Yahoo tries a new search look

JOHN BATTELLE, the former Wired editor who wrote the widely-thumbed tome on Google called The Search, has an interesting snippet about that old Google wish-it-was, Yahoo.

Go to Battelle's blog and there is what looks a lot like a prototype new look for Yahoo search. It looks nice and clean and, well, Google-like, but surely the patience of boardrooms across Yahoo, Microsoft, Ask and the rest must be getting a bit thin when the engineers plead for yet another round of funding to develop a Google-beater.

And surely it can only be a matter of time before some or all of these also-rans club together, if only to spend less money creating one also-ran engine. µ

Bookworms' Corner
In Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Yahoos are savages that search for "pretty stones" found in mud. They are contrasted with the wise horses called Houyhnhnms. Houyhnhnm.com is taken.