Comments on: Google’s Choice of the Word “Eureka!”

By: carl0ski

carl0ski — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 05:02:30 +0000

morons

Eureka! i’ve struck gold
Eureka! you’ve now got your own search engine

Eureka is an appropriate term , i’m guess the Sydney Australia Google office developed the th slogan.

to put it another perspective
what company would advertise a competing product Eurekster?

By: Read/WriteWeb

Read/WriteWeb — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 00:27:05 +0000

Eurekster’s Reaction To Google’s Eureka! Moment…

Disclosure: Read/WriteWeb will be going live shortly with a custom Eurekster search box. One of the big pieces of news this week has been Google’s new Custom Search Engine. It’s noticeable not because it’s an innovative product, but more because……

By: dave

dave — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 18:54:37 +0000

Hans (and Mike) is right - all prod mgrs know the names of the competition in their space. This is a jab, although hardly an evil one.

Indian, stop being a troll by trying to turn this into an “American vs Indian education system” flame. There are other boards for that…

By: hugh

hugh — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 17:37:10 +0000

Archemedes called out “Eureka” when he jumped out of his bath, having just noticed that you can use water displacement to measure volume. It meant, as somebody has noted, “I have found” or “discovered”.

Perhaps somebody at Google thought up the word in the bath.

Normally its Google (Googol) that gets the word wrong.

By: Calin

Calin — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 11:32:45 +0000

It’s not about the meaning of the word, but a direct hit at the company/product that already exists and does that exactly far better: eurekster.com. It’s a bit unusual however to have zealot programmers develope competition-obsessions.

And to speculate further, on a tiny scale, this can develop similar to the youtube vs. google video thingy, with another failed google product taking over an established/mature market share.

By: indian

indian — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 10:10:54 +0000

I am puzzled to know people really do not know what Eureka means. It is funny …how poor american education system is…People think odd when you utter “Eureka”.

In India, even the uneducated know what Eureka means.

By: vaccum

vaccum — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 10:04:31 +0000

Mike,
How come you did not think about Eureka vaccum cleaners.

By: Jenn Allen

Jenn Allen — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 09:32:04 +0000

Mr. Dempsey, I agree with you on that Crikeystr and Eurekster are apples and oranges re “this space” hence your answer, but wanted to shed light on that you and others have probably used Eurekster without even knowing it. For example, check out the green buzzcloud (called a swicki) on the right upper fold on this page. The bigger words are the popular keywords from the TC search audience. Lockergnome, Popsci.com, and many thousands of publishers large and small use the Eurekster technology. They were the first to hit the community/personalized space years ago actually. Go make a swicki - you’ll love it - try building a shopping, wine, tech, or maybe even a Freudian slip swicki (ha), you’ll see how fast it learns. (I worked at Eurekster for a long time and forever a big fan - luv ya! ).

By: Mark T

Mark T — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 08:26:47 +0000

Pretty weird that a product manager for a new Google product doesn’t know who the existing players in the space are. I mean they had to do *some* competitive research right?

Someone tell me I’m right….?

By: Dempsey

Dempsey — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 07:51:43 +0000

I doubt is was a jab. I’m a “mild” follower of “this space” and I never heard of them. That prob’ly because I’ve been building the index for Crikeystr, a vertical search of Google Press Releases.

By: SunnyvaleBizDev

SunnyvaleBizDev — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 05:27:33 +0000

Here is Sashi Seth’s background: http://www.hindustantimes.com/.....vers/7.htm

and here is R.V. Guha’s profile: http://www.guha.com/cv.html

By: Samar

Samar — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 04:25:14 +0000

They definitely are Indian. For those of you who don’t know Shashi Seth was nominated to be the “Indian of the Year” for 2005 and recently proclaimed by the Vice President of India to be “the prodigal son of India.” He founded the eBay platform and has an amazing career. Not surprising that when you get two such amazing individuals - Shashi and R.V. Guha (who somebody else pointed out is not only father of RSS, RDF and co-founder of epinions and an amazing researcher) - that they are going to build something so disruptive - this Google Platform play is going to seal the dominance that Google has on the search and ad space, and will make the competition small time players.

By: Vivek

Vivek — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 03:28:45 +0000

Glen,

Shashi Seth and R.V. Guha are definately Indian names. I have lived 30 years in India and I am sure about this.

By: Mohammad

Mohammad — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 03:03:23 +0000

The first time I glanced at the title in my news reader, I thought it was a post about Eurekster. A coincidence??? … I guess I need some rest too ..

By: Erik

Erik — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 02:47:34 +0000

Eurekster? Is it me, or is the abundance of “…ster” names a sign that the end of Web 2.0 is nigh? It is already bad enough in politics; every time a scandal pops up, it is now “…gate.” Now we get it in on the Web.

By: Don Wilson

Don Wilson — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 02:32:59 +0000

The usage of “Eureka” in any conversation is a little odd, let alone this little jab at a smaller, competeing company.

By: TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » Googleの言葉の選択

TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » Googleの言葉の選択 — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 02:18:18 +0000

[...] 【日本語版コメント】本家版コメント欄では、“Eureka”という言葉は元々古代ギリシャ語で”I’ve found it!”（分かった。見つけたぞ）を意味する語であるため、検索エンジンに名付けるにはぴったりの言葉で、単なる偶然なのでは？といった意見が寄せられている。Googleは自社の開発に注力し、目立たぬ競合のリサーチなどしてはいない。いや、Eureksterの存在を無視するなんてありえないんだろう、などといった議論が展開中。 [...]

By: Glenn Allen

Glenn Allen — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 02:13:53 +0000

Neither is “Indian” in origin. If ya wanna create rumors, then ya oughta be more “original”.

By: Dr. Phil

Dr. Phil — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 02:02:57 +0000

Mike,

You’re over-worked. Get some rest.

By: Larry

Larry — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 02:00:32 +0000

Agree with you. Google always does its homework on companies in the space. To think they hadn’t closely looked at Eurekster would be rediculously naive. Unfortunately, Google is the new Microsoft when it comes from trying to stay away from their ever expanding “OS”.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 01:46:53 +0000

I wouldn’t be surprised if this were a jab a competitor. A funny one, at that.

And this little bit of reporting is one of the many reasons why bloggers kick ass.

By: Hans Brough

Hans Brough — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 01:14:32 +0000

no coincidence. I’m sure the product manager would have spent atleast a couple minutes looking on the web to see who else was in the space. Somebody on the team would have - that’s a given.

By: Carlos Caicedo

Carlos Caicedo — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 00:40:59 +0000

C´mon, when Archimedes discover his principle (Densite of solid bodies) while taking a bath, the leyend says that he scream Eureka! (Like a I found it).

So, I think… the expression Eureka is one of the best words that you can find…

By: Raffy

Raffy — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 00:32:23 +0000

Its coincidence. I imagine the Google engineers didn’t think too hard about some obscure company’s moniker when utilizing the most recognized exclamation for discovery in the world. I’m with Garth, no one’s ever heard of them except bloggers who pay *a lot* of attention and use phrases like “leading players in this space.” I’m thinking Google engineers spend more time making web products than paying attention to other companies that might be doing something similar.

By: victor

victor — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 00:11:19 +0000

Eureka was excartly how I felt when I read about it here and it’s potential to turn mediarati.com into branded search engine that I had alway envisoned .