Google Gadget Ventures Announced at Searchnomics

Google's Marissa Mayer, VP, Search Products & User Experience, officially announced yesterday at the Searchnomics 2007 Conference the launch of Google Gadget Ventures. Members of the press including ABC7 News were on hand to get the breaking news scoop. Marissa introduced the program during her closing Keynote address. If you are familiar with the personalized Google homepage, iGoogle, where users can add widgets/gadgets created by others or better yet create your own personalized gadgets, then this program is a spinoff of this. If your Google gadget generates a quarter of a million page views weekly, you are eligible for a $5K grant to build it out further and once you have received the grant you can then apply for an additional $100K seed capital to build a business around the Google gadgets platform. A program such as this facilitates among other things innovation and from a business perspective, even more reasons to stay on the Google site. For more information, see the Official Google Blog post on this program. (See as well my previous blog post on iGoogle.)

Yahoo's Casualties in Search War

Semel maybe out but so are 10 of Yahoo's 26 executives (see then and now). A 40% turnover in executive management in one year is pretty high. I guess the battle against Google is taking its toll. Semel, who didn't know what email was before he arrived at Yahoo has left behind a trail of destruction. The vacancies are being filled by Susan Deckers' friends according to sources. Susan, who takes over as President of Yahoo, is famous for saying that "Yahoo's goal is not to be number one in search". Besides losing all this "talent" in a short time, the company is losing millions in severance compensation. Several employees said that Farzeed Nazem, CTO, spent more time filing papers with the SEC over stock options purchases and sales during his 11 year hibernation. The WSJ says it reinforces doubts about Panama when the guy overseeing the global rollout leaves smack in the middle of it. A senior Yahooligan (Yahoo employee) described Panama as larger than the Titanic and that it will help Yahoo capture more search advertising dollars.

Here is the list of executives jumping ship:
Terry Semel, CEO
Susan Decker, CFO
Lars Rabbe, CIO
Dan Rosensweig, COO
Farzeed Nazem, CTO
Chris Castro, CCO
Lloyd Braun, President, Yahoo! Media
John Marcom, VP International, Yahoo!
Phu Hoang, VP Engineering
Daniel Finnigan, VP Classifieds

At the annual shareholder meeting Jerry Yang had nothing to say about Yahoo's business but human rights. Yesterday, he released a statement saying "Terry has given Yahoo! six of its best years".

Yahoo, hosting the Titanic party at its campus in Sunnyvale, CA.

Yahoo Focused On The Past

Angry shareholders voted down proposals to tie executive pay to competitive performance and challenged the company's human rights policies in China at their annual meeting. The meeting was focused on the past three years and a little about the how the company intends to respond to Google's growing dominance.

"I am going to sell all my shares!" said Dotty Webber of Sunnyvale, CA. "He was talking about macaroni and cheese and how people like to eat it. There was nothing about their internet strategy. I went to the Google meeting and Eric Schmidt talked about how Google plans to help the world with the internet."

There was very little said about search, online advertising or Panama. Little to no mention about the acquisitions such as RightMedia or inroads Microsoft is making. No mention about the growing influence of MySpace among brand advertisers or the lock YouTube has on online video. "I don't see much change going forward, the performance of the past three years is set to repeat itself", said Eric Jackson, President, Jackson Leadership Systems. Jackson is a shareholder activist and has a even launched a campaign on YouTube against Terry Semel.

There was more talk about the human rights violations in China and Yahoo's efforts to change that. "They see this as a problem and are looking into it", said Patrick Doherty, Comptroller, The City of New York. A memorandum was issued outlining Jerry Yang's view on human rights to all.

"Search Is History", says Yahoo!

As the company realizes that it can no longer compete with Google, it is saying the future of web search is history. Yahoo says the model for getting information via the browser is outdated. In the future relevant information will be delivered directly to readers. "The future of the web is about personalization. Where search was dominant, now the web is about 'me.' It's about weaving the web together in a way that is smart and personalized for the user," said Tapan Bhat, VP, Yahoo!'s Personalised Home Page.

Interestingly, iGoogle is about personalization and Google has been making alot of noise of about it. Suddenly, it has become the core focus at Yahoo. Yahoo has been losing market share to Google in search and has been recasting itself as a company not focused on search. In fact Susan Decker, CFO, Yahoo has said previously that "Our goal is not to be number one is search". "They've realised they can't compete with Google on search." said Deborah Schultz, a Silicon Valley-based marketing consultant.

Search continues to gain wider adoption as an enabler for online commerce and soon may become the platform for commerce. Billions of dollar are being channeled into search as major marketers and brand advertisers see the efficiency of the medium. The river of money is finding its way mostly to Google. In fact the company does more in reveune in a single quarter than Yahoo does in a year. The entire Searchnomics conference is focused on the importance of search to web sites and online businesses.


On Tuesday June 12, 2007, Yahoo holds it annual shareholder meeting. Yahoo's Terry Semel was the highest paid CEO in 2006, with total compensation of $71.7 million, according to the AP. That is two times more than the $27 million in total compensation for the New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez, baseball's highest-paid player, and higher than the typical pay A-list stars like Brad Pitt who earn $20 million a movie, plus 20 percent of the gross box office take.

There is even talk that Microsoft may buy the company. That would give Semel a graceful exit. However, the word is that the company is not attractive enough to any single major buyer to advance their product line, not at that price. Jeff Clavier, a venture capitalist at SoftTech, said: "The problem with Yahoo! is that they're trying to be all things to all people but they don't do any one thing particularly well."

All this is making investors, partners and customers very nervous. Several advertisers and partners are moving to Google; Friendster, a social networking site, moved to Google from Yahoo to better monetize its user base with Google's larger ad platform and deeper inventory. If this trend continues, Yahoo maybe history before search is.

Interview with Jon Wiley, User Experience Designer, Google Apps

I am an avid user and fan of Google Apps and judging by its growing popularity, I am certainly not alone on this. I recently had an opportunity to interview Jon Wiley, User Experience Designer, for Google Apps to gain some insight into this suite of apps. Jon was also recently a panelist at the Usability 2.0 Event at the WebGuild on April 11, 2007.

Q: You work on Google Apps. Can you tell the readers a little about it and what you do on Google Apps?

A: Google Apps is a collection of Google services such as Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Spreadsheets, and Talk, all bundled up as a white label product for businesses, schools, small groups, and ISPs. The Premier Edition is $50/user/year and the Standard and Education editions are free. I work on the sign up and payment interfaces, and parts of the administrator control panel interface. I also work with other designers and researchers to represent the needs of enterprise, SMB, ISP, and educational organizations when thinking about the experience of Google's diverse products and services.

Q: I think most people would point to Google Apps as an example of web, usability, and design 2.0 epitomized. Do you agree with this characterization and why or why not?

A: All of the services bundled with Google Apps certainly typify Web 2.0 applications. Google has long been an innovator in delivering powerful web applications via the browser. But we have only begun to scratch the surface of what is possible. Everyone who works on these applications has a hundred ideas to make them better. Our work is never done.

Q: One of the things I've noticed with Google Apps is that there is a little more attention placed on form in the design, notwithstanding function, compared to the uber simplicity of the google.com homepage. It still has the Google moniker but there is color, icons, and visual interest. Why this divergence, if you will? And what, if any, has been the impact on usability?

A: While the classic Google home page maintains a very simple appearance, we've recently given users more choices and the ability to customize their experience with iGoogle. It's true that our search interface is highly functional and that we've explored visual design more in our applications.

This divergence can be traced to where users spend time. Search connects users to the best results for their query as quickly as possible, and users do not spend a lot of time in search. Much more time is spent in applications like Gmail, Calendar, Docs, and Talk. The usability of these applications is enhanced through visual design. We want users to feel comfortable in our applications and it is there that investing in the visuals really pays off.

Q: Components of Google Apps such as Gmail, Talk, and Calendar are available for mobile access. Do you foresee Docs and Spreadsheets migrating to WAP as well? And if so, what would have to be different from the desktop version to ensure the usability of these apps on a WAP platform?

A: We want to make information universally accessible and useful. Providing access via mobile platforms goes towards fulfilling that first goal. Fulfilling the second, making it useful, is more complicated. Do people want to edit spreadsheets on their mobile phone or collaborate on documents? Perhaps they would rather just manage their documents, sharing them for instance. Or maybe the mobile context creates new possibilities for collaboration.

Q: Google Apps is localized for a number of countries and languages. How do you design for and test the usability for the various geographies and what are some of the differences encountered?

At a very tactical level, we strive to design interfaces which can work well in a variety of languages. Interfaces that scale and that make extensive use of CSS are easier to translate without breaking. If, from our research, we think a particular interface or workflow may be impacted by language or locale, we will organize user testing to help us understand and address those variances. At a more strategic level, Google has offices throughout the world. It is a lot easier to listen to your users if you are close to them.

Q: Tell us a little about your usability testing process.

For usability testing, which is a small part of our overall research program, we typically utilize labs on site to host users and present them with high fidelity prototypes of applications. We'll walk our users through a number of scenarios in order to gauge the usability of the interface. Occasionally, if the prototype is sufficiently deep, we will allow users to explore without any particular scenario in mind. Our process is an iterative one and we'll perform testing several times to improve the usability of the application.

Q: The target audiences for Google Apps are Small Business, Enterprise, Academia, and Families or Group. That's a pretty broad spectrum of users with varying needs and skill/experience levels. How do you create a suite of apps for multiple demographics and experience levels and still make it usable and stimulating for the everyone?

A: In terms of administrating these services for the organization, we work to identify the information and actions common to all of our customers and make those items readily visible and easily accessible. While the types of organizations served by Google Apps are quite diverse, their needs are often quite similar. Often, it is simply a matter of scale.

For the applications themselves, the spectrum of needs and diversity of users is greater. Nearly all Google applications begin their lives aimed squarely at the consumer market. Google excels at supporting large scale initiatives and we want to solve problems for the largest possible audience. This focus on solving problems for lots of people translates into highly useful applications. The world is full of software and devices with a wealth of solutions, maybe a tenth of which people actually use. We aim to include the features that most people will use a lot.

The rapid innovation of web applications in the consumer space has opened up a gap between the usability and usefulness of products in people's personal lives vs. the products and services offered by their employers and schools. Rather than look for feature-heavy products at home, they are seeking products that are easier to use and more useful in the workplace and the classroom. We're bridging that gap with Google Apps.

We also just launched a Partner Edition of Google Apps for ISPs.

Q: How are Web 2.0 technoligies such as AJAX being used in Google Apps?

A: I've been building web pages since 1995, and I find it hard to see the Web in such quantized units as 1.0 or 2.0. To me, there are a number of technologies and best practices that have been developed over the years, the adoption of which has come in stops, starts, stutters, gradual transitions, and everything in between. Google tends to take a very utilitarian view of technologies: we want the best tool for the job. Whatever enables us to offer fast, efficient, usable, accessible, and powerful services to our users.

JavaScript is used extensively in Gmail and Calendar. Our new Talk gadget for iGoogle uses Flash. The control panel for Google Apps uses CSS throughout. I'm continually amazed by the innovation Google engineers manage to achieve with technologies like JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, which are many years old and were never really designed to handle the powerful applications we've created.

Q: Is Google Apps built with web accessibility in mind with respect to disabled users? And if so, how?

A: Accessibility of web applications for people with disabilities is a very challenging problem, one that we are working to solve. I am a member of a team of people at Google working to develop better processes and educate Googlers about the challenges we face in this area, as well as best practices for creating accessible products.

Q: Google Apps was created last year. How has this suite of online software applications and web publishing tools changed from then to now from a user experience perspective?

A: Initially the product was called Gmail for Your Domain and the scope was very limited. We have continued to add services to the product, enabling a number of communication and collaboration activities to be hosted in the Google computing cloud. This is in line with our mission to make information, in this case the information created and shared by our users, universally accessible and useful. I think Google Apps has also resulted in a greater need to integrate across our services and this work has direct benefits for individual consumers as well.

Q: Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, was recently quoted as saying that Apps and online software applications is a new focus for Google, in addition to search and ads, in what he calls a "shift to an online lifestyle" and Google is creating web-based applications that support that lifestyle with Google Apps. What are some of the user experience advantages and challenges that are unique to online apps versus the traditional desktop software like Microsoft Office?

A: Our customers can access their data from any device with a web connection. Gmail leverages Google's massive supercomputer to store vast amounts of information and our customers derive piece of mind from the knowledge that they won't lose their data, even if their computer breaks or is stolen. Hosting data in Google's cloud makes sharing and collaborating super easy, since information isn't chained to a single device. And users only have to worry about one program to run - the browser - no need to install and maintain a bunch of applications.

Designing web applications is a difficult problem for a number of reasons. As I mentioned before, the foundation technologies were never really designed for the complex tasks we're asking them to do. Also, the Web as a medium is highly variable and customizable. Web applications must function on a variety of browsers running on a variety of operating systems and displayed within a variety of browser window sizes. There is also the matter of bandwidth and connectivity.

Q: What can you share with us on the future enhancements planned for Google Apps? What's next on the roadmap?

A: We'll soon be adding presentation software to our suite of services and email migration for our Premier and Education Edition customers will be available soon. As always, we are continually innovating and improving our applications.

Thanks, Jon! This has been great. We look forward to more cool stuff from Google Apps.

82% of Experts Say Web Analytics Misunderstood

According to a survey of over 1000 web analytics professionals, consultants and end-users:
- 82% said web analytics was largely misunderstood within their organisations
- 56% found web analytics difficult

Most respondents had at least two years of experience with the relevant technologies and approximately 25% had over five years experience.

The survey was conducted by Web measurement guru Eric T. Peterson and Jim Sterne, co-founder and chairman of the Web Analytics Association.

According to Mr. Peterson only 8 percent of companies worldwide are taking a process-oriented approach towards web analytics. "In my experience, process is the key to both success and achieving positive and recurring return on investment from web analytics technology and staff", he said.

Mr. Peterson will be the opening speaker on web analytics at the up coming Searchnomics conference, Brett Crosby from Google and Avinash Kaushik and John Squire from Coremetrics will also be speaking at Searchnomics.

E-Commerce Sites Dominate Paid Search Advertising

comScore, today released a study on the relationship between paid search marketing and retail e-commerce as of March 2007. The study revealed that e-commerce sites are the most frequent users of search engine marketing, with each of the top ten search engine marketers being either retail or comparison shopping sites. In March, nearly 20 billion sponsored links were served to U.S. Internet users from the top search engines, with eBay.com leading the charge as the top search engine marketer with 802 million (4.1 percent) of sponsored link exposures, followed by Smarter.com with 366 million (1.9 percent), and Shopping.com with 357 million (1.8 percent).

According to James Lamberti, senior vice president of comScore Search Solutions, all of the top ten sites generating sponsored links are retail or comparison shopping sites and account for about one out of every six sponsored links served to U.S. Internet users.

Top Sites Generating Search Engine Sponsored Link Exposures

Total Internet	Sponsored Links (000)	Share %
eBay.com	801,744	4.1%
Smarter.com	365,766	1.9%
Shopping.com	357,012	1.8%
Bizrate.com	297,649	1.5%
Dealtime.com	283,574	1.4%
Shopzilla.com	245,398	1.2%
Target.com	202,482	1.0%
Nextag.com	163,220	0.8%
Shop.com	123,009	0.6%

Source: comScore qSearch, Share of Voice Report (March 2007)

Search Conferences

Some of you might find this listing of search conferences useful. It is a listing of the conferences Google Webmaster Team will be speaking at. Searchnomic is on the list. Shashi Thakur will be speaking on Search Engine Friendly Design and Greg Grothaus will be speaking on Search & Dynamic Web Sites and SEO for Web 2.0.