.” He continues, “The droves of shareholders voting with their wallets on Monday, pushing Yahoo shares down to $24 and change, a 15% decline, would suggest that there weren’t all that many. At the very least, Yahoo owes its shareholders a detailed explanation why it believes Yahoo is worth perhaps $40 a share, or more.” Stewart comments, “It all depends on what Yahoo does now. In my view, the company has to abandon ideas like teaming up with Time Warner’s AOL and face up to some hard decisions. It should admit that its own search-advertising effort has failed and vigorously pursue a relationship with Google.”
Erick Schonfeld wrote at TechCrunch, “Here’s the latest Yahoo rumor that we’re chasing: The Yahoo board of directors met earlier today and authorized chairman Roy Bostock, not CEO Jerry Yang, to call Ballmer about re-starting negotiations. In fact, this rumor may have been behind the small rally in Yahoo’s stock today, which closed up 5.5 percent to $25.72 (still down from where it closed on Friday at $28.67). If this is true, it makes you wonder who is really in charge at Yahoo.” He continued, “Yang has been getting a lot of grief from angry shareholders for not taking Microsoft’s $33 a share offer, and instead holding out for $37 or $38. Now his story keeps changing on when he learned about the $33 bid. But when Ballmer balked and called off the deal, that may have been when Yang’s grip on power began to weaken. What happened next was curious. In Yahoo’s official press release on May 3 responding to Microsoft’s termination of negotiations, it was Bostock who issued the primary statement from Yahoo, not Yang.” Schonfeld noted, “Whether or not Yahoo’s board actually met today and authorized Bostock to restart negotiations is entirely speculation at this point, say our sources. But here’s one more interesting tidbit. Today, Yahoo board member Eric Hippeau was supposed to speak on a panel with me and others at the In-Call Media Summit in New York (where we both live). He didn’t show up. Another venture capitalist from Softbank took his place. When I asked around what happened to Hippeau, I was told by someone else at the conference who would have known that he is in Sunnyvale. So maybe the board did meet today after all.”
Microsoft’s Gates Says Ballmer To Make Decisions Regarding Yahoo Bid. The AP reported, “Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said Tuesday that ‘key decisions’ following the company’s withdrawal of a $47.5 billion bid for Yahoo will be made by CEO Steve Ballmer.” Gates “was asked about the software maker’s plans after the Yahoo bid fell apart, including whether Microsoft would pursue another deal of the same size elsewhere. … ‘Well, the key decisions on that will be made by Microsoft CEO Steven Ballmer, who took a look at Yahoo and decided that on our own he likes the stuff that we’re doing,’ Gates said, according to a pool report. ‘We need to show the innovation and it’s a very competitive space,” he added. “I wouldn’t rule out some partnerships but we don’t have anything imminent there.’”
Blogger Says Microsoft Deal With AOL Is “Obvious Choice.” Erick Schonfeld wrote at TechCrunch, “With Microsoft walking away from the Yahoo deal, there’s been a lot of talk about what it’s next best option would be. Going after AOL is an obvious choice. It has the ad inventory (aka pageviews) Microsoft needs, has its own collection of growing online advertising businesses, and has a very willing seller in parent Time Warner. … And AOL isn’t exactly hitting on all cylinders right now, so it could be a much cheaper, cleaner purchase.” He continued, “Of course, Microsoft is still talking to everybody at this point, except maybe Yahoo. Whether it truly intends to set its sights on AOL is unclear because it needs to talk to AOL at the very least as a strategic ploy to try to thwart any possible deal between Yahoo and AOL (which has always been a possibility in the background). But at least Wall Street doesn’t seem to think that a deal is imminent. Yahoo’s shares are up 4 percent from yesterday to $25 a share right now, while Time Warner’s shares are pretty much flat at $16 after rising about 6 percent last week. Maybe Yahoo’s talks with Google are going better than Microsoft’s talks with AOL.
Collapse Of Microsoft-Yahoo Deal Affects Advertisers . The AP reported, “The collapse of Microsoft Corp.’s pursuit of Yahoo Inc. is leaving advertisers pining for other ways to reach mass audiences on the Web and to counteract Google Inc.’s dominance of the online ad market.” Advertisers “can still distribute ads across smaller Web sites through networks that all major Internet companies run, but such an approach doesn’t have the same appeal as reaching Yahoo’s massive audience all in one place, something that would have been even more compelling once Microsoft’s Web sites were thrown in, too. That’s because advertisers can’t negotiate premium placements and coordinate promotions across the network the same way they can with a single site.” The AP noted, “Without a powerful new portal to suck up advertising dollars, online advertising power could continue to shift to the hot areas of the moment, such as mobile phones and social-networking sites like Facebook.”