Microsoft Poaches Yahoo's Top Search Engineer; "the end of Yahoo search."

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/11/microsoft-poaches-yahoo-s-top-search-engineer-

by dell9000 • 18 years ago

24 21 18 years ago

okeumeni• 18 years ago

Search is much of a complex business for one guy to be a lone shark; Yahoo problem is mostly a karma problem. People have stopped the love relationship with Yahoo, it’s like trying to persuade a girlfriend who have decided to leave you for the new guy to stay. You may try hard to reinvent yourself, shower her with gifts, make new promises … she will leave you anyway. What do you do? Stays put and go into grievance, keep your mind and body together and prepare for the new chance at romance.

What should Yahoo do? Stop shifting back and forth from strategies to strategies; they should cut back the cost of running the business, cut off projects that do not work and stay focused on the main thing: search. Yahoo should make provision to survive their grievance period and hope it does not last, remain preemptive in new innovations to remain in the race. There are still number two; it is not like they were Hakia, Chacha or some Powerset like company.

dmoney• 18 years ago

I don't think focusing on search will save Yahoo. If it wants to stay independent and survive, Yahoo needs to redefine itself. Basically it needs a Steve Jobs.

netcan2• 18 years ago

Or a Bill Gates

azharcs• 18 years ago

or Gil Amelio.

stcredzero• 18 years ago

Is that like Chrysler needing Lee Iacocca? If so, does this presage an attempt at resurgence that will eventually be for naught when a big economic downturn hits and everyone goes bankrupt?

gaius2• 18 years ago

MS doesn't want Yahoo's people so much as it wants control over the domain name yahoo.com. It's all about getting in front of the traffic.

jm42• 18 years ago

I agree. Microsoft seems fairly confident they can build a competitive search engine. Besides, I would imagine most of the worthwhile talent at Yahoo has jumped ship already. The problem is no one will go out of their way to try Live Search. Instead of trying to pull people in it looks like they want to move in front of the users.

gaius2• 18 years ago

Live Search isn't actually bad, and they have some cool toys on top of it like Miss Dewey. In my copy of Firefox, Google is the first search choice, then Yahoo, then Amazon, Live is 8th. Who would go for something that's 8th?! Amazon isn't even a search engine!

natch• 18 years ago

Maybe I'm crazy, but it seemed like the writer of that letter was a bit too obsessively fixated with "battling" Google. I mean, I can understand doing it once you work for Yahoo!, but he said his reason for joining Yahoo! was to battle Google -- that is, he apparently had this goal even before he was hired by Yahoo!. Kooky.

crabapple3• 18 years ago

yhoo management is almost single-mindedly defined by competing with google. indeed they "missed" facebook because they couldn't stop obsessing with google. in google, yahoo mgmt sees the company yahoo could have been

joshu• 18 years ago

The author was previously the CTO of Ask. As another search engine, the fixation is more understandable.

ivanstojic• 18 years ago

So much about Microsoft ever buying Yahoo. They bought all they needed.

crabapple3• 18 years ago

the reality is there is no real competition in north america search. google has the market sewn up. team members can move from yahoo to microsoft to powerset to whatever...google will still dominate.

brand matters. in a test i recall, they took yahoo results and google results and swapped the company banners. people liked the results that had the google logo on them. google has the brand in search, its probably impossible to unseat them unless they do something drastically stupid

mynameishere• 18 years ago

people liked the results that had the google logo on them

To me, that signals serious weakness.

crabapple3• 18 years ago

no, its a strength. it means people make a very strong association with google being better at search. they earned this reputation and deserve it.

wensing• 18 years ago

Why? Explain?

mindaugas• 18 years ago

I think it is really good time for Yahoo to reinvent themselves... but of course they might need someone like S. Jobs

Microsoft Poaches Yahoo's Top Search Engineer; "the end of Yahoo search."

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