Database Guru To Lead Yahoo Social Search

[engine]

Yahoo Inc., the world's largest Internet media company, on Monday said it has named a top academic database expert to head its research team studying links between computer and human-aided Web search.

Yahoo hired Dr. Raghu Ramakrishnan, 45, as vice president and Yahoo research fellow in charge of defining the strategy behind Yahoo's "social search" system, based on his expertise in databases, data mining and privacy-preserving technologies.

So-called social search -- a broad effort to enhance computerised Web search tools with insights gained from mining the collective knowledge of its users -- is the linchpin of Yahoo's strategy to compete with rival Google Inc., which has focussed heavily on advances in computerised search.

Database guru to lead Yahoo social search [today.reuters.co.uk]

[hannamyluv]

And the silence is deafening.

It is a shame. Database mining is something that all webmasters should be paying attention to these days. DMs have found the beauty in it a long time ago and the search engnes are only now trying to figure it out.

I would say that social search is the new holy grail for search engines.

[fischermx]

I have a book from that guy! He knows alot about Databases.

[egurr]

[ I have a book from that guy! He knows alot about Databases. ]
So do a lot of other people. This seems to fit Yahoo about right. Hire an academic expert. What does he know about the way people are really using Social networking.
I'd have been much more impressed if Yahoo had hired some of the more senior posters on this forum as a VP.

[wmuser]

Sounds like a artificial intellect

[AjiNIMC]

Let's give him some time and see how he mines the data. He certainly needs to understand the social search pattern too.

[volatilegx]

<sarcasm>Oh good, maybe Yahoo! will be easier to spam if they put more weight on social web links.</sarcasm>