Yahoo Dropped the ball on Google Instant in 2005
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Yahoo Dropped the ball on Google Instant in 2005
1–10 of 26 posts
Re: Yahoo Dropped the ball on Google Instant in 2005
#2Two points:
1. their UI was worse. If you don't do something like this right, it can be worse than doing nothing at all.
2. this depends largely on the correctness of the predictions. I assume Yahoo's predictions weren't half as good either.
But still cool, yes.
Re: Yahoo Dropped the ball on Google Instant in 2005
#3Written by my lead PM from Delicious.
Re: Yahoo Dropped the ball on Google Instant in 2005
#4Two points: 1. their UI was worse. If you don't do something like this right, it can be worse than doing nothing at all. 2. this depends largely on the correctness of the predictions. I assume Yahoo's predictions weren't half as good either. But still cool, yes.
Yup. Google did a lot of eye tracking studies to get the timing & UI right.
But it means that if Yahoo invested in it, they might have had a shot at getting it right.
Re: Yahoo Dropped the ball on Google Instant in 2005
#5Written by my lead PM from Delicious.
I thought it was really cool that he did it 5 years ago.
Re: Yahoo Dropped the ball on Google Instant in 2005
#6This was big news back then... for interface developers. Its popularity influenced a lot of further development (including spurring Google's AJAX Search API, I believe) and established it as a popular paradigm.
But I remember the version of it on Yahoo's then-beta search site, not this more extensive version on AllTheWeb. Here's an example: http://looksgoodworkswell.blogspot.com/2005/12/distracting-o...
I guess this was a more limited version of it, but it made a lot of sense to just pop up the most relevant result immediately.
Re: Yahoo Dropped the ball on Google Instant in 2005
#7Two points: 1. their UI was worse. If you don't do something like this right, it can be worse than doing nothing at all. 2. this depends largely on the correctness of the predictions. I assume Yahoo's predictions weren't half as good either. But still cool, yes.
1. Do you think in 5 years Yahoo might have been able to get it right?
2. The correctness of the predictions is actually a lot easier to do than you'd think. Yahoo's were pretty good.
Re: Yahoo Dropped the ball on Google Instant in 2005
#8This wasn't the only innovation in Search that Yahoo dropped the ball on. There were at least a handful of cool ideas implemented at the company, but there was a prevailing attitude of wanting to let Google be the innovator and simply follow in their footsteps (talk about insane).
Re: Yahoo Dropped the ball on Google Instant in 2005
#9As an ex-Yahoo!, this is exactly the sort of thing that cheesed me off while I was still working there.
Best memory: not being allowed to use javascript-enhanced sliding panels for pagination, as the reduction in full page refreshes when navigating would have negatively impacted the Ad Impression stats.
(That and the quarterly lay-offs. Good motivational tool, that one.)
Re: Yahoo Dropped the ball on Google Instant in 2005
#10At the risk of sounding like a troll, I think the title is unnecessarily specific: yahoo didn't just drop the ball on instant search, photo sharing, social bookmarking, x, or y, or z. They just dropped the ball. Period. As has been extensively documented, Yahoo is a tech company that has never wanted to be a tech company.
Given a few more years, I'm sure they'll get their wish when they cease to be a company altogether.