Internet search veterans go to colleges to stay hip
2006-12-31

Category Search Engines Internet Time Year Silicon Valley Nations U.S. Japan Spain States California Company Microsoft Google Yahoo University Massachusetts Institute of Technology Category 2007

Aging Internet pioneers are searching for fountains of youth on college campuses in a bid to stay hip and innovative in the fierce technology marketplace.

In a competitive tactic that marries marketplace rules of engagement with boundless student creativity, technology titans are setting up research centers at universities.

When Yahoo opened a lab at the University of California, Berkeley campus in July 2005 it was the second of its kind there.

The San Jose, California-based computer chip maker Intel had already set up shop.

Yahoo went on to establish similar ties with Universidad Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain, and at University of Chile in Santiago.

"We as an industry are reaching that typical career path and we are now blowing up the pipeline approach to find the talent," said Yahoo vice president Bradley Horowitz, who helped found the Yahoo lab at Berkeley.

"It may be that reaching into a university gives us the ability to tap into talent."

Horowitz did not miss the irony that Silicon Valley was rife with successful Internet innovators who were college dropouts.

Research at the Yahoo lab breaks the tradition of isolated teams chiseling away at products, said Ryan Shaw, 30, a Berkeley student working as a social media intern there.

"We're interested in where technology meets people," Shaw said.

"So part of the research here depends on not just developing technologies in the lab but observing how people are using them; it's not the endpoint of the research, but the beginning."

Wearing a red guayabera, a traditional Mexican shirt, with a dragon on the back over a pair of jeans and sporting an earring, Shaw was part of a new generation of lab rats.

He exuded a cool confidence as he explained how ZoneTag software he helped create in the lab can pinpoint where mobile telephone photos were taken, label the images and post them online instantly.

Shaw said ZoneTag was precisely the type of project he wanted to work on when he returned to finish his doctorate degree at Berkeley after working for five years as a software developer in Japan.

"A lot of problems that I thought were solved were not solved at all and we were at the very beginning of multimedia search," Shaw recalled.

"If I wanted to work on those problems, I had to do research."

Shaw also wanted to work with Berkeley School of Information Management professor Mark Davis, who wound up enlisting him as a Yahoo lab intern.

"I couldn't pass up the opportunity to work on my PhD and be able to be in an environment where the research I was doing was getting applied," Shaw said.

"Working with things like video on the Internet requires a lot of equipment and infrastructure. No university has that; not like the big Internet companies have."

At the lab, students work next to Yahoo engineers and their innovations can be tested online by the Sunnyvale, California-based search engine, according to Shaw.

"For them it's a playground," Shaw said of Yahoo engineers. "It's a win-win situation."

Since user visits translate into advertising revenues, staying popular is vital for rivals such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.

Google has eclipsed Yahoo with its ability to profit from free search and online services. The Mountain View, California, company overtook Yahoo as the second-most popular Internet destination for Web surfers worldwide in November.

Microsoft properties attracted the most visitors.

In December, Microsoft hosted a symposium focused on the results of a seven-year iCampus alliance with Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Redmond, Washington, software colossus spent 25 million dollars on the project devoted to enhancing education with technology.

Programs included classroom work on tablet computers, soccer-playing robots, multimedia Shakespeare courses and campus shuttles tracked by global positioning satellites.

Since 2003, Microsoft has sponsored a global Imagine Cup competition to "take the top young minds from around the globe and turn them loose on solving the world's toughest problems."

Teams of university students from around the world have competed in the cup. The theme for 2007 is how to use technology to improve education worldwide.

"The students who participate in the Imagine Cup represent the next generation of technology and business leaders," said Microsoft vice president Sanjay Parthasarathy.

"Their creativity and innovation speak volumes about the promise of technology to really make a difference in peoples' lives and in the way we think, work, and communicate."