07 April 2003

Google in the Crosshairs The Motley Fool notes this about Google. When you're so good at what you do that your brand becomes a verb, the competition starts to notice, big time. Uber-search engine Google is in this predicament, as both Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) are trying to cash in on search products of their own. A Nielsen/Net Ratings study from February 2003, as quoted in The Wall Street Journal, found that Google attracts more users than either Yahoo! Search or Microsoft's MSN Search, and that those visitors hang out longer on Google's site. An estimated 40.3 million users logged on to Google for the month, versus 36.5 million for Yahoo! and 35.1 million for MSN. Google visitors stuck around for 25 minutes, compared to 11 minutes for Yahoo! and eight minutes for MSN. Given those disparities, Yahoo! and Microsoft see an opportunity to take market share from Google. Bob Visse, director of marketing for MSN, said last week that Microsoft "... view(s) Google more and more as a competitor." And although Google has actually powered Yahoo!'s searches for some time, Yahoo! signaled its desire to control the search game when it bought search infrastructure company Inktomi in December 2002. Today, Yahoo! unveiled its new and improved search engine, which is supposed to better connect Yahoo!'s various services, such as news, weather, and local directory listings. The technology delves into Web pages and extracts information for users, much like Google does, rather than just answering a search request with a list of URLs. Registered Yahoo! visitors can also customize results, as on Google. Yahoo! will still make money off sponsored search results. Microsoft's plans are more embryonic. The software giant is investing heavily in improving its search capabilities, but nothing concrete has been announced. When Microsoft calls you out as a competitor, though, you better believe it means business. Google has smartly remained mum about Yahoo!'s and Microsoft's search plans. Surfers trust Google to give them the best results possible, and "Googling" has become an entrenched part of many users' experience. Convincing them that Yahoo! and Microsoft can offer the same or better results will require a significant shift in thinking. Any huge market share gains by either Microsoft or Yahoo!, then, will likely be a long time coming. 11:16:03 PM    Click here to add to the [] comments More on Google The reader's response on the Reg has been interesting too. You can read them here. Among them are: Why is Google shooting itself in the foot? In providing information, credibility is everything. Any source, whether of raw information or an index of it (like Google), loses mightily as soon as it's known to be biased. Google has already caved more than once to provincial interests (e.g. mainland China), and as soon as it adopts a policy of sourcing news from special interests, it won't be news any more, but just hands-off propaganda. The only way to preserve an even-handed reputation would be to source ONLY real news sources (including anti-Western ones like Al-Jazeera), or to include ALL press releases (including those from North Korea, Greenpeace, and anti-war foundations). But I'm not holding my breath. My guess is that Google is lazy, and they want to accept stories from big (i.e. rich and mainstream-Western) outfits which don't threaten their advertising revenue. So until I start seeing a wider diversity in their highest-ranking stories, I'm going back to something whose biases I'm familiar with, like the New York Times. Forget Google News. Bill Softky 10:28:18 PM    Click here to add to the [] comments Google press releases posing as news I've been following this story over at the Register about Google. As many of my readers know I have something of an interest in Google as a company, and this latest news has really come as no surprise. I had never thought this might happen, but it has. Google, the world's favourite search engine, have reconstituted press releases as 'news'. Hm. The Register is right on every point. Especially on this critical one - and one I have made in a broader sense about Google itself. Transparency in the instruments we use is vital, to ensure the integrity of the system. So we need to know how these editorial decisions are made. And as El Reg hack Andrew Orlowski also points out with regard to Google's claim that: "The selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically by a computer program. " No they weren't. This isn't some synthetic version of reality created entirely by robots. The selection and placement of stories were determined by a person, someone who thinks unedited press releases from lobbyists, special interest groups or corporations are "News". How can corportate propaganda be called 'news'? There have been some angry responses on the Reg. Readers are not happy. And how can Google justify its 'news' service putting Press Releases on and prostituting it as 'news'? The mind Goggles. 10:15:29 PM    Click here to add to the [] comments The Atlantic I found the Atlantic website on the Internet over a year ago, having never heard of the magazine before. I liked it so much that I immediately subscribed to it. Since then I have looked forward to it arriving in the letterbox each month, for its exhaustive analysis and second to none journalism. I arrived home from London saddened. My brother immediately told me I should read this article he had seen in the Atlantic. He had not heard of the death of the Editor at Large, Michael Kelly in Iraq. As it happened, the article that my brother unwittingly pointed me to was Micheal Kelly's last in the Atlantic Montly. My brother told me to read it, pointing out its insightfulness and how much he agreed with the writer. I had to to tell my brother the writer was dead, and that his obituary was in today's Guardian. For some reason I have yet to figure out I take every death of a journalist or writer very personally. It seems all too many have died in Iraq, through combat or accidents. I hope there will be no more.    9:58:44 PM    Click here to add to the [] comments Back on blog I be back in Ireland. Apologies for the technical difficulties. I will blog on a few of the stories that I have noted over the last week. Some interesting articles, especially some recent Google stuff with regard to Press Releases. 6:27:25 PM    Click here to add to the [] comments

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