The Big Wave Blog

Open Search Forum with the Engines
Special Guest Moderator: Guy Kawasaki
December 4, 2007

Guy Kawasaki is a real pleasure to watch. This was my first time seeing him in person, and it was amazing to hear him speak. The panel was star-packed with representatives from the 4 main engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask):

Matt Cutts: Web Spam Team – Google
Tim Mayer: VP, Product Management – Yahoo
Daniel Boberg: MD, Sales Technology – Yahoo
Rahul Lahiri: VP, Search Product Management – Ask Jeeves
Eytan Seidman: Program Manager – MSN Search

Moderator: Guy Kawasaki – MD, Garage Technology Ventures

The session was filled with a lot a very direct and valid questions, which were thrown to the search engine representatives by the moderator and the audience. Interestingly, none of them gave a straight answer! Corporate culture at its best, I guess. Nobody wants to say  or express any opinion that might not be in conjunction with the “corporate policy” of the search engine. It was apparent that the star of the evening was none other than Mr. Kawasaki, who tried his best to get some real answers from the search engine honchos.

A very entertaining end to a very long first day at PubCon.