eBay to Fix It’s Crappy Best Match Search? New Acquisition from Microsoft / Bing!!!
It looks like eBay may be taking steps in the right direction for search. No, these are NOT baby steps, it looks like a GIANT leap forward in direction could be underway.
According to Andy Beal on Seeking Alpha it seems Microsoft has lost Hugh Williams to eBay! Hugh was the Microsoft Bing product development manager and he quit to take a job at eBay.
From LinkedIn:
I managed the development of all user-facing web search relevance features, including the left-rail explore pane (with its "table of contents"), navigational query treatments, query-biased summaries, "deeplinks", related searches, and whole page results relevance. Additionally, I managed the Powerset team in San Francisco.
I also managed the end-to-end development of Internet Explorer 8′s suggested sites feature, image search, video search, news search, xrank, and almost all instant answers (such as the encarta, news, images, and so on).
Hugh played a large part in the development of the new Bing search engine for Microsoft and he was very instrumental in the development of Internet Explorer 8. It seems that Mr. Williams has and EXTREMELY impressive resume as well…
Work
- I was a Partner at Microsoft and a Development Manager in the Bing search engine team from 2005 to 2009
- I was the Associate Professor in Information Retrieval at RMIT University from 1994 to 2004
- I wrote software for my own company from 1990 to 1997
- Download a short resume (in PDF format) or see my profile at LinkedIn
Research
- My areas of expertise are Search Engines, Information Retrieval, and Computational Biology
- I’ve published 3 books, 2 book chapters, 20 journal papers, 44 conference papers, and several other works. I have roughly 25 patents pending
- Here is a list of my publications. A partial list is also available at the DBLP
- At RMIT University, I advised twelve PhD graduates
12 Comments
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
- eBay to Fix It’s Crappy Best Match Search? New Acquisition from Microsoft / Bing!!! - News: Everything-e - [...] eBay to Fix It’s Crappy Best Match Search? New Acquisition from Microsoft / Bing!!! Related posts:The 13 Deadly (SEO) ...
- Is Bing.com REALLY Bigger than Twitter and Digg Mythbuster Challenge - News: Everything-e - [...] Bing.com REALLY Bigger than Twitter and Digg Mythbuster Challenge Related posts:eBay to Fix It’s Crappy Best Match Search? New ...
- Microsoft Locks Me In A Room For 4 Hours & Snores Me 2 Death 4 Windows 7 - News: Everything-e - [...] Windows Live Writer Share this article...Close Bookmark and Share This Page Save to Browser...eBay to Fix It’s Crappy Best Match ...
- Bing’s Director of Marketing, Raju Malhotra Speaks to ColderICE - News: Everything-e - [...] that mean for retailers? Raju Malhotra is Director of Product Marketing for [...] Related posts:eBay to Fix It’s Crappy ...
Leave a Reply
Be in it to win it
Conversion Conference
WOAH! What the HECK is Computational Biology?
Sounds like the dude knows some serious stuff. And he doesn’t even look old enough to have a paper route!
WOAH! What the HECK is Computational Biology?
Sounds like the dude knows some serious stuff. And he doesn’t even look old enough to have a paper route!
eBay has the money to hire smart people. eBay doesn’t have the corporate intelligence/eco-system to let the smart people they hire do what needs to be done.
Gosh you know I SOOO want you to be wrong, but you could be SOOO right
eBay has the money to hire smart people. eBay doesn’t have the corporate intelligence/eco-system to let the smart people they hire do what needs to be done.
Gosh you know I SOOO want you to be wrong, but you could be SOOO right
Although on the surface,this looks like a great move on eBay’s part, I would not get too excited about anything yet.
The flaws with the best match search lie not ONLY with it’s inability to draw out the best match, but rather also with it’s intention to slant that best match towards that CostcoWalmartget entity they are trying to are to feed.
That this is will be much of a good thing for all eBayers, I WILL BELIEVE when I see, because hell, anything can happen.
But at this point, I’m not so gullible as to believe anymore that eBay’s going to throw the little guy anything good.
If that sounds cynical, I guess it is, but at this point I’ve I’m from Mississippi, I’ve gotta be shown.
I do agree that they’ve got someone with a bright young mind on the team. And I’m sure this gentlemen is the best in his field. But a bright mind built the atomic bomb too.
My guess is that they’ll try to get this guy to squeeze the last drop of juice out of the eBay search to benefit pet mega sellers.
I’ll bet you lunch Mr. Lawson, here and now, that this falls far short of what we all hope the expected outcome to be. It smacks of another gimmick to fill a gap that substance should fill, and that nothing much will come of it for the seller who is listing under $100,000 worth of merch on eBay.
If I am wrong, it’s a lunch I am all too happy to buy. Although if I lose, I can’t throw in the airplane ticket that it will require for us to enjoy lunch in each other’s excellent company.
I’ll send a McDonalds certificate or a sandwich in a flat-rate Priority envelope.
With your kind of my money, I’ll expect that your private jet to pick me up if I win the bet;)
Love ya Johnny!
My kinda money?!? My kinda money makes alot of noise when you wiggle your pockets. My treat to CC’s Pizza, but only at lunch time! LMAO
Although on the surface,this looks like a great move on eBay’s part, I would not get too excited about anything yet.
The flaws with the best match search lie not ONLY with it’s inability to draw out the best match, but rather also with it’s intention to slant that best match towards that CostcoWalmartget entity they are trying to are to feed.
That this is will be much of a good thing for all eBayers, I WILL BELIEVE when I see, because hell, anything can happen.
But at this point, I’m not so gullible as to believe anymore that eBay’s going to throw the little guy anything good.
If that sounds cynical, I guess it is, but at this point I’ve I’m from Mississippi, I’ve gotta be shown.
I do agree that they’ve got someone with a bright young mind on the team. And I’m sure this gentlemen is the best in his field. But a bright mind built the atomic bomb too.
My guess is that they’ll try to get this guy to squeeze the last drop of juice out of the eBay search to benefit pet mega sellers.
I’ll bet you lunch Mr. Lawson, here and now, that this falls far short of what we all hope the expected outcome to be. It smacks of another gimmick to fill a gap that substance should fill, and that nothing much will come of it for the seller who is listing under $100,000 worth of merch on eBay.
If I am wrong, it’s a lunch I am all too happy to buy. Although if I lose, I can’t throw in the airplane ticket that it will require for us to enjoy lunch in each other’s excellent company.
I’ll send a McDonalds certificate or a sandwich in a flat-rate Priority envelope.
With your kind of my money, I’ll expect that your private jet to pick me up if I win the bet;)
Love ya Johnny!
My kinda money?!? My kinda money makes alot of noise when you wiggle your pockets. My treat to CC’s Pizza, but only at lunch time! LMAO
Your on! Sorry for the horrible sentence mangle in the 2nd paragraph, and now that I think of it, Missouri is the “show me” state, not Mississippi.
It was late when I replied, real late.
Keep of the good work;)
Your on! Sorry for the horrible sentence mangle in the 2nd paragraph, and now that I think of it, Missouri is the “show me” state, not Mississippi.
It was late when I replied, real late.
Keep of the good work;)