Is Microsoft’s vision to compete in search and reinvent itself as an advertising company nothing more than an attempt to get back into its familiar position as Top Gun? Should Microsoft, Google and everyone else just give up on search and outsource to Google? That’s what Tim O’Reilly argues in a blog post today, and I don’t think he could be more wrong.
O’Reilly says Microsoft lost its way after accomplishing its long time goal of seeing “a computer on every desk and in every home.” They’re drifting now, he says, and “their only goal seems to be to stay on top of the heap.” Trying to “eat Google’s lunch” in the search wars is a symptom of this problem he argues. Google already claimed the mission to “Organize all the world’s information,” and he says they’ve already won at search, “or close enough to make no difference.” Microsoft, therefore, should move on to something new that it can win at.
So his advice to Microsoft: outsource search to Google, and go tackle a different problem – building out the Internet Operating System.
I’m not going to argue with Tim about whether it’s a good idea or not for Microsoft to put more resources into the web services infrastructure and software world. I think that’s a fine idea. But what I don’t understand is why he thinks Microsoft must abandon their efforts in search to do so. And I also think that what he suggests – an absolute monopoly in search – would be a disaster for the Internet.
Innovation In Search Has Just Begun
I simply cannot believe that just a little over a decade into the commercial Internet, Tim O’Reilly is willing to say that the search war is over. Did he not read his good friend John Battelle’s book, The Search? He’s not the only expert out there who thinks the war is over – Danny Sullivan argued as much on the Gillmor Gang last week. But I simply cannot believe that this is all we can expect in terms of search innovation.
There are so many areas on search that remain to be conquered. Semantic search. Real language/AI search. The deep web. Media search. Today search basically returns web documents. What I want is for search to complete tasks for me. We’re no where near that today.
We are just getting started in search. To think that search has reached its pinnacle today is like saying aircraft were perfected before World War I. And if just one company were to carry on in aircraft innovation at that point, I doubt we’d have jetliners whisking us around the world today.
Innovation does not occur at a rapid pace without competition. If Google or any company were to control search exclusively, we could expect to see little happen in search technology or business models over even the medium and long term.
Sure, the odd startup or two would still come along and try to shake things up. But search is infrastructure intensive – the cost and difficulty of indexing the web and building a business in an established market requires resources that most new startups can’t realistically access. And if the market consolidates further, competing will become that much harder. There’s a reason monopolies get broken up by governments – market forces can’t generally undo them.
Search Monopoly And A Healthy Internet Are Mutually Exclusive
Search is important because it is the starting point for most commercial intentions on the Internet. As I wrote earlier this week, 68% of online purchases begin at a search engine or shopping comparison site. That drives revenue, and a lot of it. About 40%, or $16 billion, of the $40 billion collected in online advertising comes from search. And 80% of that $16 billion comes from commerce related searches.
The online advertising space is still growing rapidly; there are estimates that it will grow to $80 billion by 2010. If Google continues its dominance of search, they may surpass Microsoft in revenues, and certainly in profitability, in the next few years. The fact that Microsoft won’t be able to count on fat desktop software profits forever only makes the problem worse.
Search and Advertising are effectively mirrors of each other. To say that it’s ok for there to be one player in search is saying that it’s ok if there is a monopoly in advertising.
We’ve already seen what happens if there is a dominant player in search – little effort is put into innovation, and the not enough revenue flows to companies that add value to the system. The risk of the entire ecosystem is put at risk.
For example, the CPC (cost per click) model is flawed, but in Google’s favor because it puts fraud risk inefficiently on the advertisers, who have no way of controlling it at the search engine level. CPA (cost per action) models work much better, but Google has done little more than test them. The current system is great for Google and bad for advertisers. But advertisers have nowhere else to go since Google has 60+% of the search market (and perhaps as much as 90% of search revenue), so they have to live with it. Microsoft’s recent Live Search Cashback initiative shows that competition can and will create more efficient systems.
On the publisher side things are even worse. Google doesn’t share enough revenue with content sites that show their ads. The only thing keeping them even close to honest is the fact that Yahoo and Microsoft will occasionally compete for those partners. Take that away, and Google will go back to keeping the majority of advertising revenue generated at those sites (their only competition will be other types of advertising, which generate far less revenue). That is a terrible outcome when you look at it from the perspective of the health of the Internet.
Microsoft can’t ignore the online advertising market, it’s just too big and important. And we need to be behind them in this effort, because if Microsoft and Yahoo lose interest, we’ll be stuck with a monopoly, and the Internet will suffer. Competition drive innovation. Competition drives prices down. To wish this away is irresponsible.
Update: See Tim’s video response from the comments below, and his follow up post here:
i believe someone would come up and beat google, perhaps it is you
Competing with Google head on? That’s going to be very tough. Mahalo has some interesting ideas about how to cut in on a little percent here and there, though. But you already know to watch that.
What is sewn up? The monetization of search. Can that dramatically change? I sure don’t see a new way that’ll come along.
Also, will there be a big breakthrough that’ll be so dramatic (like Google was compared to Alta Vista) that everyone will switch? I don’t see it.
Semantic search and concept search technology has yet to be mastered.
It is possible that this will do for the industry – in the coming decade – what Link Popularity did during this decade in terms of relevance.
Also successfully integrating Social Bookmarking into the technology may accomplish even more. This is the new direction Yahoo is leaning towards.
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Microsoft is probably the only company in the world now that can create a better search. By better, certainly don’t mean “a little better” (in the sense of Google better or Yahoo better), but significantly better, “revolutionally” better.. Whether they want to, or have the resolve to, of cos, is another matter… so, yes, agree with Arrington that it’s important (to mankind).
One exception, by the way: Facebook. They, by getting tens of millions of people to crawl into their walled garden, have created a new opportunity for search. So is FriendFeed (who’s search engine is really interesting and works to index new items in a second or two). Already Facebook’s search has access to tons of content and people’s stuff that isn’t available to Google and that makes it a very interesting search engine.
Robert Scoble:
“Also, will there be a big breakthrough that’ll be so dramatic (like Google was compared to Alta Vista) that everyone will switch? I don’t see it.”
I’m betting you weren’t thinking that things would get much better than AltaVista the day before Google launched, either.
We talked about this on the Gillmor Gang specifically. Real innovation isn’t easy to predict, or even imagine. But it happens. I wish you were on the gang that day to give your perspective.
Look at history… even civilizations that at one point were at the top and seemed to be indestructible were brought down. Look at companies, even IBM in the past, and where Microsoft is compared to them now. Microsoft might not have a big future if it can’t compete with Google and things change as we expect them to, and so that will be just another change. 10 years from now, maybe we won’t “search” the way we know it now, and that gives others a chance to take over where Google is now.
Overall, I’m pretty sure my examples could be a lot better and more researched, but I don’t think Google will stay at the top forever, at least not without being competitive and innovative, in which case I think it’s fine.
Also, at least globally, I’m glad there’s a little more competition than maybe in the US so that those other companies strive to become better.
There’s a rumble on the peninsula, people.
History (Prodigy/CompuServe/AOL) gave proofs to the eventual death of walled gardens. Facebook will be Google-crawlable. Just Give it some time.
Well, I do see there are holes in Google. Heck, look at Mahalo to see how they are parking a truck in some of the deeper potholes that Google hasn’t paved over.
I did see AltaVista’s problems and was one of the first to tell everyone about Google. But back then AltaVista pissed me and audiences off. It had TONS of adult porn all over the place (my NetMeeting site was #1 on AltaVista, but #2 was a porn site that had no business being there). Google isn’t pissing off users in this way, even with the bad results that Calacanis sees and that Mahalo is taking advantage of.
one of the best arrington posts in a while. I agree, competition creates innovation.
MyMesh: no, the way I see it playing down is a new Facebook competitor comes along. FriendFeed COULD be it, but we need to see FriendFeed do a TON of things right for about a year before it’s going to be clear to everyone whether or not it’s it. But FriendFeed has been too hyped up so it’s impossible to have a good conversation about THAT this weekend.
The fact is that Google brings also 80% of its traffic to smaller and niche search engines.
It is the case of our search engine which is dedicated exclusively to Live Web content!
In a way Google is our frenemy (friend + enemy). But it’s clear that more equilibrium would be a plus in this market.
RobertScoble: that’s what I mean, new Facebook competitor, forcing Facebook to eventually open up, thus Google-crawlable.
Let’s say Yahoo and MS did give up, making Google a monopoly. Couldn’t the DOJ step in and break up Google, just like they did AT&T? Then again I wasn’t alive when that happened…
@16 – everybody loses, that way
Search as we know it today won’t last another 7 years. Well at least not for the early adopters. The main change will start with the input. As web/mobile services get to learn more about users they will be able at some point to predict our behavior and therefore start suggesting before we search. At this point Search will move towards Decision based on Suggestion. Secondly, Input will become voice activated. And lastly, in 15 years, headsets or mobile devices will capture and interpret brain waves and suggest information related to your thoughts. We are already seeing this (I cannot find the video anymore). Search is not the future. It is painfull.
Great post Michael, and you are right for multiple reasons.
It’s a flawed argument to think that just because one company dominates a market that somehow everyone else should give up. So I suppose because Internet Explorer was the dominant browser, Mozilla should never have tried? And Opera with their 1% market share, are wasting their time? Aside from the points Michael raises about the impact of a monopoly, even if a company has 1% of the search market that is an extremely profittabe position (equating to about $1billion from memory?). History proves not empire is infallible.
Google makes about half of its revenue with affiliates – including about 10% from AOL alone. All Microsoft has to do, is offer a better deal for these affiliates and focus on relationship building , and they potentially have half the market at their doorstep. Google search may be superior, but it’s advertising network is not. A company like Google although doing really well, has definitely got a risky revenue model.
The fact so much of their traffic is arranged through relationships, like Mozilla’s search box as well the AOL’s and the mum & dad blog – indicates you don’t need superior technology to upseat that – just better sales people.
I think its important that Google is challenged by businesses innovating in search. I also think that it will come from an area that the big corps cant/wont manage to get right into – like Facebook. I can imagine a semantic search engine picking out my interests through my friends websites/photos/music/travel/shopping. Like a mashed version of Friendfeed/Facebook.
Very good article, well-thought and well-said. Microsoft is our friend. We need their fierce competitiveness and their cash. They probably won’t win the battle; but they will certainly make ways for startups to see the opportunities and join forces.
If Yahoo makes a search deal with Google, the so-called search war would be very close to being over. Remember, if there’s no meaningful competition, there’s no monopoly.
MS and Yahoo should join forces – than market/promote a better revenue split than Google’s Adsense program
king solomon of search, slice it up! {seesmic_video:{”url_thumbnail”:{”value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/ymU9C7j2o0_th1.jpg”}”title”:{”value”:”king solomon of search, slice it up! ”}”videoUri”:{”value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/Roxd2NaYhJ”}}}
To compete with Adsense, Yahoo! just need to start with making the long tail signup process simpler.
That said, adsense does not make up the bulk of the Google revenues…
A titan like google will never allow any measly competitors to even approach something that looks like competition…that includes tier one mock search engine yahoo and one day hopeful mahalo.
Microsoft needs to be embraced as the only potential combatant due to its cash rich reserves and history in the tech space…so a yahoo acquisition is the only clear path to instant market share breadth…but that is only step 1…step 2 needs to involve a much greater feat in creating a better method of search which if successful can result in a 2 company head to head main event
Mike – Very True. Google is going on to become a monopoly if not already. Somebody has to compete with them in search and advertising.
But I am sure someone will one-up Google in coming years, it might be anybody maybe Facebook, maybe some new feature in Windows 7 or even Yahoo’s Searchmonkey or Wikia.
#1 Tim didn’t say no competition, saying competition is good is a virtual truism. What he said was that MS should give up, because it is doing it for the wrong reasons.
Google’s vision, drummed into every employee, is organizing the world’s information. They are focused on the net, and on services. Microsoft still has 90% of the feet in the “MS desktop and software everywhere” strategy. They’re core competency isn’t building great network applications, and when they do build net apps, they somehow always seem to dovetail back into a platform lock in strategy. They haven’t changed, just look at how Silverlight is run compared to Google Gears. MS is still interested in driving Vista sales, the Silverlight ports are token PR gestures.
MS was late to the party, tried to “game” internet standards to once again tie it back to their desktop vision, and has sucked ever since they arrived.
#2
MS is not the “only potential combatant”, and again, investing your hopes in MS to do something good for all the wrong reasons will be an exercise in fail. Microsoft has to decide that they are either going to embrace the internet, or keep trying to figure out a way to make the net somehow drive profits in other MS divisions like desktop.
You don’t need billions of $$$ to invent better search (implement a huge server farm, yes, but not invent it, and in the future, you may even just be able to buy/rent a HADOOP cluster), and if someone does invent a disruptive search algorithm, and can prove it in a showstopping demo, I’m sure the investors will line up.
Microsoft is the wrong company to be pinning your hopes on for providing a viable alternative to Google, because even if they did invent a better algorithm, and take down Google, the result would be a net loss, and they solidify and bind new found internet dominance with their 99.999% desktop monopoly, and it would be a slowdown or reversal of the move to openness we’ve seen.
TC is way too enamored with shitty Web 2.0 companies with zero business model poised for fail, and way too interested in finding lame ways to attack Google. If Google’s ad network is reigned in, I hope it’s because someone came up with something innovative, and not another lame comparison shopping coupon site.
Google runs it own computing infrastructure and the network. Supposedly they even assemble the hardware themselves.
They have zero cost distributing softwares.
They implicitly own the upcoming FireFox browser with default search engine as Google.
Their partnerships for content are lopsided (users upload someone else’s creation as in YouTube).
In the future they will continue to create every other application that anybody else can ever dream up.
All Ad-dollars and the only revenue as result of the their products flows into Google. There is not an external ecosystem that benefits from it or economy in general that benefits from it. (note in Microsoft case or any other industry there are multiple parties who win due to an ecosystem that is formed by the monopoly)
Further considering all these are free products there is not even way to compete (Bertrand Pricing).
Truly time for Department of Justice to intervene (well if the Dems win of-course that will have to wait for another 8 years)?
nice article. the ceiling on a search monopoly is so much higher than on a desktop OS monopoly, it’s not even comparable. which is really remarkable when u try to appreciate that.
competition would be valuable, but it’s shrinking, not growing. and momentum in markets like this is extraordinarily difficult to shift. google has secured sufficient share and brand that it can only stumble on itself at this point. semantic, natural language, and media search are probably too close to google’s soul to be genuine points of long-term threat, because there is a straightforward path and enough time for them to integrate this type of innovation into its pipeline, regardless of where the innovation originates.
the achilles heels are privacy, social, spam, and anti-trust.
either way, it’s a truly bizarre time when msft is considered by some to be the white knight of competition.
In terms of market share, it is also brand recognition which allows Google to dominate. Microsoft lost it’s vernacular brand; People don’t flock to MSFT, they Try to avoid it. They will never get that back. They never were innovators; only hunters and gatherers. (I worked on a museum project for Paul A. (and funded in part by Bill G.), on the development/history of the microcomputer….)
Google was smart in naming. Even non-internet users know it and like to talk about it. But Google is making errors too. Gathering everyone’s data, and trying to be the “everything” to everyone, so they can then shut the door behind all the little mice as they nibble away, will backfire. They also filter search, for self-serving reasons. This will only increase as their power dominates, and it will also be a point of demise.
The concepts of semantic seach have been around a long time; the steps sound just like those during the trajectory from AI to Fuzzy Logic. But it’s the same. You need to include contrarian points of view, “counterpoints”, like mirror reflections, within the ontology. It can’t be limited to syntax or semantics. It has to include the expanded forms of writing, per Derrida. And there is a way to do this. And, it is perfect considering the multiple modes of distribution and visual media. The problem is, programmers think with abstractions, and then try to get creative using forms of language, (another abstraction). When they need other ways to knit the black boxes together. Even breaking them apart.
The fact that Microsoft have been largely unsuccessful in the web 2.0 space doesn’t mean they should quit competing in core areas like search and advertising. .NET still thrives despite the presence of much better frameworks like Rails and Django. Microsoft may keep getting it all wrong, time after time, but one hit and Google will be under tremendous pressure. At any rate, their presence in the web space is enough to keep Google on its toes. Competition breeds excellence. If you have a race to run, you will want to finish it as fast as possible, irrespective of how bad the competitors are.
The way we think: Search now is a good user’s experience only at 1% of how it should be. Search is not only a good algorithm, but is also all about a good user’s interface, a social experience, a collaboration tool, an intuitive data interpretation utility, a discovery feature, an easy info selection box. Search is not only search, but it is THE Internet Operating System. When Tim O’Really argues Microsoft should outsource Search to Google and focus on building out the Internet Operating System is just saying a paradox. And, to make a comparison with something everybody has in the hearth Google now = Commodore 64 operating system at that time. And the next Google (or Google themselves, of course) = today’s most advanced OS (Microsoft, Linux etc..)
How long to be there? Don’t know. Who will win? Don’t know. Will Search undergo a strategic inflection point and become a radically different experience? I’m sure about that. If Yahoo and Microsoft will outsource to Google, bad for them: the winner will take it all…until the next search startup. Felix
No one benefits from Google? Most hilarious assertion I’ve read on TC lately. Besides the obvious ecosystems that they have created (e.g. Maps API), there is obviously the net productivity gain from better/faster searches. Linux has also created an ecosystem by giving things away for free, and they didn’t do it by crushing freedoms, leveraging monopoly power, or muscling small companies out of the way or stealing their IP.
Let me guess, you’re a Republican upset that Google is run by liberals? Otherwise, why the hell would someone presumably opposed to Democrats (a Republican?) be *for* manipulating the market and picking winners. I guess the Big Guvmint shall not interfere with the Free Market and invisible hand, unless said company is a super successful liberal company.
So yes, let’s have the government break up a young, successful company, that provides an outstanding service to consumers for free (as opposed to a $100 tax on every PC). While we’re at it, maybe we should break up MS, nationalize the Windows Source code and give it to the Linux people so that can make WINE alot better.
Google never forced anyone to use their product like Microsoft.It’s not Google’s fault to have monopoly.It’s lack of ability of Microsoft,Yahoo etc. to convince us.
I couldn’t agree with you more Michael. I really want this microsoft aquisition of yahoo to happen, if not then the web is doomed for a decade.
If MS acquires Y!, it will kill two birds with one stone, and the doom will come faster. The idea that Y! is dead and only a company with a continuously failing execution in the Web space can save it is suspect.
To me, Y! is a beloved brand, and an MS acquisition will be a stake through the heart. Probably half the workforce would leave to work for Google and Facebook the day after the deal is signed.
As an employee of microsoft live search, I’m amazed at how much the industry has changed in just the fast few years. With that, I’m really excited about the future of search and what the future holds. Microsoft, especially the Live Search team seems to be under tremendous criticism, but there are a lot of innovations coming out of the team. Just look at virtual earth (http://maps.live.com/). The imaging and resolution is much better than google.
http://www.lottodrawn.com – Online free lottery with great prizes.
subset…what youre saying may be true or maybe the exact opposite…in that microsoft may adopt the goodwill from yahoo and reinvent itself in this new open source/search era. people like to root for the underdog…and I can’t believe im calling the combined forces of a microsoft/yahoo merger an underdog, but I believe that people will inherently drift to the new google competitor in an effort to create balanced economic forces in the world of search and global internet domination….kind of like the was the democrats and republicans are almost evenly split in this country. no one side remains supreme. imagine this country if the republicans owned 90% of the populace…
When there are two dominat forces, the masses combine to equalize the playing field so that no one force remains supreme and is able to dictate the fate of the world…I mean the internet…hehe
thoughts?
‘Competition drives innovation’ – great words!!! What I think that MS’s way of a CPA is going to change the search pattern on the net. Yesterday I was just going through the cashback program and I found for some laptops you can get back $93. Almost $100. Now in this time of economic recession worldwide who is no going to take that money while shopping online. Microsoft picked the right time.
If you see you buy something and get some money back, you will do this. And I don’t believe that MS is doing this levaing their profit in the air. Sure they have solid prfit from here too. Just think if this cashback runns ‘just good’, not bringing too much for MS, but they continues, what’s going to happen?. They are going to win the the commercial searches. As you said it’s a big percentage of current search and also a big share of money.
MS’s calculation is perfect with respect to time. It’s not any new start-up that comes with $4/$5 million and some venture capitals promise to add some more and after some time it evaporates. Microsoft is a soild company. It is deep rooted.
There are always uncertainty in business as it is in life. But that doesn’t mean we will stop thinking something new. Sometimes taking a risk brings success.
id also like to mention that I don’t think Microsoft is the only option as an acquirer…however it is one of a few
Can’t wait for what the search market brings over the next 5 years. Should be fun!
Microsoft should dump search and instead invest heavily on APIs and programming languages, where they always had the most strength. Even in the Web era, people still need the building blocks you know.
testing
@Mike – I agree with you that Search deserves more competition and Google shouldn’t be the only dominant player in this space.
The idea about the Internet is not just about connectivity but also a lifestyle experience. It also provides a platform where people can share almost anything on the web with very few barriers. At the end of the day, the Internet speaks about freedom and in order to empower that, the Internet must continue to give power back to the people.
We have seen this happening with OpenID/OpenSocial where people demand to have their information back from social networks. I think the same trend will happen in the Search marketplace. Search giants like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft have to be pressured to open up their IP and give away (so to speak) their Search index back to the people. If that ever happens, we will see more interesting innovation and new players emerge. In terms of innovation, I am interested to see more collaborative search methods and combined search indexes from various search vendors (Google/Yahoo/etc) to provide better/semantic results.
The next big thing in search is about finding meaning from all these data on the web. Google just simply ranks these data but it does not really explain these data well. It’s also imperative for Google to open up its search index and empower the community to bring the Internet to the next level. Stop playing as big brother because we don’t need one.
GIVE POWER BACK TO THE PEOPLE!!
We are just getting started in search.
thank you for writing that… what we have now is almost barbaric, a glorified alphabetizing, i want semantic, just for starters… get me into meaning, and then maybe something can be learned
Better search to the Desktop is not bad at all. The Desktop will always prevail.
I totally agree with your sentiments Mike. I am very far from a fan of Microsoft and their practices, but I could see the writing on the wall as far as the dominance of Google, many years ago. I have also seen a lot of similarities with Microsoft in the way Google operates. In light of this, I actually welcome some form of strong competition to Googles dominance. Like you, I think the power Google has allows them to unfairly dictate advertising terms to both the advertiser and the publisher.
To suggest that the fight is over and to simply give in is incredible. This is the technology industry after all, where innovation and development is rife around every corner. Consolidation is one thing, but when so much money is involved, surely it is reasonable to plan to grab a slice of the market.
Search is a long way form the pinnacle; to suggest otherwise is to give in to the poor offering we have today. What happened to the idea of search knowing what the individual actually wants to search for, rather then simply serving up a platter of results for the masses.
To not actively explore every possible avenue to compete in such a valuable market is ludicrous. Imagine what we would be paying for fuel now if it was controlled by one large monopoly!
Beating Google at the following scenarios – Long Tail of search game (within the last 36 hours, on 1 out of 100,000,000,000 web pages someone posted – william fischer thought folks were a little too harsh on the leotard – find it ) or contextual ad serving game (william fischer opened an email that mentioned a flight to salt lake city let’s serve him an ad for lift tickets for Snowbird) or the needle in haystack (500,000 sites mention gelato and rome but let’s find william the one that mentions that spot near the Pantheon) is no small feat.
Taking Google head-on would require massive capital investment and massive ad inventories to effectively monetize it. Very few organizations have the capital (intellectual and financial) and infrastructure to get any short-term traction in this fight.
Fortunately, as a business, most of google’s ad revenues are derived from areas where there is head room to improve the user experience for both advertisers and end users. Retail (entertainment, consumer electronics, soft goods, etc.), classified (recruitment, autos, services, resell), travel and insurance make-up over 80% of Google ad revenues and yet, I don’t believe, that Google offers the best user experience in any of those categories. As an advertiser, Google offers ease of use, great campaign management tools, the ability to deliver meaningful volume, and an ROI that is competitive. But, in each of those dimensions, the experience can be improved.
Even in Long Tail areas, with smart specialization and the development of better semantic tools, Google will start to become more vulnerable over time. With the development of walled gardens and distributed search/browsing tools, more vulnerabilities will be exposed.
It’s too early to cede this market to a single player.
Cheers,
Bill
http://www.workhound.co.uk
Great post – agree with Arrington that competition must exist. However, I do not think Microsoft is the one to place any bets. They are too big and too slow to match the pace of other companies, but with all the money they have, no one can stop them from trying.