Live.com Search Interview and Some Questions I Still Have

Rob Murray put up an interview with Derreck O’Connell on searchengineland.com. It was a nice interview but it didn’t get some questions asked that I’d love to know the answers to!

When will Live.com have a blog search engine product offering?

In the main Live.com index, many assert that blogs don’t receive as much weight in index as traditional sites based statistics like Hitwise data. What would you state to them?

What are you doing to limit splogs and made for advertising sites in your index? (Especially since these sites often directly benefit your competitor(s) financially)

There are other questions I have about Live.com, but they are outside the scope of what was discussed here that I wish to clarify right now.

Microsoft Executive Departures

The Wall Street Journal reported today that “Christopher Payne, who most recently served as vice president of Microsoft’s Windows Live Search group(formerly MSN), is leaving the software company, according to people familiar with the situation.

It then goes on to say, “A person familiar with the situation says that Mr. Payne is leaving to start his own company, to be based in Seattle. A spokesman for Microsoft wouldn’t comment. Mr. Payne’s departure comes amid a broader set of changes wrought by Microsoft Senior Vice President Steve Berkowitz, who was hired last year from search engine Ask.com to head Microsoft’s online group. On Monday Mr. Berkowitz named three new marketing managers to the online group, including one who will oversee search marketing.”

The article also states that Vice President of AdCenter, Blake Irving will retire this Summer.

Current analysis: There is evidence in my recent queries that live.com is becoming equal to Google in terms of search result quality. It is my belief that is where the problem resides. They need to be better, different and/or provide unique value by a wide margin to get people to switch. This didn’t happen yet because to date they have hired people from Google and elsewhere to rebuild the same wheel in much the same way. To me, the proper next step is to hire a larger number of people with strong competencies from other businesses that have created world class user experiences in different disciplines to curiously question conventional search industry thought processes to create innovation. To mature fully, successful search companies need to build strong cultures that reward and encourage the hiring of fresh voices with passion to build a product that is differentiated and then be able to communicate that value proposition clearly that resonates with both B2C and B2B audiences.

Jason Calacanis Accepts Neil Patel’s SEO Challenge

After Danny Sullivan ranted, others checked in, and Neil raved, Jason finally caved in and said, OK, prove it.
This will certainly be fun to watch!

Arrington’s Post on Email Interfaces…

Interesting post, notice how the comments are way higher than normal? To me that indicates passion on a topic and need for improvement.

I still wish someone would put signatures on top of replies and that everyone had automated spell checks that worked well.

Making It Easier for Blogs to Link to Blogs Instead of News Sites

So Robert Scoble got upset the other day about people linking to major media sites instead of other blogs.

It seemed interesting to me. I started to think about the issues involved, mostly because it didn’t seem like natural behavior. But then it hits you like a brick, all of the major search engines have news and search search from their main pages, while only Ask.com has blog search on it’s home page (they should move it above news). Yahoo!, Google and Live Search do not. In fact Yahoo! and Live Search would have to acquire or develop such technology.

As you may recall, I have a history of suggesting search engine home page changes that become reality.

So, I’d like to please ask all of the major search engines to add blogs as a major top line category (to the left of or above news) and potentially think about creating options to merge blogs and news into one category if a user desires (I would find this helpful). If the Internet is all about user generated content, shouldn’t the major search engines reward and make that the easier default view?

It will look like this (though a little neater, I’m no graphic artist!).

The Praise for Youtube Revenue Sharing - All for Nothing?

Scoble and others (notice the post alludes to experimentation in monetization) are talking about how great it is that Google is sharing Youtube revenue with content uploaders. As you will recall, after I made my top 10 unanswered questions post, I later asked if Youtube was truly a business at all. So I wondered if this praise was truly warranted. So I just went over to Youtube and refreshed 20 times, got nothing but Youtube promotional ads - those don’t make money.

You will recall that in November and again last night I’m seeing Microsoft Live Search as a primary sponsor on Youtube, perhaps you should all be thanking Microsoft for their generosity, not Google?

CES update

Robert Scoble held a blogger lunch with Bill Gates at the Consumer Electronics Show, the video can be viewed below and takes 42 minutes to view - I tried to embed it but that link text from Podtech doesn’t seem to be working.

Ed Kohler from Technology Evangelist wants to hear your questions about CES.

Switching Search Engines is Easy…

“Google’s monopoly power is less threatening than Microsoft’s because changing operating systems is hard, while changing search engines is easy…” - Blake Ross, co-founder of Firefox in his post Tip: Trust is hard to gain, easy to lose.

Interesting read.

Google Changing Monetization Strategy?

Robert Scoble had an interesting post on this issue. I’ve got to ask one question though Robert! In Naked Conversations, Robert talks about how you should point to your competitors and even talking positively about them. How is a likely non-relevant ad on a map on your web site more of a threat than you saying “company x does well with blah-blah”? I don’t get the logic here, am I missing something?

AI Gateway Accepted to Major University Technology Incubator

AI Gateway, a development stage search portal and ad network with a truly unique value added technology, was accepted into a major university incubator today. Founder Joe Holcomb put significant work into this effort and gave me a shout to let me know that this goal has been reached.

AI Gateway is currently seeking angel funding and or an aggressive venture capital participant willing to fund a predevelopment concept based on a unique business plan that starts to generate revenue quickly upon completion of a beta product.