WebProNews

Tag: Shashi Seth

  • Yahoo Patents May Cover Google Instant

    No one’s launched a product or sent in the lawyers just yet, but it looks like Yahoo is on Google’s tail in terms of instant search and might trip up its rival with a legal objection.  Shashi Seth, Senior Vice President of Yahoo Search Products, has indicated that Google Instant infringes on perhaps five patents Yahoo holds.

    Let’s start with the legal issue.  Cade Metz recently interviewed Seth and reported this afternoon, "Seth reiterated that Yahoo! had introduced a Google Instant-like service five years before its rival, and he said that Yahoo! owns ‘about five . . . broad’ patents that cover Google’s technology."

    Yahoo could use those patents to seek an injunction or pursue a settlement, although the company hasn’t committed to that course of action.

    YahooAs for what sort of instant search product it’s developing, Metz wrote, "Yahoo! is working on a system that will better predict what netizens are searching for – without continuously updating search results . . . .  If Yahoo! determines that you’re looking for Martin Luther King’s birthday . . . it should simply show you his birthday – not an entire search result page filled mostly with information you’re not interested in."

    That sounds like a smart approach.  Unfortunately, a release date wasn’t discussed.

    We’ll of course be sure to report if Yahoo files any lawsuits or updates its search engine in a significant way.

  • Yahoo Fights For “Search Engine” Label

    Yahoo’s search results may now be accompanied by a "Powered by Bing" tagline, but the company remains adamant that it hasn’t exited the search race.  Shashi Seth, SVP of Yahoo Search Products, protested the idea in a recent blog post.

    The title of the post was "Yahoo! Search will always be a Search Engine," and Seth started out with a weak analogy involving planes.  He wrote, "Take a look at Boeing or Airbus aircrafts.  They outsource their engines to Rolls Royce, United Technologies, and GE.  But, does that mean that Boeing and Airbus are no longer airline manufacturers?"

    It’s all too easy to answer that most people can recognize the difference between an engine and an entire plane, and that any in-depth discussion of a plane is sure to involve a separate mention of the engine’s maker.

    Still, Seth went on to provide some important facts.  "Yahoo! Search supplements Microsoft’s web Index with Yahoo!’s own content, content from third party relationships, and content from social networks like Twitter," he stated.  "We still maintain the technology, science, scale and infrastructure required to crawl, index and rank this data – and all in real-time (less than a second)."

    YahooSeth hinted that fresh advances are on the way, as well.

    And wherever you fall on this issue, it’s important to note that Yahoo’s shareholders seem to have accepted Seth’s arguments.  Yahoo’s stock is up 0.72 percent at the moment, even as Google, Microsoft, the Dow, and the Nasdaq are all down.