MS Bing + Yahoo search = Google killer?
Er………probably not. I’ll present the case from a 360-2020 perspective on Google’s search strategy as well as other channels and products which support this core business.
Firstly, I’d recommend that readers go to Google’s site and read through their recent earnings reports carefully and also refer to my post on GOOG’s Traffic Acquisition Costs (TAC).
Next, please watch this Google Tech Talk with VINT CERF on “Shifting to a Global Consciousness” and then compare whether MS or Yahoo! have imagined or associated with the global consciousness or global brain concept much.
Answer: lots of great innovation from MS Labs wrt haptic interfaces and connective communications but little on global consciousness. Ditto Yahoo! whose BOSS semantic API is interesting, but again not about the Global Brain.
Now take into account Google’s commitment to global consciousness aka the Global Brain on 2 core platforms:
(1.) Google Knol
(2.) Google groups
Then add in what it’s doing in the renewable technologies space (facilitation and investment).
As for the core business, please consider also these key search strategies from Google:
* video search, leveraging from YouTube
* social search with the imminent Google Wave
* semantic search in the upcoming Google Squared
* mobile search on multiple devices (Google is currently responsible for almost 98 percent of mobile search)
That’s a matrix comprising horizontal and vertical leverage synching search capabilities, btw.
Incidentally, I’ve watched the media reports on the likely effect of the MS+Yahoo tie-up on Google’s share of the share market and heard all sorts of mistakes from the journalists and analysts providing commentary. Importantly, none of them mentioned the key search strategies I list above, which SO obviously point to Google keeping apace and ahead of its competitors in the search space!
On the BBC, one Internet analyst said that the combined MS+Yahoo share will be 25 percent whilst Google’s is 75 percent. “Okay…………….,” says Twain who immediately thinks the analyst’s made a mistake so goes and does her own analysis and discovers……
According to comScore, Google’s share of US search market was 65 percent in June 2009 whilst MS+Yahoo combined was 28 percent. According to Hitwise UK for the month ending 27 June 2009, Google was responsible for almost 91 percent of search traffic in the UK whilst 5.3 percent was atrributable to Bing+Yahoo combined.
This is an example of how it’s important to do our own analysis, cross-verify what the media presents us as “facts” and independently connect the dots and make sense of what we’re presented with. This is true when we watch major news channels as much as when we due diligence a balance sheet or when we work on complex transactions. Attention to detail, interconnecting silo information and cross-verification is a form of risk management which prevents corporate busts and global financial crisis.
Cause + effect, as I noted previously.
In any case, more information on the MS+Yahoo search sharing deal is available here:
* http://searchengineland.com/live-blogging-the-microsoft-yahoo-search-press-conference-23202
* http://choicevalueinnovation.com
* http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/eventdetail.cfm
* http://www.microsoft.com/msft
