We’d like to congratulate Vik Singh, an architect at Yahoo!, who has just been picked as one of the MIT’s  Technology Review 35 Young Innovators Under 35 of 2009 for his contributions to Yahoo! Search BOSS.  Since its launch, thousands of developers have issued millions of queries through Yahoo! Search BOSS to power some great, personalized search platforms.

Check out a Q&A and JellyTalk with Vik, where he talks about creative uses of BOSS and future innovations in search.

Congratulations, Vik!

Yahoo! Search Team

Today we welcome Yoelle Maarek to Yahoo! as Senior Director of Yahoo! Research. She will be leading the Yahoo! Lab in Haifa, Israel along with Ronny Lempel. Their teams help further Yahoo!’s commitment to discovering new technologies that deliver compelling experiences on the Web.

You might know Yoelle as the former engineering director at the Google Haifa Engineering Center, which she founded in 2006. Her team launched features such as Google Suggest, Searching Ads, and Interactive Annotations on YouTube. Prior to Google, Yoelle was with IBM Research, where she held series of technical and management positions, first at T.J. Watson Research in New York, and then at the IBM Haifa Research Lab in Israel. You can go to Yoelle’s website to read all about her impressive research experience in information retrieval, Web applications, and collaborative technologies.

Prabhakar Raghavan
Head of Yahoo! Labs and Yahoo! Search Strategy

The Yahoo! Search Pad relay team ran 200 miles non-stop over a total of 29 hours and 38 minutes from Calistoga to Santa Cruz, CA in The Relay on May 2. The race, which stretched across 36 cities, promotes organ donation through Organs ‘R’ Us.

If you haven’t heard the buzz on Yahoo! Search Pad, check out the demo video that we posted earlier this year. Search Pad automatically collects visited sites and provides simple tools for users to organize and add notes on the sites they find.

At The Relay, the team arrived in the Yahoo! Search Pad van and kept fans connected to the race by Twittering their progress step-by-step. It was a grueling race that involved drizzling and sometimes pouring rain, but we had fun overcoming the challenge as a team while supporting a good cause.

2009 Yahoo! Search Pad 200-mile Relay Team: Joseph Bou-Youne, Dennis Chen, Lawrence Chin, Timothy Daly, Didier Grelin, Ryan Grenier, Thiago Lacerda, Ramana Lokanathan, Monika Mazurkiewicz, Stephen Moore, Shige Takeda, and Ray Trounday.

Thiago Lacerda
Yahoo! Search

I bought a fast Pentium running shiny new Windows 95. I got ISDN. I downloaded each new beta browser. In early 1996, I was hired to build a directory of web sites for one of Yahoo!’s now vanished competitors. I stepped into the fast-moving current, riding wave after wave of discovery, gathering a daily catch of tools and trinkets: image maps, javascripts, dancing widgets, canonical lists of nearly everything. I was getting paid to websurf!

In those days, we studied Yahoo! to see how directory was done. I walked the tree, and pondered colon classification and what it meant that Ranganathan was a Yahoo!. Web search scaled and evolved quickly to colonize the new info landscape, but the algorithms were young, and results were erratic and sometimes surprisingly irrelevant.

Yahoo! hired me on my third try, in 1998. The Web seemed vast, but finite. We still believed there was an end of the Internet. Then, as now, the Yahoo! Directory exemplified the value of informed human intervention, aggregating and organizing the best of the Web, creating choice out of chaos. And Yahoo! was fast, free, and fun, with invisible, reliable, leading-edge technology.

Over the past seven years, it’s been a privilege to participate as Yahoo! and the Web grew up together. Through the tumultuous boom and bust years, search technology thrived. Yahoo! enjoyed a succession of relationships with great search providers. Then, more recently, we reinvented ourselves and launched Yahoo! Search Technology.

These days, search engine is a household word. The power of search has captured the public imagination and become essential in the lives of millions. And though we’re continually innovating, we’ve just begun to explore the multi-faceted, multimedia knowledge exchange that becomes possible when search technologies mature and get smarter. Stay tuned.

And now it’s time to celebrate. You’re invited to Yahoo!’s 10th birthday party. There’s even a present waiting for you there. Feeling nostalgic? Don’t miss our amazing, entertaining web installation, Netrospective: 10 years, 100 moments of the Web. We’d love to hear from you.

Havi Hoffman
Yahoo! Editorial

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You could never say that Reiner Kraft lacks vision or inspiration.
This unassuming guy with the soft voice and thick German accent comes
up with ideas–and incredibly viable ones–the way Snoop Dog flows
lyrics.

Reiner’s recent brainchild, Y!Q was launched in beta last week. Based on his concept of
“disruptive distribution” technology, he believes it will
significantly change the face of search.

Here’s what Reiner had to say about his passion for search innovation
and what it means to provide information “at the point of
inspiration.”

Q: You’ve coined this phrase “disruptive distribution”
technology and you use it a lot when talking about Y!Q. What exactly
is it?

A: It’s a mechanism for distributing search boxes all over
the Internet. As it relates to Y!Q, it’s an API for webmasters that
lets them insert icons within their content so that their readers can
access related information about that content without having to leave
their page.

Q: So the distributive part makes sense. Why
“disruptive?”

A: Because it changes, or potentially changes, the way
people search. Rather than having to go to a special page to perform
a search, a search box is always a click away. You don’t even have to
type in a query. You can, if you want to refine your search further,
but really it’s optional.

Q: How does all this roll into Y!Q?

A: The key to Y!Q is the idea of contextual search or
relevant “information at the point of inspiration.” People liked
to use that phrase before but with Y!Q it’s becoming a reality. The
idea is that there is always a context to what a user is reading or
working on. So if they want to do a search, that search will be
related to it somehow.

With Y!Q, we’re able to identify what that context is and provide
search boxes right where you need them. Then a user can dig deeper
and ask more questions without interrupting their workflow.

Then of course, there’s the API that the content owners or
webmasters can use to integrate Y!Q into their pages. Now their
readers can click on the Y!Q icons and automatically find more
information about a subject. So in this case, the user isn’t
specifying the context, the content provider tells us, “this is the
piece” that the user is interested in. It works as fine as when
the user selected the context themselves.

Q: I like that it’s the user can specify what they want.
That’s probably appealing to a lot of people.

A: Right. The other thing is that if we tried to
automatically identify the context, we’d never get it 100% right.
We’d just be guessing. But because the user says, “this is the
piece of information I’m interested in,” Y!Q can get the context
right on the first try.

What’s happening is the information they’ve highlighted gets
transmitted to our search where our algorithms extract the key
concepts and give them relevant results back.

Q: This question was posted by a blogger who thinks content
publishers could use the Y!Q icons to help generate ad revenue. He
asks, “Are there any plans to add contextual advertising to
Y!Q?”

A: That’s an interesting proposition. Y!Q is a new beta
product and we’re planning a lot of enhancements; but first and
foremost we’re focusing on giving publishers more control over the
display and content in Y!Q. As we develop new features, we’ll make
sure to post them on the blog.

Q: Another blogger asks, “do you think Y!Q will phase out
once the novelty factor wears off?” and “do you think it’ll be used as
a serious search solution by working professionals, [not] just cool
kid teens?”

A: Y!Q was designed to address two key issues: First, we
want to provide convenient access to search functionality at the point
of inspiration. Second, we want to push relevant and enhanced results
related to the context and provide superior relevancy for search
results. If we’re doing a good job for one and two, I think Y!Q has a
very good chance of being adapted and used widely. Users generally use
the search tool that is easiest to use and produces the best
results. So I believe that Y!Q will be gradually accepted as the next
generation search tool of choice.

For the second question: I already use Y!Q as my default search
engine in Firefox, and it produces more relevant results compared to
other plug-ins. Therefore anybody can use it as a default search tool.
I don’t think there is a preferred audience.

Q: Tell me a bit about your patents. You actually have one
hundred?

A: I don’t know the exact number. I filed probably over 100,
and so far on the order of 40 have been issued. It typically takes
about 2-4 years for patents to issue, so they’re coming all in
gradually.

Q: Wow.

A: That was mostly between the time of ‘98 and around 2001
maybe.

Q: Are they all related to search technology?

A: No. A lot of them are, but there are many others that are related to different type of Web technologies, for example e-commerce or location awareness technologies. Especially the latter ones may become more important soon once GPS devices [e.g., cell phones] appear on the market and become more broadly used.

Q: Aren’t you also finishing up your thesis?

A: Yes, it’s about domain specific search and is based on what I call iterative filtering meta search. The idea is to leverage the search engine infrastructures to create a filtering mechanism that automatically helps you get documents for a specialized information need. For instance, we built a buying guide finder that helps you to find just buying guides.

Q: If I hadn’t checked out your website , I’d think that everything you do revolves around relevancy and search! A lot of people at Yahoo! don’t know that you were part of a German band and that you’ve composed over 30 rock songs. How do define yourself first; composer or inventor?

A: (laughs) I just like to think about new ideas. So to me, it’s all the same thing. You create some music piece or you create some ideas or some algorithms to do something. It doesn’t have to be specific to search but ideas related to web technologies in a broad sense.

Q: What’s the biggest satisfaction for you in working in Yahoo! Search?

A: I think the satisfaction at the end of the day is that you’ve invented something that you think is cool and useful and people are able to use it and it helps them simplify things. That’s particularly true with the Y!Q project. I think it could be a new paradigm for how user’s search. Hopefully if people like it and use it a lot, it’ll become the default method for how we search. If that could be achieved, then of course that’s kind of a nice thing. You’ve had some impact essentially–you’ve developed something people will use now and years to come.

Yvette Irvin
Y! Profiler

Yvette Irvin
Y! Profiler

Q: Going back to the products you work on at Yahoo!. I know that Yahoo! Maps is about to introduce some new features. Can you talk about them yet?
A: Actually, we recently launched our new real-time traffic feature for Yahoo! Maps. It provides driving conditions, incident reports, the speed of traffic, the severity of each incident and a bunch of other things that help people get where they’re going with less of a headache. In the future, I think you can expect Yahoo! Maps to become much more context-aware, user-friendly and inter-connected with other services and device interfaces, be they mobile phones or PDAs.

Q: Earlier you talked about the reviews feature of Yahoo! Local. This question came in from a blogger who questioned how Yahoo! would sell advertising to businesses whose customers might write negative reviews. He wanted to know why he’d pay to advertise and risk getting a bad review from an unhappy customer.
A: Well, the key concept behind Local is the idea of community. To build any community you have to allow people to hear and be heard. Ratings and reviews allow customers to voice their opinions about the businesses and services they’ve used. Of course, there will be a broad range of opinions from negative to positive and all the ones in between, but to add real value to the Local user who’s trying to decide whether to use a certain business, you have to have an open forum.

In some ways, I also see the reviews as a kind of checks and balances for the business. It holds them accountable to their customers who now have an additional platform to voice their likes and dislikes. People are going to talk about what was right or wrong with a business anyway. At least this way, the business can monitor what’s being said and maybe learn from it.

But ultimately, the businesses will have to weigh the pros and cons. When all is said and done, Local is still one of the best and easiest ways to reach a massive audience that would cost a bundle to target in the traditional marketing world.

Q: So the reviews aren’t censored by Yahoo! to create a kind of biased, business-partial directory?
A: Again, it’s about providing honest feedback from real customers. If we slanted them in anyway, they wouldn’t be reliable. We do provide guidelines for what to write and not write in the reviews, but for the most part, we trust that customers will use the platform responsibly.

Q: I heard you just got married a few months ago. Is there any similarity between planning a wedding and launching a product?
A: I did learn some very interesting lessons planning the wedding that I’ve applied to my job and vice versa. First you need to go with the people you trust will do a good job and who have a good track record. Then you have to let them do their job. You can’t try to micromanage them because you can’t control everything. If they enjoy what they’re doing, they’ll put their heart into it and go beyond the call of duty.

In terms of what I learned from the wedding, obviously Nora has great taste and is very strong willed — like me. (laughs) But our tastes differed on a lot of things so we came up with a rule that I think is very important in the work place as well: if it matters more to that person than it does to you, then let them have the final say–obviously within reason. That’s something I’m increasingly applying in my work and I find that the results are great because people who care passionately about something typically have thought about it a lot more than you have and may have more insight into it than you.

Q: I understand that you have a Math degree from Stanford and you’ve talked about always having a passion for computers and technology. When did you first realize that this was something you truly loved?
A: Well my parents always say that when I was a toddler, my dad had a really old micro-computer and I was fascinated watching him work on it. In addition I’ve always been interested in taking things apart and putting them back together again. I’ve also always been product oriented. I used to make furniture when I was in high school and build my own bikes (I’ve been racing motorcross since I was a kid). I must have torn down and built up probably a half dozen cars and motorcycles.

I like building things that have a purpose or that lead to a certain outcome. I find it interesting to research the best materials and resources to figure out the most effective way to build something. It’s really fun.

Q: So what are you working on right now? What are you building?
A: I’m an avid skier and I’m trying to get my hands on an old ski-press so I can create my own pair of skis. I bought these really phat powder skis for the season and they’re nice but I don’t think they’re going to have the edge-holding characteristics I need. Skis that are very good for holding an edge on ice tend to have a lot of metal or a lot of wood in them. They also tend be heavy and narrow so they can hold an edge against a mountain. Whereas powder skis tend to be wider and lighter to float and keep you above the powder so you don’t sink.

I’d like to build these kind of hybrid skis that have the best of both worlds. I want to use a certain type of wood that is very porous and lightweight so that it’ll float well on powder but at the same time have very good vibration dampening characteristics so that it will hold well on ice and chattery snow.

Q: As we wrap this interview up, what do you look for when you’re recruiting for the Local team?
A: We recruit all the time and we’re always looking for smart, self motivated people. I especially like recent grads. I feel like they’re hungry and I like watching people evolve and teach themselves how to do things. Its fun to see people just getting out of school. They make mistakes but it’s seeing that energy and honesty and that effort that makes it really really satisfying.

I also look for people who have a passion outside of work’be it sporting, musical, philanthropic, whatever, because I think that kind of balance is important.

But balance doesn’t always come easily. At first you go from one extreme to the other’it’s like a pendulum, and then eventually you find that happy medium’that harmonic frequency that works.

Yvette Irvin
Y! Profiler

In this two-part series we’ll find out what Ali has to say about competition in the Local Search market, his love of technology, and his passion for helping those in need.

Q: Describe to me what you do for the Local team here at Yahoo!.
A: I oversee product management for Yahoo!’s local products, which includes City Guides, Local, Maps, Yellow Pages. I also work with other groups who want to leverage or add some type of a local aspect to their products. That obviously includes heavy integration with Yahoo! Search, as well as teams like Personals, HotJobs and all sorts of other areas of the network.

Q: What made you decide to join the Yahoo! Local team?
A: After meeting the team, I was really impressed. They are not only some of the top technologists and engineers I’ve ever worked with but they also have a very strong understanding of their consumer needs. They are genuinely a good bunch of people to work with which is always a huge plus. I’d actually say, that’s one of the most important things.

Q: What would you say is the biggest challenge working on a product that has such strategic importance to the organization?
A: I think the biggest challenge for us as a team is continuing to innovate and build products that our consumers really want. The level of competition in this area is immense and comes from many different directions. So staying ahead of the competition, so-to-speak, can be challenging.

Q: Speaking of competition; what’s unique about Yahoo! Local compared to similar local offerings?
A: I think there’re a lot of things that differentiate Yahoo! Local. Of course we have the ratings and reviews which gives people an idea of what others think of the business or service before they try it themselves.

But I think one of our biggest differentiators is the depth of structured content we offer. We provide the basics like business address, phone number, website and then we take it a step further: we let businesses provide information that’s unique to them like hours of operation, payment methods, specialty, and ambiance.

Q: What if the business doesn’t have a website? Can I still find them in Yahoo! Local?
A: Yes, you’ll still find them. Most people assume that if the business doesn’t have a website then it can’t be listed, but that’s not true. If they have a physical place of business, we’ll include them in Yahoo! Local. This is important because more and more people are turning to the Internet for local information and they need to find more than just those businesses that have their own website. It also helps smaller businesses connect to a much larger audience then they could traditionally.

Related to that, we have a substantial number of businesses and services on Local and we’re continuing to grow that content. We have over 15 million listings and we’ve made it easier for people to add or update businesses. This is something that our users said they wanted when we were in beta and now we’ve added it. It essentially lets business owners either add their business or edit their existing one and it also encourages non-business owners to suggest a business listing or alert us to business changes in their community. [See Search Engine Watch article]

We also provide things like our refine and sort, which are unique to Local. These features let you define the specific type of business you’re looking for. For example, instead of just looking for any and all restaurants in San Francisco, I can specify that I want an elegant restaurant with entertainment, a great bar and within a certain price range.

Q: What do you think you uniquely bring to what you do?
A: I think I’m good at building teams and recruiting people and motivating people to perform. I believe you have to find the right people to do the job and then give them breathing room. You have to let them demonstrate that they can succeed.

Zod [Farzad Nazem] our CTO, is a really good role model in terms of how to run an organization. He’s told me many times that you need to just give people the benefit of the doubt and you need to let them do their job even if it isn’t always in the way that you think it should be. Even if you’re right, it’s kind of the nature of democracy; people have free will. You can probe and you can question, but at the end of the day, if people are in a role and you want them to be successful and the company to be successful, you have to let them do their job.

Q: At thirty, you’ve accomplished quite a lot. What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned from your experiences so far?
A: I guess I’ve learned through both my academic and professional experiences that you need to pace yourself. I feel like if I want to be happy long term, I really have to enjoy everything I do and that may require me to focus on doing fewer things.

I can’t say that it [pacing] has been an easy thing for me. In some ways I’ve had to rework my wiring from being always driven, always pushing, to sometimes kind of laying back a little bit and letting things happen at their own pace. And being in a type A driven industry and a type A driven company in particular, it’s sometimes hard to pace yourself because you often feel like you’re foregoing opportunities or you’re not rising a fast as your peer group or whatever, which may sometimes be the case. But I do believe ultimately-long term-if you’re going at your own pace and you’re doing the things that you really enjoy, you’ll achieve the things that you want to achieve when it’s right to achieve them. And you’ll enjoy yourself along the way which is more important.

Stay tuned for part II next week.

Yvette Irvin
Y! Profiler

Usama puts it nicely in the press release:
“The opportunity to bring a disciplined, scientific approach to data technologies at Yahoo! was irresistible on both a person and technical level,” said Fayyad. “I look forward to creating a scientific environment at Yahoo! that will continue to attract some of the best technical minds in the industry, while working to apply that knowledge in ways that will benefit all of our businesses.”

Hm…Usama and Bassel would be great folks for Yvette to profile here! We’ll have to bug them after they get settled. Stay tuned…

Nancy Evars
Yahoo! Search