[Search-l] CNET: Treading on Google's turf

[Seth Finkelstein]

[Disclaimer: Forwarded for interest]

http://news.com.com/Dancing+with+Jimmy+Wales+in+Second+Life+-+page+2/2008-1025_3-6183541-2.html

Newsmaker: Dancing with Jimmy Wales in 'Second Life'

Published: May 14, 2007, 9:54 AM PDT

  ...

Let's talk about the search project. You said it has gotten more
attention than its progress merits. How do you mean?

Wales: The key is that if people are thinking in terms of
"crowdsourcing" -- a vile concept -- they will misunderstand why
people are doing this stuff. So on the search project, we just
announced the hire of Jeremie Miller, the founder of Jabber. And we
are actively discussing how to go about it.

But because it is me, there was already a magazine cover calling it
"Google's Worst Nightmare." That was nice. My mom bought 10
copies. But it was a little much.

You're saying it is too early for such declarations? Or is it not even
appropriate to draw comparisons?

Wales: Sure. Google can sleep well at night for the time being. I
think it can be fine to draw the comparison. We are trying to build a
full open-source search engine of high quality. If that works, then
Google will have a lot of competitors in search. But if they dominate
the ad business and treat those competitors as partners for ad sales,
then we will look back on the days when we thought Google was a search
engine instead of the central ad marketplace of the planet and chuckle.

 ...

--
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  http://sethf.com/
Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/
Interview: http://sethf.com/essays/major/greplaw-interview.php