The Google Search Team sent out some press invitations today:
"We invite you to join us on Wednesday September 8 to share our latest technological innovation and to get an inside look at the evolution of Google search."
Pretty vague. Does that mean a new device (our latest technological innovation?) that includes a new type of search?
Sounds reasonably significant. Neither Larry Page nor Sergey Brin nor Eric Schmidt will be there, so it's not likely to be a major new product. But the invitations call it "an event you won't want to miss" and it will take place at the San Francisco Museum Of Modern Art, not at Google's campus.
Probably too much to hope that it's about Google TV or its tablet computer to compete with the iPad.
Although I did notice that the URL for the invitation ended with the string /searchmtv/2010.
Search MTV? Finding music videos? Or the search engine for Google TV? Or just a random string that I'm too stupid to realize is meaningless?
The event is headlined by Marissa Mayer and includes Johanna Wright, Director of Product Management; Ben Gomes, Distinguished Engineer; and Othar Hansson, Senior Staff Software Engineer. These are software folks.
Wright is product manager for Web search. She was included in a recent article in SearchengineLand.
In an article in the San Jose Mercury News, Mayer described Gomes as the company's "search czar."
In May 2009, O'Reilly Radar did an interview with Hansson, who described himself as part of Google's search user interface group, and head of a project on search microformat data. OK, that's essentially data -- like product reviews, product prices and information -- that Webmasters can provide in a specific format so that Google can improve search results when you want to find, say, a printer with certain features and good reviews in a specific price range.
I think. That interview was hard to follow.
Why SFMOMA? Maybe it's a Steve Jobs type of touch. Give the announcement some class.
Nobody seems to know much yet.
SearchEngineLand thinks it's probably a general update on things Google is doing in search.
I think it may be bigger and more specific -- the "latest technological innovation." Some specific addition to search.
I just hope it's not about parsing microformat data.