Microsoft Says Hey, We Can Do Social Networking Ads Too

from the look-at-us! dept

Wed, Aug 23rd 2006 10:18am — Carlo Longino

A few weeks ago, Google said MySpace had chosen it to supply the site with search technology and advertising, and it would pay a minimum of $900 million to MySpace over three years. It beat out the likes of Yahoo and Microsoft, and now MS has struck back, or tried to, by announcing what's basically a me-too deal with Facebook. Some reports have labeled the deal as "hastily arranged", and that Facebook was in talks with Google -- which makes it sound as if Microsoft just started throwing money at Facebook in an attempt to make sure it could win a deal. Sense a pattern here? Microsoft's efforts in search and advertising haven't been too successful, and rather than do anything innovative online, all it really seems to be doing is coming up with ways to copy the companies it's trailing, like Google. Of course, this sort of charge is aimed at Microsoft all the time: that it simply "steals" other people's ideas and implements them in its own products. While it could be argued that such a strategy has worked out for the company in its software, the dynamics of the internet are such that simply mimicking a competitor isn't a viable plan for success.

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14 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2006 @ 10:26am

Why is anybody acting surprised?
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2006 @ 10:39am

Agreed - and this is different from their normal operating procedures how? Why stop now - they've been EXTREMELY successful doing just that.
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noodlenozzle, 23 Aug 2006 @ 10:44am

This definitely belongs where it is. Overhype. I'm not a big fan of Microsoft, or Google for that matter. I've had lots of stuff from both break down on me, but this article is completely unscholarly and unfounded. Silly.
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Turok, 23 Aug 2006 @ 11:02am

Microsoft setals?
http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=64 Google is simply better at stealing ideas than MS.
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DV Henkel-Wallace, 23 Aug 2006 @ 11:22am

err, don't be so sure
...the dynamics of the internet are such that simply mimicking a competitor isn't a viable plan for success.
You know, I remember reading the same thing about application software back in the early 1980s: "With an angle like the operating system you can stake out an unassailable position, but application software involves a major training committment on the part of the user. Microsoft is tilting at windmills in trying to displace Lotus." (Business Week, but also Upside, The New York Times etc).
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webmanga, 23 Aug 2006 @ 11:31am

They can advertise on my site :) www.chattanoogafreeads.com
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2006 @ 11:47am

you people are mental cases, acting as if MS is the first company in the history of business to seek to acquire upstarts with creative new thinking, or to jump on the train when something popular comes along.

their practices are standard for any hugely successful company. the ones that whine about it are just the ones who have not been successful enough to do the same thing.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Aug 2006 @ 11:59am

George W. Bush: BEST. PRESIDENT. EVER.
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Grandfather Time, 23 Aug 2006 @ 12:05pm

In my day, we called it a bandwagon, and everyone jumped on it. Now, without it, just how do you think we would have convinced all them morons that there was gold in them there hills over in Califoria?
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Horses Mouth, 23 Aug 2006 @ 12:42pm

Its not that we've seen it before, its that MSFT s
Sure we can recap past history and say that MSFT are doing what they have always done, steal ideas, make half-a**ed copies that fall far short of the status quo even in version 3 or 4, but really, this article is more about noting the impending, internal death of a one-time big company while the rest of the world speeds on by.

Not that I really think MSFT was ever great...maybe the stock rallied for a few years making people rich, but even then, the strategy of the company was misunderstood by everyone.....

Back in the day NO ONE understood computers or software, and Bill Gates used this to dupe millions of people to use their products in spite of the substandard design, blatant theft of ideas, and the long history of using his mommy and daddys money and contacts to get him into IBMs door, and then OUT of every legal scandal he made when he took ideas away, and met companies in court to claim he didnt steal from them, or borrow their IP.

Just as the US Govt wants to crack down on those who use drug money and stolen goods to traffic in high-life homes and cars, the users of MSFT software ought to be also scolded (or worse) for feeding the monster that Microsoft actually IS: they steal and then claim to own the software they sell......this is white collar crime at its best....and those who Paid for windows are merely pidgeons in the ploy to scam America, and the World.

Microsoft is not an Innovator, nor a creative company.....they are a bunch of smarmy lawyers and rich kids that got protection from their moms and dads, whilst beating up everyone in the neighborhood.
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What's that?, 23 Aug 2006 @ 12:42pm

Please Explain
Earlier I read in "Actually competing in the marketplace is using intellectual property in the wrong way?" that companies in the asian market were just copying one another and this was actually just good'ol competition. Now in this article, it seems that you guys are taking a different point of view with microsoft "copying" there nearest competitor and how there doing nothing inovative. Maybe techdirt's left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, or maybe this is just showing your bias against microsoft. Mixed messages equal poor arguments.
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Mike (profile), 23 Aug 2006 @ 1:42pm

Re: Please Explain
Earlier I read in "Actually competing in the marketplace is using intellectual property in the wrong way?" that companies in the asian market were just copying one another and this was actually just good'ol competition. Now in this article, it seems that you guys are taking a different point of view with microsoft "copying" there nearest competitor and how there doing nothing inovative. Maybe techdirt's left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, or maybe this is just showing your bias against microsoft. Mixed messages equal poor arguments.

I think you've misread the point we were making.

Competing is one step. The firms in Asia are competing by going out to market with their offering. Innovating and succeeding are different matters altogether, and that's done by serving your market and providing them with a better product.

Competition is good because it generally leads to efforts to offer BETTER products, not just copycat offerings.

So, what we're saying in Asia is that those firms are competing, trying to offer products on their home turf. No one was saying that they "only copy". They may copy as the basis of their product, but if they want to succeed, they need to offer something better.

That's quite in line with what we were saying here with Microsoft. if they want to *succeed* they need to offer something better. They're still competing, but that's different from innovating or succeeding.
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Please explain?, 23 Aug 2006 @ 2:00pm

What's that?
Point taken, and thank you for the clarification.
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Paul, 23 Aug 2006 @ 3:35pm

Fast Food
Oh my god its like how mcdonalds only serves coke and then pepsi was like "omg hey burgerking, sell pepsi instead of coke!"
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