Personally, I use Google almost exclusively for search, like I’m sure many others do. This announcement on Yahoo’s part seems reasonable to me, assuming they have a decent justification for supporting their search at the level they have planned for the future. I do wonder if they should quit search entirely and focus solely on social software like personals with Susan Mernit. Sometimes you need to excise something stupid and add something cool. Personals are definitely cool. Now there’s a use of technology that improves people’s lives. Is search stupid? Well, Google is having a hard time squeezing all the revenue they need out of it. Maybe it is stupid for Yahoo to spend extra time and money on a space that they won’t be able to own and that might not be so profitable anyway.
This issue–be the best or don’t do it at all–comes up in blogging too. Is it worth blogging if you can’t be the very best? What if you’re not on the A list, the B list, or even the C list? Is there value in writing for a small audience or maybe even just for yourself? Not if you believe Keith Teare’s first law of RSS:
The value of edge published data (say a post) is directly proportional to the velocity of it’s consumption and re-production, that is, the number of input and output operations it goes through each day.
I find this a peculiarly narrow way of measuring value. There are many ways that blog posts can be valuable, most of which don’t involve maximum reproductive spread and velocity.
I get caught up in the mountain climb sometimes, that’s for sure. Now that I have made connections with people who teach and encourage and challenge me, I think “This could be more! This could be truly great!” But it already is truly great, if you measure it by the learning and fun I’ve had from it. And I can point to hundreds other truly great blogs that will never be A-list, will never have more than a handful of readers, will never make their publishers any money.
Part of the Web 2.0 zeitgeist is the idea of one-downing, expressed here by 37 Signals’ Jason Fried:
We’re trying to underdo the competition, and do less than they’re doing to beat them. It’s a very Cold War mentality to keep trying to one-up everybody. We’re trying to “one-down” people.
One-downing is similar to the concept of unclimbing, developed by my real-world friend Marjorie. In unclimbing, you don’t focus on climbing the status mountain. I try to “unclimb” in my blogging by focusing on three priorities: having fun, learning, and connecting.
Yahoo’s attitude towards search–great to maintain market share, not planning to go for #1–is a welcome acknowledgement that reaching the top of the mountain isn’t the only way to create value in the world.
5 Comments
Hi Anna
Well, I am a male, but I really wasn’t trying to construct a male theory of value (I had a good laugh at your characterization though
).
But seriously, how else would you measure the value of data other than the interest it has invoked, as measured by it’s use and consumption?
If you want to take a look at edgeio (www.edgeio.com) and give us some feedback i’d be thrilled. pw is “laguna”.
Best
Keith
http://www.teare.com
Actually, I think your rule is a pretty good way of getting an idea of market value. I’d just add the market qualifier to it.
I’d love to try out edgeio. I’m very intrigued by it. Thanks!
I like your theory of unclimbing. Unfortunately too many people are dumbcliming… or something. Anyway, tack that onto your theory if you like.
I don’t think Yahoo ever will or should completely give up on search. It’s what they’re known for in the non-tech public space and, even though it is behind Google now, Yahoo search numbers are still something to behold by any other standard.
And you never know how things will twist and turn. Google today, who knows tomorrow, you know?
I do very much like Yahoo’s strategy of emphasizing the human touch in its social software sphere and think that it could really pull a flanking maneuver on Google in the grand scheme over the next year or two.
Eric Berlin
Executive Producer
Blogcritics.org
“Dumbclimbing”: I like that. Kind of like if you have your ladder leaning up against the wrong wall.
You bring up a good point, that we techies sometimes start to think our experience of the Web is the only valid one or that it is representative of other users.
I’m very intrigued by Yahoo’s approach. Should be fun to see what happens in the next few years.
What? Yahoo giving up on being a search engine?
… thats crazy, even if theyre behind google, yahoo is known being a search engine.
In my opinion thats where they should be concentrating on! They shouldn’t be trying to be everything to everyone. They should target a profitable niche and use their resources to dominate it.
Theyre known as a search engine, then they should concentrate being a search engine and make cashloads from it.
Jonathan Lewis
http://www.personalsdigital.com/