Well as far as Microsoft is concerned, I can’t imagine that an improved algorithm is going to make their search product more popular. The average person doesn’t even think about Microsoft when you talk about “search”. It’s just not in their blood.

@50, if MSFT does offer a better search experience, I would definitely start to use live search. And I am not alone, many of my friends are not happy with Goog at all. The reason I am still using G is just that G is still the best, and not because G is in my blood.

i’m much more interested in the ms google deal

I think Microsoft should buy Techcrunch and remove this image from this post.

@50 Your own comment is so poisonous. Sounds just like the mean people in the world.

We have invented a new type of company its called furitr.com where if you’re a VC you can wire us your money into this outfit called furitr.com its called Furitr because frtr and fritr.com and fritter.com domains were unavailable, and it sounds good but really its short for fritter, anyway here goes the premise which is that we have a virtual hole which is linked to dark matter an unknown force in nature which is starting to come quite big in the universe, and what you can do if your a VC is have a go at throwing money down this hole, what you get from furit sorry fritr is a email confirmation of your receipt and your input into the hole.
What we can’t confirm is what will happen to your money in the hole, only that you will be able to sleep at night safe in the knowledge that your money is in the hole it maybe dark down there, but you at least know its there and so do we.
Now the only snag is…that holes do have a tendency to swallow all light and matter and there is now way to see at what point your money will be seen again, but we have a theory that your money will be transferred in another financial universe where it will enjoy grow under the sunshine from another place and time, there maybe beaches there in this other place, where your money can lay back rest assured (as we will do hopefully) while horizontally knowing that you fritterd on furitr.com your hard earned cash and left litttle light (more $>1m will suffice) into the hole.
But hurry! The hole will only be around forever and there is a strong possiblilty that it may change shape and be absorbed by another hole and we wouldn’t want that to happen now, would we. We thank you from the bottom of our furitr hole for your kind attention and hopefully for your investment contribution and time. Yours, http://www.furitr.com

FURITR! WOW! Gimme Gimme, Who needs Microhoe anyhow, I want in! Wheres my pen? Where do I sign, Where where where??!!

stupid!

The picture doesn’t bother me but the contents of most Arrington posts are riddled with questionable facts. It’s usually easy to parse his posts and find the little gems that most offend those that truly understand this industry. This post is pure hot air and speculation — something Michael does often and rarely gets right. Time will tell.

“I think Microsoft should buy Techcrunch and remove this image from this post.”

M$ OWNS TC!!!

Everything posted here is sponsored by M$ propaganda machine

Btw, TC jumped the shark

Yahoo should fire all the US employees and outsource operations to India.

Btw f*ck commie China. That was a good picture selection.

Michael,

Tanks don’t always win — as you know. America has the greatest military in the world, but other nations are starting to eat our lunch economically. Beat us in education. Beat us in healthcare.

Don’t be old school in your view of the world.

In regard to Yahoo, you’ve been beating up on Yang (and also trying to get rid of him it seems) since the beginning of this Microhoo drama, but, as Kara Swisher well articulated in a piece, reports of his demise seem to be greatly exaggerated.

You seem frustrated Michael, that you’re not achieving the desired effect.

If anything, Microsoft seems to be (partly) crawling back to the table, while Yahoo! seems to be holding firm.

Above you say Microsoft is toying with Yahoo and is in the drivers seat. I think you are spinning, because you don’t (perhaps) wish to look foolish from the strong position (e.g. Charlie Rose) that you took before (you were pretty sure of yourself he he).

I’ll skip the whole, is Jerry Yang deluded? (I gave Steve my thoughts on that already) and what is Yahoo’s stand alone strategy and how viable is it should they not merge (whole, part, or joint venture) due to space, but would be glad to articulate further.

Thanks!

Is it just me or does Michael Arrington have a gathering and growing credibility problem? Does everyone, like me, read his posts with particular scrutiny? I do. I find myself looking for bias, inaccuracies and speculation. I know I’m always going to find things about the industry that do not ring true — his lack of serious knowledge is breathtaking. For those that do not live in the valley, you may assume that Mike has his finger on the pulse. That assumption would be wrong. Look at what he does not what he says. He invests in one failure after another. His deeds support his true working knowledge of this industry.

I want everyone to do one simple thing: When Michael Arrington makes a post please read it with scrutiny. I think you’ll find it interesting.

Sometimes I wonder how much better Microsoft Windows would be if Microsoft focused it’s vast resources on it’s primary OS. We have so far to go in the OS space. Perhaps Speech recognition would work properly, perhaps “MinOS” would be a staple of every Vista installation with each user installing only the components they plan to use. Perhaps we would have the capability with dual monitor sensors to make a true 3D UI paradigm a reality.

This “disruption” in search is the same type of disruption they are known for and the same disruption that causes lame products to be the norm. Microsoft should be in a battle for consumers, they shouldn’t be in this hostile takeover. First, most people who care about the internet know Yahoo! is all about user trust & users’ wishes in general. Microsoft can’t keep users happy because they are–for the most part–consumed with making the Fortune 1000 happy.

Then you might ask yourself why many VC’s don’t share the same Angst that each every day person does? It’s because they are smart enough to know that a Microsoft takeover of Yahoo will end up leaving the consumer web more open.

Why can’t Microsoft just concentrate on Windows. I love the company, but I am paying very close attention to what harm comes of the internet, and I’ll be there calling out the company on what it does wrong when this happens. Jerry Yang made this company, and he never even was afforded the chance to bring his vision to life. Microsoft, you need a CCO or a Cheif Consumer Officer. Someone who can show you how these types of actions alienate the brightest and most passionate users out there. Anyone who continues to knock Jerry doesn’t know shit and there isn’t a single CEO in the world who could have grown the company fast enough in a smart enough way without the hindsight that Microsoft was going to go hostile. Disruption isn’t a term for messing up the Internet, it’s a term for changing a user behavior because of a product you introduce, not a product you remove from the market.

Business innovation is not the same thing as hostile takeovers. You can’t reinvent search by destroying it’s core competitors. We need more people passionate about maintaining a forward looking user centric web. We need people calling out players who are not working towards user needs and problems.

Until Microsoft can convince me this is going to make my internet experience better, I’m going to quit enriching them by purchasing their legacy products. Where are my freaking Windows Ultimate Extras? Promises broken… So many to count… I am a person who defended Microsoft non stop only 18 months ago. It never was funny, and it definitely isn’t funny now. That person represents each of us in front of a tank.

Kara Swisher made many more jokes on Yang than Arrington–absolutely sure.

I don’t know either (regarding the question of the title). What I know is that I wouldn’t use that image (such an strong symbol) to talk about what you talk here.

> And frankly, Yahoo’s stockholders and employees deserve some kind of mercy killing at this point.

As a Yahoo stockholder I politely decline your generous offer.

This deal is clearly a matter of principle for Yahoo in addition to being just another business transaction. You surely must be aware of the amount of passionate hatred towards Microsoft in a tech community and around it, and the way this acquisition attempt unfolds is just an extreme manifestation of it. If it were not Microsoft trying to acquire Yahoo, the deal would’ve been long closed.

Yahoo got spine, and for this fact alone they should be commended.

@68 - interesting observation.

People say people hated Microsoft because Microsoft killed Netscape.
Only to these days find Marc Andreessen (still alledgedly?) joining the
board of Facebook… Did Marc Andreessen hate Microsoft? Might be.
Might be not.

And, Yahoo! bought Mark Cuban’s broadcast.com thingy for billions.
Does Cuban love Yahoo!? Yes, might be. Or no, might be not.
Or yes, but in a peculiar style to express love.

fuck u.
Millions of people observed three minutes silence at 2:28pm today to mourn victims of an earthquake, which has killed 34,073 nationwide in sichuan, china.
you fuck post the picture of tankman in tiananmen 89 just to show the shit yahoo and fuck microsoft?
do you know shitao case of yahoo?en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi_Tao

“we are investing to differentiate in vertical experiences”

What the hell is this supposed to mean? “we are investing to differentiate” ok, sure, I got that, but “vertical experiences”?

你不知道的话，为什么不闭嘴呢？

As has been stated many times, using such a picture so nonchalantly is inappropriate.

If you want to attempt to use such an emotionally relevant photograph to make a point, you should spend more than a small tongue-in-cheek paragraph to explain your point. There’s a lot of connections that could have been brought up regarding Yahoo, China, Shi Tao as #71 pointed out, and that particular image in Google China’s Image SERPs.

I’m sure no harm was intended, but you’ve obviously seen the comments and its time to make this right.

@68 Alex said: “If it were not Microsoft trying to acquire Yahoo, the deal would’ve been long closed.”

For all your “principles”, you’re also basing decisions on “passionate hatred”. Religious extremists follow a similar line of thinking.

Spine? Whatever.

I think MSFT’s hint that they will pursue vertical search is pretty interesting — I believe this has been tried before without much success (ex: business.com) but maybe Microsoft will get it right.

Remove the picture Michael Arrington you insensitive self-indulgence pig!

Free Tibet!

Obviously, Michael Arrington didn’t study Asian History in school.

MA would not have used this pic if Jerry wasn’t Chinese. There is obviously no analogy to tiananmen square; however the intended Chinese man vs. giant unstoppable machine was. Only a fool would use that pic, to achieve this image - it is in poor taste, very untimely, and borderline racist. MA you are an ass.

arrogant idiot!

Does Michael Arrington own any shares in either Yahoo, or Microsoft?
-I know he is not a journalist, but following on from the Wired controversy i think he should come clean.

Many on here suspect that he has an unannounced vested interest in MSFT acquiring YHOO. His arguement seems weighted far more towards the emotional than the reasoned.

Also, that photograph… Its disrespectful… and shows poor judgement, not to mention questionable morality. I do hope that it was just a simple mistake on his part.

P.S. Commenters should be aware that Jerry Yang is infact Taiwanese-American and not Chinese-American.

Calm down people… it’s a picture… a damn picture, there are a lot more offensive pictures out there that are used for representation for a silly thing. Ehhh…. I am 16 years old and I am more mature than ninety percent of you leaving comments. As for the Yahoo deal… Microsoft just needs to say screw it and work on there failure of an OS called Vista. I have no hate for microsoft at all. They made the computer generation (whether y’all like to admit it or not… sure as hell wasn’t apple or linux) but now there innovative streak has disappeared. Until microsoft gets up to speed I will move on to bigger and better things such as OS X and Ubuntu….

Give up on Yahoo! already… there not budging.

Why not post the photo when your dad was on top of your mom as the moment when an idiot like you was “created” xx years ago, maybe your mom was struggling to push your dad off, that makes more sense for this yahoo-ms thing, right?

Be professional, man.

I would not expect this from this site… But the worse thing about all this.. is that Michael Arrington, the GOD of bloggers, doesnt has the gut to recongnize a mistake.

Nice one Mr. Arrington. You just offended 1.3 billion people with that photo. If you want to know how offensive this photo is to the chinese, make a reference to 911 on your next post.

Comparing the trouble Yahoo has put itself into with the struggle of the Chinese student movement is completely inappropriate and out of context.

In case any of you are wondering:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB70mWXrzEE

Part one of the documentary about Tank Man…

Michael, you better apologize now. this one isn’t going away buddy. You’re about to get a lesson in Freedom of Speech in the USA.

Too soon!

(haha)

What a shame. Michael Arrington, your posts on Microsoft and Yahoo! are increasingly biased and misrepresented. Stop making a fool of yourself by posting such sensitive photos that have no parallel with the Microsoft-Yahoo! deal. You clearly know nothing beyond Techcrunch nor do you have a rational opinion about the deal.

This deal, to a great extent, is about willingness to pay. Yes, Yahoo’s projections of $40 per share may be to optimisitc, but will Microsoft be willing to pay? To answer that look at Microsofts true opportunity cost of not doing a deal with Yahoo (if you really understand what that means). What will Microsoft do and where will it be if it does not acquire Yahoo!? Don’t just talk - run the numbers and keep that in mind when you post articles about the deal.

In addition to the objections of the use of this picture, I’d also like to object to the use of our Lord’s name as a exclamation.

You managed to use both the name of Christ followed by the name of God disrespectfully - back to back. Seriously, to Christians it is very offensive.

-Gene

Haha, nice one Mike.

Good knowledge of history you have.

I’m done with TechCrunch. This post and the recent Gilmore posts have all been a joke. Seriously, just call it quits, you don’t have the personal character to make it big.

Michael Arrington Has A Problem!

What is it? His credibility is under assault. Not just by me but by many many readers of this site. Wired Magazine also mentioned some of the issues.

Michael needs to stop writing “less than credible” rants and begin working on improving his image.

Everyone, moving forward, please carefully review everything Michael writes. If you do you’ll notice that he makes lots of mistakes.

terrible pic, stupid

I am a Chinese and i was amazing when I saw this picture. We are mourning our family dead in the earthquak, i think u should kown it’s another mourning day in our heart though it’s not in the heart of the govenment. I think u should show your basic respect to the victims and all the Chinese people. Thanks to everyone who helped us and who asked the author of this blog to show the respect.

…Mike, as others have mentioned this was really in poor taste. Between Gilmore’s indecipherable, ego-inflated posts and this inappropriate selection of supporting photos, Techcrunch is really losing credibility.

absolutely agree, Michael Arrington does not have any ethic at all. Or may be the worst human in the planet that take pleasure/page view/money above human suffering

I love the use of this picture. The illustration is beautiful, even if unintended by Arrington. We have one dude (let’s call him jerry) standing up to impossible odds (a freaking tank) because he believed it was the right thing to do.

There’s no way to stand in front of a tank without being called crazy. But as we’ve learned from history, sometimes you can stop a whole line of tanks by sticking by your convictions and risking the consequences.

ma: terrible taste, terrible analogy, stupidest post ever, you should have stopped writing, let your writers carry on, after all, you were a lawyer first, not a journalist, stop writing this kind of extremely un-professional and offensive post, you are polluting the internet, which is better off without such posts.