Yahoo! Says They’re Not Building A Library
Natali Del Conte
15 comments »
Yahoo! insists that they are not developing anything to compete with Google Book Search.
Google slapped Yahoo! with a subpoena on November 20 inquiring about their activity in the library lawsuit. In response, Yahoo!’s lawyers released a legal brief claiming that the company has no intention of competing on the library front and has simply been financially backing the parties involved in the case against Google.
“Yahoo has not launched an independent book scanning project or a ‘Yahoo Book Project’ as defined by Google in the Subpoena,” reads the brief. “Instead, along with over 40 other entities, including public libraries, major colleges and universities and leading Fortune 500 companies, Yahoo has backed a non-profit alliance run by the Open Content Alliance (OCA) and Internet Archive to digitize books and make them searchable through any web search engine. Yahoo supports the approach adopted by the OCA which digitizes only text in the public domain or where copyright holders have expressly given permission for such works to be included, and Yahoo exercises no direction and control over the OCA’s operation of its project.”
In early October, it appeared that Yahoo! would spearhead the OCA operation, which is contesting Google’s rights to digitize books. Now Yahoo! seems to be backtracking, claiming they only have given financial support to the project but have no authority on the matter. This is very passive-aggressive on behalf of Yahoo! in the never-ending Yahoo!/Google saga.
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in sports, it is objectionable to call any two teams ‘rivals’ when one team consistently beats down the other. thus, comparing Yahoo to Google is just not credible - it’s without meaning.
sure, Russia was once a world power, but they’d been declining in power for decades when the Wall finally came down. the only reason any kind of ‘cold war’ mythology persisted for so long unchallenged was because the punditocracy saw fit to play their role correctly - that is, to not challenge conventional wisdom, to support the owners of our society.
further, Yahoo and Google are now more than ever, apples and oranges. Yahoo is a content company (at best). Google is a technology company.
yahoo will be gone in six months - with a weasly enough managment team - something they surely possess - they might last 12 months. in the arena of totalitarian organizations - that is, corporations - google has a strong and willing tri-dictatorship.
these companies are not comparable. there is no ’saga’ to be spoken of between them. the saga of a pathetic media company once the darling of the internet, though? si.
@Peter:
“yahoo will be gone in six months - with a weasly enough managment team - something they surely possess - they might last 12 months. in the arena of totalitarian organizations - that is, corporations - google has a strong and willing tri-dictatorship.”
Thats a pretty ridiculous statement. Yahoo! and Google are two very different companies, that find common ground on Search and Marketing (selling). Yahoo! is a social media company, that actually outgrew Google in search traffic last year (http://googlewatch.eweek.com/blogs/google_watch/archive/2006/11/20/14741.aspx)
.
At the core of Yahoo’s problem, is a very bad technology for monetizing their traffic (both search and other). Hopefully, this will change very soon. In January Panama will be fully implemented and be used by everyone.
– George
So google’s sexual organs are bigger. Big deal. 10 years from now another company will come and beat Google, and another Peter will bash on techcrunch about them not being really rivals; then 20 years from now another company will come and beat the other company … and blabla blabla. And when your teeth are falling and you’re wearing diapers, you’ll perhaps realize all the bs you wasted your time with…
What arrogance to say Yahoo will be gone in 6 months. Not even the founders of Google know it all to be able to say that - clearly you’re not one of them because you waste your time writing about the absolute truth and other bs only you believe in. In an age with such a diversity for products as today, saying that Yahoo will be gone within 6 months just because of Google’s success is plain stupid. You seem to have a really narrow vision.
From my point of view, the core technology of Yahoo and google is similar, but talking about the execution, Google is better.
I think Google is making a smart move with this books move, and that it could be good for publishers as well. Its a nice way to read brief extracts from a book you are interested in, or finding information on rare subjects.
Considering that Google took funding from Yahoo and partnered with Yahoo on search services based on not competing with Yahoo (they were going to take on Micro$oft right?), then turned around and instead of competing with M$ they jut bit into every product Yahoo has, I’d say that the passive/agressive medal goes to Google.
Aside from a lame online spreadsheet Google’s done nothing in the way of competition with M$. Instead they’ve tried to enter every product space Yahoo has, and with sucky and/or unpopular results so far. Aside from their search advertising and maybe maps there’s not a single product of Google’s that is more popular than the equivalent Yahoo one.
As for the library battle, all’s fair once your competitor is a major biter.
I happen to like using Google’s book search and almost wish that I was back in school writing papers. Oh the sources I could find!
However, as a content creator, I understand the concerns expressed by organizations and authors that are worried about losing control of their copyrighted material. In some ways, I want to tell them to get on the bus and realize that the searches will probably not hurt their book sales and might even help new customers to find them, but I also think that Google should make some financial agreements before simply exposing the content.
It is great that Yahoo and friends are trying to come up with a method that both satisfies customers and providers, but so far, I will stick with Google Book Search and hope that it just keeps getting better.
Google is better.
i agree that google is a lot better