Today I was a last minute standin for Andrei Broder on the "The Search Laboratories" panel at SES in San Jose. Also on the panel were Peter Norvig of Google and James Colborn of MSN.
Now in the realm of search, I am not fit to carry Dr. Broder's bag. He's truly a legendary character - to wit, after the panel a self-described "Broder groupie" approached me with a copy of one of his papers that she'd brought to get autographed. I kid you not.
The panel went great. The final question was directed at Peter and myself. The questioner asked (and I paraphrase):
"Today we read that Myspace partnered with Google. For Peter, do you have a comment? And for Bradley, was this a partnership you wanted?"
Peter replied, "I've been in here all day! No comment."
I replied, "Myspace partners with Google... Is this a partnership we wanted?"
Long pause.
"We already tried partnering with Google. Been there, done that."
Methinks I sold the line pretty well. ;-)