Yahoo BOSSes Its Way Into Long Tail of Search

I could have almost missed this: Yahoo has announced Yahoo! Search BOSS (Build your own search service) as also reported by GigaOM and TechCrunch. You can access Yahoo! search results via API or framework, mashing up Yahoo’s index, and ranking and relevance, with your own algorithmic take on search. Not much concrete is being commented, possibly because there’s not much to be said. Om Malik has has reservations, but is interested in seeing what comes of it.

Broadly, it is one of the neater applications of open strategy and web service. For Yahoo, it’s smart indeed just like SearchMonkey was the neat and smart first part of its open strategy.

It is hard, or maybe impossible, to tell what will come of the strategy. It still hinges on someone to create a better secret sauce of smart algorithms, data mining, machine learning, artificial intelligence and all the cornerstones of CS intelligence. And it must be done: it’s a hedge to give Yahoo a better shot at possibly acquiring or partnering with the big bang company that somehow does search better than Google. But all the infrastructure savings doesn’t presume that a better algorithm will emerge.

So I do applaud Yahoo for going down the long tail of search with BOSS. Yet Farecast, Kayak and Sidestep, Oodle, Vast, SimplyHired, NexTag, Shopping.com and many more “vertical search” aggregators ofttimes rich in metadata dominate the fat middle (fat belly?)– and I bet they will continue to do so.

Yelp beats Citysearch in Traffic?

Compete has Yelp beating Citysearch in monthly unique visitors for a few months now, although both the New York Times (via Comscore for March) and Quantcast have Citysearch trouncing Yelp with 8M or 16M uniques to Yelp’s approximately 3M uniques, respectively depending on who you believe.

Yelp is most definitely an interesting, and thus far successful, case study but certainly the story is not over for finding success in local with SMBs as a notoriously difficult group of businesses to sell into.

Yet Yelp is not universally known.  It’s a Bay Area staple and people SWEAR by it here.  A business that doesn’t have a Yelp sticker on its window is clearly clueless.  But step just barely outside of Yelp’s big presence here and outside of the technorati and it’s probably the biggest property for which you’ll hear “what’s that?”  It’s still showing a great growth curve, and the biggest hurdle for Yelp is just simply the difficulty of repeating its success here into nationwide success.

At its heart, Yelp is still just a venue reviews site.  They’ve done a insanely tremendous job of integrating the famous Yelp parties and Yelper badge of honor, and translating that fanatic behavior into fanatic online behavior.  The same went visa versa, and the snowball effect launched from there.

My top questions from the Yelp story:

• How do you best cultivate offline “socializing” to translate to online activity?
• Is there an upcoming backlash in social media and social networks?  It’s en vogue to call this fatigue, but I would call this “I’d rather be outside than staring at a computer” for the vast majority of people.  It’s well known that traffic spikes during the week and during work hours when you’re forced to stare at a computer.
• In the long run, what garners more wins: utility or entertainment “time wasters”?  I personally think there will still be winners in both, but the current Web 2.0 landscape is focused on the time wasters.  Note that also an explosive success like YouTube successfully navigates both.
• What are the opportunities in ubiquitous computing?  A march back towards utility benefits mobile and ubiquitous computing.

I sometime wonder how much we really “enjoy” being in front of a computer.  Even for a computer geek like me, I still have to answer “not so much.”  Maybe that’s what Yelp beating (or soon beating) Citysearch means.

Latest (direct from Compete site):

May 2007 to May 2008 traffic (saved):

Correlation and Causation: A new look

Correlation does not imply causation. The logical fallacy that correlation implies causation will be starkly pointed to if you falsely make a cause-and-effect determination based on your observation of the world, your observation of data, or your study findings of a correlation.

Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief and famed writer of The Long Tail, has tackled the idea that the deluge of data makes the scientific method obsolete. That correlation is sufficient in the Petabyte Age as he calls it, and the practice of causation only leads us to realize that we understand even less about the world.

Jackson West rightly points out the dangers of throwing the scientific method under the bus for the sake of applied mathematics and relegating the creation of models of the world to high and mighty, “pansy” theoreticians. And he’s generally right to be critical of a loss of strict rationality and too much focus on faith.

Data can be manipulated to show what you want. Not always in an evil manner, but methodology and the very collection of data itself can affect the outcome. You can get what you ask for, or perhaps deserve as Mr. West concludes.

Take it further and a strict reliance on data leaves room for dangerous regimes. Tyranny of the majority, self-fulfilling prophecies: these are all dangers that are left on the table when strict rationality goes out the window.

Yet Anderson is certainly not suggesting this, only pointing out a real observation of the world in which we live. And yes applied mathematics can be profited from, theoretical mathematics not so much. Ian Ayres, a Yale Professor, is the author of Supercrunchers whose very title is number crunching is the way to be smart.

The examples are largely the same: information (Google), airline predictions (Farecast), legal discovery, predicting the outcome of an election. It’s easiest to see manipulation possible in the last example.

Oh well, so be it. I’ve written that blind faith is basically idiotic. A strict reliance on numbers may not mean you’re determining a causation, but perhaps correlation is enough. And for those who operate in a gray area where luck plays a part, where luck is better described as a set of circumstances beyond your control, Anderson’s piece could be comforting.

But more importantly, it outlines a real path to be smart and succeed. And so you might be wise to heed the words that correlation is enough, and that correlation supersedes causation in a world dictated by Petabytes of information ready to crunched.

Contradictions, Changing the World & Success

The contradictions and absurdities that exist in the city always crack me up. I could honestly go on and on.

Another interesting week in San Francisco. A stranger tracks your contact information down, and mails you your a stranded credit card as simple courtesy. An accidental bump when running down a busy boardwalk with a group leads to a lecture about “running in single file line” as the proper formation when going for a leisurely run. Or at a free concert: defensiveness over a piece of grass when there was no outward intention to steal the free grass, yet a willingness just minutes later to scoot in closer to your two children just to make your young neighbors a little more comfortable.

This is generally a business blog, but it’s also just my ramblings about how to tie life and business together and a process I find unendingly enjoyable.

There was a short interview with Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster, on GigaOM. There are elements here of benevolence as a effective business strategy. The essence, without agreeing completely with some overly save the world sentiments, is that changing the world with a side consequence of making a lot of money is today’s recipe for success both in life and work.

This is not the touchy-feely argument either. There are many reasons by focusing on “get rich! get rich!” will lead you down the wrong path. Most simply, you’re not going to innovate. And you’re just another rider just looking to steal a position too late to ride a wave of money, ready to get pummeled in the white water. Ride the wave you’re meant to ride in a strong yet principled way, and you might ride the wave of your life.

My question in today’s world is: which of these above people are you and do you want to be? Seems like a simple choice to me.

Yahoo and Importance of Business at Scale

Put quite simply, building a business that scales is what separates the pros from the amateurs.

Every business hits a brick wall. The business will not grow without drastic changes, and really at that point, you are simply using your existing business structure to go into a BRAND NEW business as a means to growth.

You can scale up vertically within your choice market and vertical. There are a number of ways to then scale horizontally: different applications, different verticals, different markets.

In every conversation I have with would-be and startup entrepreneurs, possibly the number one piece of advice that frankly many ignore is to choose a business that will scale. In other words, choose a big sandbox to play in even if you’re playing in just a very small corner to start.

Investors tend to intuitively understand this. Maximization of returns requires scalability. It still surprises me sometimes, and sometimes doesn’t, that many entrepreneurs don’t think about top-level scale from the get go. Maybe it’s a byproduct of experience. Most often, it’s a byproduct of understated expectations.

But as an entrepreneur, building a scale business gives you more leeway for being wrong. Things will almost never go your way - those are the odds. Building a scale business means that you can move into different directions in a seamless, and yes scalable, way. When your business scales effortlessly, you stand a better chance of hitting numbers you can be proud of. When you scale, you also “let a thousand flowers blossom” and you might be surprised what comes of it.

It can be hard to spot scalability sometimes. For example, it was possibly hard to see why Facebook could be a scalable business when looking at walled gardens of colleges. Someone was thinking bigger from the beginning, even if it seemed otherwise.

I’m not talking about server scalability. It’s almost always a mistake to build for too much scalability there. You can rebuild your server farm. You can’t quite as easily rebuild your business whose very success is dictated by moment-over-moment momentum.

Competing in an undifferentiated manner within a commoditized market is not scalable. Selling someone else’s wares under your banner with no discernible value-add is not scalable.

Maybe Yahoo can get its mojo back, but many people don’t think it’s possible. Not understanding the importance of something as fundamental as business at scale at this stage of Yahoo’s company history for many is inexcusable.

Benevolence and Core Problems

Two principles I believe in from this talk from Paul Graham at Startup School 2008:

• Benevolence and helping people can parallel profitability (and improves your morale)
• Work on core problems, make something people want

Go here.

Long Term Confidence, Short Term Stress

I’ve recently summarized my current status many times as “long term I’m very confident, but tons of short term stress”.

This probably characterizes most startups and entrepreneurs.  If you’ve given up on the long-term confidence, the battle is probably lost.  Phrased this way, short-term stress can be alleviated by what an entrepreneur does best, producing results, en route to long term realization of that confidence.  It requires two skills:

• Ability to push through short-term stress to get to long-term success
• Ability to spot when your long-term optimism is simply delusion

Notice I call them skills, instead of abilities.  Skills of most stripes can be learned, abilities are more innate.  It’s the subject of Seth Godin’s The Dip.  It’s not a new subject, but perhaps still underrated as required skills of succeeding.  If you don’t acquire and possess BOTH, your chance of success is truly reduced.

Getting Ahead of the Curve, Lost of Reason

I’ve been busy in the weeds, the real work to make iLetYou as useful to people as possibly can be.  Blog posts have been slow in coming, and this post might even be a little light on substance (although most are).

As of this writing, I’m about 8 months into my San Francisco/Silicon Valley/Bay Area adventure.  I could make hundreds of observations thus far, but I’ll make one stand out: acclimation comes quickly here.

When applied to the hype machine of the Valley, live here for a while and you start to see things the way the collective “we” of the patch stretching from approximately San Jose to San Francisco (maybe partially into Marin County) sees things…  And I think most people actually believe that is a positive.  I tend to agree.

This is a land of forward thinkers, borne of reason and deep contemplation (there’s the Ivy influence for you).  I always fancied myself a forward thinker, but this is where forward thinking is pushed to boundaries.  That boundary where most reasonable people would label people a “nut job”.

Steve Wozniak was a nut job.  Bruce Sterling can seem like a nut job.  On and on.

And it’s in the fabric here.  Everyone who’s anyone has an idea, everyone’s an innovator of some sort small or not.

An aside about Twitter: I have not yet set up a Twitter account.  To balance the sides out, I can see how a lot of people don’t get Twitter.   I can see how it’s enjoyable as is updating your Facebook status, but I really can’t understand it myself because I’m not addicted to it.  There’s just so much going on, that sometimes I choose to filter noise to the better cause of focus.  Lots of people here choose to always be the prototypical early adopter - some wisely, some not I would think.  For me, sometimes you can’t always allow yourself to hear the noise - it’s much better to concentrate on the signal.

So now when people ask about Facebook apps, social networking monetization, online video monetization, Twittering, Office versus Google apps, altruistic and open source projects, cloud computing, software as a service, I just tell people that it’s just a matter of time.  In these easy cases, the signal is loud and clear.

To do something interesting and to have the best chance of success, you have to get ahead of the curve.  This is especially the case in technology.  Like I said, I think I possess the ability to see ahead but it’s a process that I’m glad my peers in the area embrace likewise.  And, yes, you do have to be right.  And you do have to be in a position to take advantage of trends.

Sometimes you get trampled.  But it’s necessary to lose that sensibility that every naysayer espouses.  That loss of sensibility is what drives the area, what makes me really embrace all that the Valley is about.

Are you funded?

I’m making my way around some Web 2.0 Expo events this week. Last night, I went to a smaller mixer but that had some very interesting people running around. It’s an inverse proportion much of the time.

David Hansson at 37Signals writes, Are you sure you want to be in San Francisco? He also gives one of the more tremendous talks that balks at the raise lots of money, ride the big way, and sell out mentality that motivates many in Silicon Valley.

One piece of unsolicited advice when emerging yourself in the tech scene: don’t ask startup people whether they are funded so early on in a conversation. I do understand that funding quickly asserts a level of validation. However, I find it a major turnoff.

Not only that, but most interested people probe about ideas. Most VCs I’ve spoken to acknowledge and respect an entrepreneur whose answer is “not yet, but when we’re ready, I’d love to talk.”

Go one step beyond, and if funding or press attention (another supposed source of creditability) were your main criteria, you’re going to miss the diamonds in the rough. Look at ideas, look at the people by all means, but use your head in judging. So while I mostly argue for the merits of the Valley and balk a little when the “raising money is bad” rhetoric goes too far, it’s not greed and ambition, it’s the free flow of ideas that really moves SF and the Valley.

Maybe I’m ranting because we’re privately funded and bootstrapped, and the follow up to that answer “Oh, well that’s a better way of doing things” seems like a fake answer. And maybe down the road I’d swagger and say “yes, so and so funded us.”

But I don’t think so. My answer would be a vague “yes” and I’d move along to someone more interested in the merits of ideas rather than relying on external validation.

Google and Salesforce.com: Spinning a better tomorrow

The interpreters of spin say this is just a partnership to stick it to Microsoft, and Marc Benioff admits as much, amounting to no more than adding a tab on Salesforce.com.

True, but it’s still a partnership between what I would consider to be the two biggest, most important platform, cloud computing, software as a service providers. Or in Valleyspeak: “this is a validation of the Web OS.” Amazon.com is right there too, as may be others, but Amazon.com also has a much more diversified revenue base as of today.

It’s not a stretch at all to see Google buying Salesforce.com.

We’ve put a lot of stock in software as a service at iLetYou.

And I would add that the semantic web is a somewhat unpractical and somewhat unnecessary creation of technologists. Although the semantic web will play a part, realize that the Web OS is where the action is. I have very little doubt about that, and the proof is ample and world-changing.