The media hype about Google impacting on Microsoft's business is obviously starting to wind-up the Gates... This guy has been underestimated before, by the biggest in the field. While Google enjoy their current power and become preocupied with vetting everybody and subsequently find themselves manipulating the intellectual usefulness of their search results, Microsoft are on the technical rampage! Many of you folk, expert webmasters, have commented in this very forum, how much easier it is to get on MSN. Many have commented on the speed at which MSN index and 'bot' your sites. I reckon they are only a few steps away from delivering a bombshell that will undo much of the perception of 'Google-is-search-king'. The bottom line is, MSN appears less arrogant, less 'in-a-hurry' to condem. They report what they find rather than let sites go stale and become redundant before they get a chance to air. Google is quickly heading down the road of creating its own 'old-boys-who-know-my-rules' network and forgetting that sometimes it's good for the little-guy to upload more than 'usual' or a sudden out of the blue thousand pages. Even new websites might contain innovative information and style that is highly enjoyable and relevant within its target audience, but so often are condemed to the sandbox of 'google-decided-time'. Meanwhile, juggernaut tactics send Google extending 'marketing' to things it has found, Google Books will kill off how many businesses...? If Google decide to become the 'Hypermarket' of the net, then Amazon may as well start considering itself the Google-Warehouse and eBay the worlds greatest flea-market. Where will it end if there are no monopoly rules? Will we really satisfy ourselves with just a few online players? Are the 'big-web-markets' going to be absorbed into web hypermarkets that do-it-all? Why surf outside of the big three or four if you are looking to conveniently web-shop? Seems to me, if you're not a Google SEO or someone who understands how to satisfy their appetite for rules, your website, information, inspiration and hard work may turn out to be meaningless drivel in the wind.... And they have forgotten something else as well... many creative people are poor and cannot necessarily afford to 'play' or 'pay'. They (Google founders) may have been drop-outs from Stanford, but they probably never tasted street level, survival-of-the-poor. Little comfort for those who 'create' on an unsponsored, shoe-string without the benefit of going to college or high school, let alone Stanford! When the 'Gates' gets angry enough, all that might change, just as other powerful monopolies who once thought themselves impregnable, fell before... I hope he's now rich-enough to see the humility of those who need another way to web-market their ideas, talent and products....
in fact msn should not become such a giant like google as well as they would probably do the same. anyway the fact that google makes the rules for every business is not only depressing but also, as mentioned, destroying. all those creative people that put a lot of afford into this first suffer from the sandbox and the other rules google has made. that's why seos possibly start to like msn and its bots anyway i think 2006 is the year something will change, especially concerning Microsoft's activity.
because everybody will obey its (future) rules? await the next one or two algo changes and people will get angry i think
the only thing i can see is that msn has more $$ at hand since bill gates could probly do un heard of tatics to beat out google... well not beat out just make things harder for google.
I dunno... Microsoft certainly isn't the all powerful monster it once was. You have Google vs. MSN which Google is clearly winning (I like MSN results myself, only because they are so easy to manipulate a child could do it... but that's certainly not going to help them give relevant results). You have Firefox making huge market share gains at the expense of IE. Even Apple seems to be re-surging in the OS market (I believe Apple doubled their market share in 2005). You also have Gmail vs. Hotmail, and while Hotmail has more users (been around longer), Gmail is growing faster than Hotmail. For MSN Messenger vs. AOL, AOL is dominating that market as well.
Yes, those are intresting observations. I like gmail a lot better than hotmail. Hotmail recently came up with their new mail service Live! Mail. It offers 2 GB of storage and is fast as comparative to older version of hotmail. On the footsteps of google they are keeping it invite only right now. I have used it, but i still like Gmail better. Still early days to comment anything, since Live! Mail is still in Beta mode.
Don't worry.. I found it interesting! I can't help wondering if the next version of windows and IE would have most of the features to see to it that MSN Search becomes the house-hold search do to the easy accessability that it could easily have. Surely once MSN Search is at a level that's developed enough to say 'Ok MSN is good to blow our trumpets over' Microsoft can start implementing it within the actual OS in too many ways I can't begin to even think of. What's stopping Microsoft implementing MSN on the desktop or start bar? What's stopping them implementing it in to common applications? What's stopping them implenting media searches through MSN, Media Player etc from music folders you're browsing or playing. What's really stopping MSN becoming the most dominant search on the web? Surely all of this is BOUND to happen once MSN Search is ready and developed enough to roll it out in to Windows itself. This would bring huge market share and loyalty to MSN overnight, but the product just isn't there yet in my opinion. On a related note as a casual surfer my dad loves MSN and uses Hotmail. I have never seen him use Google. I believe this is entirely down to accessibility and the fact MSN Search was the default setting for IE when he first used the Internet. There's a lot to be said for that! Pete
There is alot to be said for that. In addition there is the corporate 'lock-the-desktop-down' growing phenomina which could work in favor of MSN-search within standard Microsoft applications. If clever Bill adds content filtering (like N2H2) into the overall platform, corporates will love him for it and possibly boot out third party browsers that are a little more difficult to control. Once Microsoft regain the upper hand in surfing from your Workplace desktop, many folk will flip to MSN at home as well, just to keep things common and easy. What might stop Bill could be a side swipe by the Monoplies commission, but in reality, if Bill leaves free-choices in-place and simply 'offers' the options, corporate IT departments might just do the G-knock-out for him.
I own a greeting cards site - eCardica.com. The site has been in business for many years already. We've learned over the years that to be in the top 5 search positions, we need 2 things: a really optimized site and the more links the better. Google always said / says that they are the best, I can't agree with them. All this time, I thought I was doing something wrong that my site is still not in the top 5 of google when my keywords (ecards and free ecards) are searched. Then came along MSN and guess what....my site is on the 1st page. All that tells me is Google is slacking in their technology department. Soon enough people will realize the same thing and they will slowly migrate over to MSN if Google doesn't get their act together!!!!!!