

Yahoo Wants to Blind the Competition With Science - bootload
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/08/yahoo-science/

======
sdh
hacking != science

Yahoo needs to compete on product, not algorithms.

Yahoo Mail did nothing while Gmail made continuous progress towards a great
product and earned market share.

Yahoo did nothing while Twitter grew into a monster. Yahoo could have crushed
Twitter if they had simply adapted or expanded YIM while Twitter's servers
were flailing.

Advertising is the one area Yahoo has retained some leadership (rightmedia),
but they aren't blinding the competition with that science.

Yahoo needs creativity. It needs product vision. It needs to stop resting on
prior accomplishments and start building if it wants to recapture the
attention of consumers.

Science should be a supporting character to creativity.

------
wooster
For those who were confused (as I was), Prabhakar Raghavan wasn't the one who
recently died, it was his co-author in Randomized Algorithms, Rajeev Motwani.

BTW, I highly recommend their book. In it is all the evidence of the genesis
of Google.

------
superk
Whenever I hear "pure science" I think of this:

<http://www.vonnegutweb.com/catscradle/cats_nytimes.html>

------
adulau
From the article : "But what problems are left to be solved?"

To ensure that Web companies (like Yahoo!) are keeping their API open,
accessible and active.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1611718>

------
gcb
That's some prompt paid advertisement to reply to PG.

I hope they take it seriously though.

~~~
JoachimSchipper
I see no reason to believe it's paid - do you?

