Overture To Buy AltaVista 186
Nate writes "Overture announced that they bought AltaVista today for $140M in cash and stock. This follows closely on the heels of Yahoo's purchase of Inktomi. Considering the significant financial muscle of Yahoo and Overture, I hope that Google can continue to maintain their lead. For those of you who aren't familiar with Overture, they are the 800-pound gorilla in the pay-for-placement listing market. When you search in Yahoo, those Sponsor Matches at the top are provided by Overture."
Fine and Dandy (Score:5, Funny)
So what if sometimes it dances a lil'bit.
we use google because it works (Score:2)
Buying out a company that everyone hates for handling ads won't make you more respected.
In other new, my company [frob.us] has decided to buy out Microsoft. We hope that this will help us in our global domination plans.
Re:Fine and Dandy (Score:3, Informative)
So think of a Swiss Army Knife on steroids.
Another nice thing is that the pliers on some models can be 'snapped out' with one hand. Very useful if you're hanging from a lighting rig in a theater with one.
You can read more about them at their website! [leatherman.com]
I don't know much about Overture... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I don't know much about Overture... (Score:1)
Re:I don't know much about Overture... (Score:2)
I use only Google and once in awhile Yahoo for searching the web.
That said, Altavista's "babelfish" translation service is a #1 with me for translating text from one language to another.
FWIW, InfoSeek used to be my #1 search service because of their search syntax.
Re:I don't know much about Overture... (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, I'm Yet Another of those "used Altavista for years, then switched to Google never looked back" users... so what do I know about AV's current usefulness. :-)
Re:I don't know much about Overture... (Score:2)
As to publicity, I've never really tried to "optimize" ranking of my home pages, so I haven't even read their policies. It's good they give information about the frequency, though.
Re:I don't know much about Overture... (Score:2)
Yep, back in the day, AltaVista's boolean search was the bomb...
((bra or pantry) and (thumbnail or gallery or archive))Or what ever your style of porn was back then =)
Now adays I just use autopr0n [autopr0n.com]
ah, how the net has grown.
Re:I don't know much about Overture... (Score:2)
Re:I don't know much about Overture... (Score:2)
Come on, people. Alta Vista has had text-only search for ages, and for at least a few years they've had raging.com [raging.com] which is just as aesthetically pleasing as Google. I find myself trying Google first and then going to raging.com if the topic i was looking for doesn't pop up in the first few Google pages (assuming Google has any results at all). Alta Vista picks up different results, and i'm sure lists a few pages that Google doesn't - mainly older pages that were around before Google existed and never got linked into the main spidering network.
AltaVista complements Google (Score:2, Interesting)
When I (admittedly rarely) hit those limits, I turn to AltaVista.
Money but not the brain power (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Money but not the brain power (Score:1)
or better yet, Elmer Fudd, Kingon, Pig Latin, and H4x0r!
Wrong org. (Score:2)
Specifically, Unicode is one possible Level 3 implementation of ISO 10646. All characters have the same indices and names in both standards; the Unicode spec merely adds formatting and rendering semantics for languages like Arabic and Hebrew, and standardizes algorithms for sorting and comparison. (That last bit is the most important, since ISO 10464 is little more than a very large table.)
"Unicode" is more than the BMP (Score:2, Informative)
Unicode contains merely the lower sixteen bits of the UCS (Universal Character Set), aka ISO 10646. UCS defines a 31-bit character set; the lower 65534 positions, which Unicode dupes, is the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP) or Plane 0.
You're confusing Unicode with UTF-16. Unicode covers the entire defined UCS code space [unicode.org]: "the Unicode standard and ISO/IEC 10646 now support three encoding forms that use a common repertoire of characters but allow for encoding as many as a million more characters."
But here's something I'm curious about, from the same page:
For example, a group of choreographers may design a set of characters for dance notation and encode the characters using code points in user space.
Doesn't dance notation require just four characters, left down up right [ddrfreak.com]?
Re:Money but not the brain power (Score:3, Informative)
I like the h4x0r [google.com] version of Google, personally.
Re:Money but not the brain power (Score:2, Funny)
So, how about MSN search viewed in Opera [slashdot.org]?
Press Release (Score:5, Informative)
So.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So.... (Score:4, Funny)
Wanna lolly?
Re:So.... (Score:1)
Re:So.... (Score:2)
Re:So.... (Score:4, Funny)
Ok people, one last time:
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Google is the scrappy underdog, whereas Apple is the evil faceless corporation.
On Mondays and Wednesdays, the reverse is true.
Every day is Linux-is-good-day, except on Friday, when we all denounce RedHat for actually charging for some service they provide.
Oh. And vi is always better than emacs.
Not always (Score:2)
Re:So.... (Score:2)
Exactly. Given enough time, capitolism works every time its tried. Thats why I don't get too worried about 'big bad' companies. They generally shoot themselves in the foot or are too big to adapt fast enough.
Case in point: The weak ass anti-trust case with Microsoft has make a difference in how they conduct business (ask Opera). However, several thousand programmers doing it for free, will.
If women just gave it away, there would be no need to hookers. (wait, did I just compare programmers with prostitutes?)
Re:So.... (Score:2)
Nobody agreed with that stuff griping about Google the other day. At least, noone who was modded up to 5. I think it was posted mostly for discussion (of course, it's a dupe; we'd all seen it before).
*Sniff* (Score:5, Funny)
Re:*Sniff* (Score:2, Informative)
Seriously, I think the recession is coming to an end...
All in all, it seems the most catastrophic forces have waned...
Are people that fickle? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Are people that fickle? (Score:1)
Re:Are people that fickle? (Score:1)
Re:Are people that fickle? (Score:1, Funny)
Or Windows.
Oh wait...
Re:Are people that fickle? (Score:2, Insightful)
Switching search engines requires much less time and effort than switching operating systems (or environments, or whatever OS/2 was).
Missed it... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Missed it... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How about (Score:1)
Overture, send some dough my way! (Score:1)
Incredible news! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Incredible news! (Score:1)
On one hand, everyone needs cash.
On the other hand, their stock is probably in the dumps.
Re:Incredible news! (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't understand why you people don't read the articles. I can't stress this enough, people: read the articles. They contain, useful, topical information.
Re:Incredible news! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What? (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:What? (Score:1)
The day a seach engine uses "pay for placement".. (Score:4, Interesting)
Not really a constructive comment, but I'm slightly frazzled at the moment.
Re:The day a seach engine uses "pay for placement" (Score:4, Interesting)
The day a seach engine uses "pay for placement"... is the day I stop using them.
Then I guess your search options are pretty limited, huh? Every major search engine now is either hooked up with Overture/Ah-ha/etc, or has their own fee for submitting. Except Google, but some of google's ads appear as lines that look very similar to their regular search results, and are directly above the search results (just like Overture's). The only major difference between how Google places theirs and how Overture et. al does theirs, is Google has a different background color for the ad text, making it a little more obvious that they are ads.
But it's not a huge mental leap to go from "background color" to "no background color", especially under pressure from advertisers, with in an increasingly smaller number of search engines to advertise with.
----Yeah, I know there are more search engines popping up every day. And _you_ know that nobody ever goes to them either. When was the last time you used one of those other 15,000 search engines that all those spammers tell you they'll submit your site to for 50 bucks??
Re:The day a seach engine uses "pay for placement" (Score:3, Insightful)
I thought that in this case the search engines are the sellers (selling, in this case, search result placement) and the merchents were the buyers. Having fewer sellers would give more leverage to the remaining sellers.
Taking the situation to the logical extreme, if there was only one search engine, that engine, call it Google, can tell merchants "we will use background colors to prominently denote ads, take it or leave it"
Re:The day a seach engine uses "pay for placement" (Score:2)
It IS a huge mental leap to start deliberately confusing your users and eventually losing them. And when that happens, the advertisers leave you too.
Re:The day a seach engine uses "pay for placement" (Score:2)
I get advertising when I drink my god-damned coffee (suppliers names plastered all over my mug), when I watch a movie ("James Bond -Franchise Another Day" anyone?), etc..etc.. I don't _want_ it shoved down my throat when Im searching for relevant information. Its hard enough sifting the crap from anything useful already.
Re:The day a seach engine uses "pay for placement" (Score:2)
Overture isn't the 800 lbs. gorilla if you're comparing them to Google. You people have to get off this "Google Dot Org" thing, and understand that Google is big pay-click player and huge revenue maker.
Bashing Spammers Using "pay for placement" (Score:2)
Financial muscle ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering the significant financial muscle of Yahoo and Overture, I hope that Google can continue to maintain their lead
Well unless Yahoo and Overture intend to pay me to do searhes, rather than the other way around, I'm not sure financial muscle has much to do with it. Google is fast, convenient and accurate. 'Nuff said.
Re:Financial muscle ? (Score:1)
www.goo .. damnit (Score:2)
Overture. (Score:1, Funny)
This is it.
The night of nights.
No more rehearsing and nursing a part.
We know every part by heart.
the good ol' days (Score:4, Funny)
I remember when it was the best... (Score:1, Interesting)
Altavista became way too bloated and way too commercial, and it will wither and die away within 5 years. Everything it does, google does, but without the sense of bloat or loading 200k webpages full of ads.
Search Engines (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Search Engines (Score:1)
for the lazy man, and introduction to the tag. (Score:5, Informative)
Same damn post, but I'm not so god damn lazy.
Google may be the most popular geeks' search tool, but it's not my favorite. I much prefer engines like http://www.vivisimo.com/ [vivisimo.com] and http://www.teoma.com/ [teoma.com] and even http://www.alltheweb.com/"> [alltheweb.com] http://wisenut.com/ [wisenut.com] is also a really good engine and gettinng better every week. The best image finder is either http://www.ditto.com/ [ditto.com] or http://www.picsearch.com/ [picsearch.com] If you're after music and videos, then http://www.singingfish.com [singingfish.com] is for you...Re:The ultimate in form over function (Score:2)
I've been at 'excellent' karma for so long, I didn't care if it got modded up or down.
On the other hand, it does really piss me off when someone includes fifteen links in a post, and even bothers to put http:// in front of all of them without actually making them links.
now that sucks. what the hell is the web for if not the use of 'a' tags?
Who Cares if Google maintains their lead? (Score:5, Insightful)
If Yahoo! or Overture can produce a better service than Google does, we should applaud them and support their advances. I want the best service possible, I'm not particularly interested in which corporation provides it.
Don't get me wrong, I love Google, and I find new uses for it weekly it seems, but I'm not sitting in front of my computer rooting for them.
They're a business, just like every other business out there -- the only difference is that's it's geek chic to profess devotion to them.
Re:Who Cares if Google maintains their lead? (Score:2)
I was about to post the same thing as you - and you're right. But look at it a little differently: obviously, there is going to be one search engine out ahead, and we'll use it. In a way, I do hope that Google is that one, not because I care about them, but because a lot of their policies are very good, with regards to privacy, advertising, etc. Of course, perhaps you could consider those part of the decision regarding which search engine is out front. So let me phrase it this way: I hope that Google, or an equally 'fair' search engine has the best search technology.
Re:Who Cares if Google maintains their lead? (Score:5, Insightful)
Google has by in large done good thing for searching and the internet in general. They showed that you don't need $100 million ad budgets and hundreds of images. They provide a very good service to users (Search, Groups, etc) and they make a good profit at it. Their interface is very clean and neat, fast loading, and works with allmost everything. No only is their advertising not annoying like most sites, it is sometimes very helpfull. I click on google "placement" ads and never click on banner ads. They provide good searches for things like linux and most major universities. They are a "good" company, as far as companies go.
The effects of google on the internet can been seen. I have seen many sites trying to get away from the thousands of banners in favor of clean neat data in the google manner.
If this new company does all of this and provide better searches, then I will use them. But if they place ads in searches without making it very clear they are ads (unlike google) and use some ad-ridden interface and still "lead" then this won't be good for internet in general.
I like the google school of thaught when it comes to a internet company. Even if google fails, I would like to see this concept continue to do so well in the marketplace and with technical users.
Re:Who Cares if Google maintains their lead? (Score:2)
Indeed, why should I care which company is "in the lead?"
The fact that so many slashdotters are "rooting" for Google brings up an interesting, and probably long-forgotten concept to mind: brand loyalty.
Today's economy has been drawing lines between corporations (or producers, if you will), and us mere mortals, dubbed "consumers" by the marketroids. Do you feel like a number in America? That's because you're treated like one. You're a statistic. Just another wallet to suck out of. That's why nobody cares if they steal music and movies over the Internet. They use you when it's convenient, so you use them when it's convenient. Fair's fair and all.
But Google did something different -- they didn't sell out and make you need to subscribe or deal with in-your-face ads all over -- they actually thought about "what makes people like not just our product, but us?"
They've been rewarded with an almost religious zeal from hundreds of thousands, if not millions of geeks. It's a story that many companies should probably take a lesson from.
Re:Who Cares if Google maintains their lead? (Score:2)
Re:Who Cares if Google maintains their lead? (Score:2, Interesting)
I hate brand loyalty myself. It is generally a negative reflex that gets you in trouble. That said, here is why I might still root for Google:
Google happens to be one of those successful anomalies where what is truly the best product from a technical point of view, or from a specialists point of view, or whatever, also happens to be a huge public success and occupy a near monopolistic role. It's kinda refreshing!
Here is what would be "bad", IMHO: some other search engine becomes successful for the wrong reasons that appeal to Joe Sixpack but end up having a negative impact on the web. (I can't really see what that impact could be, but I trust the MBA's to come up with something that would really piss everybody off.)
So while I don't particularly care about the Google corporation, I'm just glad that what seems to be a decent outfit is king of the hill. Capitalism, or even Web Capitalism, doesn't always promote the highest quality product (cf. Micorsoft), so we should be glad when it does.
Attempts to regulate Google (Score:2)
There have been various attempts by Fundamentally Clueless People [google-watch.org] to try to get Google regulated by Somebody, Anybody, Especially the Government, preferably by the FTC (because Google is alleged to be essentially a public utility) or at least to get the Ralph Nader folks turned on to Google-Bashing. After all, if Google claims to try to rank the most interesting and relevant topics high in its list, and you're not one of them, that's Just Not Fair! [gurge.com], and at least some arguments from Brandt or people like him want the government to force Google to rank things fairly. Well, duh! The reason everybody uses Google instead of some of its competitors is *precisely* because it usually does a really good job of finding the things everybody is looking for, as opposed to Displaying items 1-10 of the 13122319084324 web pages matching your search in no particularly useful order, and covers a reasonable fraction of the material on the web. The beauty of open technologies like the web is that if you don't like the pagerank, you can go make one of your own; instead of convincing the government Google to change its search order to work the way you want it to, you can just as well run your own search engine or convince your favorite Feds to run their own Politically Correct Search Engine. Meanwhile, if they mess up Google too badly, we'll have to go find something else anyway, and if some liberal-intentioned luser convinces the Feds to mess up all the US search engines, we'll use one from somewhere else, but that's degrading the value of Google for the whole world community, while running your own competitor engine is potentially very valuable to the world (if you're good at it, either as a standalone site or an additional-searches site), or at least neutral.
An entirely different attempt to control Google was the Search King lawsuit. (Slashdot story [slashdot.org], LawMeme article [yale.edu].) Unlike Brandt, who's a clueless whiny-liberal type who knows fairness better than you do, Search King was merely greedy, a parasite that tries to sell people a service of improving their Google ranking and then whined because Google downrates sites that try to manipulate their rankings so that their boring pages show up before more genuinely interesting pages. (Of course, Google _will_ be happy to provide you a sponsored-listing ad entry if you pay them, but those are at least visually distinguishable.)
But they're labeled (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But they're labeled (Score:4, Insightful)
Because I had been using Google for years before I ever read the results in the "sponsored links" section, whereas the whore-for-placement systems adds just one more tiny frustration in my day, having to make a slight mental effort to ignore the first results and go down to get to what I really want.
I sometimes go for the sponsored links, when I'm looking for something commercial (once every other blue moon), but for my everyday geek searches for futurama quotes and python lyrics, I don't want to be forced to read that commercial site X has great prices on python DVDs, I just want What I Was Looking For.
Re:But they're labeled (Score:2)
I use Google because (Score:1)
What do they get for their money? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What do they get for their money? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What do they get for their money? (Score:2, Interesting)
What was the motivation here? (Score:4, Interesting)
Digital? (Score:1)
Re:Digital? (Score:1)
Re:Digital? (Score:5, Informative)
At one time they were the best search engine, and their boolean searches - though with a clunky interface - gave the best filtering. Now google can claim that, even though they don't have the same degree of control of boolean searches. No one really has had an idea of what altavista should be, from DEC using it as an ad, then trying to "productize and monetize" it (to use buzzwords I hated from my dot.com dayze) to selling it to CMGI and have ad revenue and popups try to prop it up, to "I'm not sure what they're doing now but pretty sure they don't either."
Why should Google be special? (Score:4, Insightful)
If anybody else would provide better service, why should you want Google still have any lead if it becomes an inferior technology then?
Just because they have pulled off some nifty stuff doesn't mean they should be a sacred cow.
Why??? (Score:1)
I am sorry Altavista used to be cool, in 96 and then google came around, and I would rather use that. Google is Fast, simple, and doesnt have banner ads. I am sorry, I will not use anything other than google anymore. ok maybe Dmoz.org.....I still like google
Brand loyalty (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? Are you an angel investor?
Seriously, who cares who has the "lead"? As long as I have good search engines to use and they manage to stay in business and pay their people reasonable salaries, I have zero interest in some business horse race. In fact I'd be nothing but pleased if another decent search engine could come along. I dislike being quite so dependent on one (and I am, utterly, dependent on Google at this point). Google is good but their approach can't possibly be the be-all-end-all. Before Google I thought Altavista was pretty good in fact, and right now I'd seriously regret being forced to use it if Google were down or unreachable.
I realise the article is about ad strategy rather than search strategy per se, and I really don't care about the ads as long as I can continue to ignore them. What I don't get is the fanboyism. They're a for-profit company. The fact that they've been very sane and rational in their approach so far is nice and even laudable, but it's not really some supererogatory wonderful act. If they weren't, I'd be that much less likely to use their service. Doesn't make them my teddy bear.
Re:Brand loyalty (Score:3, Insightful)
No google isn't sacred, and I'm sure their search tech will be trumped at some point, but it's not likely that company will have as much integrity unless google manages to stick around enough to permanently alter the whole sector or more.
Whaaa? (Score:1)
This sure seems like a stupid thing to hope for.
As has been said before, the reliance on Google really scares the hell outta me. Yeah, Google is great now, but shit happens, and shit happening to Google would really ruin me. Half my job security is based on scavenging for answers!
Since no one else seems to be able to compete with them, maybe in the spirit of competition we could talk Google into spining off an Anti-Google?
Astalavista (Score:1)
What's Yahoo!? (Score:2, Interesting)
Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh yeah, and AltaVista has Babblefish, that's cool too.
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Potential (Score:4, Funny)
Frankly, I think that they still have a lot of catching up to do. I find some of the most remarkable pictures of Jessica Alba and Brintey Spears in 3 seconds of searching on images.google.com - thumbnails and all. Thousands of them. I don't know how Altavista can ever concieve of contending with that.
Offtopic, but really nifty (google worship) (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.google.com/options/ (googlize every aspect of your life) [google.com]
http://labs.google.com/gviewer.html (for us lazy people) [google.com]
http://labs.google.com/keys/index.html (who needs a mouse?) [google.com]
http://catalogs.google.com/ ( Shopping at stores -> Shopping with catalogs -> Shopping online -> Shopping with catalogs online (What is this world coming to?!?!)) [google.com]
Google is the best (It seems to be the general concensus) not only in speed/results, but also in development and creativity.
AltaVista appliance for intranet searching? (Score:3, Interesting)
AltaVista used to be the best search engine; it's strength lies in basic text searching and it's incredible speed and scalability. Unfortunately it did not account much for the interlinked nature of the web and was easily subverted by web author tricks. These faults were mostly solved by Google.
However, just as Google offers a stand-alone embedded box, the Google Appliance [google.com], for use within corporate intranets, I suspect that is an area where AltaVista's technology could thrive much better.
Intranet searching and indexing is still a rather underexploited market. There's basically Microsoft's Index Server, flaws and all, the Google Appliance, and several good but not great minor choices such as ht://Dig [htdig.org]. If we could get an AltaVista appliance that ran under Unix (or at least not bound to Microsoft) and underpriced the Google Appliance I would have to believe that a lot of companies would take notice.
Re:AltaVista appliance for intranet searching? (Score:2)
What *really* happened to AltaVista (Score:5, Interesting)
Rod Schrock and his Harvard b-school buds [his old roommate was one of our VPs], fresh from creating the Presario group at Compaq fled the sinking Compaq ship and headed for high ground in the Bay Area with dollar signs in their eyes. Knowing nothing about the Internet and what it meant or the realities of media business they decided to go after Yahoo instead of continuing their dominance of the search arena. They bought two absolute dogs [Zip2.com and shopping.com which was about 10 days from bankruptcy], then lost most of their product development team to another startup [where Louis Monyeaux (misspelled)] had just gone to. Undaunted, Schrock and friends dumped close to 100 million dollars total into the ill-fated "smart is beautiful" version of AV. A lot of that money went to USWEB CKS and Weidman Kennedy, $6 million for the overblown "launch event" in New York and the rest went to unqualified employees.
A few months later [spring 2000], the market really starts tanking. CMGI pulls AV's IPO for the third time and things get really stupid. The smart employees start leaving and the idiots take full command. Several months later, Schrock is finally booted by CMGI but the damage is already done.
I'd like to adknowledge the people who actually did their jobs and did them well during that period, namely the Search Engineering and Search Product Management groups [well, most of them but I won't name names here]. They were the ones who made AV great and fought futiley to keep it good. Fortunately, many of them landed at good places [like Barry at Google] but it was a long, unpleasant journey.
Re:What *really* happened to AltaVista (Score:2)
Yes! I have found a new porn name!
Search Often? (Score:2)
A lot about search engines lately. I think the obvious winner has already won and now only griping and complaining accompanied by cheerleading (see .sig for details) and smiling remains.
It's like the browser wars, but it hasn't been beaten to death . . . yet
Product sells (Score:2)
What about BABELFISH? (Score:4, Insightful)
So maybe Systrans signed an exclusive with Alta-Vista and maybe thats what the big attraction is.
Google is improving its translation, so Overture has to match. I don't see anything else in Alta-Vista thats worth the money.
easier to avoid em' or harder? (Score:2)
Google? Love em, but uneasily keep waiting for the other shoe to drop when they stop wanting to burn cash (which one would think they must be doing a lot of). When do the suits take over?
competition (Score:2)
Why? If they have more competition, they'll be more inclined to do whatever they can to increase the quality of their search engine to keep people coming back. And they obviously care, because the quality is how they got those people to begin with.