Google vs. Yahoo: Clash of cultures

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Called Project Guru, the initiative is meant to encourage staff to scout for experts in various fields such as search algorithms and Internet communities.

All about the computer science
Google hired Eric Schmidt, the chief executive at the troubled software company Novell, in 2001 to run the show. But as the prospectus for the company's initial public offering states, Google is run by a triumvirate. Schmidt may be the boss on paper, but he clearly shares authority, industry insiders say.

Eric Schmidt
CEO, Google

Google's $2.5 billion war chest and freedom let employees throw many new services against the wall to see what sticks. But critics question whether Google has an efficient process for managing innovation. The free e-mail service Gmail, for example, is still in beta testing after nearly two years.

"It's like the Wild West at Google. They have enough money and enough disregard for the status quo," said one industry insider who asked to remain anonymous.

When it comes to acquisitions, Google rarely spends big. Often, it acquires upstarts in growth markets that no one saw coming, such as the Stanford search project Kaltix, the advertising technology company Applied Semantics and the blogging software provider Pyra Labs.

Larry Page
Co-founder, Google

The biggest arrow in Google's quiver is its engineers. Google's research and development budget was nearly $80 million in the first three months of 2005, more than twice the previous year, and it continues to attract some of top talent in the country, such as Adam Bosworth, a programming guru who spent years at Microsoft and BEA Systems. Yahoo spent roughly $119 million in a category called product development.

"You won't find any bored engineers at Google," the company's Web site says. "You will find friendly colleagues, fascinating projects and the opportunity to make life better for tens of millions of people every day."

Sergy Brin
Co-founder, Google

Google execs seem well aware that they have to continue to innovate to maintain their edge. It's widely expected that Google will unveil a Web browser and possibly a thin-client operating system, and Microsoft will be a formidable competitor when or if this happens. Google is also building a payment system for video consumption, a major deviation from the company's traditional business.

So who wins?
Though Google is bigger, Yahoo appears to have the upper hand when it comes to warm relations with Madison Avenue. After the dot-com bust, Yahoo ate crow and approached marketers with a more humble, bottom-line pitch. Under direction from advertising veteran Wenda Millard, Yahoo's sales team now focuses on traditional partnerships and handholding with ad agencies. Yahoo also runs an internal telemarketing group whose sole responsibility is to call small agencies and companies to work with Yahoo.

In contrast, Google's approach relies on classified advertising that is based on technology rather than relationships.

"Yahoo has a big branded advertising business. Google is all search. To the extent that brand advertisers want to participate in the Internet, Yahoo's a better bet," said Rob Sanderson, a financial analyst at American Technology Research.

"Yahoo hand-holds you everyday. They look to (be) a strategic partner," said Sarah Fey, president of Isobar, one of the largest interactive agencies.

Financial analysts and industry watchers say there's room for both companies in the Internet economy. But they worry that Google, just like Yahoo, will at some point have to go through its awkward years.

"I do believe that Google will hit a wall eventually, and it will hit it spectacularly," said the book author Moore. "The real question is: What will it do then?"

[momule]

Elmer Fudd

In my humble opinion, any major league company that lets people get search results in the "language" of "Elmer Fudd" or "Bork, bork bork" or "Pig latin" is doing something right!!!!Sure, it's stupid, sure, its a waste of time perhaps.....but it stays with the same wonderful thought processes that allowed Apple Computers to be created in a garage by a couple of dropouts, that named something we now know as "cookies", and that allowed a vice president to claim to be the "inventor of the internet". There HAS to be, somewhere in that corporate Google structure, a sense of humor that allows employees the creative environment to just CREATE !!! My money is on GOOGLE for sure....just for that if nothing else !!! Wouldnt it be wonderful if our other appliance manufacturers could adopt a sense of humor like that? How bout red ice cubes from your new Side-By-Side Refrigerator?

[malabrm1]

WW @ GOOG

It is the wild west at Google. Has been for awhile. It'll be interesting to see how much
longer they go encouraging staff creativity
at near any cost. We tend to concentrate on their long suits which are very long indeed;
I sense Yahoo close on their heels and
smelling very attractive blood in the water.

The Yahoo/Google solution !

Here is one solution to the problem.

http://www.gahooyoogle.com/

[malabrm1]

Very cute, C.G.

Well it is. Nonetheless, I still sense blood in the water. There's just too much money chasing too few ad dollars. Whenever this has happnned
previously in modern culture, the strongest
prevail. And in the internet search business,
Lord knows, market cap does not mean the
"strongest."

[Manfred Levy]

It is remarkable how their results are the same

It is really remarkable how the results of Google & Yahoo are the same!
For example search for:
date
and 90% of results in 1st 3 pages are the same.
This is called choice!
This is really as much as choice as getting your news from NBC or CBS.
Which means NO choice at all.
All you had/have to do was to look at the coverage of BIG US media about Iraq war, same
lies about justification for invading that misreable conutry was delivered by all as if they were one monolitithical source, of course with 1% difference.
I mean if one lessoned to European (non UK) media was like getting a totally different news.
That is what we need: a different source of Search than the same lies out of this 2 other Big US companies called google & yahoo.
The world does not need more CBS, NBC, CNN masquerading as alternative news (information) sources. The world needs real independent information sources.
Edited for SPAM
[Edited by: admin on Jun 21, 2005 11:22 AM]

[Manfred Levy]

Dont be brain washed by the Big Media

Dont be brain washed by the Big Media Hoax about google & yahoo. That is as if they are the only search engines, or the best search engines or that Google is a rebel search engine, etc. etc.
Nothing could be further form truth.
Google & Yahoo are owned by the same Wallstreet Silcion Valley VCs, after all same the same VCs
seat on the Board of both companies.
And up to a short while ago Yahoo search results were provided by Google.
To say that Google & Yahoo are real competition, that they represent the real truth, is like saying that CNN and NBC and CBS, etc. are different. Maybe they are different on the 1% margin, but on the core they are all the same, they are about controlling what people think.

However there is a real different search engine, one that is totally not owned by same gang that owes Yahoo & Google, and one that lets the People (that is us) to determine the final search results. And one that also gives its profit away for our benefit.

Edited for spam content.
[Edited by: admin on Jun 21, 2005 11:21 AM]

[H A R L O]

I'm a Lycos fan, myself

That dog could sell me anything.

[clsgis]

Spammer support is the key indicator.

To distinguish between the styles and directions
at Yahoo and Google, all you have to do is look
at each company's contribution to the spam crisis.

Yahoo Stores is the last great bargain for
"bullet-proof" (complaint-proof) spammer Web hosting
in North America. For fifty bucks a month you get a Web site with a shopping cart, and you can plug it
in spam quite a lot without any interference from Yahoo.

Google doesn't have that problem.

Yahoo is one of the most popular mailbox providers
for the Nigerian advance fee fraud gangs. Watch
your Nigeria spam for a week and notice how many of the president's widows have addresses @yahoo.com.
Sure, Yahoo cuts them off after a week or so, if they get enough complaints, but that's long after
the spammer has collected any responses he's going to get. They might as well leave them up.
Yahoo knows this. They *could* take them down
the same day and the spammers would use somebody else.
But that would cost money and Yahoo's not feeling
any heat about it.

Google doesn't have that problem. Have you *ever*
heard from a Nigerian president's widow with
an address @gmail.com? Even one?

Spammer support is a good overall indicator
of how competently managed an Internet company is.
The #1 spammer support company on the Spamhaus.org
list (MCI) just happens to be the perpetrator of the
biggest stock fraud in history. Enron and
Global Crossing were spammer support superstars
in their day. And where they went, SBC and
Verizon and Comcast are going next. Just watch.

Yahoo smells of rotting spam. Google doesn't.

[WebHostingFAQ]

I think Google is great and is clearly the most important player on the web right now. But I have has this sneaking suspicion that much of Googles leaderships comes from its brand and positioning and not from superior services. So I have resolved to get from my Google addiction and try the rest of the web, starting with the obvious choice, Yahoo.

It seems that yahoo tries harder. They try harder to open and inclusive , of course they have to try harder because they are number two, at least in the mind of web users when it comes to search, and which is the starting point for most everything on the web today.

http://www.marblehost.com/faq.php

[trac113]

I saw this one too as an example of the comparison of the different sites. I dunno, I personally like the google results but the bing interface. This is the page I was talking about:
http://www.absolutjenius.com/search_compare.html