Amen, brotha. BTW I know a couple of people at Yahoo and MSN Search -- let me know if you want me to put you in touch with them for a possible interview. I'd imagine MSN Search is based in the US, but perhaps Yahoo has an office near you?

MSN Search are doing some surprisingly good stuff, but I don't think I could ever work for Microsoft. They don't appreciate all of the technologies I know and love (well, except RSS!) Being forced to work with SQL Server and IIS? Man, that's enough to give ya nightmares ;-)

Yahoo would be more interesting, and, if anyone, would be the most likely to get involved with my products (other than Google). Feed Digest and their PPC stuff would probably be a good tie-up one day. Not sure I'd want a regular job with them though, but if they wanted to acquire me with my technology, I would discuss it with them :)

Google are obviously #1 in the market, and as a place to "go and work" are probably by far the most interesting, second to Microsoft. As the article covers, you get to rub shoulders with some real talent, and the environment sounds like a techie's dream. Google UK, however, appears to be advertising focused, and Google US would struggle to get me over there with my lack of degree making immigration into Fortress America quite tough ;-)

Thanks for the offer though, Jon! Probably gone into too much details here, but I like getting these thoughts down when I get the time :) Personally it would have been great to have seen you go through the interviews (even though you didn't want the job) and get some feedback of what it was like, but hey :)