Thought of by many to be one of the important women in technology, computer scientist Anna Patterson left Google to found search engine Cuil in January of 2007. When things didn’t turn out as planned (the $33 million-backed Cuil failed to upend Google or get acquired), we sort of lost track of what happened to the Cuil team.
Until now. Surprisingly enough it turns out Patterson is back at Google, where she was technical lead of one of the two ranking groups and in charge of GoogleBase from 2004 onwards. Her new title, according to her LinkedIn profile, is Director and other online evidence points out that she is more specifically “Director of Google Research.” Her LinkedIn profile also reveals that she’s been working at Google since September, which means she didn’t waste any time getting back on the search horse after Cuil went offline.
Neither Google or Patterson have responded to my requests for confirmation or comment but Patterson’s LinkedIn profile pretty much says it all. I’ll update this post if I hear any more specifics about Patterson’s role at Google or what happened to the rest of the Cuil team.
Anna Patterson is the President and Founder of Cuil. Previous to this position, she was the architect of Google’s large search index, TeraGoogle, that launched in early 2006. During her time with Google, Anna was the technical lead of one of the two Web ranking groups at Google, in charge of GoogleBase, and managed for the core piece of Google’s ad-matching technology. She joined Google in 2004 after designing, writing and selling Recall.
Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and Google+, the company’s extension into the social space. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing...
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