Realizing The Threat Of Google

from the they-control-everything dept

Following the big news of Yahoo buying Overture earlier this week, there have been hundreds of articles trying to decipher what it all means. I stand by some of what I said initially - that this could backfire, since many of Overture's partners will consider themselves competitors to Yahoo, and will drop Overture the first chance they get. However, Yahoo has (hopefully) taken that into account, and still feels it's better to be getting all the money from the paid-search results on their own site. Yahoo's attitude should be obvious pretty soon after the deal closes, by looking at just how much they plan to promote Overture's services for other sites, and how much they just focus on using it in-house. Meanwhile, the first analysis article that I've seen worth posting is from the Wall Street Journal, which takes a larger view looking at how Yahoo and others came to realize just what a threat Google is. Yahoo apparently only realized this when Google launched Google News. Microsoft realized it when someone pointed out that search was the third most popular task online, after email and instant messaging. AOL hasn't realized it yet, but some feel they will soon. eBay and Amazon are both trying to figure out exactly what kind of a threat Google is. Of course, I still question how big a threat Google really is to many of these companies. If they stand still, maybe. However, if I were at these companies, I would look for ways to leverage Google to my advantage, rather than trying to compete directly with them. People like searching with Google - so it's up to these companies to figure out a way to take advantage of that. Perhaps it's building additional services around Google, or perhaps it's making sure that it's easy for anyone using Google to end up at your site.
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  1. identicon
    Chad, 16 Jul 2003 @ 2:15pm

    No Subject Given

    Here is a good analysis on how ebay and google compete.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2003 @ 4:37pm

    Yahoo Shot Selves in Foot

    I stopped using Yahoo after yet another giant, obnixious add scolled down when I was trying to use their search engine ( don't know if they still do it). I changed to Google because of their "clean", "no-add" environment (okay, they are just more subtle about it).

    However, I am edging away from Google to alltheweb (another "clean" search engine) since Google seems to want to foist their founders views on the rest of us.

    And I'm sure I'll eventually find something alltheweb does to piss me off.

    Being an annoyed (annoying?) consumer using free services is fun!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    Mike (profile), 16 Jul 2003 @ 4:43pm

    Re: Yahoo Shot Selves in Foot

    Of course, you realize that via Yahoo's purchase of Overture, who recently purchased AllTheWeb, you're back to using Yahoo?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Jul 2003 @ 4:51pm

    Re: Yahoo Shot Selves in Foot

    > Yahoo's purchase of Overture, who recently purchased AllTheWeb, you're back to using Yahoo?< br>

    Doh!!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. Re: Yahoo Shot Selves in Foot

    And I have the strong suspicion that M$ is going to try to buy google for an insane sum of monkey in the near future. Call me crazy (you're crazy sam), but I see this as the only logical point of action when the new MSN search fails (give it a few months).

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. icon
    Mike (profile), 17 Jul 2003 @ 9:12am

    Re: Yahoo Shot Selves in Foot

    Well, multiple sources have said that MS made an offer and Google turned them down...

    Doesn't mean they won't come back and offer more (because, after all, Microsoft does have "more").

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 3 Nov 2008 @ 9:33am

    play tau

    link to this | view in thread ]


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