“While Yahoo! was once a major player in search – even as late as 3 years ago – they essentially outsourced their search know-how to Microsoft Bing in a deal that former CEO Carol Bartz signed with Steve Ballmer 3 years ago,” Eric Jackson writes for Forbes. “The deal hasn’t worked out for Yahoo! and it could be cancelled by [new CEO Marissa] Mayer as early as March.”
Jackson writes, “As we try and read the tea leaves to imagine what Mayer might do with search, I found this three year old post from Search Engine Land very interesting: Recently IDG News Service asked Google’s Marissa Mayer about the “perfect search engine.” Here was the question posed: “What is the perfect search engine? If you had a magic wand and could create it, what would it look like? What would it do?”
Mayer replied: “It would be a machine that could answer that question, really. It would be one that could understand speech, questions, phrases, what entities you’re talking about, concepts. It would be able to search all of the world’s information, [find] different ideas and concepts, and bring them back to you in a presentation that was really informative and coherent.”
What Mayer may have unknowingly described is Siri, a “virtual personal assistant” that uses artificial intelligence to determine user intent and then match data or applications that can fulfill that intent. The company will launch its iPhone application soon and already has a deal with a “tier one” US mobile carrier.”
Jackson writes, “Apple bought Siri 5 months after this post appeared.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Give us any excuse to use that photo and we’re taking it!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
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Ahhh. Sweet Marissa!
Apple should buy Yahoo
Apple should buy Marissa!
+1
Mango, you speak for all of us.
Marissa left Google because of nepotism in Googledom. Marissa was bypassed in promotion because Larry’s former landlady and his wife were installed in the highest decision-making circle in Googledom. Since Marissa is a strong woman there is no place for her in Google. There were attempts in Googledom to denigrate Marissa’s contribution and so she left. Google will rue the day for despising Marissa.
Uh, she never mentioned Siri.
Yeah but she inadvertently described it to a tee. 😉
Didn’t you read the article? The interview with her was from 3 years ago.
I would so do her!!
She’s got a lot on the ball
Marissa Mayer, Minka Kelly, Marissa Mayer, Minka Kelly…sweet Jesus…
There just aren’t enough hands on a human body.
Or enough on her.
Hey you sick pervs, stop your drooling. She is a CEOoooh….
Carry on.
OOhhh right!😍
Is she sitting on Balmer’s Left Nut ?
I don’t think so. It would be blue.
At 65 I thought me long past the groupie stage, but that is one nice looking woman, CEO or no. More than smart, too.
Siri, you are hereby renamed Marissa.
I’ll bet she functions much,much better than Siri!
What a beautiful GODDESS and what’s even so cooler is that she’s so damn smart 🙂
So embarrassed. If you are reading this and you are one of the people I’ve recommended this site to, they’re just kidding. And MDN promises to find a different picture of Ms. Mayer in the future. Right MDN? MDN?
Gorgeous or not (and she is), I bought some shares of Yahoo not long back as a vote of confidence in her abilities. I didn’t buy them for Yahoo, but because I have faith she can turn it around. Made money on that almost immediately. I admit I didn’t get a lot of shares, but I am watching what she’s doing there and wish her luck. I want to see her successful, not just beautiful. If she ever leaves Yahoo, Apple® would do well to hire her quick.