Loss of innocence ?

As a loyal Google user and admirer, this blog post by Mark Cuban makes me a cringe. Writing about the details of Google-Youtube deal, Mark Cuban quotes some anonymous sources

> The first request was a simple one and that was an agreement to look
> the other way for the next 6 months or so while copyright infringement
> continues to flourish.
> The second request was to pile some lawsuits on competitors to slow
> them down and lock in Youtube's position. As Google looked at it they
> bought a 6 month exclusive on widespread video copyright infringement.
> Universal obliged and sued two capable Youtube clones Bolt and
> Grouper. This has several effects. First, it puts enormous pressure on
> all the other video sites to clamp down on the laissez-faire content
> posting that is prevalent. If Google is agreeing to remove
> unauthorized content they want the rest of the industry doing the same
> thing. Secondly it shuts off the flow of venture capital investments
> into video firms. Without capital these firms can't build the data
> centers and pay for the bandwidth required for these upside down
> businesses.

For me Google is still an upstart with a better product. Takes the market because of a superior product and by putting users ahead of anything else. Stifling competition, getting competitive advantage by evil means ? That's not the Google I admire and its not in Google's character to do something like this. I would need more than "unidentified sources" to be really convinced.

Custom Search Refinements

Mark Lucovsky and Vik Singh have been fantastic and quick in responding to issues/request with the Google Custom/Ajax search. When released, the customs search had a limitation, whereby one couldn't use the labels/refinements created on coop in AJAX search. It took them a few hours to roll this out

On Tuesday we announced our support for Custom Search Engines. We asked you for your input and many of you suggested that we add support for Custom Search Engine Refinements. This evening we launched support for Custom Search Engine Refinements in a way that complements what many of you are trying to build. We extended .setSiteRestriction() so that in addition to passing the Custom Search Engine Id, you can also pass a Custom Search Engine Refinement label. See the code snippet below:

var cseId = "017576662512468239146:omuauf_lfve";
searcher = new GwebSearch();
searcher.setSiteRestriction(cseId, "Lectures");

The problem I have seen with the custom search is, there is no way one can refine results from BlogSearch. Some of the features I would like to see

• The blogSearch control doesn't support setSiteRestriction. So the search returns results from all over the blogosphere, with a lot of irrelevant info.
• The AJAX search doesn't yet support code search. Sorely missed this while creating a custom search for Oracle Applications
  
• Next/Previous links on search custom search pages, without the need to going back to google home. Right now, you can only show 8 results on the page, but would really like to have navigation to all the results.
• Documentation, not very good and is tough to get started.
  

Google Custom Search engine

Well this is something that I could really use. Searching for Oracle Application related information mostly landed me in "spam websites". So I ended up using site: parameter for narrowing down the search results. With the launch of "Custom Search Engine", my job is made simple. There are only a few decent websites/forums which have usable information. But these forums/website have archaic search features. For example forums.oracle.com takes ages to load and brings a lot of irrelevant results. Using Google search for searching relevant information, while turning of the noise from splogs/spams would save me a lot of time. It took me five minutes to come up with my own Oracle Applications Search engine . Sweet.

Infosys blog says Indian talent entering the realm of unprofessionalism

The official Infosys blog has interesting insight into the challenges faced by companies like Infosys in the hunt for quality talent. Writing on the blog, Richa Govil narrates that she encountered "unprofessional behavior" and candidates lacking in "soft skills"

In fact I have encountered some of the most unprofessional behavior in my own search for talent. Engineering and sciences being the most sought after careers in India means that the softer skills are harder to find. And that means that the balance of power is definitely on the side of the worker. And it can lead to some unbelievable outcomes.

Defending her point of view, in a follow up post Richa says candidates are

However, none of this negates the fact that employees are now hitting back, collectively as it were. No longer loyal, willing to switch at the “drop of a hat”, and unwilling to keep commitments, talent has now firmly entered the realm of unprofessionalism. I have had multiple cases where after accepting an offer in writing, prospective employees have not informed the company that they will not be joining after all. These days you can be sure that you have actually filled an open position only when the employee shows up on Day 1

I think, these words are directed towards Infosys employees rather than the talent in the market, since I don't think Infosys will be really bothered if the talent is ready to switch at the "drop of a hat", if only to join them.

I don't get the purpose of this blog. From the title and previous posts, one would assume that this blog is related to "global outsourcing" and is focussed towards customers/clients trying to leverage this advantage. If I were a customer, these blog entries would really put me in a spot of bother. Infosys has to decide what is purpose of the blog, rather than put the outpourings of a frustrated HR online. I don't think Infosys gets this whole blogging thing and they need to rethink their blog or end up in a fiasco. Ask walmart.

Audio Search, apple style

Here is a practical use of audio search. Google Text box is so ubiquitous with search, we tend to ignore audio, video or image search. This article points to a Apple patent for a device that lets you search for likeness to a tune heard on radio or other sources.

It's an ingenious method of grabbing snippets of audio, identifying the song and allowing the user the option to purchase that song.

Search today is limited to "text input", but thats really a small percentage of "data out there". One should be able to search for audio, video or images by inputting them to search engine. The challenge is to get that data to be inputted to the search engine. Here is where mobile phones and iPod come in handy, for capturing video/audio/image inputs to be used by search engines as a reference for search. This is one search market ( when ever it emerges) , which Google will be challenged to cater to.