Forum Moderators: mack
[news.zdnet.co.uk...]
I have said it before they need to get them to work on their own site first. Once they work out how to run an effective search there they may have a chance. :)
It looks like the contest Google vs Microsoft isn't for tomorrow! :)
Dan
I would suggest reading that article however and doing some research. This has not much to do with Google in any case, and it's not so much interesting concerning today.
What those people are researching could very well have major influence on websearch in the future.
I read this article yesterday and thought about posting it, but decided not to- Because we all "kinda know" ;) already that ink is on the way out at MSN.
Still it's noteworthy to hear it from MSN. I suspect that it was a slip.
Even if MS develops the best search algo evr known, it won't matter because they will screw it up by displaying ads for the first 20 SERPS.
All for their best selling applications. You'll need to set the preferences to show 300 results per page.
What I'm curious about is given MSN's variety of sources: Ink, LS, and Over, what will they do once they get their new engine rolling (if we guess it's about 2 years away from coming online)?
Seems to me the only logical move would be to buy Overture, with the 2nd largest advertiser base, in an effort to start taxing Yahoo as well (though Yahoo would then switch advert providers to Google) it would also give MSN a much bigger international reach. (for advertisers).
From the sounds of their team, they have some incredible brain power in the group - the Field's Medal, am I the only guy that immediately thought of "Good Will Hunting" when that was mentioned? :)
1.) Google's brains figured it out a few years ago. 2.) Microsoft's hired guns (brawn) still have to fight the fact they're working for ... Microsoft. 3.) Can't you count Microsoft's original ideas on one hand? Where's the brains in that?
Generally speaking, I'd take Google's brains any day over Microsoft's brawn.
Given that Google's founders said, in their famous, "anatomy of a large scale hypertextual search enigne" that they use a probabilistic method of indexing web pages, it seems to me that they are using a subset of the better mathematics for partial or ambigious data sets.
And then we have some research that Microsoft has done, in the search area, that is in conjunction with Chinese researchers at a university in Beijing. Since China has the world's largest number of fuzzy scientists (fuzzicists? lol) that would make Microsoft the one using the 'novel & innovative' approach, and Google the one using the old school methodology that was proved inferior about thirty years ago (with respect to probability for partial data).
Ha! Nobody, I repeat, nobody can displace Netscape --they own the browser market.
am I the only guy that immediately thought of "Good Will Hunting" when that was mentioned? :)
jeremy, my thought was somewhat different: it went something like "Bad Bill Hunting":)
Still, I like the news, they have enough cash to do some SERIOUS search research at M$.
Search has been Google's focus since inception, and it's been others' focus, as well. MS is last to the table. That's innovative? That's brains? Not from where I sit. They know they missed the boat, so they're flexing their wallet to hire people to build a new boat. That's brawn -- "we didn't figure this out before, so let's spend some money and muscle our way in now."
Yep, rc, just like they did with the browser market. :)
I hope they figure it out and build the greatest search engine yet seen on the web, but like others in this thread, I won't be holding my breath.
Thus, the connection between the news story about Microsoft's team (who has a member that won the Field's medal for mathematic's) to the movie.
Sorry about being off topic, just wanted to clarify - that movie was the first place I read about the Field's medal for mathematics, and it kind of stuck.
>>>Deja Vu - nobody can take Netscape
Lol, in some ways, an apt comparison. However, Google has a huge advertiser database, and distributes their ads over the net through adsense, the Google syndication, etc. Even if they start to 'slip' as a user destination, I highly doubt all the folks paying them $$$ for advertising (which is the bulk of the revenue) will jump ship unless the adverts stop yeilding a successful ROI for the marketer's.
Somehow, I do believe MS will squish Google search wise, but it will take a few years to do so -> who knows what tricks Google has up their sleeve between now & then?
Google's Achilles' heel is that it is below MS when it comes to the desktop food-chain. Same problem NS had.
>$$$$
Now, what would G's be if it were expressed as a percentage of MS' revenue?
Microsoft's team (who has a member that won the Field's medal for mathematic's
There's at least one other who won that medal, Michael H. Freedman.
I was just clicking around that page reading their bio's and stuff. These people are like the X-Men of Mathematics.
If these are X-Men of Mathematics, the start-up I worked for previously had Z-Men of Mathematics, including the most cited mathematician of the past decade and one of the most IEEE-awarded professors, as its investors, managers and advisors.
Problem was that was all for hype, just like I am afraid, is the case with MS. These people will do their own work, and other people will do the actual work related to search engines.
And that Bill Gates is the richest man in the world?
Better yet, that in the past, every single company that Microsoft has gone up against has fallen over time?
They have yet to lose market share to somebody when they wanted a piece of the market.
Besides, any company that employs two or more people who've won Field's medals (there can't be that many out there) is bound to have something going for it. Perhaps you are a bit off on your recollection of their mathematical skill?
nail on the head right there. The more MS can slap into the OS and set it at the default the more dangerous they get. If you doubt this go and do some reading on the LongHorn system they are rolling out. The lines between searching your harddrive and searching the web are becoming increasingly blurry. That's exactly the way MS wants it. Buy your new computer - hook up the modem to it and start surfing. Your default homepage is msn.com and your default browser is IE. Most people don't have the first friggin clue how to change their homepage and for as much as we love Opera the general public (the public that fills MS coffers with $$$$) has never heard of Opera and most of them don't see the need to install Netscape.
IMHO MS doesn't need to have a better search algo than Google to win. It's not really about the algo when you're playing at that level.
I didn't write about the odds of Microsoft doing well - I think it will do well in the long-term, as it has always done. I was just mentioning that the big names are used to hype up one's image and as you rightfully pointed out Gates is the richest men on the earth, he will be able to hire very brilliant people as he has done.
However, most of the brilliant people have big egos and their own pet projects and believe me or not, search engine algorithms are not that high on many of these people's objectives. I suspect they are "trophy" researchers Bill Gates has been able to buy, but the real work will be done by more mortal developers at Microsoft.
PS Regarding comparing mathematical skills, I won't know much but I recall my ex-company's backers as being profs at mainly Berkeley and Stanford and being on boards of Field's committee. ;)
What Bill wants, Bill gets.
With MS it's about playing "courtroom". I hope other SE's are keeping tabs on how longhorn is being put together. My guess is that unless you get some kind of API out of MS, you don't play.
Hopefully some pre-emptive strikes before they own the market, and they *do* plan on owning it.
I recall my ex-company's backers as being profs at mainly Berkeley and Stanford and being on boards of Field's committee.
Michael H. Freedman
"The work for which he is best known is the solution of the long-standing Poincare conjecture in four dimensions, for which he received the Fields Medal, the highest honor in mathematics. Mike has received numerous other awards and honors including Sloan and Guggenheim Fellowships, a MacArthur Fellowship and the National Medal of Science. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the New York Academy of Sciences."
Christian Borgs
"Christian Borgs is a senior researcher at Microsoft Research since April 1997. Christian Borgs has been a long-term visitor at Princeton, Harvard, and UCLA. He has twice been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, first in 1994/95 and again in the winter/spring term of 1996/97."
The Startup versus Micro$oft?
I can see a startup buying brains in order to feed the venture fund beast, but MS is in a different position. If you click around the above mentioned web site you'll see that these folks are in a league of their own. But I can see where you're coming from. :)
Elwyn Berlekamp, Professor of mathematics at UC Berkeley
Awards:
IEEE Information Theory Society
1998: Golden Jubilee Award
1993: Shannon Award
1969: Best Research Paper Award
IEEE
1991: R. W. Hamming Award
1990: Koji Kobayashi Award for Computers and Communications
1984: Centennial Medal
1971: Fellow
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1974-1976 Army Mathematics Steering Committee
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First, with hotmail, based on a cross section of all the mail I've ever received from a hotmail account, about 5 out of 500 are real legitimate users of hotmail and not automated spambots creating account after account with which the send junk mail anonymously. From the recent articles regarding the problems with hotmail spam, my experiences are all too common. 150 million users is a gross exaggeration.
Second, with the claims MSN makes regarding that they are the #1 search destination (or whatever that quote on their site use to be) and receive X amounts of visits, let us realize that with their browser dominance, 9 times out of 10 when someone mistypes a URL, MSN search gets a hit. Think about how often your fingers slip, or you forget that address, or you leave out a W in WWW (or add in extra), etc... and compare that to how many times you actually intentionally go to MSN search. The numbers they present are, again, grossly exaggerated. If all browser errors were directed to my site I'm positive I could crack the Alexa top 5 with ease.
