[Search-l] NYTimes.com: Eyes on Google, Microsoft Bids $44 Billion for Yahoo

[John McCormac]

Jimmy Wales wrote:
> John McCormac wrote:
> 
>>It certainly makes the attempt to gain search marketshare a bit harder. 
>>Microsoft management and Yahoo search technology and expertise will be 
>>quite a threat to Google and others.
> 
> 
> Hmm, I would argue the opposite.  I am not yet convinced that the merger 
> has any very interesting synergies to make the combination any more 
> interesting than the separate pieces were.

That's one way of looking at it Jimbo,
Yahoo and Microsoft combined are, in social search terms, data rich. And 
  as a merged operation, they have more social data than almost any 
other operation. While there are privacy concerns, it provides a lot of 
raw data for recommendations and search quality improvement. I think 
that Yahoo is already integrating del.icio.us into search results.

> Yes, the existing user base of Yahoo / Microsoft is large, but it is no 
> larger after the merger than before.

There may be an integration of the advertising platforms. The search is 
a problem - Microsoft's own search venture sucks because they really 
don't do search in the way that others do. Buying in some otherwise 
smart people and pointing them at search does not work. You need people 
with a special kind of mindset to compete at the Google level of search. 
If I had the option of working with Google or Microsoft/Yahoo, it would 
be a hard decision. With Google, it would be working with the market 
leader. With Microsoft/Yahoo, it would be a challenge to beat the best.

> I think that the tie-up may be a boon for smaller competitors, as 
> consumers seek out alternatives.

Possibly. But the search market has suddenly become a lot more 
interesting. It seems, to my limited economic knowledge, that markets 
tend to end up with a few major players dominating most of the market 
and a handful of smaller operators at the periphery of the market.

Regards...jmcc
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