Microsoft Poaches Yahoo's Top Search Engineer; "the end of Yahoo search." | Hacker News Reader

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

alleyinsider.com

24 pointsdell900021 comments

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.

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.

Or a Bill Gates

or Gil Amelio.

Yes! That way it will be like pulling off a bandaid. It beats having to see all these dramatic headlines for the next year or so while they continue their downward spiral.

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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!

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

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

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

people liked the results that had the google logo on them

To me, that signals serious weakness.

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.

Wouldn't that also mean that if the Google brand was suddenly to fall out of favour then they would suddenly lose alot of market share.

Seems like a weakness to me.

Remember Microsoft at one time was one of the most respected brands around.

Why? Explain?

It means the only noticeable difference between Yahoo and Google search results is the brand name, which means Google's lead in search technology is no longer obvious -- that they are no longer innovating faster than the market.

Either some third party could discover fantastic new search technology and steal the market, or internet search is solved and brand name is all that matters, so the company with the best PR will win. Either way, it shows that Google has lost its previously unassailable technological advantage.

They probably have. Which may mean that all the free stuff with little or no advertising value is a smart move as a PR campaign.

I agree that a brand name advantage seems easier to tackle then a technological one. Especially when switching costs are so low. But then this is a pattern followed by many technological products. A technological advantage, followed by a few years lead followed by equivalence where their product demands a premium, outsell competition, etc.

Take Sony (portable radios, portable cassette players) or Canon (bubble jet). Innovation that was quickly equalised followed by a long period of leadership. You could even argue that a long period of technological superiority (say because of patents, trade secrets or even faster innovation) might result in an unbalanced company that cannot survive once superiority is lost.

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