Information from Yandex.Subbotnik

I will try to tell without emotion what I learned at the Yandex seminar on April 18.

First, the conclusions, and then more about each report.

Findings:

I did not regret going to the seminar. I asked questions and received answers. Because of the reports you should not go, but it is worth going for the opportunity to ask important questions during the breaks. People were all adequate.

Photos will not be. In the first picture in the room, the flash put the batteries in, and I forgot to replace the spare ones. Murphy's law in action. ;-)
')
The horse is here for a reason, I write about it at the end of the article.

Further: description and conclusions for each report, wishes to the organizers.

1. Site search using Yandex

Bogdan Garkushin

Introductory report for those who do not know at all what means of searching the site is Yandex. The report is not bad in principle, but out of place. The vast majority of those who came were webmasters, experienced webmasters and similar qualified people who know perfectly well how Yandex can search the site. Because they came. This showed the questions: all the questions asked were on specific points of Yandex.XML, Yandex.Server which were not mentioned in any way in the report.

I learned from the report:

• What now Yandex estimates the Internet at 60-70 TB. Three years ago, Google said that they have 20 TB. Well consistent exponential growth.
• Yandex.Server how badly searched in English will not improve in the foreseeable future.

I drove precisely because of this report. The report turned out to be just a loss of 45 minutes, but I asked questions during the break and received answers, thanks Bogdan.

Information: 1
Helpfulness: 2
(I would get the top five at any review and advertising conference)

2. Spell checker

Alexey Baytin, Alexey Osipov

Presented a beta version of the spell checker. They praised her in every way and scolded her competitors in the best traditions of bourgeois presentations. (Just like people ;-) From advertising, as a by-product, it was possible to extract information about the main functions and characteristics of the service.

I learned that:

• There is a check of Russian and English at the same time.
• Large dictionary, Yandex bought / licensed Orfo dictionary (which uses Microsoft in Word) and develops it, although it is insignificant.
• Now (while beta) there is a limit on the size of the text being checked to 1500 characters (with variations).

A prototype was shown on TinyMCE (such an embedded editor on a Java script).
I’m thinking: if not to apply this spell checker and TinyMCE in their projects.

Information: 3 (although the report is rather stretched)
Usefulness: 4 (most useful report)

3. Smart tips when searching the site

Artem Vorozhtsov

Announcement of Yandex technology to download and display search results at the same time when the user types a query; as search query options are being loaded now.

The technology is not just raw, but very raw; in my opinion: pre-alpha. Everyone understood this.
I did not introduce in the assessments of reports the parameter “quality of presentation”, but it was the most disastrous report. The speaker was pretty worried (the only one of them all), although during the break he was completely free to communicate with the people. Nothing scary, experience typed. But the speaker's excitement was not the worst. The technology itself has not caused enthusiasm. The most sleepy report. The people woke up a bit in the pictures and the prototype, asked out of politeness. But in addition, the report was full of gross semantic errors. (Example: suggestion to remove the "Find" button.)

Virtually no information was received (I remembered the announcement), only a few ideas arose about Zhavaskript.

Information: 2
Helpfulness: 1

4. Algorithm for searching phrases in documents

Dmitry Agafonov

The only non-promotional and most technical report. There is a task: for some web page to pick up keywords (and, accordingly, ads) of Yandex.Direct, Yandex.Market. Dmitry told the general essence of the main algorithm (sparse search interval). Not just told, but rather well, in pictures, chewed for a long time. Only I got the impression that from the entire hall the report was understood by five people.

I learned that:

• In the direct + market 3-4 million phrases.
• 120 million web pages where they are installed.
• The limit on the operation of the algorithm is 20 ms.
• (well, the algorithm itself, of course)

It was the most interesting and at the same time absolutely useless report. The above algorithm may be of interest to programmers or students, and it is unlikely that it will be possible to use it only if a similar task arises. If you distinguish ++ k from k ++, then download the video when you post, an entertaining report, the most worthwhile to download and watch.

Information: 5
Usefulness: 1 (most useless)

5. How Blog Search Works

Anton Volnukhin, Roman Ivanov

Advertising and educational report about blog search. Quite quality and most consistent with the audience. In the program it was written “how the blog search works ”, but it wasn’t just said about the internal search device, the report is actually about how the blog search works : at what intervals it indexes, who gets to the top, with what blog services.

I learned that:

• Yandex has an agreement with LJ (and others): as soon as you publish something, LJ notifies Yandex, and a blog search indexes a new publication.
• If the publication has once been made publicly available, then it will remain in the blog search no matter how many times you make it closed. (If you really really need to make it closed, then write in support of blog search)
• Blogs have 1 billion publications, this is 1/5 of the whole RuNet, but the publications themselves are very small.
• From one blog, only one entry can be in the top.
• Top updated every 20 min.
• Publications not older than 8 hours have a double rating.
• As soon as a publication hits the main page, it begins to lose (spend) the rating every hour.
• Habr's comments search blogs and indexes, but the articles themselves are not.

Information: 3
(the information was seemingly not small, but in fact it was all kind of small and insignificant)
Helpfulness: 2

Wishes to the organizers

1. I would very much like to divide the workshop into a couple of more targeted (targeting):
   • For webmasters. This seminar was supposed to be the webmaster? Well, and here. Would make the first report specifically for the webmaster. How best to apply (best practices), scaling, non-trivial examples (which was exactly what was asked during the break). And the rest of the reports are the same.
   • Technical. Analogue Google tech talks. The fourth report is wonderful, suitable (slightly expanded and deepened). Well, also look Google tech talks in my opinion they have a good format. 1-2 big speeches, not a whole day.
   • For a decision maker. (Technical Director, Director, Head of Department, etc.) From this point of view, I am interested in what problems the technology solves, when and under what conditions I can use it. The ideal example here is the IBM seminar for directors. 15-20 min reports, without water, all on the case (but with a share of advertising, of course), 3 hours.
2. All bourgeois presentations have a mandatory slide about the plans. In the next quarter we will do it, in six months it will be, in a year it will be. (Roadmap) You'll laugh, but you need one. To make a decision on technology, you need to know about when and what will happen.

Off-topic

1. I was pleasantly surprised by the small delay in the start of the seminar, only 4 minutes.
   

   Report number	Start delay (min)
   one	four
   2	four
   3	five
   four	sixteen
   five	6

   But there were delays everywhere, and that’s nothing good.
   
   
   
2. Maybe some very dark cloud found in the sun, but when I drove, that back, that back, I did not see a pointer to Yandex. The whole area is built up with old-style red brick buildings. What to choose - is unknown. Arrows on the gate are visible only with a couple of meters.
   If I did not know that horses must stand at the entrance, I would be late. Arrived 5 minutes before the start.
   
   (The legends say that the director of Yandex bought two horses at a charity auction and since then they have been guarding the gate)
   
   How do you in Yandex feel about the idea of ​​placing the word Yandex in huge letters on the roof? Really simplify navigation, and of advertising.
   (And the Rambler has huge blue letters)
   
   
   
3. When problems occurred before the fourth report, the presenter Timur, as well as Anton Volnukhin and Roman Ivanov, had to entertain the audience from the stage for a quarter of an hour. Another employee joined them, in the hall there were muffled exclamations: “Bobuk. Bobuk! "
   I did not know what a bobuk is, but I thought it was some famous blogger. So it turned out. With audio bias. Bobuk = alias Gregory Bakunov. In communication after the reports left the impression of an adequate person.
   
   I found out who Bobuk is.
   

Conclusion

Thanks guys for the reports and organizers.