Chicago Tribune Does Big Search Package

The Chicago Tribune is running a big package on search today. There’s little
new or suprrising for regular readers of this blog, but you might find it
interesting to see how a mainstream newspaper tries to dive into the search
wars.

Gunning For Google hosts the package from there, you find….

Inside a Web giant’s manic search for staying power is the first part, where
the Trib gets “a rare extended look inside” the Googleplex that instead ends up
dwelling a lot on YouTube. The Tribune seems to have arrived when Google was
upgrading Google Video, so they seem to have the impression that Google’s all
about beating YouTube.

Still, it was interesting to see that a recent employee audit shocked CEO
Eric Schmidt, who discovered only 60 percent of worker time was spent on
Google’s core business. “It was quite alarming to find that we were below the 70
percent without knowing it,” said Schmidt, from the article.

Man vs. machine in battle for clicks is the second part, with lots of quotes
from various search engine companies on how they are all battling against each
other.

Meet Google’s credibility cop is a focus on Google spam fighter Matt Cutts.

There’s much more, but I easily missed the items on the home page when I originally wrote this, because they are off to the side rather than listed below the three main stories. Here they are:

• 
  Google vs. the world: A three minute slide show with the reporters telling
  you what they saw there. Lots of pictures.
• 
  How engine works: Nice, an informational graphic like the type I
  used to do for newspapers.
• 
  Web of competition: Another informational graphic, ’cause you can’t have a
  big newspaper story without them. Some nice stats, though the bulk of the
  graphic is a illustration that doesn’t really illustrate anything.
• A bunch of audio clips:
  • 
    Google CEO Eric Schmidt on his hiring
  • 
    Schmidt on competition
  • 
    Schmidt on the future
  • 
    Schmidt on PC vs. Web
  • 
    Google co-founder and president Larry Page on customer trust
  • 
    Page on Google’s role
  • 
    Page on dot.coms
  • 
    Page on Web video
  • 
    Google VP Marissa Mayer chats with Trib’s David Greising
  • 
    YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen talk to Greising