Dethroning Google: Competition for the King

Jason Calcanis and others are out with posts talking about Rupert Murdoch's comments suggesting he will opt out of Google (GOOG) Search. Jason amplifies the comments and talks about doing a deal offering WSJ articles for a premium.

Every internet age (which last about 5 years) has a king. Right now it's Google, and it can be a difficult company to deal with. The bottom line for me, though, is that I love what Google does in terms of making the internet useful and interesting, especially for mobile users. I've been using Google Maps and Gmail for years and they are the best in class in terms of usability and usefulness.

Is it a little scary to see some of their ad suggestions sometimes? Maybe. At some point might they take the information they've gathered and abuse it?

Perhaps.

But for now Google is the most valuable and useful game in town and I don't mind it as long as they don't cross the privacy line.

An excerpt from Jason's missive below:

Essentially, I put forth a simple strategy for Microsoft (MSFT) to pursue with Bing in which they would go to content providers like the New York Times or Wall Street Journal and offer them 50% more revenue then they are currently getting from Google search referrals to be exclusively indexed in Bing.

This is 100% legal and, in fact, Google encourages people who don't like how they do business to opt out of the Google index (they can do that because they are so huge and because they don't like to be evil).

So, for a moment, imagine a world where Bing could say in their TV commercials:

"Want to search the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and
3,894 other newspapers and magazine?"

"Well, then don't go to Google because they don't have them!"

Comments

[craigimass:]

The KING will reign for longer than the MSFT king, so I'll let you do the homework on that..........let's see, I got my PC in 1982 - and MS is still worth hundreds of billions.........

There is a difference between a company driven by engineering and one driven by greed...........or there surely might be.

Don't be surprised if Google stays on top for many decades.

Nov 09 04:36 PM

[jack dee:]

the point is very fair, MSFT could give away space share profits whatever.

But WSJ wants you to find them , find them fast and have the most amount of people find them.

To go to MSFT or anyone else , and lock out goog, would mean locking out MOST of the people in the target markets.

If users had to actually go to bing to search they simply might not bother and find what they want on goog anyway.


The real solution is laws forcing all "bundled" software to be opt in NOT opt out. That by itself, that alone would level the playing field.

Hey MSFT want to catch up? lobby EU to prevent GOOG from installing everytime a consumer installs third party apps.....

Nov 09 04:45 PM

[jack dee:]

should add

Long GOOG MSFT


On Nov 09 04:45 PM jack dee wrote:

> the point is very fair, MSFT could give away space share profits
> whatever.
>
> But WSJ wants you to find them , find them fast and have the most
> amount of people find them.
>
> To go to MSFT or anyone else , and lock out goog, would mean locking
> out MOST of the people in the target markets.
>
> If users had to actually go to bing to search they simply might not
> bother and find what they want on goog anyway.
>
>
> The real solution is laws forcing all "bundled" software to be opt
> in NOT opt out. That by itself, that alone would level the playing
> field.
>
> Hey MSFT want to catch up? lobby EU to prevent GOOG from installing
> everytime a consumer installs third party apps.....

Nov 09 04:46 PM

[randomdan:]

Marc Cuban wrote up this strategy a while ago and should get credit for it. Basically if you take the top 1% of the web and pay them to block access to google you can basically ruin the user experience (relevancy) 90% of most user's searches....and if anyone has a few billion dollars to try it it would be Microsoft

blogmaverick.com/2008/.../

Nov 09 06:22 PM

[LarryBlumen:]

Open and closed case

Nov 10 09:02 AM

[Alex Filonov:]

Who cares about Murdoch? Google is the king of advertising. If Fox isn't on Google, it's like he doesn't exist in the 'net.

Nov 10 12:39 PM

[roofustheem...:]

Cuban just needs to stick with dethroning the lakers.

On Nov 09 06:22 PM randomdan wrote:

> Marc Cuban wrote up this strategy a while ago and should get credit
> for it. Basically if you take the top 1% of the web and pay them
> to block access to google you can basically ruin the user experience
> (relevancy) 90% of most user's searches....and if anyone has a few
> billion dollars to try it it would be Microsoft
>
> blogmaverick.com/2008/.../

Nov 10 08:13 PM

[Bill S. Friend:]

Murdoch is a pompous ass. I have computer experience dating back 30 years and until Google made a search engine I was pulling my hair out. I dont need Murdoch murdering so many trees to exhibit his opinion! Does anyone remember what a msn search was like? Thank goodness there is some competition. I can think of a few more industries who could use a run for their money.

Nov 10 08:34 PM