Udi Manber, Google's VP of Engineering, gave a brief 15 minute presentation at Supernova today entitled Search is a Hard Problem. He explained that with an audience like Supernova, he imagines we understand to some extent how difficult a problem it is, but it's probably a harder problem then we even appreciate. He laid out three reasons why this is the case:
Scale and diversity are almost beyond comprehension
Expectations and needs will continue to grow
20 to 25% of the queries we see today, we have never seen before
I found the third point quite amazing. I would think with the number of queries that Google processes, they would have seen a much higher percentage of the queries before.
A Deeper Understanding
Next Udi explained that there are three levels involved in trying to deliver relevant information back to users:
Users and Queries
Models
Languages
Users and Queries
Udi gave some examples of Google's ability to understand the different between two very similar queries. For example, Google understands that 'GM' stands for 'General Motors', while 'GM foods' is actually 'genetically modified.' If you search for 'B&B AB', Google knows that is 'bed and breakfast in Alberta', while 'Ramstein AB' is 'Ramstein Airbase'.
Google also will recommend queries that may deliver better results. For example, if you query 'Types of dogs' it will give results, but also suggests 'breeds of dogs' as a better search.
He then explained that they still can't find all the answers. As a fun example, he said the query "Why Search is Hard" is actually a very difficult query for Google to parse.
Models
Next Udi reviewed some new Google search functionality, which while not live yet - will be soon. Apparently, Google is going to start trying additional queries based on certain user queries. For example, the query "How much does it cost for an exhaust system" will pull up results from "cost of an exhaust system." Beyond just removing certain general words, they are also interpreting the question as part of the model; for example the following two queries:
'overhead view of bellagio pool' to 'bellagio pool pictures'
'fedora 5 losing network connections' to 'fedora 5 network configuration'
Different Queries for Different Locations
Finally, Udi talked about how results need to be different when the query is conducted in different locations. For example, the query 'government' needs to return results about your countries' government. I haven't tried this in other countries, but here in San Francisco the first result is for the US Government.
He also reviewed a tool at Google.com.eg, which actually takes a query in another language, translates it to english, runs the query, and then returns the results in that language. You can actually view the page in that language. There are a whole suite of language tools Google seems to be leveraging at: http://www.google.com/language_tools
I'm surprised there aren't more copyright issues here, but I'm not a lawyer. Apparently, when Udi was demoing this for Larry Page, he asked why the images weren't translating. Obviously, there is still work to be done, but it is quite amazing.
Source: Readwriteweb.com
Search is a Hard Problem: Google
June 30, 2007, 7:41 amGoogle To Acquire GrandCentral
June 30, 2007, 7:17 am
Google is in acquisition discussions with telephone management startup GrandCentral, we’ve learned, and we have a high degree of confidence that the deal has actually been closed. We are trying to nail down the acquisition price. Just last week I flagged this company as the most exciting startup we’re currently tracking.
The basic idea around GrandCentral is “one phone number for all your phones, for life.” As we change jobs, homes and cell phones, there are a lot of phone numbers to keep track of, and keeping everyone up to date with your most recent phone numbers is a real cost. If you use GrandCentral you can give out a single phone number. What happens when that person calls that number depends on his/her relationship to you, and what you are doing at the time.
The company, which has raised less than $6 million in capital from Minor Ventures (the exact amount has never been disclosed), beta launched just last September. Earlier this year mainstream press and blogger attention heated up.
The company may have received too much press attention before the product was ready, and we reported on some backlash from beta users abandoning the service in March. Still, the company pushed ahead, launching a mobile product and other features.
GrandCentral was recently pitching a second round of financing to Silicon Valley venture capitalists, but broke off discussions abruptly as the Google talks heated up.
I’m speculating on where Google will use GrandCentral, but the synergies with Gmail and GTalk are fairly obvious and could be the next step in Google’s competition with Skype and other instant messaging platforms.
This is, in my opinion, a great move by Google. Grand Central is an awesome productivity and simplifies the lives of users with multiple phones by giving them a single phone number and letting them handle calls via rules. It’s a natural fit with GTalk and Gmail.
Source: Techcrunch.com
The basic idea around GrandCentral is “one phone number for all your phones, for life.” As we change jobs, homes and cell phones, there are a lot of phone numbers to keep track of, and keeping everyone up to date with your most recent phone numbers is a real cost. If you use GrandCentral you can give out a single phone number. What happens when that person calls that number depends on his/her relationship to you, and what you are doing at the time.
The company, which has raised less than $6 million in capital from Minor Ventures (the exact amount has never been disclosed), beta launched just last September. Earlier this year mainstream press and blogger attention heated up.
The company may have received too much press attention before the product was ready, and we reported on some backlash from beta users abandoning the service in March. Still, the company pushed ahead, launching a mobile product and other features.
GrandCentral was recently pitching a second round of financing to Silicon Valley venture capitalists, but broke off discussions abruptly as the Google talks heated up.
I’m speculating on where Google will use GrandCentral, but the synergies with Gmail and GTalk are fairly obvious and could be the next step in Google’s competition with Skype and other instant messaging platforms.
This is, in my opinion, a great move by Google. Grand Central is an awesome productivity and simplifies the lives of users with multiple phones by giving them a single phone number and letting them handle calls via rules. It’s a natural fit with GTalk and Gmail.
Source: Techcrunch.com
Search Engines: A Dangerous side
June 29, 2007, 6:31 pm
Be careful what you search for, you may end up at a risky site loaded with adware or spyware, according to researchers at McAfee.
Searches for peer-to-peer file sharing clients and digital music on major search engines have a good chance of delivering you to a questionable Web site serving up spyware, adware, and spam instead of the latest from Coldplay, according to a study released today by McAfee called "The State of Search Engine Safety"(http://www.siteadvisor.com/studies/search_safety_may2007).
The study conducted by McAfee's SiteAdvisor division revealed search categories such as "digital music", "tech toys", and "to do online" produced between 35 to 50 per cent "risky" sites on average when using search engines owned by Google, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL.
Overall, 4 per cent of all search results link to risky Web sites. The good news is search engines have gotten safer compared to data from last year when McAfee found 5 per cent of sites linked to questionable Web sites.
According to the results of the study, the top four most dangerous searches on Google are:
1. bearshare: yielding 46 per cent "dangerous" links
2. limewire: yielding 37 per cent "dangerous" links
3. Kazaa: yielding 35 per cent "dangerous" links
4. winmx: yielding 32 per cent "dangerous" links
The study defined dangerous sites as those that have one or a combination of the following characteristics: its downloads contain spyware and/or adware; its pages contain embedded code that performs browser exploits; the content is meant to deceive visitors in some way; it sends out inordinate amounts of spam to e-mail accounts registered at the site.
McAfee's SiteAdvisor browser toolbar identifies risky sites by flagging them (should you visit one) with a "red" warning or a "yellow" cautionary label that appears in your browser. You can download a free version of the McAfee SiteAdvisor toolbar here.
Also at risk are sponsored ads which show up alongside search results. According to the study, these links have even a greater chance of linking to risky sites. McAfee says 7 per cent of such link to suspect sites (down from 8.5 per cent in 2006).
For its part, Google has made efforts to remove risky ads from its Google Sponsored Links.
Source: pcworld.idg.com.au
Searches for peer-to-peer file sharing clients and digital music on major search engines have a good chance of delivering you to a questionable Web site serving up spyware, adware, and spam instead of the latest from Coldplay, according to a study released today by McAfee called "The State of Search Engine Safety"(http://www.siteadvisor.com/studies/search_safety_may2007).
The study conducted by McAfee's SiteAdvisor division revealed search categories such as "digital music", "tech toys", and "to do online" produced between 35 to 50 per cent "risky" sites on average when using search engines owned by Google, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL.
Overall, 4 per cent of all search results link to risky Web sites. The good news is search engines have gotten safer compared to data from last year when McAfee found 5 per cent of sites linked to questionable Web sites.
According to the results of the study, the top four most dangerous searches on Google are:
1. bearshare: yielding 46 per cent "dangerous" links
2. limewire: yielding 37 per cent "dangerous" links
3. Kazaa: yielding 35 per cent "dangerous" links
4. winmx: yielding 32 per cent "dangerous" links
The study defined dangerous sites as those that have one or a combination of the following characteristics: its downloads contain spyware and/or adware; its pages contain embedded code that performs browser exploits; the content is meant to deceive visitors in some way; it sends out inordinate amounts of spam to e-mail accounts registered at the site.
McAfee's SiteAdvisor browser toolbar identifies risky sites by flagging them (should you visit one) with a "red" warning or a "yellow" cautionary label that appears in your browser. You can download a free version of the McAfee SiteAdvisor toolbar here.
Also at risk are sponsored ads which show up alongside search results. According to the study, these links have even a greater chance of linking to risky sites. McAfee says 7 per cent of such link to suspect sites (down from 8.5 per cent in 2006).
For its part, Google has made efforts to remove risky ads from its Google Sponsored Links.
Source: pcworld.idg.com.au
Online Sales Lose Steam
June 29, 2007, 6:25 pm
Has online retailing entered the Dot Calm era?
Since the inception of the Web, online commerce has enjoyed hypergrowth, with annual sales increasing more than 25 percent over all, and far more rapidly in many categories. But in the last year, growth has slowed sharply in major sectors like books, tickets and office supplies. Growth in online sales has also dropped dramatically in diverse categories like health and beauty products, computer peripherals and pet supplies. Analysts say it is a turning point and growth will continue to slow through the decade.
The reaction to the trend is apparent at Dell, which many had regarded as having mastered the science of selling computers online, but is now putting its PCs in Wal-Mart stores. Expedia has almost tripled the number of travel ticketing kiosks it puts in hotel lobbies and other places that attract tourists.
The slowdown is a result of several forces. Sales on the Internet are expected to reach $116 billion this year, or 5 percent of all retail sales, making it harder to maintain the same high growth rates. At the same time, consumers seem to be experiencing Internet fatigue and are changing their buying habits.
John Johnson, 53, who sells medical products to drug stores and lives in San Francisco, finds that retailers have livened up their stores to be more alluring. "They're working a lot harder," he said as he shopped at Book Passage in downtown San Francisco. "They're not as stuffy. The lighting is better. You don't get someone behind the counter who’s been there 40 years. They’re younger and hipper and much more with it."
He and his wife, Liz Hauer, 51, a Macy's executive, also shop online, but mostly for gifts or items that need to be shipped. They said they found that the experience could be tedious at times. "Online, it's much more of a task," she said. Still, Internet commerce is growing at a pace that traditional merchants would envy. But online sales are not growing as fast as they were even 18 months ago.
Forrester Research, a market research company, projects that online book sales will rise 11 percent this year, compared with nearly 40 percent last year. Apparel sales, which increased 61 percent last year, are expected to slow to 21 percent. And sales of pet supplies are on pace to rise 30 percent this year after climbing 81 percent last year.
Growth rates for online sales are slowing down in numerous other segments as well, including appliances, sporting goods, auto parts, computer peripherals, and even music and videos. Forrester says that sales growth is pulling back in 18 of the 24 categories it measures. Jupiter Research, another market research firm, says the growth rate has peaked. It projects that overall online sales growth will slow to 9 percent a year by the end of the decade from as much as 25 percent in 2004.
Early financial results from e-commerce companies bear out the trend. EBay reported that revenue from Web site sales increased by just 1 percent in the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year. Bookings from Expedia’s North American Web sites rose by only 1 percent in the first quarter of this year. And Dell said that revenue in the Americas — United States, Canada and Latin America — for the three months ended May 4 was $8.9 billion, or nearly unchanged from the same period last year.
"There's a recognition that some customers like a more interactive experience," said Alex Gruzen, senior vice president for consumer products at Dell. "They like shopping and they want to go retail." The turning point comes as most adult Americans, and many of their children, are already shopping online. Analysts project that by 2011, online sales will account for nearly 7 percent of overall retail sales, though categories like computer hardware and software generate more than 40 percent of their sales on the Internet. There are other factors at work as well, including a push by companies like Apple, Starbucks and the big shopping malls to make the in-store experience more compelling.
Nancy F. Koehn, a professor at Harvard Business School who studies retailing and consumer habits, said that the leveling off of e-commerce reflected the practical and psychological limitations of shopping online. She said that as physical stores have made the in-person buying experience more pleasurable, online stores have continued to give shoppers a blasé experience. In addition, online shopping, because it involves a computer, feels like work.
“It’s not like you go onto Amazon and think: ‘I’m a little depressed. I’ll go onto this site and get transported,’ ” she said, noting that online shopping is more a chore than an escape.
But Ms. Koehn and others say that online shopping is running into practical problems, too. For one, Ms. Koehn noted, online sellers have been steadily raising their shipping fees to bolster profits or make up for their low prices.
In response, a so-called clicks-and-bricks hybrid model is emerging, said Dan Whaley, the founder of GetThere, which became one of the largest Internet travel businesses after it was acquired by Sabre Holdings.
The bookseller Borders, for example, recently revamped its Web site to allow users to reserve books online and pick them up in the store. Similar services were started by companies like Best Buy and Sears. Other retailers are working to follow suit.
"You don’t realize how powerful of a phenomenon this new strategy has become," Mr. Whaley said. “Nearly every big box retailer is opening it up." Barnes & Noble recently upgraded its site to include online book clubs, reader forums and interviews with authors. The company hopes the changes will make the online world feel more like the offline one, said Marie J. Toulantis, the chief executive of BarnesandNoble.com. “We emulate the in-store experience by having a book club online,” she said.
The retailers that have started in-store pickup programs, like Sears and REI, have found that customers who choose the hybrid model are more likely to buy additional products when they pick up their items, said Patti Freeman Evans, an analyst at Jupiter Research.
Consumers are generally not committed to one form of buying over the other. Maggie Hake, 21, a recent college graduate heading to Africa in the fall to join the Peace Corps, said that when she needs to buy something for her Macintosh computer, she prefers visiting a store. “I trust it more,” she said. “I want to be sure there’s a person there if something goes wrong.”
Ms. Hake, who lives in Kentfield, Calif., just north of San Francisco, does like shopping online for certain things, particularly shoes, which are hard to find in her size. "I've got big feet — size 12.5 in women’s,” she said. “I also buy textbooks online. They’re cheaper."
John Morgan, an economics professor from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, said he expected online commerce to continue to increase, partly because it remains less than 1 percent of the overall economy. “There’s still a lot of head room for people to grow,” he said.
Matt Richtel reported from San Francisco. Bob Tedeschi reported from Guilford, Conn.
Source: NYTimes.com
Since the inception of the Web, online commerce has enjoyed hypergrowth, with annual sales increasing more than 25 percent over all, and far more rapidly in many categories. But in the last year, growth has slowed sharply in major sectors like books, tickets and office supplies. Growth in online sales has also dropped dramatically in diverse categories like health and beauty products, computer peripherals and pet supplies. Analysts say it is a turning point and growth will continue to slow through the decade.
The reaction to the trend is apparent at Dell, which many had regarded as having mastered the science of selling computers online, but is now putting its PCs in Wal-Mart stores. Expedia has almost tripled the number of travel ticketing kiosks it puts in hotel lobbies and other places that attract tourists.
The slowdown is a result of several forces. Sales on the Internet are expected to reach $116 billion this year, or 5 percent of all retail sales, making it harder to maintain the same high growth rates. At the same time, consumers seem to be experiencing Internet fatigue and are changing their buying habits.
John Johnson, 53, who sells medical products to drug stores and lives in San Francisco, finds that retailers have livened up their stores to be more alluring. "They're working a lot harder," he said as he shopped at Book Passage in downtown San Francisco. "They're not as stuffy. The lighting is better. You don't get someone behind the counter who’s been there 40 years. They’re younger and hipper and much more with it."
He and his wife, Liz Hauer, 51, a Macy's executive, also shop online, but mostly for gifts or items that need to be shipped. They said they found that the experience could be tedious at times. "Online, it's much more of a task," she said. Still, Internet commerce is growing at a pace that traditional merchants would envy. But online sales are not growing as fast as they were even 18 months ago.
Forrester Research, a market research company, projects that online book sales will rise 11 percent this year, compared with nearly 40 percent last year. Apparel sales, which increased 61 percent last year, are expected to slow to 21 percent. And sales of pet supplies are on pace to rise 30 percent this year after climbing 81 percent last year.
Growth rates for online sales are slowing down in numerous other segments as well, including appliances, sporting goods, auto parts, computer peripherals, and even music and videos. Forrester says that sales growth is pulling back in 18 of the 24 categories it measures. Jupiter Research, another market research firm, says the growth rate has peaked. It projects that overall online sales growth will slow to 9 percent a year by the end of the decade from as much as 25 percent in 2004.
Early financial results from e-commerce companies bear out the trend. EBay reported that revenue from Web site sales increased by just 1 percent in the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year. Bookings from Expedia’s North American Web sites rose by only 1 percent in the first quarter of this year. And Dell said that revenue in the Americas — United States, Canada and Latin America — for the three months ended May 4 was $8.9 billion, or nearly unchanged from the same period last year.
"There's a recognition that some customers like a more interactive experience," said Alex Gruzen, senior vice president for consumer products at Dell. "They like shopping and they want to go retail." The turning point comes as most adult Americans, and many of their children, are already shopping online. Analysts project that by 2011, online sales will account for nearly 7 percent of overall retail sales, though categories like computer hardware and software generate more than 40 percent of their sales on the Internet. There are other factors at work as well, including a push by companies like Apple, Starbucks and the big shopping malls to make the in-store experience more compelling.
Nancy F. Koehn, a professor at Harvard Business School who studies retailing and consumer habits, said that the leveling off of e-commerce reflected the practical and psychological limitations of shopping online. She said that as physical stores have made the in-person buying experience more pleasurable, online stores have continued to give shoppers a blasé experience. In addition, online shopping, because it involves a computer, feels like work.
“It’s not like you go onto Amazon and think: ‘I’m a little depressed. I’ll go onto this site and get transported,’ ” she said, noting that online shopping is more a chore than an escape.
But Ms. Koehn and others say that online shopping is running into practical problems, too. For one, Ms. Koehn noted, online sellers have been steadily raising their shipping fees to bolster profits or make up for their low prices.
In response, a so-called clicks-and-bricks hybrid model is emerging, said Dan Whaley, the founder of GetThere, which became one of the largest Internet travel businesses after it was acquired by Sabre Holdings.
The bookseller Borders, for example, recently revamped its Web site to allow users to reserve books online and pick them up in the store. Similar services were started by companies like Best Buy and Sears. Other retailers are working to follow suit.
"You don’t realize how powerful of a phenomenon this new strategy has become," Mr. Whaley said. “Nearly every big box retailer is opening it up." Barnes & Noble recently upgraded its site to include online book clubs, reader forums and interviews with authors. The company hopes the changes will make the online world feel more like the offline one, said Marie J. Toulantis, the chief executive of BarnesandNoble.com. “We emulate the in-store experience by having a book club online,” she said.
The retailers that have started in-store pickup programs, like Sears and REI, have found that customers who choose the hybrid model are more likely to buy additional products when they pick up their items, said Patti Freeman Evans, an analyst at Jupiter Research.
Consumers are generally not committed to one form of buying over the other. Maggie Hake, 21, a recent college graduate heading to Africa in the fall to join the Peace Corps, said that when she needs to buy something for her Macintosh computer, she prefers visiting a store. “I trust it more,” she said. “I want to be sure there’s a person there if something goes wrong.”
Ms. Hake, who lives in Kentfield, Calif., just north of San Francisco, does like shopping online for certain things, particularly shoes, which are hard to find in her size. "I've got big feet — size 12.5 in women’s,” she said. “I also buy textbooks online. They’re cheaper."
John Morgan, an economics professor from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, said he expected online commerce to continue to increase, partly because it remains less than 1 percent of the overall economy. “There’s still a lot of head room for people to grow,” he said.
Matt Richtel reported from San Francisco. Bob Tedeschi reported from Guilford, Conn.
Source: NYTimes.com
Google vs. eBay: Round One
June 28, 2007, 10:48 am
EBay is going gaga over Google. Less than a year after the two Web giants signed a billion-dollar advertising pact proclaiming a passionate partnership, a lovers' quarrel has broken out.
Ebay, Google's top advertiser, pulled its ads from the search giant's site after Google announced that it would hold a party Thursday night in Boston, where eBay had planned activities that evening as part of its Live! 2007 conference, a gathering of the auction site's devotees. The planned Google celebration devolved into a Boston tea party of sorts, with eBay dropping Google ads in protest of the search engine's party poaching. Google then backed off, canceling its shindig. EBay played it cool, announcing that its ad purchases were halted as part of a routine test of marketing options. Cynics responded that anyone who bought that claim should check to see if eBay might be auctioning off a bridge in Brooklyn.
The spat reflects growing tensions between the search and auction giants as each races onto the other's turf. Over the past year Google has ramped up Checkout, its online payment tool that competes with eBay'sPayPal, and eBay recently launched an auction marketplace for TV and radio ads aimed at media ad markets that Google is also targeting.
But eBay's retaliatory measure has proven surprisingly revealing. It turns out that eBay can generate a lot of traffic from Google even without bothering to advertise. A quarter of the search traffic Google sends to eBay comes from people typing in terms like "ebay.com" into Google's search box, rather than from ads paid for by eBay, according to research firm Hitwise. And given that Google's ad policy prevents it from placing rivals' ads when users type in "eBay," the auction site gets a decent showing on Google even without paying for it and without rivals' ads cluttering up searches for the auction site. "Maybe eBay will realize that its organic traffic from Google is enough," says Bill Tancer, Global Research Manager for Hitwise, referring to simple searches that lead to eBay, as opposed to paid ad links.
The tiff with eBay is just the latest in a series of skirmishes occupying Google's senior brass. The Mountain View, Calif.,-based company faces an ongoing billion-dollar suit from Viacom against YouTube, which it bought in 2006. And Google's lawyers are also taking on Microsoft, having filed an antitrust complaint over the way Bill Gates and Co. allegedly hamper competitors' desktop searches. On the consumer front, Google has recently faced a surge of criticism over its privacy policies. Privacy International, a U.K.-based civil liberties group, gives the portal poor marks in a new report, calling Google the new Microsoft because the portal now yields so much power. And after Google Maps introduced street-level images recently, critics complained bitterly about the company's roving cameras.
But even as eBay joins the list of Google's agitators, the search giant continues to soar, having recently overtaken Cisco Systems, albeit briefly, as Silicon Valley's most valuable company, with a market cap approaching $160 billion. And its battles don't seem to affect Google's broader reputation: In a recent survey by research firm Universum, 5,500 MBA graduates ranked Google the most attractive of all companies to work for this year.
Source: Time.com
Ebay, Google's top advertiser, pulled its ads from the search giant's site after Google announced that it would hold a party Thursday night in Boston, where eBay had planned activities that evening as part of its Live! 2007 conference, a gathering of the auction site's devotees. The planned Google celebration devolved into a Boston tea party of sorts, with eBay dropping Google ads in protest of the search engine's party poaching. Google then backed off, canceling its shindig. EBay played it cool, announcing that its ad purchases were halted as part of a routine test of marketing options. Cynics responded that anyone who bought that claim should check to see if eBay might be auctioning off a bridge in Brooklyn.
The spat reflects growing tensions between the search and auction giants as each races onto the other's turf. Over the past year Google has ramped up Checkout, its online payment tool that competes with eBay'sPayPal, and eBay recently launched an auction marketplace for TV and radio ads aimed at media ad markets that Google is also targeting.
But eBay's retaliatory measure has proven surprisingly revealing. It turns out that eBay can generate a lot of traffic from Google even without bothering to advertise. A quarter of the search traffic Google sends to eBay comes from people typing in terms like "ebay.com" into Google's search box, rather than from ads paid for by eBay, according to research firm Hitwise. And given that Google's ad policy prevents it from placing rivals' ads when users type in "eBay," the auction site gets a decent showing on Google even without paying for it and without rivals' ads cluttering up searches for the auction site. "Maybe eBay will realize that its organic traffic from Google is enough," says Bill Tancer, Global Research Manager for Hitwise, referring to simple searches that lead to eBay, as opposed to paid ad links.
The tiff with eBay is just the latest in a series of skirmishes occupying Google's senior brass. The Mountain View, Calif.,-based company faces an ongoing billion-dollar suit from Viacom against YouTube, which it bought in 2006. And Google's lawyers are also taking on Microsoft, having filed an antitrust complaint over the way Bill Gates and Co. allegedly hamper competitors' desktop searches. On the consumer front, Google has recently faced a surge of criticism over its privacy policies. Privacy International, a U.K.-based civil liberties group, gives the portal poor marks in a new report, calling Google the new Microsoft because the portal now yields so much power. And after Google Maps introduced street-level images recently, critics complained bitterly about the company's roving cameras.
But even as eBay joins the list of Google's agitators, the search giant continues to soar, having recently overtaken Cisco Systems, albeit briefly, as Silicon Valley's most valuable company, with a market cap approaching $160 billion. And its battles don't seem to affect Google's broader reputation: In a recent survey by research firm Universum, 5,500 MBA graduates ranked Google the most attractive of all companies to work for this year.
Source: Time.com
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