Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Yahoo search rumors

John Battelle throws out some teasers about Yahoo's new search products:
    They want to grok RSS, blogs, mobile, desktop search - and beyond ... I have to admit the things he spoke of and showed me, much of which unfortunately I can't report on yet, were pretty damn cool. Suffice to say Yahoo is continuing and strengthening its approach of driving search results based on intent of the user, and in particular discerning what the "task" is the user is attempting to do, then helping complete that task.
So, Yahoo has been blabbing about RSS, desktop search, and personalized search for a while. Nothing new there. But I was surprised to see the seasoned John Battelle say that he saw new products that hit his "pretty damn cool" level. Particularly in personalization -- anything that attempts the difficult task of determining the "intent of the user" -- I wouldn't have expected Yahoo to execute quickly. Curious to see what they have under wraps.

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