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Time:
10:32 EST/15:32 GMT | News Source:
InformationWeek |
Posted By: Chris Hedlund |
Microsoft's declining share is important because the company has made search a key component of its push to catch up with Google in the multi-billion-dollar online advertising market.
Microsoft's online search has suffered a steady decline in market share over the last 12 months, while its biggest rival Google continues to grow.
The downward trend of Live Search, formerly called MSN Search, is reflected in figures released recently by three Web metrics firms: ComScore Networks, HitWise, and Nielsen/NetRatings. The site SearchEngineWatch plotted the monthly numbers for each of the top three search engines. With some hiccups, leader Google saw a steady increase in market share, and No. 2 Yahoo stayed about the same.
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#1 By
7390 (24.188.166.243)
at
12/4/2006 11:12:24 AM
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The word google is too ingrained into our lexicon for Microsoft to make any headway
your grandmother knows what the term "google it" means. They don't have to advertise anymore
Although google's algorithm is not what is use to be...but the race is over. Abandon ship on that front MS
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#2 By
23275 (68.17.42.38)
at
12/4/2006 11:28:27 AM
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It's like guys from small towns in LA - "Lower Alabama" south of our area... where a "Coke" is synonymous with "soft drink" - one may go to about any small town eatery and when a server asks what you'd like to drink and one answers, "Coke" don't be surprised when the server immediately replies, "Yes, but what kind?"
As a brand, Google is recognized in similar ways and as #1, points out, synonymous with Internet search.
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#3 By
3653 (68.52.143.149)
at
12/4/2006 11:29:03 AM
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remember when "browser" wasnt a word. instead we ALL used "netscape" to get on the web.
This post was edited by mooresa56 on Monday, December 04, 2006 at 11:31.
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#4 By
7754 (216.160.8.41)
at
12/4/2006 11:30:38 AM
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#2: as I heard a southern comedian once say, "What do you what to drink?"
"Coke."
"What kind?"
"Orange."
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#5 By
23275 (68.17.42.38)
at
12/4/2006 12:04:46 PM
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#4, Exactly. In most cases, it is as charming as it is funny. In many cases, servers will have worked in the same place for decades - anchoring entire sections of towns. The best part is that so many could give a flying rip about Google, or anything else in the tech industry - where sharing local newspapers that are scattered about in well read parts is so common to see.
Mooresa56 makes an excellent point. As ubiquitous as Google and Internet search presently are - the story around search is far from over. I suspect it is flawed entirely - meaning it is one sided where we pull what we want. The best applications are in our assessment, those one does not have to use - where they push "finalized product" or the results of analysis, to people and in a form that can be understood visually and shared laterally. Search as we know it today must change - it must begin to include the very smart delivery of "knowledge" parallel to what we do as a normal part of work and life. Ads must also change - they must be products unto themselves and offer value over and above their use as informative spots to support brands. They must also be as smart as the applications supporting their placement - they must be relevant and not just to a topic or page, but to individuals. So Mooresa56's is right, the fat lady hasn't even warmed up, yet - she's in fact, still pretty thin.
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#6 By
1401 (69.27.196.125)
at
12/4/2006 12:48:09 PM
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I love Orange Coke
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#7 By
61 (72.64.142.151)
at
12/4/2006 12:55:33 PM
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#3, no actually, I don't.
NetCom's Netcruiser was my first browser (and internet provider), then a friend of mine introduced us to Netscape (OMG it was SOOOOOO much better), and we switched (this is like version 2.0 or so).
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#8 By
23275 (68.17.42.38)
at
12/4/2006 1:02:04 PM
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#6, It's called, "Mezo Mix" in Europe and I rather liked it as well - though it may have been more of a lemon-lime mix, or some kind of chemical "L'Orange" if you will... any way, it was good and didn't need any ice.
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#9 By
1401 (69.27.196.125)
at
12/4/2006 1:06:04 PM
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I can't say I've ever heard of Mezo Mix - I prefer Bud Light myself...
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#10 By
8556 (12.207.97.148)
at
12/4/2006 2:24:01 PM
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redhook: I try "Live Search" often. I find that it rarely gives me the link I need with the same search terms that Google hits home runs with. For the way that I search Google is more accurate. I expect "Live Search" to improve with age, like any product that MS doesn't give up on.
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#11 By
7390 (24.188.166.243)
at
12/4/2006 3:34:38 PM
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#10, there is nothing to give up...they have zero market share
all that they will do is include the search framework in a bunch of their products and also expose the underlying API for developers. But realistically they are fighting a battle for a war that is already over.
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#12 By
3 (62.253.128.15)
at
12/4/2006 6:10:31 PM
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#10 - agree there, searches I do in Live search compared to google rarely come up with the links I'm looking for. I don't have a preference for any search to be honest, but google gives the best results.
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#13 By
20505 (216.102.144.11)
at
12/4/2006 8:58:36 PM
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on the coke analogy front...
i was at a bar in vegas a month ago and no one under the age of thirty was drinking anything but red bull.
there is a lesson here. red bull is not trying to be coke. they've been successful doing things different i.e. appealing to a different demographic and advertising the crap out of just another sweet drink.
it's possible to get people to switch but it aint easy.
i guess the question i have here is the issue of focus. just what in the sam heck is ms trying to do these days? it wants to do everything Xbox, Zune, OSs galore, Office, dozens of third party software programs, mouse and keyboard hardware etc. To say this is a schizophrenic organization is the grossest of understatement.
i would say that the ms mission statement is to “do everything that has anything to do with computers”. i suggest with this philosophy they will fail at a good many things. i suspect that this is the major reason they couldn’t get vista out the door for five years.
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#14 By
12071 (203.185.215.144)
at
12/4/2006 11:13:39 PM
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#13 Hang on a second... what kind of a bar were you in where everyone under 30 drinks red bull? Were they out of beer and spirits? Are the young adults in that region so different from everywhere else that they don't drink beer and spirits?
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#15 By
23275 (68.17.42.38)
at
12/5/2006 2:23:05 AM
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#13, Good points.
They get bored. Our company is a full service provider. We buy raw bandwidth, tools and parts - the rest we do ourselves. We cover a lot of ground, and I have to admit, from time to time, we explore one area more than we do others. On the surface, this can seem confusing - even distracted, but it isn't. Once you get started - provided it's a good start and one builds a solid foundation first, and equally solid core services on top of that, a lot of "time" becomes available. A big challenge for us is to keep things fresh for our people. They get good enough at enough things and they start to get what seem like really tough jobs done almost too quickly and easily.
The only answer is to re-apply a lot of energy in new areas. New designs and new configurations, or new challenges. Like, okay - setting really wild goals... "I don't want a single customer to see one single SPAM message and I don't want a single false-positive, either - then set out to try and solve that [and they do]. The same sort of thing is true of finding out just what one can do with HD on a PC platform and still keep it reasonable. What comes out of that is very cool, but from the outside it can seem to be all over the place.
The truth is that so much is so very related - so similar that it is very hard to keep people interested and turned on. I have to work really hard to keep our guys "fed" - with new ways to exercise their abilities. That means continually evolving new markets and engineering new products - being the lead lab rat is not all that easy - as much frustration as it is in the end, rewarding - after weeks of testing and finding where things break. From all of that we tend to work back into integration, but differently from MS. Being small, we have to integrate in smaller bits, and move things much more quickly. That's tough, too - getting the documentation and procedures proliferated and making the skills more universal.
The main thing is the work to continue to find new things that interest such talented people - they have so many interests and skills that I would never wish on any of them to have to do the same things over and over again. I think perhaps some of this is behind the seemingly unrelated diversity we see coming from MS. Underneath however, much of the science is the same - so the deal, or the business side has to take up that slack and keep it fresh for the people working the science. I guess I am saying MS does it all for themselves as much as for any other reason - just to see if they can. "Just a guess, but I bet a lot of companies are like this."
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#16 By
20505 (64.60.114.101)
at
12/5/2006 11:40:27 AM
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chris,
red bull and vodka(!) complete with "escorts" at the bar.
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#17 By
12071 (203.185.215.144)
at
12/5/2006 7:56:11 PM
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#17 Ahhhh, fair enough, I thought it was red bull straight up or perhaps on the rocks for the really suave ones ;)
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