Wow, so Microsoft says - we raised the bid from $31/share to $33/share.  Yahoo still decides to be stubborn and says, nope, we are worth more.  So, here we are.  When i read the email on Sat night from Ballmer, i had mixed emotions.  I really had feeling that this deal will go through and it was just matter of time.  However, when i read the news, i was kinda of glad that Ballmer decided what he decided.  I heard him at the company meeting on Thursday and it was apparent on his face that he was stressed out but he made sense and he was talking logically.  The best part was:  “i know what Yahoo is worth” and “Yahoo is NOT the strategy, it is part of the online strategy”.  So we’ll see how market reacts tomorrow to this announcement. 

So what did we learn from all these? 

1)  Microsoft is darn serious about online advertising and search

2)  Yahoo is willing to be sold to a highest bidder and has given up on fighting Google

3)  Google will do everything possible to steal the show and make MSFT look bad  [However, i must say G is really smart. G and Y are working together to make Y's search inventory like an auction system]

There we have it.  This kind of stuff makes being in online advertising world exciting.  Now, i just wish FB would figure something about it’s revenue stream.  G only has one competition at this point and it’s FB.  If FB were to go public tomorrow, i would so buy it’s stock.  I regret not buying G’s stock when it went public.

Anyway, now the question becomes:  How will market react to this announcement?  Will Y’s stock price go down (i believe it will significantly) and what will happen to MSFT’s stock price?  I read somewhere that Yahoo is doing everything possible to to get a deal with Google done before market opens on Monday to reduce the drop in it’s stock price.

Exciting times

T

Hellooooo,

It has been more than 2 years and i’m still here at Microsoft.  Today, I got a ping back from someone who got hired as a media specialist and made me realize that people still read my blog and remember it even after a year.  So i have been here little over 2 years, still doing search and enjoying it (most of the times :)).  I have been getting involved in the projects, learning new things, search has become little more complex than it was 2 years ago.  We have lot more coooler tools now like Excel Add-In.  Here is what has changed the most in the past 2 years.  At a professional level, I have moved to New York office :)  Moved to northeast just about 6 months ago, completely different from Seattle.  I actually miss seattle (shocking i know).  I miss the greenery and the mountains.  Anyways, so i am still here after 2 years at Microsoft.  I still think it is great company to work for, lot of things to learn - from people and from the organization itself and how it treats it’s employees.  Don’t want to say anything about Microsoft-Yahoo deal just yet, i have my opinions and speculations just like everyone else.  Oh and also, i might actually go to Dallas next week to do some recruiting, how exciting is that.  Let me know if you are interested, we are hiring

Also, over time some people have reached out to me after reading the blog.  I’m glad it has helped people, please let me know how else i can help you.

Thanks.

Tejas

After hearing so much about Joost and how it will change the way we watch TV, I decided to sign up for it.  Couple of days ago i got email from Joost asking me to beta test it.  Well i tried it.

My first impression went something like this:  cooool.  this is nice.  Windows popped open went full screen and video was clear.  Nice interface, took me while to figure out the navigation, especially to find the power button.  I still haven’t found a minimize button.  Below are some screen shots:

As soon as it was launched, it played an ad for transformers:

Notice the navigation on all four sides of the screen.

Upon clicking on “My Channels”, see below.  I like the menu, pretty slick.

Channel Catalog allows you to choose category.  Whatever you feel like watching be it films, documentary, music, sports, etc.

I was able to find “News Radio” and while watching it i noticed this little box on my bottom right corner for “Army” (The sponsor).  Box disappeared after few seconds and just like on TV there was a 30 second ad from the sponsor - they have to make money somehow.  I did not find the ad that intrusive, it came and disappeared in few seconds.  As long they don’t show ads every few mins and interupt my viewing, i’m ok with seeing ads once in a while.  It would be really awesome if ads were relevant to whatever program was talking about, that should have great CTR.  Also, instead of showing ads randomly if Joost can display ads based on demography of people who are most likely to watch that program, advertisers should see higher return on their investments.

I saw lot of options for international viewers as well - but ads got to be more relevant.  This is Internet, should be able to at least guess the demographic of the consumer, also since programs are pre-recorded Joost must find a way to match advertiser with content of the program.

And then Joost crashes on me :)  It is in beta so it is completely acceptable, that’s why they call it Beta.

Upon re-launching it, Now if you click on “My Joost” there is a setting called “Widget Menu”- see below:

I think this is awesome.  This menu gives lot of options to the users, love the instant messaging and “blog this” capabilities, very nice.  And just like Windows sidebar you can move the widgets around on your screen.

One thing i don’t like is it’s obsession with going full screen, it’s kind of annoying.  Well, when i went into advanced settings i found great control features. And option that allowed me to uncheck “full screen” box.  I also noticed great security features that parents might find useful, such as entering pin.

Other thing that annoyed me quite a bit is it’s navigation, how do you bring it back again and how do you make it disappear?  Still can’t figure it out and not so user friendly.

So let’s do SWOT analysis:

Strengths:  good video quality, nice interface, web 2.0 feeling

Weaknesses:  Navigation, full screen, load time

Opportunities:  more quality programs or programs that consumers might enjoy watching, partner with TV networks to put their episodes on Joost, specifically for chatting feature allow user to access their AOL, MSN, yahoo buddy lists (now that’d be cool), show ads relevant to the program

Threats:  Lack of choice in programs, other IPTV providers, inability to convince big networks to put quality programs on Joost

I still can’t find minimize button.  If you want an invite to Joost, please let me know.

Overall:  Not bad, pretty cool.

Tejas

That’s right, May 24th will go down in history as a day when Facebook became a Man.  Today Facebook announced “Facebook Platform”, where it is giving amazing control to developers, and users where they will be able to add third party apps, and lot of other good stuff.

So here is what will happen next:

This confirms that Facebook is really smart, Yahoo is really regretting not buying Facebook when it had the chance.  So now Google and Microsoft will be fighting each other to buy these guys.  Let’s see how high they can go. 

But the real question is, does Facebook want to be bought out?  I

Here’s what I think:  i don’t think Facebook will be bought out by either one of the two giants.  It will go on its own.  It’s a great social networking site, way better than MySpace, clean interface, no junk, no spam, users love it, advertisers love the target audience that uses Facebook, what else do you need?  It now needs it own search engine or search engine that will provide it results (Go with Live.com ).

If FaceBook want to be bought out, Microsoft should do everything possible to buy them and not let this deal go to Google or anyone else for that matter.  Of course my opinions are biased.

Other news that shadowed Facebook announcement was MSN lost market share, not 0.5 but whole 1%, how in the world?  Acquisition of aQuantive will not bring up that market share.  Let’s see.

Tejas

I’m regular reader of Mark Cuban’s blog.  How many CEO’s you know has time to blog on regular basis, not that many.  Yesterday he posted a blog entry titled: “Donald - Need a Job?”.  That was sooo hilarious.  It’s amazing how this guy has so much guts and speaks his mind without worrying about what other people might think of him.  It is great.  Way to go Mark - You rock.

Wow, this is third post in 3 days

Tejas

What in the world is going on?  Everyone is buying they get their hands on and might I add paying way more than its worth.  Yes it is known fact that more eyeballs equals more advertising dollars, but buying everything you get your hand on, reminds lot of people of dot com era.  Recently, there is lot of buzz in the industry of online advertising bubble bursting.  Are critics just being overly cautious or are they right?

After acquisition of aQuantive for $6 Billion by Microsoft, news of Yahoo purchasing Bebo.com for $1 billion is in talks and Google going after Feedburner.  Let’s see who else is left in the market?  Facebook.com - now that’s the site i really like and i believe Yahoo was in talks with them few months ago but apparently it didn’t work out.  Main question would be, if Facebook were to be on sale, how much would it go for?  Easily in billions considering how three giants (Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft) have open their wallets to everyone and anyone.  Craziness if you ask me.  First it was Google buying YouTube, then Microsoft buying portion of (80% i believe ) of CareerBuilder.com, Google buying DoubleClick, Yahoo buying Right Media, MySpace buying Photobucket, Microsoft buying aQuantive, and now talks of Yahoo buying Bebo.com and Google going after Feedburner - holy smokes. 

Like i was saying earlier, only player that remains to be bought out is Facebook.com - just came across an article on it TechCrunch.com.  I kinda agree and disagree with portions of the post on Techcrunch.  Yahoo is definitely out, so it comes down to Google and Microsoft.  Yes it does make sense for Google to buy it, but it ALSO makes sense for Microsoft to purchase it.  It will be MS’s entry into social networking, plus Microsoft already has existing banner advertisement deal with Facebook, why not take it to the next level and purchase the darn company.  I’m not quiet sure if Facebook going public makes lot of sense.

So let’s see who eats up Facebook.com and how far, G, Y, and M will go to purchase this hot property.

Tejas

(Read the disclaimer)

WOW.  $6 Billion to acquire an ad agency is lot of dough.  Is this to remain in the game or is it desperation move, or “if you can do anything I can do better”?  If Microsoft had paid $4 bil for DoubleClick and beat Google in that negotiation process, that would have been so much better than to pay $6 billion for aQuantive.  Overall i think its a good purchase, may be little over-priced in my opinion, but its an imp acquisition.  Its the biggest acquisition in company’s history and feels great to be a part of it when this is all happening. 

Feeling in my group was of excitement.  Finally, we won a negotiation deal :)  And a big one too.  We work with this agency pretty frequently and like CEO of aQuantive said, we have exchanged employees over the years.  Even my boss’s boss’s boss is from Ave. A/Razorfish.  Now he was hoping if he held on to those stocks, he’d be millionaire along with other employees of aQuantive.  Craziness, $6 billion is lot of money, was the company worth this much?  will this investment pay off over time?  only time will tell.  But its good to be part of the company that can afford to spend $6 billion to purchase another company, very exciting stuff.  I certainly hope in long run, MSFT buys Yahoo, now that’d be something awesome.  Definitely would boost our market share and put us in number 2 position, just a little closer to big G.  I’m loving the competition and how everyone is trying to be different and pumping out products left and right.  Google’s latest “Universal Search” is not actually a new product but an attempt to popularize some of the products that are not used so much.  Can’t recall anything cool that G released recently.  Looking forward to G’s version of PowerPoint, let’s see how it compares to Office 2007 (which I’m loving it…).  Whatever G is working on right now i’m sure its pretty cool, i love how easy to use and fast their products and services are, an industry should take a note of that and learn lot from them.  My favorite G product is GMail.  Search is good, but Windows Live search is almost same as G.  Except the market share part of course :)  On the other hand, Microsoft is on roll releasing some cool stuff:  Vista, Office 2007, Silverlight, getting “Windows Live Mail” out of Beta and changing the name to “Windows Live Hotmail”, PopFly (i’m still waiting for my invitation), and finally “Microsoft SharedView Beta” - which i think is really cool, makes sharing application etc, so much easier. 

Well it’s really exciting to be part of this industry at this time.  What’s even better is, it is pleasure to be part of company that is serious about winning and trying it’s best to improve market share and go from may be number 3 player to number 2 and eventually number 1.

P.S. Using “Windows Live Writer” right now and it has this really cool feature which allows you to select date and time of when you want the post to be published.  I think this functionality should be added to email applications, where you write an email and you choose when you want that email to be sent - now that’s a cool feature request.

Yes i know i have broken the first rule of blogging - which says you must keep your blog updated.  I have few excuses.  i was on vacation in december, i have been really busy, my school is keeping me busy, and last one i’m lazy

 The “WOW” Starts Now - That’s right baby, Windows Vista and Office 2007 launched today.  I have been using beta version of Vista and Office 2007 for the past couple of months and it rocks.  Vista is so much better looking, easy to use and its just fun.  It will surely make you say “WOW” at least one time - i gurantee it.  I have yet to install RTM (Final version) of Vista on my laptop, i’m still using RC1.

Office 2007 rocks too.  Once you get used to the “ribbons”, you’ll say the following sentence: “This is sooooo much easier to use and so much better”.  It seriously is.  There is a little learning curve, but once you get over that, you’ll love it.

So today, there were lot of events across the world - yes i said world to celebrate the launch of Windows Vista and Office 2007.  Events were being held in diff cafeterias around the main campus, so i decided to go to one of those cafeterias and join the celebration and watch BillG and Steve Ballmer live from NYC to offical launch the Vista and Office 07.  It is such a great feeling to be part of this company especially when Vista is launched.  It’s amazing.  You get so many benefits being part of this company, you get to try out software/products that are not out yet, i can’t discuss them :)  But its awesome, to be part of something awesome, if that makes any sense.

So go out and buy Vista and Office 2007.  See if you were nice to me i could have gotten you at discounted price, haha.  i’m kidding.  Oh also, it has been one year since i have been at Microsoft.  Year just flew by, it doesn’t even feel like a year, its crazy.

Let the “WOW” start…

Tejas

I hope you all had a great thanksgiving.  This was the first time i was away from my family, so it was kinda weird.  A colleague of mine was nice enough to invite us “orphans” to her place for thanksgiving meal with her family and pets.  Thank you Dawn

One thing i remember about my Thanksgiving 05 was that day before Thanksgiving Microsoft made me an offer.  A DAY before thanksgiving, nice timing.  I remember that day very well.  I was waiting for the call but have not heard anything for the past 3-4 days and didn’t expect to hear anything until after thanksgiving.  And at around 10 or 11 AM it happened.  Phone rang, recruiter introduced himself and this time he didn’t say “You did well, BUT”, rather he said, “We would like to make an offer to you.”  As soon as i heard that i remember saying this to myself:  “My life just changed.”  I remember him explaining all the benefits and stuff and i don’t remember anything he said, because i was shacking, couldn’t believe that Microsoft just made me an offer.  Last thing he said to me was “I bet you have something to be thankful for this thanksgiving” and i responded “You have no idea” :)  Ahhhh what a moment that was.  There are not that many moments in life that you can recall and point them out as being life changing moment.  So there you go, one year from day before thanksgiving, Microsoft made me an offer.

So what did i do celebrate this wonderful moment?  I bought XBOX 360 baby :)  Actually, i bought it because they had really good deal at the company store and i figured i will lot of time on my hand over the next 4 days doing nothing.  I am not much of a gamer, i think video games are just waste of time, i seriously do.  But i’m getting into it a little bit.  I have yet to try XBox Live, it seems pretty cool.

There you have it.  I hope you all had wonderful thanksgiving.

Cowboys are 7-4, who knew?  Tony Romo rocks

Tejas

I got an email from Co-worker couple of days back saying that Southwest is offering $79 one way from Seattle to Dallas.  To confirm that deal, i called up Southwest’s 1800 number and to  my surprise after one ring a LIVE PERSON picked up the phone.  Now how often do you get to hear a live person when you call a 1800 number?  I was really impressed with it and with Southwest offering $79 deal from Seattle to Dallas.  Now that’s call customer service.  It would be great if a live person actually picks up the phone every single time you call a customer service number for any company.  Way to go Southwest.

According to posts on Webmasterworld, MSN has updated results on pretty recently.  I am pretty happy with what i see in the SERP, of course its no perfect yet, but i think it is closing in gap with relevancy.  That reminds me, have you checked out MsDewey.com?  It is such a brilliant concept.  However, is it useful for long term?  Meaning, you go there first time, you listen to that beautiful woman and it is entertaining.  Can you hear her talk on daily basis or will there be an option to just get the results directly without listening to what she has to say?  It is a nice concept though.

Besides that, work has been pretty crazy lately.  Work never seems to end and my work life balance doesn’t exist, so i have to find that balance, that is if i have time to find that :)  Still enjoying my work, lot of competition, lot of smart people, lot of things are constantly changing which makes it more fun.  One thing i discovered while working here is that, you gotta love change or at least better learn quickly to deal with it.  Things are not going to stay constant for long which is good and bad thing, depending whose perspective you want.

Tejas