Re: AltaVista Testing Paid Search Results

From: Matthew da Silva <mdasilva_at_ibd.yamatake.co.jp>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 14:13:30 -0500 (CDT)

AKILESH RAJAN <SHIVOHUM_at_BIGFOOT.COM> WROTE:
> I think it's an incredibly uninformed thing for Altavista to
> do. Search engines are the heart of the web.
>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yup. Even though Yahoo! retains a cachet that nevertheless
exceeds its real performance, you gotta give Yahoo! credit
for sticking to an initial model and making a name on it. I
rarely use Yahoo! for anything, at all, and always use the
'holy trinity' of Hotbot, Snap and Google. I note humbly
that two of these 'engines use the same Inktomi engine. But
then, most professionals, regardless of discipline, rely
heavily on word-of-mouth and their own bookmarks to get the
information they need.

AltaVista has a cool translation engine that it operates
using an engine developed by Systran and called BabelFish
and that is a really good thing
(http://babelfish.altavista.com). But once an 'engine starts
to change a business model, you gotta know there's a bigger
problem somewhere. For businesses, there's not one
mechanically- driven 'engine that can hold an algorithm up
to the stochastic brilliance of http://www.northernlight.com

I think that the real challenge in future will be
multilingual search and catalog. Global businesses now
include many small companies. This shift in the metaverse of
business has as much to do with production facilities and
unions as with targeting markets and adopting e-commerce.
Many companies, before straying too fast into the ether, are
planning ways to leverage their existing human resources, in
the online realm, so that the company does not splinter
along newly-franked lines with digitally enabled employees
on one side and digitally challenged employees on the other.

And, because of support bottlenecks, most advanced
e-commerce will remain a local activity or just another
sales channel, for a long time to come.

Matthew da Silva
Online Solutions, International Business
Yamatake Corporation, Tokyo
mdasilva_at_ibd.yamatake.co.jp


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Received on Thu Apr 22 1999 - 14:59:58 CDT