Sales rank of my book.

Very briefly(1-2 days ago), the sales rank for my book- "E-Commerce Management: Text and Cases" on Amazon.com was in the thirty thousands. Today, it is back to 110,000 or so. Has Amazon started to include used book sales in its salesrank? I wonder.

Four ways in which Google Scholar must improve.

Here are Prof. Sandeep Krishnamurthy's ten unsolicited suggestions for the improvement of Google Scholar-

1> Create an advanced search feature that allows visitors to limit searches by publication type,
date of publication and type of publication.
2> Include Google Scholar links when people search on the main Google page. This is already being done with Google News.
3> Create a Google Scholar alert similar to Google News.
4> Provide zeitgest data on the most common searches similar to what is being done with Froogle (we academics would love this).

What's All the Buzz About?

Announcing an exciting paper!!!

What’s all the Buzz about? Britney Spears, J–Lo, Beyonce Knowles and other stories from the Yahoo Buzz Index by Nicole Bladow, Cari Dorey, Liz Frederickson, Pavla Grover, Yvette Knudtson, Sandeep Krishnamurthy, and Voula Lazarou
First Monday, volume 9, number 12 (December 2004),
Temp URL: http://www.firstmonday.org/next_issue/bladow/index.html
Permanent URL(valid after Dec. 10th or so): http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_12/bladow/index.html

Bangalore Ahoy!

Some of you know this. I will be visiting the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, India from December 2004 to February 2005. This promises to be an exciting time for me and my family. Bangalore Ahoy! I will be sending dispatches from Bangalore on this blog. Await the first batch of- "Prof. Sandeep Krishnamurthy goes to Bangalore".

Google Kirkland party photos

are here.

Impact of Google Scholar on Scholars

Here is a bold prediction- Google Scholar will revolutionize academia and academic publishing in the following ways.

First, the citation scores for papers will be used to justify the impact of a particular paper. This will make it harder to dismiss some papers and will help the community see through the hype.

Second, the people Google threatens most in the academic environment are the providers of online databases (e.g. Econlit, PsychInfo, ABI/Inform, Expanded Academic Universe). As Google gets access to more papers, the need for online databases will recede. Deep web, anybody?

Third, Google Scholar will give greater weight to papers in online journals. This will help authors of papers in those journals to get the attention they deserve.

Fourth, Google Scholar will lead to greater use of academic knowledge. One can easily imagine a meeting in a government office somewhere where a sociology paper gets cited.

All four vectors of change are significant.

Google just changed my life. Again.

Google just introduced- Google Scholar. "Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research."

Just self-googled. Looks like they have been here.

My Son's First Book

If you give an ostrich an orange
A book by
Rishi Krishnamurthy, 4 years old
Sorry, Laura Neumeroff (author of "If you give a pig a pancake", "If you give a moose a muffin" and many more)

----------
If you give an ostrich an orange,
He’ll want some orange juice to go with it.

If you give him some orange juice,
He’ll want to be Bob the Builder for Halloween*

If he becomes Bob the Builder for Halloween,
He’ll want to go to the store to buy some trucks, marbles and rocks.

If he goes to the store to buy some trucks, marbles and rocks,
That will remind him that he does not have candy at home.

He’ll want to go to Safeway to buy candy- like gummi bears, M&Ms.
He’ll get some rock candy, too.
He’ll want to take it to school.

When he goes to Safeway, he will see an orange
And, he’ll want it.

Chances are if you give him an orange, he’ll want some orange juice to go with it ….

THE END

*-(because all the ostriches are going to be Bob the Builder)

Attention Sears Mart shoppers- Sears and KMart merging!

What an idea. We know that most mergers do not work. The only way they could work is if there are some synergies. I see none here. I can just see how disastrous this is going to be.

What we have here is two brands that have completely lost any life in them trying to resuscitate themselves. This will not work for one reason- it will not make a difference in the customer experience in either store.

From Wharton marketing professor, Stephen J. Hoch- "Here you have two retailers who are doing badly right now and who don't really see a clear way to pull themselves out of the downward spiral. It's hard to fathom how combining them is suddenly going to produce a new entity that will do better. That's tough to do, especially because the competition, including Wal-Mart and Target, isn't exactly standing still." (Source: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1081.cfm)

Google index doubling...

... Slashdotters weigh in.

How do you say your name?

I was in my local Safeway yesterday and the cashier looked at my name (Sandeep Krishnamurthy) and did the usual- "Ohmigod! I am not even going to try to say that one." Sigh. I went into my usual script- it is an Indian name and is spelled exactly as it is written. You know- Sandeep Krishnamurthy. Should I change my name to Sun-deep to get a better reaction?

In any case, I now have two audio files on my personal FAQ to help anyone interested- Sandeep Krishnamurthy.

Gmail, Gmail, Gmail

Yahoo has decided it wants to take on GMail. What does it do about it? Increase storage. Memo to Yahoo- see what Sandeep Krishnamurthy has to say about GMail here. It is not about the storage- it is about functionality- remember "Search. Don't sort.". The story does say- Yahoo! says it has made it easier for email users to search the Web or the content of their email boxes. It is still not a prominent enough part of the e-mail package, IMHO. Invest in search, my friends. Innovate. Run.

Google just walked in.

Google has announced its intention to open an office at Kirkland, WA(the city where yours truly- Prof. Sandeep Krishnamurthy) lives. Welcome!

For those you who do not live here, Kirkland is right next to Redmond, WA- where Microsoft is headquartered. This is the most exciting company in the city of Kirkland, WA- by far.

Excerpts from the article-

"Google will hold an event at its new software development office in downtown Kirkland this week to mark its recent arrival in the city. The company has leased and reserved future rights for enough space to eventually accommodate 200 employees or more on two floors of an office building a short walk from Peter Kirk Park. The company has a sales office in Seattle, but the opening of a development branch on the Eastside is fueling speculation about the possible impact on the local technology community. Much of the buzz centers on the potential for the high-flying search company to lure top talent from Microsoft and other tech companies in the region.
Several former Microsofties have been hired by Google in recent months, prior to the office opening, including veterans of the Internet Explorer and Windows teams."

The idea of working for Google will "definitely appeal to some people," said Greg Linden, a former Amazon.com software engineer who now runs a Seattle-based personalized news search site called Findory.com.

...

"I wouldn't think of it as a stick in anyone's eye," said Ed Lazowska, a UW computer science professor, about Google's decision to open a Seattle-area development office. "It's just an attempt to hire the best people, wherever they might be." Lazowska compared the situation to Microsoft's established branch offices in Silicon Valley. Amazon's A9 search-engine subsidiary is also based in the high-tech California hub. Companies consider such satellites important in part because some new hires want or need to avoid moving from their longtime homes.

Google's new Kirkland office isn't the only indication of the company's attraction to the Seattle-area talent pool. For the past several weeks, one of the company's now-famous puzzle-based recruiting billboards has been posted at Second Avenue and Stewart Street in downtown Seattle. Solving that math problem leads to successive puzzles on the Web that ultimately end up at a Google recruiting site. The Kirkland office is another way for Google "to catch and hold onto people," said Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Watch, a Web site about the search business. "Of course there's the flip side, too. They might pick up some people there, and if they grew dissatisfied with Google, it would be easier for them to slip over to Microsoft."

One former Microsoft employee now in Google's Kirkland office is software developer Joe Beda, who worked on programs including Internet Explorer and Longhorn, the next version of Windows, while at Microsoft. Beda declined to be interviewed but described his reasons for going to Google in a Sept. 2 post on his weblog. "The thing that really attracted me was the fact that it was just a smaller company with smaller groups," Beda wrote, explaining that he had spent his whole career at Microsoft. "After working on such large projects for so long, I was really ready to try something on a smaller scale."

Gmail invitations

Many sites have tried to match those who have a demand for GMail invites with those who have a supply of them. Here are some statistics about this phenomeon from one site. In short, the number of GMail invitations shared has steadily decreased over time.

Contemporary Research in E-Marketing, Volume I released.

Contemporary Research in E-marketing, Volume I by Sandeep Krishnamurthy
Buy the book on Amazon.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Social Oracles As Advertising Tools In Programmable Businesses
Nick V. Flor, University Of New Mexico

Economic Issues In Advertising Via Email: A Role For A Trusted Third Party?
Arvind Tripathi, University Of Washington; Ram Gopal, University Of Connecticut; Zhiping Walter, University of Colorado, Denver

Web Personalization For E-Marketing Intelligence
Penelope MARKELLOU, Department of Computer Engineering and Informatics, University of Patras, Greece
Maria RIGOU, Department of Computer Engineering and Informatics, University of Patras, Greece
Spiros SIRMAKESSIS, Technological Educational Institution of Messolongi,
Department of Applied Informatics in Administration and Economics.

Knowledge Gathering/Knowledge Sharing: The Business/Consumer Culture Dichotomy
Rachel Mclean, Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, Uk
Nigel M. Blackie, University Of Salford, Uk

MSQ-model- An Exploratory Study of the Determinants of Mobile Service Quality
Veronica Liljander, Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration (Hanken), Helsinki, Finland
Jan Nordman, Accountant, EMEA Finance, Lexmark International, Technology SA, Geneva, Switzerland

Experiencing Quality: The Impact of Practice on Customers’ Preferences for and Perceptions of Electronic Interfaces
Kyle B. Murray, University of Western Ontario

The Impact of EBay Ratings and Item Descriptions on Auction Prices: A Comparison of Designer Watches and DVDs
Mark P. Sena, Department Of Information Systems, Xavier University
C. Edward Heath, Department Of Marketing, Northern Kentucky University
Michael A. Webb, Department Of Economics, Xavier University

Viral Experiences: Do You Trust Your Friends?
Shenja Van Der Graaf, Department Of Communication And Information Studies, Utrecht University, The Netherlands

Public Opinions Of Online Privacy: Definitions, Assessment And Implications For Industry And Public Policy
Kim Sheehan, University Of Oregon

Online Privacy: Consumer Concerns And Technological Competence
Pushkala Raman, Florida State University
Kartik Pashupati, Southern Methodist University

Using Server Log Files and Online Experiments to Enhance Internet Marketing
Charles F. Hofacker, Department of Marketing, Florida State University
Jamie Murphy, School of Business, University of Western Australia

CRM, KDD and Relationship Marketing: Requisite Trio For Sustainable E-Marketing
Nikhilesh Dholakia, University Of Rhode Island
Jounghae Bang, University Of Rhode Island
Ruby Dholakia, University of Rhode Island

An Interactive Marketing Communication Model In New Product Diffusion
Fiona Sussan, Department Of Marketing, Baruch University

A Rhetorical-Prototype Mechanism For Creating E-Marketing Materials
For International Consumers
Kirk St.Amant, James Madison University

How Innovativeness Influences Internet Shopping
Ronald E. Goldsmith, Florida State University
Barbara A. Lafferty, University Of South Florida

Google's Index Doubles, But...

... I am not sure how it will affect me as an end-user. Google's index is now over 8 billion pages. How did they do it? In the past, the index has grown by adding many different filetypes. The set of filetypes does not seem to have grown this time.

Bill Coughran writes-

Comprehensiveness is not the only important factor in evaluating a search engine, but it's invaluable for queries that only return a few results. For example, now when I search for friends who previously generated only a handful of results, I see double that number. These are not just copies of the same pages, but truly diverse results that give more information. The same is true for obscure topics, where you're now significantly more likely to find relevant and diverse information about the subjects. You may also notice that the result counts for broader queries (with thousands or millions of results) have gone up substantially. However, as with any search engine, these are estimates, and the real benefit lies with the queries that generate fewer results.

I am not sure that makes a difference for me. Most searches I run lead to more than "a handful of results". So, here's the question. Does the size of a search engine's index after a point?

Fast Company's list of...

.. what will be new in 2005.

How Gmail Changed My Behavior.

I(Prof. Sandeep Krishnamurthy) got my very own GMail account on June 15, 2004. I have since used it regularly for a variety of purposes.

It has been frustrating to see how GMail has been characterized in the media. To many observers, the only point of GMail seems to have been the increased storage space. "The E-mail Storage Wars", the pundits say. You may have noticed that Hotmail and Yahoo have responded to GMail in only one way- increased storage space (and that too, mostly for paid subscribers). I cannot tell you how deep a misunderstanding of GMail this represents. I wonder if the pundits at MSN and Yahoo noticed a tiny phrase on the front page of GMail ("Search. Don't Sort."). This is what is important and new.

Most e-mail users(I am thinking of those of you who use Outlook, Outlook Express, Hotmail or Yahoo) find old messages by sorting. When I try to search for something on Outlook, it takes FOREVER and my computer starts making funny noises. That always makes me nervous. Moreover, the Outlook results are not stunning, to say the least.

On the other hand, GMail lets you search through your INBOX to locate old e-mails. The results are displayed along with snippets(just as in the Google search results page) and are delivered seemingly instantaneously. This is something I am not used to and it took me a while after I got the account to use it. Now, I am quite addicted to to it.

More importantly, GMail has changed how I compose my e-mails in these ways.

First, I try to provide more information in the subject line since GMail's search covers subject lines. If I am e-mailing myself a file, for instance, I tend to now fully describe the nature of the file- e.g. "this is the analysis of Kamehameha I wanted for class number nine" rather than a more cryptic "class lecture 9". This allows me to search for more things. For instance, I could search for Kamehameha rather than class. The "class lecture 9" is, obviously, a bad habit I developed due to sorting of messages.

Second, I no longer put every message I get in a sub-sub-sub-folder. Bye bye- "class lectures>Spring 2004>commerce in ancient hawaii>lectures>lecture number 9". I can keep everything in one messy INBOX and find stuff by searching, not sorting.

Third, I am now able to retrieve messages based on the content of the message rather than the properties of the sender. I ask 56 students to send a 2 paragraph writeup on the future of the web, say. I can search for the phrase "future of the web" three months later when I have to grade them and find every message without having to sort for a name. The problem with sorting for a name is that people have funny ways of saying their name. Consider a name- "Anastacia Reddy". This may be organized as "Reddy, Anastacia", "Anastacia Reddy", "A. Reddy" and "Student Government President, Anastacia Reddy". It is a nightmare to find a message when you remember the person one way and the person says their name in another way. No more. Search on content- not on people's characteristics.

In closing, here is my memo to pundits. GMail is not about the storage. It is about the search. Remember- "Search. Don't sort".

Greatest equations ever.

A columnist asks readers to submit the greatest equations of all time. One hundred and twenty readers respond with equations ranging from 1+1=2 to much more complicated ones. Excellent reading.

Community-led marketing for Mozilla Firefox.

I have said earlier that I am very impressed with Mozilla Firefox. Today, I must say I was bowled over by the innovativeness of their marketing. For the launch of Firefox, Mozilla is putting together a campaign that will entirely be funded by community members. Interested members may donate $30 for the campaign. 2,500 donors will be mentioned in the 1 page ad in the New York Times (that is a total of $75,000). What should the name be for this kind of marketing? community-led marketing? open-source marketing? More at 1, 2, 3.

Market for Noble Prize Winners. They got Prescott right.

The 1954 vision of a 2004 home PC. What will the home computer of 2054 look like? Do scientists make good visionaries?

Search engine, LookSmart, just bought a service called Furl.

Google News does not carry stories that would be considered contentious by Chinese authorities!

Meet Kalpen Modi (a.k.a. Kal Penn).

Tow, tow, tow your car
Gently down the road
Tow it tow it tow it
To the tire store

-Rishi Krishnamurthy, 3.5 years

[you will remember his debut poem- stones, stones, I need bones]

My student- Matthew Carmean- produces an unofficial Starbucks commercial.

Quotes from Mahatma Gandhi.

Electoral Vote Predictor. Neat application.

Google, circa 1960.

Blogger's invitation process is terrible.  I have tried using it with limited success.  It especially does not work well if you have a Hotmail a/c.  The official help page admits this.  I am currently trying to persuade Blogger that their invitation process is BROKEN.  They are still in denial, I think.  I thought all Google's technology was supposed to work reliably.  Well, this does not.  It is really a shame. 

Most wanted Gmail features. What an easy way to do market research!

Meet Jimmy Wales- the man who created WikiPedia.

An academic conference asks- "Does marketing need reform?".

Heard of Googles.com? It is a kid's site, folks. Why didn't Google buy this domain out in the early days?

A student- Frederic Ingold- pointed me to Ujiko. It is excellent. The most interesting feature is this. If on visit 1, you click on a link that was ranked 5th, that particular link will show up as # 1 on your next visit.

Yahoo has a research lab? Really?

My class blog is # 2 if you search for "search & the web" on Google.

Mozilla Firefox is better!

My class blog has taken off.

A student referred to hyperlinks as hydrolinks in a quiz yesterday!

Meet Neopets.

21 Rules of Thumb- How Microsoft Develops Its Software.

Google News visualization service. Cool.

The new class is great. Excellent group of enthusiastic students who want to get jazzed up about E-Commerce.

Created a new blog for my class. Should be fun.

Just got a gmail account. I love it.

The FTC says-

"A national do-not-e-mail registry, without a system in place to authenticate the origin of e-mail messages, would fail to reduce the burden of spam and may even increase the amount of spam received by consumers".

The one and only Kristyn Young talks about what she learned in my course.

Meet Rakesh Khurana.

Where did the time go?

Meet boogle.

If you want to learn about searching on Google, I HIGHLY recommend Google Guide.

Meet the photo blog.

Sun Microsystems gives each of its employees a blog.

Has Microsoft lost its way?

Meet "The Star Wars Kid".

Meet plog.

Interesting paper- "When the Audience is the Producer: The Art of the Collaborative Weblog".

Meet the new sleeker Wikipedia.

Interesting paper- "Audience, Structure and Authority in the Weblog Community".

Bush campaign outsourced fund-raising. Love it.

It is amazing how idiosyncratic search engines are. Google "festivals"- festivals.com is the number 1 result. Now, Google "festival"- festivals.com is nowhere. What just happened?

Write your last e-mail NOW! The revenue model for this service is fascinating.

Read receipts on steroids- didtheyreadit.com.

The latest Google bomb- a search for waffles brings up John Kerry as the # 1 result.

India's CBSE announces results online.

Andy Kaufman is back and he has a blog!

Indian techies talk about out-sourcing. Great work by Slashdot.

Meet Ben Hyde.

Google's software principles.

Online grocery business grows and grows.

A new search engine claims to be fully accessible to people with disabilities.

Demotivators! Fun.

Meet the Deep Web.

Award-winning websites made by school children.

Friedman wrote about The George Foundation's Shanti Bhavan today.

Meet people in your area to do stuff on Friendeavor.

Interesting Paper: "I'm Blogging This- A Closer Look at Why People Blog".

Google's S-1.

Want GMail? Check out gmailswap.

My student- Kristyn Young- provides entertaining examples of effective and ineffective e-mails.

Business lessons from the donut and coffee guy [via kottke.org]. Apparently, this NY coffee guy lets his customers make change! Why? The cost of consumer opportunism is less than the cost of setting up a complex payment system. So, he is better off. (or is he?)

Interesting paper- "Privacy, Economics, and Price Discrimination on the Internet".

Google's core philosophy.

Google's unusual IPO format has created a great deal of interest- 1, 2.

Seven open source business strategies for competitive advantage.

Google forgets to sign blog post!

Buzzword Bingo.

I am happy to present the Table of Contents for my upcoming book- "Contemporary Research in E-Marketing, Volume One".

My student, Isaac Alshihabi, has an interesting post on my class blog. Help him by taking his SHORT SURVEY.

Meet Clay Shirky.

Announcing Google's Groups 2. Thanks, Rahul.

Heard on an academic mailing list- "In keeping with the highest scientific standards, a journal editor has decided recently that instead of rejecting or accepting manuscripts, henceforth she will reject or fail to reject manuscripts." ha! ha!

The Center for Internet Studies at the University of Washington is organizing a speaker series on open source software. They have also created a blog on open source. It is great to see blogs pop up in university settings.

I was favorably impressed with this page that features, among other things, some excellent Google Hacks.

After several attempts at using a variety of blog services, I have decided to adopt Blogger- now owned by Google. This will be the new home for my blogging activities. Speaking of Google, they have an official blog that you need to look at. You will also like the the blog authored by the founders of Google- Page and Brin.