I've met Udi when I worked at Amazon. He was just hired away to Google. Interesting indeed... I'll have to ping my friends at A9 and see how they feel about this...

Blodget is laying out a scenario he says could potentially "kneecap" Google's stock. This is the analyst who became infamous for calling a $400 stock price on Amazon. If I remember correctly, he called it as his 12-month target and the stock hit it within the next several weeks. Anyways, here Blodget is more reticent. He's not saying that this "will" happen, only that it's something to be wary of. There are actually some pretty smart comments as counterpoint on this though. Look in the comments at what gojomo, Jeff D, and Dean have written.

John Battelle is throwing down the gauntlet on human comment spammers. No more search wuffie for you f001s5!

I finished reading this last night and I am very happy to recommend it to anyone working in the technology space. Even though "Search" does feel like a thinly-disguised attempt to kiss Google's boots at moments, and Google does receive a large degree of the overall use case documentation, it ends up being a fairly balanced treatment of all the players in the search space, capturing the snapshot of the present perfectly. Of particular interest to any young entrepreneur wanting to cut their teeth in the search space is the last chapter, entitled "Perfect Search." Read this if you want to understand where the technology of search has hit and missed, creating and rescinding fortunes in a very short timeframe. Read this if you want an idea of where search is going and how you might want to contribute.

The new John Battelle book. I definitely want to read this.

Quoted: Amazon.com: Books: The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture by John Battelle