(Updated with more quotes)
If you're losing the game, time to change the playing field. Yahoo is counting on exactly that.
Ari Balogh, Yahoo's chief technology officer and product development czar, would be among the first to admit that Google reigns supreme in the search space.
"Search the way we know it, with 10 blue links, Google has clearly won that game. Saying anything other than that is just not stating the fact," he told the Reuters Global Technology Summit.
But Balogh says that doesn't mean Yahoo is giving up. Inviting comparisons to the automobile industry, now infamous for bankruptcy, ballooning debt and clunky design, Balogh says innovation in search is only just beginning, and it's too early to declare a winner yet. Ford and its Model T was once the pre-eminent mass-consumer vehicle, but today the once mighty Detroit giant -- the only one of the surviving Big Three that doesn't appear to be flirting with corporate failure -- has to fend off the likes of Toyota and Hyundai.
What's important to understand though is this really is like the auto industry in 1910....At that time, in 1915 or 1920, it sure looked like it was going to be Ford.
