Suddenly, search!

Earlier this week, Google put on a show called “Searchology” about its latest search innovations at its HQ in Silicon Valley.

And next Tuesday, Yahoo will trot out its search extravaganza, called “Search chalk talk,” during which top search techies will talk up its more innovative products, such as Build Your Own Search Service (BOSS) and Search Monkey.

Could all this search blabbing have anything to do with a certain upcoming launch of a new search offering by a very rich and even more determined giant tech company?

As in: Microsoft (MSFT) and whatever it ends up calling its redone search product, code-named Kumo.

Since the launch is likely to be loud and splashy, the No. 1 and No. 2 search players needed to make some of their own noise in advance about their stuff.

So Google (GOOG)–which has a massive lead in search of upward of 70 percent–trotted out Udi Manber, VP of Search Engineering, and Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Products and User Experience, this past Tuesday for a media audience.

The distillation of the event was that doing search well is still really, really hard–a new kind of “rocket science,” in fact, as Manber declared.

(Google’s spaceship crashed a bit today, as it turned out, with an outage, which was blamed on a “traffic jam” in Asia.)

At the event, the search giant also unveiled some new bells and whistles, such as Search Options, including a “Wonder Wheel” and “Google Squared,” as well as “Rich Snippets.”

Not to be outdone, Yahoo (YHOO) will have its own confab for reporters and bloggers next Tuesday morning in San Francisco.

Presenting at the event with be: Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo Labs and Yahoo Search Strategy; Larry Cornett, VP of Consumer Products; and Lee Ott, senior director, Mobile Search.

Yahoo has a search share that hovers around 20 percent, which makes the upcoming increased competition from Microsoft more problematic.

Which is why the company continues its talks with Microsoft about a search and online advertising partnership.

But until any deal is struck, of course, it will be competition as usual.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Are Google and Yahoo thinking of walking of away from their controversial search advertising deal, as reported in an amusingly hedged report in The Wall Street Journal last night?

How’s this for covering your bases in a story: “Following a meeting Thursday with the Justice Department, the companies could announce a decision to back away from the partnership–or a last-minute resolution, if one is reached–by the middle of next week, according to these sources.”

So they will back away unless, of course, they don’t and soon?

I would bet my Barry Manilow record collection, based on rumblings on Wednesday among those close to the case, that Google (GOOG) is a key whispery source here, sending a very public signal to the Justice Department that it would walk if pushed too far and leave regulators with egg on their faces for not letting the search giant help the struggling Yahoo.

But, let me be even more concrete, since The Journal report is dead wrong on at least one count. I can tell you for sure, based on many sources close to Yahoo (YHOO) that walking away is its last option, outside of a lawsuit, and it still hopes to make the partnership work.

That was underlined last night in a statement by Washington D.C.-based Yahoo spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler:

“We have been working with the Department of Justice regarding our agreement with Google and those discussions are ongoing. As we have said, we believe strongly that this agreement will strengthen Yahoo!’s competitive position in online advertising and will help to drive a more robust, higher quality Yahoo! marketplace for our advertisers, publishers and users.”

And I do not believe she is spinning here, even though that is her job.

Indeed, Yahoo can ill afford to pull out so easily, because it needs the revenue the deal might provide and simply cannot take the hit to its stock the collapse of the partnership would entail.

Such a series of one-two punches after its already tumultuous year would be devastating. It would also put Yahoo in the direct crosshairs of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer as its only partnering alternative in search.

Going it alone, of course, while preferable, is no longer an easy option for Yahoo, since keeping its No. 2 position in search would be expensive and brutal, especially sandwiched by No. 1 Google and No. 3 Microsoft (MSFT).

And, even more vexing, several sources at Time Warner (TWX) told me they are waiting until the resolution of the Yahoogle situation before consummating the ongoing merger discussions with Yahoo, because of the uncertainty of the impact on the Internet giant.

“It is linked to and just overhangs everything,” said one Yahoo exec about the long-pending Google partnership. “We want and need this deal, and would not be the ones to walk away first.”

As I have written, that would be Google, which benefits a lot from the will-they-or-won’t-they speculation here and cannot mind letting its intentions get some play (along with state attorneys general, who were also present at the Thursday meeting, and for whom leaking for simple self-aggrandizement is a basic character trait).

In fact, there was already much chatter that reached me on Wednesday that Google was sprinkling crumbs here and there to the media pigeons, all centered around the fact that it might balk at any onerous Justice Department demands, such as caps on search it could serve, or a consent decree that would require monitoring.

The Journal story mentioned the consent decree, which would be welcomed at Googleplex in Mountain view, Calif., like nonorganic mango nectar and bleached flour. The idea of regulators ferreting around its servers is simply not an option for the secretive company.

As I wrote early yesterday about the possibility of Google walking, in a predictive laundry list of options for Yahoogle earlier yesterday:

It seems far more likely that Google would do this than Yahoo, given its corporate culture is impatient with moving forward illogically (think Spock and you have the right picture of Google’s mindset).

I would imagine Google execs do not want to accept any caps or changes to the deal at all, and might conclude such restrictions make it not as worthwhile…

Plus, the joy of government regulators breathing down your neck 24/7 is, well, priceless, especially after Google CEO Eric Schmidt told regulators he would move forward with or without them.

While Google has now perhaps permanently put the government on notice that is must be more scrutinized than ever going forward with that unfortunate statement, I would be surprised if Google accepted any substantial changes to the deal.”

And, while it might be testing the Justice Department in hopes of salvaging the deal, I suspect Google–as much as its founders want to help out Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and block Microsoft at the same time–is just now figuring out that walking might actually be the best move.

First off, even though it moved forward with the partnership, many top execs at the company were dead set against it, mostly due to the undue scrutiny it would bring to Google.

In fact, early on, some of its own operatives in D.C. expressed worry–largely ignored at HQ, where execs really do see themselves as not evil–about Google’s growing image as a scary behemoth.

Second, while Google seldom runs from a good fight–in fact, it often runs directly towards them–tangling with the federal government might be like crossing the 38th Parallel in Korea for the company. And you know how that went for General Douglas MacArthur!

It would certainly put the full attention of regulators on every move Google might make in the future, which is not good.

Third, the Yahoogle controversy, while being stoked by Microsoft’s relentless lobbying, has also brought into the light exactly how scared of Google’s power advertisers truly are.

And that would be terrified.

The company cannot simply blame Microsoft for manufacturing this fuss–even though it has surely pulled out all the stops in its bag of tricks.

In truth, whether Google chooses to accept this stark reality or not, many advertisers, publishers and public interest groups have been raising some real concerns about its dominance, which it ignores at its peril.

Lastly and perhaps most importantly, times have changed drastically as the economy has tanked.

Thus, Google–like a lot of other tech firms–has been engaged in a very serious company-wide appraisal of its business in the downturn.

One of Google’s internal mantras, I have been told by many inside and outside the company, is a variation of this phrase: Feed the winners, starve the losers.

It would come as no surprise, given the initial internal doubt about the partnership, that the Yahoogle deal might have suddenly become perceived at the company as a loser, and access to Google’s fabulous cafeteria might be about to be cut off.

Whatever Google’s true intentions, in playing chicken, it is courting danger.

According to Wikipedia, “the principle of the game is that while each player prefers not to yield to the other, the outcome where neither player yields is the worst possible one for both players.”

As in, if everyone is trying to win, it always ends in a fatal crash.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Readers had a lot of thoughtful reactions.

To recap: Keller (pictured here) had taken wobbly aim at the Web and its bloggers, calling the Internet a “media tsunami” and too much of its fare “unreliable,” such as sites like Wikipedia and Google News.

“Most of the blog world does not even attempt to report. It recycles. It riffs on the news,” he said in a speech he recently gave in London, in that tiresome tsk-tsk way that must be in the mainstream media mandarin handbook. “That’s not bad. It’s just not enough. Not nearly enough.”

BoomTown, of course, disagreed. I wrote: “This is simply not true going forward, and he should have done some reporting on the subject to find out. There is an ever-increasing number of online outlets who are doing most excellent online reporting.”

Readers weighed in.

Wrote Abe Maslow:

That’s an interesting dodge you’re attempting to pull over on us, when you say, ‘This is simply not true going forward…’ What service does that usually useless bit of business jargon mean here?

“And what’s your evidence: You know of an ever-increasing number of bloggers who do reporting. How in the world would that rebut Keller’s point that most (not all, but most) bloggers do no reporting, choosing instead to comment?”

Obviously, I should have removed that caveat of going forward, but I was being polite! I suppose Keller is technically right on most, but it’s really changing fast and seems simply myopic on his part.

First, he has a bunch of great bloggers who report at his newspaper. Too many to list. We have a bunch at Dow Jones, as do all major newspapers, networks and magazines. While those might be considered reporters, they are more than that and relatively new.

In tech and media alone, besides, there are scads who are doing great reporting and analysis and scooping all those newspapers frequently: Om Malik, Rafat Ali, Jeff Jarvis, Nikki Finke, Peter Kafka, Erick Schonfeld, Staci Kramer, Mark Glaser, Matt Marshall, Chris Anderson, Ryan Block, Brian Lam, Nick Carr. I could go on in this and every category–food, travel, gossip, local, all kinds of business.

Still, noted Glenn Kelman:

In this sense, it seems unfair to brand Keller a dinosaur for drawing an accurate distinction about blogging and traditional journalism. Would we have blamed Keller for making the same observation about cable’s sumo pundits?

“I also think your argument ignores a distinction Keller would undoubtedly make, between professional journalists and citizen journalists. We all know it doesn’t matter whether the news is delivered in print, via the Web, or via RSS; a professional journalist like you who breaks news via a blog isn’t whom Keller is talking about.”

Maybe so, but I guess I have to reiterate that I am weary hearing that same old tired tune about how bad blogs are comparatively, since it is increasingly and swiftly not true.

And why beat up on citizen journalists anyway? They are surely additive and often sharper than the so-called professionals.

Maybe Keller is not a dinosaur, but his speech struck me as not exactly forward-looking and, to my mind, the executive editor of the New York Times needs to be that these days.

In fact, I am with Tish Grier, who wrote:

It would be very nice if guys like Keller would come down to where the people are and start talking with the diversity of us–rather than lumping us all under some kind of crazy rubric that fits his particular argument.

“If he listened, he might find out why so many of us blog in the first place; why so many of us really aren’t out to ‘kill’ journalism. He might find that some of us only want to bring in a different perspective to stale discussions that seem to be perpetuated by old windbags (read: columnists).”

As a formerly print-only windbag, now freshly blowing online, I could not agree more.

To his credit, Keller (pictured here) spent the start of the speech in honor of the late legendary Guardian columnist Hugo Young expertly dissecting the appalling attitude of the Bush administration toward the free press.

Kudos to that. But then he could not resist that tiresome tendency of many mainstream journalists to blame the explosion in the popularity of the Internet for the woes of the newspaper industry.

Dubbing the Internet a “media tsunami” and calling much of what is out there “unreliable,” Keller pilloried sites like Wikipedia and Google News for not having things like foreign bureaus in war zones and because they don’t create content and do aggregate it from other media.

It’s a little odd, though, to insult such Web products for doing exactly what they do–neither Google News nor Wikipedia has ever claimed to perform the function of a news organization like the Times.

Actually, I think Keller’s real problem is the audience, especially young people, who are increasingly using those sites and others.

The fact of the matter for an awfully long time now is that consumers of information are sampling all over the Web and don’t just rely solely on the New York Times for info.

That’s too bad for Keller, I guess, but not bad at all for consumers, who Keller never assumes are discerning at understanding what they are getting. But they are and are simply not a mass of dumb sheep just taking it all in and not questioning anything.

While I realize Keller and others are nervous about the confusion caused by the great mass of information on the Web–too much of it inane, incorrect and even, yes, made up–I have always thought most readers are a lot smarter than a room full of journalists could ever be.

Now before the Rupert-Murdoch-owns-Dow-Jones-now accusations start, let me say I love the New York Times and consider it one of the greatest news organizations around. Of course, I read it daily (well, I read it daily online only, to be specific).

And I agree with a lot of what Keller said in his speech about the need for accuracy over speed and the importance of standards-based reporting online as it is done offline.

But I cannot imagine he lives in the present-day world when he claimed in the speech: “Most of the blog world does not even attempt to report. It recycles. It riffs on the news. That’s not bad. It’s just not enough. Not nearly enough.”

This is simply not true going forward, and he should have done some reporting on the subject to find out. There is an ever-increasing number of online outlets who are doing most excellent online reporting.

Not enough, of course, never enough, but it is a clear trend in almost every category.

Um, Bill, reporting would be nice here too, even at your own media organization. You might want to check out Saul Hansell’s stuff in the Bits blog, as it is full of news. And, I personally learn a ton from Virginia Heffernan’s Medium blog. But that’s just me!

Keller also woefully misrepresented what blogger Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine thinks: “Jeff, like many of the most ardent true believers in the blog revolution, suggests that the mainstream media can be largely replaced by a self-regulating democracy of voices, the wisdom of the crowd.”

Jarvis bites back, of course, noting the bad reporting by Keller.

“First, I have never said that the crowd of bloggers would replace mainstream media and professional journalism. That’s a red herring that is too often attributed presumptively to bloggers and their advocates,” he wrote in a long post. “It’s never properly cited because it can’t be. Where’s the link to the quote with me saying that? It’s fiction. I don’t say that. I don’t believe that.”

I don’t either. And, what was also ironic was that Keller was speaking in tribute to the Guardian’s always sharp Young, whom Keller quoted:

“The duty of elucidation falls more heavily on the columnist than simple side-taking, and I hope the complexities, and my sense of agonized indecision, show through the prose.”

Noted Keller about the impact of Young on him: “I don’t know how successful I was at elucidation in my own columns, but I had no shortage of agonized indecision, and I consider that a point of pride. If we have a higher purpose, those of us in the press, I think it is to challenge lazy certainty, conventional wisdom and complacency.”

Yes, we should definitely challenge that.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Om Malik and his co-host, Joyce Kim, interview Wales, who has also founded Wikia and whose thoughts always interest us.

Here you go: