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Dr. David M. Pennock's Homepage FAQ [Computer Research
Scientist, Yahoo! Research Labs, Overture, Electronic Commerce,
Artificial Intelligence, FAQ, Frequently Asked Questions]
Q: |
What is
Yahoo! Research?
What do you do there?
Yahoo! Research
is a fabulous new research lab with a mission to change to face of the
Internet. As a Senior Research Scientist, my job is to dream up
technologies that are disruptive and revolutionary, either
commercially, scientifically, or both. The lab is dedicated to helping
Yahoo! lead the next online revolution, both directly through
technological advances, and indirectly through contributions to
academic and scientific communities. We have researchers with expertise
in many subdisciplines of computer science, including machine learning,
data mining, information retrieval, algorithms, optimization, parallel
computation, and electronic commerce. My broad areas of research are in
electronic commerce and artificial intelligence. More specifically, my
work focuses on information markets (a.k.a. prediction markets), Web
algorithms, Web modeling, recommender systems, machine learning,
uncertain reasoning, and decision theory. To get a more detailed view
of
my research, see my publications. |
Q: |
What is
Overture?
Overture is a Web search advertising company, acquired by Yahoo! in
2003. Although most people
have never heard of Overture, anyone who searches for anything on Yahoo! or MSN
is using Overture without knowing
it. In 2003 Overture was ranked as the fastest
growing tech company in Los Angeles over a five year period. These
popular press articles paint a good picture of what Overture
does:
- BusinessWeek
June 2003: "If one company deserves credit for the Internet ad
revival of 2003, it's Overture"
- BusinessWeek
March 2003: "...the Pasadena (Calif.) outfit was hatching a
business model that is now resuscitating the Internet advertising
business"
- AP:
"Overture has become one of the Internet's biggest moneymakers this
side of eBay"
- The
Street: "Internet advertising ... is growing again -- thanks in
large part to pay-per-click advertising from leaders like Overture
Services"
Overture pioneered sponsored search, probably the
single most influential factor in the post-dot-bomb revival of Web
search and advertising. Many imitators
have
since followed. Advertisers who want to appear when users search for,
say, digital cameras, or las vegas travel, or any
other
search phrase, compete in a real-time auction to determine whose ad
appears in the 'sponsored' section of the search results page.
Advertisers only pay if their ad is clicked on: thus they
only pay for legitimate referrals of users actively looking for
products or services related to their business. Overture's editorial
team verifies that advertisers bid only on terms
that are relevant to their business. Advertisers pay an average of
about forty cents per click. Overture earned about $1 billion in
revenue
worldwide in 2003. Imagine a billion dollars, collected forty cents at
a time! At the height of the dot-com era, the dream for web sites and
portals was that eyeballs would somehow translate into
revenues. Thanks in large part to Overture, that dream is closer to
reality than ever before. |
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