Briefs

Dan Farber, ZDnet

The arms race for scientists with expertise in various areas of search, data mining and data analysis is in full flower, as in the tug of war between Google and Microsoft over the services of Kai Fu Lee. Meanwhile, Yahoo is making a major investment from its nearly $500 million annual engineering spend to build out its own world-class research group.

In fact, based on my conversation yesterday with Prabhakar Raghavan, the new head of Yahoo�s research group, Yahoo has its sights set on Nobel prizes and making breakthroughs to ensure the future of the company. I don�t think he was exaggerating. Search and creating more personalized user experiences that take advantage of underlying data and relationships is still in an infant phase. Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and other major players understand that the spoils will go to those who provide answers, rather than links, and develop ways in which billions of consumers and creators of content can participate in an economic and social value chain.

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