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.

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.

Internet Famous (and Successful) in San Francisco

Max Levchin, co-founder of PayPal and Founder/CEO of Slide, walked into the coffee shop I was posted up at this afternoon.  He was talking something about widgets, RockYou and such, but I didn’t encroach enough to gather much more than that or anything of substance.

Cool though… Yet another gotta love SF Tech story!

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.

It’s iPhone Time!

Reported by Gizmodo according to Fortune, a $199 3G thinner and lighter iPhone is coming this summer.  Apparently it’s been just around the corner, and according to Walt Mossberg, we’re no more than 5 weeks away.

Whatever the price, I’ve been planning to buy the 3G version since I’m now out of contract and stuck with a company that just isn’t innovating (Palm).

It’s easy enough to dismiss the iPhone based on its shortfalls, the worst of which is the lack of a tactile keyboard.  I do wish they would fix it or make it easier to do workarounds.  As I’ve said before, I’m on board with the Mac.  But the godphone is a really great device, and hopefully I’ll be on board with the legions soon enough.

April Fools & the “Is this a joke?” Spectrum

One of the funniest byproducts of April Fools jokes and the tech startup, blogger community is discerning whether something is a joke. This year’s breed of jokes seem to be somewhat unoriginal, stuff you’d expect from the tech community with its own sense of humor.

So a funnier question is: if you’re a Web 2.0 startup, could your startup be an April Fools joke?

There’s a spectrum of joke businesses. A surface scan says you want to be something like eBay. Auctioning your stuff to strangers was a weird idea. You don’t want to be like Pets.com though, weighing your future on freighting pet food around the country for cheap.

I encounter this in reactions to rental businesses I mention in reference to interesting stuff that can be rented. Fake wedding cakes, baby toys, jewelry for rent: these elicit different levels of skepticism and downright laughter from people.

If you’re not doing something that at least someone laughs at, it’s probably not original enough to go very far. There’s actually no shortage of these businesses in Web 2.0: many of which will fail because it takes much more than a silly idea. But that seemingly silly idea is far better than something so unoriginal that it elicits no strong response whatsoever.

Startups That Win

There was a big uproar over Jason Calacanis’ post on how to save money as a startup (rebuttal here). The statement that invokes the ire of bloggers everywhere is “fire people who are not workaholics”.

And there are plenty of responses. I read TechCrunch’s Duncan Riley and Michael Arrington’s responses. David’s 37Signals response takes the polar opposite “fire the workaholics”. If you are so passionate about your work that you’d rather do that work than watch TV or hike, then that’s what most people key in on as the core of the people you want for your startup.

Summation: Love what you do, work like hell, treat it like the game that it is, have fun, play to win (and contact me for a job ;-)).

Blurring of an Entrepreneur

I’m reading Muhammed Yunus’ book about Creating a World Without Poverty. Astounding, inspiring stuff regarding Yunus’ work.

A common thread in Yunus’ work with Grameen is the belief that entrepreneurial energy exists in every human being. By no means is this is a dismissal of the traditional job, rather it’s a hopeful message that every human being has that creative energy within. It only needs to be unlocked properly. The sheer number of success stories of lifting people out of poverty shows that Yunus might possibly, just possibly onto something here. It’s no accident.

In the developing world, this generally takes the shape of having no other choice than having to find some way to make enough money to feed, clothe and shelter you and your family. Visit a developing country, flea market, or even Chinatown in the US and you’ll see this energy at work.

In the US and Silicon Valley too, some great innovations came from “filling the time” - a luxury only borne of developed nations, but analogous nonetheless. Six Apart is probably the best known company that was borne of two programmers with nothing better to do, laid off from the dotcom bust.

So if the poorest of the poor, the most desolate of desolate can be entrepreneurial… why do we still think that entrepreneurs are born with the special gift?

Just stop for a second and think: is this crown prince theory just an excuse? Yes, I think it is. I believe in natural talent just as much as the next guy. But in today’s day and age, I do believe that if you don’t unlock your entrepreneurial talent, you’re wasting something.

Being a traditional “risk it all” entrepreneur is wrought with stress and horror, it bears repeating that I’m not sure it’s always the smartest route. I don’t really advocate this route with much passion.

Big companies can do a lot to act entrepreneurial. The best do this simply by removing the unnecessary constraints, while keeping the necessary constraints. Now you are part of a smart, resource-heavy organization. Sometimes working within the system can be the best, smartest option.

I do advocate a more general entrepreneurial spirit. The system or someone isn’t allowing you to do what you want and know in your heart is possible: screw the system, do it yourself. That’s what it’s about.

Yunus writes of social businesses, those removed of the profit motive able to utilize the efficiencies of the capitalist system. Competition breeds innovation - and the production of something better. Capitalism is a beautiful system, and all these thought leaders are continuing to make it better.

Not having a boss is an asinine benefit of entrepreneurship. You answer to someone always. Being able to unlock your creative energy without unproductive, arbitrary constraints is the best gift of entrepreneurship. That’s the base joy of it.

Every day, I’m on the look out for entrepreneurial types that I may work with in the future. For the really smart guys, you’ve got a lot of choices: start your own company, work for other smart people, academia. I think that’s a great thing. But if you’re an “entrepreneurial type” and want to work with others on the same mission, you’ll know the best way to find me and I hope you do ;-).

Macbook Pro + Broadband Access + Bluetooth = Awesome

I finally got my Verizon Broadband Access from my Treo 700wx to tether to my MacBook Pro through Bluetooth - no wires! Of course, this is a nasty combination Windows Mobile to Mac with Bluetooth (and I’m still hopeful that 3G iPhone is coming soon). Verizon support said it couldn’t be done!

Practical hint, combed from Apple support forums: connect using Spring PCS vision and set Dial Mode as “Ignore dial tone when dialing”. Keep trying to connect if you don’t connect at first try (or first 10 tries).

Yeah, the connection really isn’t that fast and I’ve always had this through a PC card previously, but being able to only carry my cell phone (which is attached to my hip) and laptop to work anywhere is pretty awesome.

This wasn’t quick to set up - and I do get frustrated when things that should work don’t. And bringing it back to wider realizations: blanket WiFi may stall, but carrying your own connectivity that can be used on numerous devices may yet carry long-term implications. Once the seamless experience improves of course.

I want more Hulu!

I spent hours this weekend (first time I consciously took some downtime practically all month) on Hulu watching some The Office and Family Guy, and discovering Chuck (somewhat of a guilty pleasure type of a show). Hulu is a solid product. The fact that it’s free is pretty damn good too.

Liz Gannes at GigaOM has an interview with Eric Feng, who I met briefly at the Crunchies. At the time, I did not realize he was Hulu’s CTO. He had a great understanding of the product, which comes across in the interview and sometimes is occasionally lost on the most technical of people.

I imagine we’ll reach a tipping point sometime in the next year or so.

This revolution is so very obvious that it’s almost not worth pointing out. The ease of use of Hulu against Comcast’s horrific interface to find anything good on cable television. There’s almost no comparison.

But apparently, the tipping point is toast. But the argument is not against viral marketing.

Something less obvious is that content is still king. Democratization, accessibility, new content models: all very true, but really doesn’t change basic principles. But when you’re good, you’re good. The future organization of content providers still remains to be seen.

There’s a tidal wave of bad stuff out there, but lo and behold, technology again comes to the rescue to help work it all out. It’ll be a fun year in the content world.