On his brand new Sysinternals blog, Mark Russinovich tackles deficiencies in the Google Desktop search engine. Mark points out that the Google desktop only indexes up to the first 10 pages of a document.

While I'm sure that there is some very sound logic, somewhere, that shows that if information that is relevant to a query and therefore needing to be indexed is not in the first 10 pages of an indexed document, than it isn't relevant after all and therefore shouldn't be indexed. However, I have to disagree with this. I write technical documents all the time that have key pieces of information contained deep within, often 30 to 40 pages in. With this tool, these hits would be missed and information lost.

I'm interested in finding out the results from the rest of his tests with the other engines.  At the very least Google should have a deep indexing feature, for the real geek in us that just wants ever last piece of info they can get.

Stay tuned for more from Mark.  Even if you don't care about this particular issue, I suggest you make a note of Mark's blog. This blog will be a treasure trove of interesting and insightful information.

Although a bit speculative, John Rhodes puts together an argument for why Google will dominate the music search space.  John starts by providing a brief overview of the enabling technologies / barriers to entry (my words) that he believe will be critical to the success of music search online. Among the technologies he lists are BitTorrent, RSS, Audio Blogs (as demonstrated on NPR), Podcasting and Speech-to-Text conversion.

Assuming the technology described above works, and it does, then Google is in a position to control audio search on the internet. To succeed, they only need to get between the files and the people who want the files. Once they index audio files and once they parse audio files, the game is over. No other search engine will be able to compete with them. They have the money, technology, and (unbelievable) brainpower to stay ahead for a long time.

While I agree that it's likely that Google will make a play here, I think that there are still some sensitive areas to be worked out with regard to DRM and other such hairy issues.  Clearly there is a large opportunity here, but the barriers to entry are rather large.  However, if anyone can move mountains, it's liklely to be Google…or Microsoft???? ;)

Google responds, on their blog, to the criticism they have received due to the omission of banned news sources in the PRC.  I though that this was worth mentioning, particularly due to the last line in the second paragraph (emphasis mine) as it reveals to a significant degree, what this is really about.  As I see it, this pretty much makes google a spin machine for the government of the PRC.  Thoughts?

Google is committed to providing easy access to as much information as possible. For Internet users in China, Google remains the only major search engine that does not censor any web pages. However, it's clear that search results deemed to be sensitive for political or other reasons are inaccessible within China. There is nothing Google can do about this.

For last week's launch of the Chinese-language edition of Google News, we had to decide whether sources that cannot be viewed in China should be included for Google News users inside the PRC. Naturally, we want to present as broad a range of news sources as possible. For every edition of Google News, in every language, we attempt to select news sources without regard to political viewpoint or ideology. For Internet users in China, we had to consider the fact that some sources are entirely blocked. Leaving aside the politics, that presents us with a serious user experience problem. Google News does not show news stories, but rather links to news stories. So links to stories published by blocked news sources would not work for users inside the PRC — if they clicked on a headline from a blocked source, they would get an error page. It is possible that there would be some small user value to just seeing the headlines. However, simply showing these headlines would likely result in Google News being blocked altogether in China.

We also considered the amount of information that would be omitted. In this case it is less than two percent of Chinese news sources. On balance we believe that having a service with links that work and omits a fractional number is better than having a service that is not available at all. It was a difficult tradeoff for us to make, but the one we felt ultimately serves the best interests of our users located in China. We appreciate your feedback on this issue.

Wow…looks like the PRC has reached all the way out to California and touched our friends over at Google.  Unfortunately in what sounds a bit like double talk, Debbie Host a google spokeswoman claims that..

"Google has decided that in order to create the best possible search experience for our mainland China users we will not include sites whose content is not accessible,"

Best possible search experience?!?!?!  What the hell is she talking about?  Oh…so because computers would be blocked from actually seeing the banned web sites, this serves the peoples best interests?  Come on Google…GET WITH THE PROGRAM.  You could have *tried* to spin it a bit better than that.

Only a "tiny fraction" of Web sites are being excluded by the Chinese news service, Frost said. Xia said his tests indicated Google is excluding Chinese results from at least eight sites, including www.epochtimes.com and www.voanews.com.

Go on Google…go on believing that you are working in the best interests of the people if that's what helps you sleep as night.

J.D. Lassica has an excellent article on the Google News search algorithms and how they appear to be a bit shy of unbiased in many cases.  J.D. goes on to wonder how this could be, it is after all a computer…isn't it? 

Despite those predictable flaws, it's been puzzling to read Google News' takes on John Kerry and George W. Bush over the past month. On Aug. 24, for example, users who clicked on the "John Kerry" link under Google News' In the News heading were treated on the first page of 100 search results to these headlines, among others:

Although the names haven't been revealed, it looks like Google has poached some of the best brains at Microsoft. 

Half a dozen of the brightest minds in tech, working at Microsoft Corp. (MSFT, Trade) and other companies, have been hired in recent weeks by Google Inc.(GOOG, Trade). They include a programmer who helped develop the user interface for the next version of Windows and a quartet of people who worked on Microsoft's Web browser.

Some analysts, including Gary Stein of Jupiter Research, told the New York Post, "Google is a magnetic pull for smart technology people" and could be developing its own Web browser. "This is all about putting smart kids in a Google sandbox," he added. Stein said he expects Google to launch a product that searches for online music.

After the ridiculous suit brought by Geico (blogged here by Brad) has been given the green light, it looks like Google has gotten a bit pissy and decided to take it out on someone.  It turns out that they picked a few parody sites such as this one.

I can see why they would do this, but it's a bit absurd and one can only imagine what sort of jurisdiction their legal threats will have, but I digress.  In any event, there's a good discussion goign on at Channel 9 about the matter.

Sorry for that little pun in the title…I just couldn't resist.  I caught this one on Boston.com today.

An ebullient Steve Ballmer, president and chief executive of Microsoft Corp., said yesterday that his company is "hell-bent and determined" to challenge Google Inc. for leadership in the Internet search business.

"It'll be a lot of fun for the rest of you to watch," Ballmer shouted to the delight of several hundred guests at a meeting of the Massachusetts Software Council in Boston.

I'm with Ballmer…for better or for worse this is going to be fun to watch.  One giant going after another.  The funny thing is that it seems like Yahoo has all but become irrelevant in this game.  That said, I have loads of faith in the folks at Yahoo…they'll figure it out.  If you consider that search is the next frontier waiting to be fully developed than having Microsoft, Google and Yahoo battle it can only lead to new innovations and value add services. 

Meanwhile, Ballmer left no doubt that Microsoft has targeted Internet search services for the kind of all-out competitive push that the company once used to seize dominance in Web browser software. Despite Google's popularity, "the search market is still quite fragmented," Ballmer said, and existing tools still generate lots of useless results. Ballmer said Microsoft plans to invent new search technology that will change this, and make life more difficult for Google and other rivals

Unless….unless Microsoft's vision for better, faster and more accurate search assimilates us further into Microsoft technologies… and who better to defragment the "fragmented" search market but Microsoft.   Worst comes to worst Microsoft can just pony but a few billion bucks and buy Google.  Muuuuaahhhhahahahaha!!!

Sorry for the play on words there folks, but I just couldn't resist the Copernicus reference even if the name of the company is Copernic.  Anyway, Copernic Desktop Search is the newest entrant in the desktop/inbox search space, going head to head with the recently acquired (by Microsoft) Lookout.  this is a space thats heating up as I'm sure that Goolge and Yahoo are going to want to play here as well.

That said, based on my initial experience with Copernic and my previous experience with Lookout, I have to say that Copernic is a much stronger and well rounded application then Lookout.  From it's desktop and e-mail search engine to its integrated WEB search engine (currently, searches are executed at www.alltheweb.com), Copernic seems to have a definite leg up on Lookout.

I came across this little broo ha ha (sp?) over at Blink.nu.  Seems as though people at Hotmail are not getting Gmail invites sent my friends or associates.  What's worse is that the senders of the invites are apparently not getting any indication that the invite was not properly delivered to the invitee. 

My guess is that undeliverable messages may get kicked back to GMail and disappear into their system, but that's only a theory.  Of course rumors will always abound that Microsoft is up to no good in lieu of the recent upgrades over volley between Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo.

In the meantime, I wonder how many of you over at Hotmail have run across the problem?  Please drop us a line.

And of course, not to be outdone, the gratuitous response from Hotmail.

Free Hotmail Service:
250meg storage + 10meg attachment limit
30 day expiry if no activity
Antivirus scan & clean

Hotmail Plus Service:
Annual fee (prize varies per country) expected to be $19.99
2gig of storage + 20meg attachment limit
No expire date
No unneeded graphics or ads
Access to pop3 settings
Antivirus scan & clean

MSN Premium subscribers are expected to get the same as the Hotmail Plus Service subscribers.

Just received this e-mail from Yahoo Mail this morning.  As a Yahoo Mail Plus subscriber ($19.95 per year) I am being offered the following upgrades at no additional cost as of June 15th. 

2GB of mail, No Adversitising and a new interface. WOWOWOWow!!! Take that, GMail.

Dear Yahoo! Mail Plus Subscriber,

Thanks for subscribing to Yahoo! Mail Plus. It's our goal to offer you an email experience that makes it easy to stay in touch and offers great value. Periodically, we make changes to enhance the service for our users. As of June 15, 2004, you'll enjoy the following benefits at no additional charge:

• Increase in your storage quota to 2GB

• No graphical ads

• A streamlined interface that's even easier to use

You will continue to access your Yahoo! Mail account as usual. No further action is required, and there will be no interruption of your service. At the end of your current billing cycle, unless you cancel before that date, your Mail Plus service will auto-renew at $19.99/year*. For more information, please click here.

Once I check out the upgraded services I'll report back and let you all know how it goes.

[Tip: ScottV also wrote in to make sure we were aware of the upgrade. Thanks, Scott!]

It seems that conspiracy theorists abound these days.  Take a look at this recent articule from Independant.co.uk .  In the article the writer suggest that Microsoft, by embedding search into the browser will minimize the visibility of Google and thereby squeeze one more competitor out of existence (a la Netscape).

Yahoo! has already cut loose, and Microsoft's next generation PC operating system, Longhorn, will have its own, proprietary search engine embedded in the software. So are we about to see a replay of Netscape?

Netscape's nemesis came after Microsoft included its own browser, Explorer, in its Windows operating system, thus making Netscape obsolescent. The threat to Google isn't as immediate, as take-up of Longhorn is likely to be slow and drawn out. Most people will muddle through with their old operating systems until they come to buy a new computer.  What's more, Google is not sitting idly by, waiting to be wiped out by Microsoft.

While on the surface this may seem like a very logical conclusion, when we look a little deeper, what do we find.  Well…we find that today, Microsoft has embedded MSN search into Word as well as Office XP and Internet Explorer.  But with one caveat.  IT CAN BE CHANGED.  EASILY.  With a few clicks, actually I counted, it took 3 clicks after you started the search applet to switch from MSN (the default) to one of 15 or more other services.  Among the service you can choose are: Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, AlltheWeb, Teoma, Excite, Overture, AOL Search and Lycos.  And guess what else…every single one is still in business.  Need I say more. 

Want to use Mamma.com?  Sure you can…it may take a few more clicks to add them to the default and configure it properly, but it can be done.  More importantly though…it can be done much more easily than it was to remove IE from Windows XX.  While things may or may not be as easy in Longhorn remains to be seen.  However, since Longhorn isn't slate for release until 2006 these days, I think Google has some time to think about it and I'm sure that they're not worried a bit.

Who knew that people would actually pay to give up most of their privacy for 1GB of e-mail and some fast search.  This listing on E-Bay brings new meaning to the phrase, "There's a sucker born every minute." 

Whether is was P.T. Barnum who said it or not...god knows it's true.  Case in point.

For those of you who follow the Spam and Google blogs on Weblogs Inc., you may have noticed the post by Anne called Testing Google GMail.  You may have also noticed the glut of comments to the post begging Anne for an invite to GMail.  While I don't think she has relented, just for a goof I had a look through the comments today.

Amongst the usual..err…what has become the usual..begging, was this post that made me laugh.  It's from someone claiming to be the president of Sterling Capital Management.  I'm not sure why, but I just got a good laugh out of it…maybe it was the CAPS.

PLEASE SEND ME A GMAIL INVITATION AND GIVE ME A SIGN-UP CAPABILITY AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. I AM A VERY BUSY PRESIDENT AND CEO OF AN INSURANCE AND FINANCIAL SERVICES COMPANY, STERLING CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, LLC, THAT I OWN AND SEND AND RECEIVE A LARGE NUMBER OF EMAILS WEEKLY. I DO NOT SPAM NOR DO I EVER SUPPORT SPAM. I WOULD BE ABLE TO PROVIDE YOU WITH A WIDE RANGE OF TEST RESULTS. I NEED A RELIABLE, TRUSTWORTHY COMPANY WITH HIGH INTEGRITY, VISION, HIGH QUALITY AND HIGH SERVICE. I NEED GOOGLE!!! PLEASE SEND ME A LINK ASAP! I AM READY TO SIGNUP AND BEGIN GIVING YOU FEEDBACK AND TEST INPUT FOR YOUR USE. I AM COMPLETELY FRUSTRATED WITH AOL AND YAHOO BECAUSE OF THEIR POOR SERVICE, LIMITED CAPACITY, HIGH COSTS, VERY HIGH LEVEL OF VIRUS AND SPAM EMAILS RECEIVED THROUGH THEIR HOST SYSTEM, AND LOW FUNCTIONS THAT ARE NEEDED BY THE BUSINESS OWNER. THANK YOU.