Sleepless in Seattle: I'm now a Search Champ, or "SearchChimp"- Chris renamed us - a search advisory group set up by Microsoft. Too much too tell, too restrictive an NDA to say anything much.
Hats off to Microsoft - it was a great few days, and we were wined, dined and given bags of free stuff. Can I be bought? Of course! - although it should be noted I can be bought a lot faster with a pint of Stella! Seriously though, MS are making the effort to reach out to the web community and appear to be listening. Nice one. Where's the invite Yahoo & Google? ;)
Highlights: Too many. Meeting ClueTrain co-author Dave Weinberger. Hearing from Microsoft Research (excellent summary from Dave on that session ). Trying to find a Stella in Seattle with Greg Boser. (we succeeded - thanks Britta & Brenda for humouring us). MS have promised us the inside line on press releases, so I'll report more when appropriate. There's a few more reviews here , here and here. Downside: The jetlag endured from flying around the planet twice in quick succession.
I'm home now. Sleep.......
Web 2.0: Apparently search is the next big thing. And the current big thing. Round-up from the Web 2.0 conference (tip: Danny Sullivan's blog , more coverage of Search at Web 2.0 here). Andy Beal also provides a good roundup. Yahoo's Yang looks back at an amazing ride.
SMS: Google goes into the txt search business.
Print: ....and the print business.
Links: Mike Grehan on linking structures and how the rich get richer. Mike also has a few words to say about the SEM reputation problem.
Microserf: I'm sitting in a meeting at the Microsoft campus listening to the very interesting Eric Brill from the MS research team. He's talking about language and how Microsoft approaches text handling. I thought it would be cool to post whilst in a meeting at Microsoft, if only for the bragging rights. I'm also skirting round the NDA, however we're assured we can mention the term "personalised search". Fascinating stuff. Eric's been talking about noisy channels. Lili Cheng is talking about social computing. I've been talking spam techniques with Greg Boser. Kidding.
Seattle: Is where I am, although the NDA probably forbids me from saying much more about MSN Search Champs. Actually, I'm not even sure I'm allowed to say that. I'm pretty sure I can say Seattle has a great fish market. How informative, I hear you say. But wait, there's more! My room has a gold fish in it! I've named it "Gates".
I'll stop now.
Clusty: Appropriately named clustering search engine.
Way too much: Hey hey, back in NZ after a great time in the UK. There's been too much going on in the search world in my absence, and I dare say you know all about it already, so I won't bother blogging it. Apart from this: SEMPO Tahoe. Laughed my head off.
SearchChamps: I've been invited to Redmond as part of the Microsoft SearchChamps focus group. Should be rather interesting although given the NDA, I'm not sure how much I can blog about it. Will do my best, be back in another week. Thought I'd seen the last of planes for a while...
Webmasters in the Sun: Shak writes to say "Word coming through that The Pirates of the Mediterranean are starting to return home after a few days at www.webmastersinthesun.com
(Marbella, Spain) The event saw about 50 of the worlds leading SEOs gather for a NO holds barred meeting to discuss strategies on how to have fun with the Search Engines whilst making lots of money. The sun shined, the booze flowed and the women were naked, what more could an SEO want, and there wasn't a corporate attendee in sight. Plans already in place for next year which may involve a luxury yacht in the Mediterranean...". Working hard then are we chaps? ;)
See you next Thursday....
