Should Yahoo sue Google?

Yahoo has just received the U.S. patent for something called “Method and apparatus for search ranking human input and automated ranking.” Yahoo applied for this patent in 2002 and has finally received the ownership of the said concept.

What does it mean for you?
It mean, if implemented, it will calculate search rankings on Yahoo Search based on a combination of automated search algorithms and human editor input – hence better search results, presumably.
So if you’re an SEO worker and you’ve successfully work on a particular site to make it rank higher on a particular search query based on Yahoo’s search algorithms, your site might not actually appear on the first page of the Yahoo SERPs if the human editors found it not so relevant to the search query at all. Of course this will be based on your site content.

What does it mean for Google?
It might mean a complete change in game for Google in search.

1. Yahoo will/might market it effectively as a great improvement in search results and hence taking a dig at Google's #1 position in search.

2. One of the main reasons of Google search results having a higher relevancy is the human editing of search rankings. It was a great process so far for Google. But now it means an infringement of a patent obtained by Yahoo and Yahoo can very well sue Google for this. This is again going to be a big blow for Google and could be a potential source of revenue for Yahoo from Google and other websites; websites which are willing to pay Yahoo to use the Human editing techniques of search ranking.

Yahoo if you are listening

Forget the new Y!ou marketing blitz. If you want some real attention, sue Google for patent infringement–that will earn you plenty of publicity and possibly a boatload of cash too (not from MS but from GOOG this time)

The Regent Hill side Resort: A house that haunts

We recently visited Yercaud from Bangalore over a long weekend. As always, we drove down to Yercaud from Bangalore. It's a 200+ km drive from Bangalore which one can easily cover in 5 hours. I would write about the trip in more detail later. For now, I feel like penning down about my bad stay experience in Yercaud. The fact that this happened after my memorial stay in Taj Exotica Goa; made it look even worse.

We stayed in an old residence, converted into a hotel named "the regent hill side resort". The holiday turned out to be a little disappointing because we chose to stay in this much hyped hotel.

The hotel is an old house owned by one Mr. Vishu. The house has been converted into a hotel. The rooms are big with attached bathrooms and interior done in old style; an attempt to give an old-british-style-house look. However, the place lacks the basics of a hotel industry and hospitality and is very highly priced at INR 4000/- a night, not a value for money for anyone. There is no reception or friendly front-office desk kind of person availble to help you with anything.

The kitchen is run by a local, hired by the owner of the Hotel, to cook for you on demand. The cook also plays the role of a front-desk person, cleaner and does various other miscellanious activites; cooking is a part of one his duties.

Don't expect to get delicacies or cuisines from around the world; you can just get the standard Indian meal to survive. The list of dishes that you can get are limited by the knowledge of the cook available. We ordered "dal makhni" and what we got was "yellow toor daal"... not something you would expect when you are paying a premium for the stay.

The place has no power back-up (at least there wasn't when we stayed). With frequent power cuts in any Indian town, this is not something which you would want to happen to your place of stay while you are holidaying. We learnt it the hard way; during our stay, the power went off at 1.30am mid-night and in the absence of a reception or front-desk, we were inside a pitch dark house in the middle of a coffee plant....scary...haunting..can take the shit out of your pants......I can't explain that scary feeling in words.
The "house-cum hotel-cum resort" is in the middle of a coffee plant and there is an old (aged about 60+ years) care-taker who sleeps in the night in the house.You definitely don't want to get into situation like this where you are spending a night in a completely unknown place without a power and without anyone to help you out.
The power came back after 2 hours at 3.30am after repeated calls to the owner of the hotel. These two hours without the power were scary for both me and my wife. We realized the importance and need of checking the service background of your "place of stay" in any holiday location before checking-in.
We completely lost our nights sleep after this incident and the peaceful night in a holiday destination became a night mare. We had to cancel our plan of going for a trek at 6am in the morning after this loss of sleep and slept through till late early morning only to get a call that we have to check-out at 10am next morning......
I wish, I was in a frame of mind to write about some of the good things about the stay...thanks god you made me stay there just 1 out of the many more days I will stay on this earth