Good primer on search
Looking for things to talk about, it occurs to me I've read more books about the tech biz than most and some thoughts/recommendations might be useful. I'll start throwing some in.
One of the hottest topics in the strategy world at Microsoft is the Search business. There's been a lot of misunderstanding of now the search advertising business works, and how big the advertising opportunity is. I'm forever recommending this book to folks inside Microsoft. Battelle does a great job of balancing a realistic explanation of how search ads work with a futuristic look at where they might be going.
A key point is how crucial search is to search advertising. With search, the user pretty much sits down in front of your computer and enters the thing they want to buy. This enables supremely well targeted ads, which means that clickthroughs turn into sales at a frighteningly high rate and thus huge $ per advertisement. Whenever anyone talks about ad-supported software, or ad supported services, first ask if you can get decent targeting based on usage. Usually, the answer will be "no", and then you know the revenue opportunity is limited.
4 Comments:
I am wondering how the Zune will use Searching and how you would like to implement it into the system. Searching is a big part of our electronic world. I will have to check out that book sometime... maybe I can find an eaudiobook of it.
Another thing, is Microsoft just interested in searching because of the revenue? I understand how advirtisement goes and how important it is to remain a functioning economy. Searching, in a sense, just seems so off-ball for Microsoft
So, it's very interesting you see it as far from Microsoft's core competency. We tend to see ourselves as a software company and at least partially as an online services company.
Search is fundamentally a math and software problem and the ultimate online service. So from our perspective it's right up our alley and shame on us for letting Goog get the jump on us.
Understandable, but do you believe that, even after everyones already comfortable with google and yahoo as search engines and media mail providers, Microsoft can succeed in this department? I've noticed quite a few get smashed away by google's enterprise, and by offering to web-based email client "Gmail" they really maintain a sense of togetherness in their products. Google video is more popular than ever and the only real function Google hasn't fully stepped into is music. Their ads swarm the internet and I see them quite too often also.
Google has established themselves as the biggest and best so far and it is one field I have to say will be hard to combat. The fundamentals and mathematics required to set up a search engine even capable of stardom would most likely require something unique... something not done before or better by anyone else. Is Microsoft prepared to offer such an online service?
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