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My 2 featured articles for the week ending February 25:

Archived blogs for the week of Feb. 28, 2005

770 - March 4, 2005 - 8.05 PM EST

Google hires Microsoft veteran Marc Lucovsky

Sixteen year Microsoft veteran Marc Lucovsky was one of a handful of distinguished engineers at the Redmond company.

Lucovsky is credited as one of the core dozen engineers that came from Digital Equipment Corp. to Microsoft and built the Windows NT operating system. He was charged with building the Windows NT executive, kernel, Win32 run-time and other key elements of the operating system. NT was the precursor to Windows Server.

In 2000, Lucovsky was named the chief software architect for Microsoft's .Net My Services (code-named "Hailstorm") effort. .Net My Services never materialized in the form that Microsoft originally envisioned—a set of personal Web services, hosted by Microsoft. Instead, the company has folded a number of the .Net My Services technologies into other Microsoft products.

Posted on Businessblog™

769 - March 3, 2005 - 4.59 PM EST

Advertising depends on solid customer loyalty

Yankee Group analyst Kelly Ring says "searching on the Web is an interesting experience."

"Whoever wins customer loyalty will end up being the leader, because online advertising depends on strong customer relationship. And that's where all the revenue is for search engines", says Ring.

None of the three main search engines inspires a high degree of loyalty among its users, according to a new survey by Nielsen//NetRatings.

Nearly 71 percent of those who searched at Yahoo also visited at least one of the other top two search engines -- Google and MSN Search -- and 70 percent of those who searched at MSN also tried their luck at one or both of the other two.

Posted on Businessblog™

768 - March 3, 2005 - 10.53 AM EST

Google's hardware requirements in its data centers

Urs Hoelzle, Google's V.P. of engineering and operations offers a rare glimpse on how Google's data centers operate.

Many people consider the company's operations expertise more valuable than the actual search algorithms that launched the enterprise. Hoelzle spoke at EclipseCon, a conference for application programmers that's going on till Thursday here.

At EclipseCon, Urs Hoelzle, a vice president of engineering and of operations at the search giant, shed some light on how Google's data centers operate.

According to Hoelzle, Google has inexpensively built out its computing infrastructure by using thousands of "commodity" servers, instead of fewer high-end, and high-priced, machines. The trick is to make these racks of hardware work together and to ensure that the failure of one machine doesn't derail an operation.

The way Google has been able to build out its computing infrastructure for millions, rather than tens of millions, of dollars is by buying relatively cheap machines. Looking at hardware costs, company engineers saw that purchasing a few high-end servers, with eight or more powerful processors, costs significantly more than dozens of simpler "commodity" servers.

The trick is to make these racks of hardware operate in tandem and to ensure that the failure of one machine does not derail an operation, such as returning a search query or serving up an ad.

Consider a home PC, Hoelzle said. Optimistically, a consumer PC might crash once in three years from a software glitch or hardware problem.

Posted on Businessblog™

767 - March 2, 2005 - 2.38 PM EST

Search engine wars are good for advertisers

Bill Gates already conceded he missed the boat in the early days of search and underestimated Google.

Crafted to look a lot like an Apple iPod spot, the message is MSN Search is the cool place to find what you're looking for. Whether this particular message really helps build use of MSN Search remains to be seen. If it's smart, MSN will tinker with several different messages.

The search engine wars will have big ramifications on the Big Three: Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. In catch-up mode, Yahoo! and MSN have already demonstrated their willingness to spend more on advertising and marketing. Online advertising is the obvious place for them to budget their dollars but expect to see more television, print, and outdoor advertising, as well as sponsorships, event marketing, and ad specialty items.

(Anyone willing to venture a guess at how the Big Three will ratchet up their efforts at Search Engine Strategies in New York this week?)

Posted on Businessblog™

766 - March 1, 2005 - 2.31 PM EST

Yahoo rebrands Overture

Anything Yahoo can do to make Overture more user-friendly is a positive move. "Making Overture more developer-friendly increases the likelihood of adoption," Kelsey Group analyst Greg Sterling told the E-Commerce Times.

As the Search Engine Strategies Conference gets rolling in New York this week, Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) announced this morning a pair of significant moves: The company said it is launching a developer network for programmers and also unveiled plans for a rebranding strategy for its Overture unit.

Posted on Businessblog™

765 - March 1, 2005 - 9.31 PM EST

Day one at SES New York

Yesterday was Day 1 at the Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference in New York. As usual, Andy Beal does a great job at following the important developments happening there. Here are a few excerpts from one of his postings on his blog:

Dr Bonny Brown Director of Research and Public Services, Keynote Systems, gave details of their study of 2000+ panelists who were invited to log on to the web using a browser companion that measures browsing habits and asks questions.

They revealed which of the search engines were the most popular. No surprises that Google was the top rated search engine. What was interesting is that out of all of the votes cast, Yahoo, MSN and Ask Jeeves all had double digit gains (compared to the same study 6 months ago), while Google maintained the lead, its growth was the lowest among the big four. A clear sign the Google juggernaut might be losing a little steam.

When it came to which search engine was the most effective at directing users to click on sponsored links, Ask Jeeves topped the list – kicking Google’s behind – with Lycos coming in second place. So, to recap, Ask Jeeves was the best search engine at getting visitors to click on a sponsored link.

Posted on Businessblog™

764 - March 1, 2005 - 9.04 AM EST

British searchers better than Americans?

According to new research, 93 percent of Internet users in the UK can tell the difference between sponsored links and generic results pages compared to just 38 percent of Americans.

The study, commissioned by online marketing specialist Agence Virtuelle has revealed that British consumers are most responsive to natural search engine results and only a few regularly click on sponsored links.

Google remains a clear favourite among 70% of UK consumers and many are turning to price comparison web sites rather than use alternative, newer search engines.

Posted on Businessblog™

763 - February 28, 2005 - 10.51 AM EST

Kanoodle offers RSS advertising

Kanoodle introduces BrightAds RSS, a new feature that allows Internet pulishers to pair up their advertising with RSS feeds.

Called BrightAds RSS (after the technology format known as Really Simple Syndication), the service takes advantage of Kanoodle's keyword advertising system to match Web content to relevant ads.

Once a publisher signs up, an advertising link will piggyback on its syndicated feed sent to third-party news readers.

Posted on Businessblog™

Copyright © Serge Thibodeau 2005. All rights reserved.

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