Kevin Chiu

They bought Powerset, and now it looks like they’re trying to do some kind of hostile takeover to get a hold of Yahoo’s search business.

2007 Speech by Powerset CEO at the University of Washington

Part of me wants to say something along the lines of “Tying two stones together does not make them float.” However, in the back of my mind there’s still the possibility Microsoft is putting together something that can compete. After all, the Live team, who acquired a license for Photo Tourism to make Photosynth, which has been a huge hit and reputation-booster, will most likely be in charge of the new search division.

The Clowd, a phrase that seems to be a mashup by Seth Godin between “crowd” and “cloud,” represents the near-future widespread use of distributed data processing and natural media correlation techniques.

One of the natural media correlation techniques that I think has influenced Seth is Photo Tourism, otherwise known as Microsoft Photosynth, a project I was fortunate enough to be a part of.

Today I logged into Google Docs and found a prompt that offered a taste of Google Docs with offline capabilities, courtesy of Google Gears.

Microsoft should be shaking in its boots. Office is one of MS’s biggest money makers, and if people find that Google Docs, which no longer requires a net connection, is a fitting application for everyday office collaboration, sales of MS Office are set to plummet.

Even if the deal goes through, I don’t see them overtaking Google. The Microsoftization of popular Web 2.0 properties such as Flickr and Delicious might even cause a mass exodus to Google’s corresponding services, such as Picasaweb.

Update: Yahoo rejected the offer. A collective sigh of relief was felt across the Internet.