

How Bing could kill Google - jlees
http://calacanis.com/2009/11/09/how-to-kill-google-or-take-10-points-of-search-search-share-in-six-months/

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theli0nheart
I think this is missing the point, which is that the new generation doesn't
care about ink and paper news. There are some out there that seem to believe
that people will "miss" outlets such as the NYTimes and WSJ, but I don't think
that they will. All that really matters to people is getting relevant
information and opinions about current events.

Part of me thinks that most of the people defending ink and paper are doing so
purely for sentimental reasons. Citizen journalists have proven time and time
again that they can stand up to the plate and deliver interesting content.

~~~
old-gregg
I don't think the post was about ink and paper, it was not even about news.
It's was about the increasing influence of content owners and commoditization
of aggregators and search engines. Finishing his sentence one could say that
nothing stops Bing from going after top 500 bloggers and essentially offering
them cash to opt out of Google index.

It can actually work: while the Internet is huge, the 80/20 principle still
applies - 80% of the population are interested in 20% of the content. I bet
that pulling just top 20 NFL/NCAA sites and blogs out of Google will
noticeably boost Bing's audience. Heck, maybe even getting exclusive rights to
index Wikipedia may do the trick.

~~~
zaphar
The real question is how much would of a deal would you have to give WSJ to
convince them to leave all of google's eyeballs behind? A bigger cut of a
smaller pie is not necessarily a better deal.

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ryanwaggoner
Yeah...so on day 1, Bing goes after a bunch of exclusive indexing deals, and
on day 2, Google does the same. Assuming you're a content provider who is
willing to do a deal like this, and you're going to get roughly the same
amount of money, who are you going to go with? Probably the guy who has 70% of
the market. This seems like a quick way to get Google's market share to 80%.

~~~
Erf
But the next question is: Who has the deeper pockets with which to throw more
money to the content providers?

~~~
jerf
In Microsoft v. Google? They'll both run out of upside long before they run
out of money, that is to say, both can spend amounts of money unbounded by the
actual quantity they have as other bounds kick in first.

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gustaf
I have a lot of respect for Jason and takes his opinion more serious than
mine.

In this case I think he is misunderstanding the Internet a little bit. The
value is not created in the center (content, sites) but by the nodes. We, the
users create the value of the internet and to some extent the value of what
you search, at least that part is growing.

If you look at the top 20 sites on alexa globally you wont find a single pure
news-site. You'll find a combination of social sites, collaborative sites,
self-publishing and communication sites. This, this is the value of the
internet - it's not "content".

~~~
pbhjpbhj
_This, this is the value of the internet - it's not "content"._

I'd agree that's where the value is, but the money is all with the content
(regardless whether that content is aggregated from users or produced in-
house).

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ironkeith
Sounds like a great opportunity for someone to SEO optimize a site, paraphrase
WSJ articles, put some ads in and let Google index them (like already happens
to dozens of blogs). Then instead of blaming Google for stealing their money,
News Corp will have to blame the dozens (hundreds?) of spammy reposters who
appear to fill the void.

~~~
albertsun
News Corp would be able to go after these people with copyright infringement
lawsuits, possibly naming Google as a co-defendant. Stopping this kind of
infringement is a much more manageable task than stopping P2P file sharing, as
these sites are dependent on Google/some other ad network making payments to
them.

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nfnaaron
I remember there was this company that had exclusive deals with content
providers, in the early Web days. Oh - AOL - that was it. In fact I think I
still have one of their CDs lying around somewhere.

I remember Scientific American being behind the AOL-wall, and thinking damn,
SA should really be out here with everything else. But I also remember
thinking there's no way I'm going to pay AOL for anything when there's so much
else out here beyond the walls. And that was in the early Web days.

Today I can't believe that anyone would disassociate themselves from the
_World_ Wide Web, when virtually every potentially walled-off property has
fistfuls of just as good competition out here.

Maybe with Bing it won't matter so much, as any browser can display results
from multiple engines with the right add-on, or anyone can provide a web-app
to do so. So the only people who will care about how this plays out is MS and
Google; the rest of us will continue to just search and consume.

Murdoch's flirtation with building a giant tree-fort (NO GURLZ ALOWD!) will
probably end up being an example of a doomed Maginot Line. "Rumble-rumble-
rumble ... What's this? (It's a pay-wall, sir) Well, drive around it!"

I think, though, the most comprehensive attempt at re-enacting AOL is
FaceBook. Sure, lots of people are in FaceBook, just like all our grandparents
were. But there's still a lot of people outside of FaceBook, and anyone
selling or renting content inside FaceBook isn't reaching any of those
outsiders. And there's plenty outside the FaceBook wall to keep people busy
and happy and informed (and blissfully un-poked).

------
rfreytag
Every single WSJ article I have read over the last year has been a referral
from news.ycombinator.com.

Now maybe people are Googling for those articles but I think what is going to
happen is that the browser will end up aggregating the search across a variety
of platforms.

Perhaps news sources, search, and browsers are organiztiong into a vertical
market.

------
marcamillion
With all due respect to Jason Calacanis, he has made his selling Weblogs to
AOL...I get that. However, I honestly think that he doesn't understand the way
media is changing. It's not about the 'few' large content creators anymore -
it's about the millions of little content creators. The search engine business
has not been commodotized, the content business has.

Sharing revenue with 'certain' content creators doesn't scale like paying the
top digg users to submit content on Netscape doesn't scale.

I am not one of those that thinks that paper and ink will go away, I just
think that the model is going to change drastically.

Weren't the lawsuits and withholding of 'professional content' from YouTube
supposed to kill YouTube some years ago? What happened to that? Yes, Hulu is a
nice destination, but wasn't that also supposed to 'kill Google'? Whenever I
see Mark Cuban agreeing with Calacanis on some crazy tirade
([http://blogmaverick.com/2009/11/09/rupert-murdoch-to-
block-g...](http://blogmaverick.com/2009/11/09/rupert-murdoch-to-block-google-
smart-twitter-has-changed-it-all/)) it really gives me pause. No offense to
Mr. Cuban either.

Twitter & Facebook have not, and WILL NOT replace Google. It's that simple.
Yes, they might perform some functions better than Google, but there are two
different use cases for both sets of services. When I want to find general
information about a topic (anything outside of 'real-time' info and my social
graph) I go to Google first. Twitter and Facebook won't change that, because
they are not even in that game.

Bing, on the other hand, is finally gaining ground and that's good.
Competition is a good thing for the markets and is very healthy. Someone needs
to keep Google in check.

This notion of throwing money at content providers/creators under the
presumption that their content is what most of Google's traffic is in search
for is a misguided notion.

I don't profess to know what (if anything) will kill Google, but I would
recommend that Calacanis and Cuban go read 'The Long Tail' again. That is the
future. As 37signals puts it, the Fortune 5,000,000 not Fortune 100.

~~~
adrianwaj
There was a recent Sky News interview with Murdoch on YouTube, very good and I
agree that the content business has been commoditized.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7GkJqRv3BI>

Come to think of it, News Corp can put out good content and people will pay
for it: but it's a downhill route in the broadest sense -- so long as their
are content "selectors" - those that try to undercut News Corp will succeed if
such selectors are pushing free content out well via Twitter. Free Writers and
Free Selectors - and making their lives better - are the future.

------
niqolas
If this actually happened with key web properties (e.g. ALL NewsCorp papers,
or Twitter, or NASCAR/NFL/etc exclusively on one search engine), I predict it
would turn into a land grab which would ultimately just lead to segregation.
However, the key question in my mind is:

Would users follow the sites they trust OR find new sites via the search
engine they trust?

I'm guessing people would use the search engine they trust to source new
information and then visit the sites they love (which have been excluded from
their search) as a destination (i.e. going to WSJ.com direct and then
searching content there)...

Google would still remain the No 1 search engine but WSJ etc would then have
to rely more on their active user base. Not a smart decision for Mr Murdoch in
my opinion.

------
kyro
I'm not sure if this is how Bing will kill Google, but I do think Bing is
going to slowly take a lot of market share away from Google. How? Niche
specific search customization.

For a while now I've been bugged by how searching anything on Google is done
with nothing but one text box. There's no customization. You can't tailor your
search or refine it based on values and properties specific to your
categorical search. I think Bing recognizes that and is gunning in that
direction. Their restaurant finder lets you filter out restaurants with dim
lighting, for instance. You can't do that with Google. And if Bing keeps
adding various categories to their search, I'm willing to bet that it'll be a
lot more useful than Google.

~~~
biznerd
"You can't tailor your search or refine it based on values and properties
specific to your categorical search."

It's a nice idea but to be honest this is out of reach for 98% of internet
users. I've probably explained to my mom what a blog is half a dozen times and
still doesn't get it. She also refuses to stop double clicking on links...

A search engine for savvy people would also not be a great business position
because those type of people don't click on ads. There was an article last
week on Hacker News that 8% of internet users account for 85% of all clicks.

[http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArtic...](http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=115210&lfe=1)

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Judging by the number of blogs and people on Twitter, your mom is probably no
longer the typical internet user. Or at least there's enough savvy folks to be
a sizable marketing opportunity.

~~~
jonny_noog
_Judging by the number of blogs and people on Twitter, your mom is probably no
longer the typical internet user._

For those of us who travel in tech savvy circles, I think it's all too easy to
forget that his mom absolutely is the typical Internet user, as depressing as
I sometimes find that prospect.

 _Or at least there's enough savvy folks to be a sizable marketing
opportunity._

I'm not disagreeing with that, but don't think for a second that the majority
have any real idea what these Interwebs are all about.

------
jlees
I think "b) If you would only search the top 1,000 newspapers and magazines on
Bing, would you use it? How often?" is fairly crucial. I can't imagine my life
would be any different if I couldn't search the WSJ on Google. But then I'm
not the sort of person for whom WSJ pages as search results factor highly.

Jason's proposed deal certainly does provide a rescue option for Murdoch's
terrible statement about taking all his content off Google - but it just opens
up a need for someone to register bingle.com and simply aggregate both sets of
search results together. Search should be open, not partisan; hiding content
from Google and publishing it on Bing won't gain Bing market share, it'll just
reduce the WSJ's hits.

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jsz0
Do people actually want quality? I don't think so. I think they want humor,
personalities, different perspectives, social integration, and probably most
importantly they want some blogger to read an 8 page article and summarize it
into 2 or 3 paragraphs for them. Turning Bing into the news stand doesn't
address the reality that people's conduits for information have fundamentally
changed. I don't think there's anyway to go back at this point. Additionally I
have a hard time believing 1000 major publications would get into bed with
Microsoft on this. It's too risky and Microsoft's track record on the web is
comically bad. They could get maybe a few dozen maybe. Would anyone miss them?

~~~
gsmaverick
Agreed! I love the fact that blogs take on a personality and have an opinion
and/or attitude. More exciting then reading "unbiased" newspaper articles.

------
thejay
The title of this article should be "How Bing could speed up the stagnant
decline of Microsoft"

~~~
spamizbad
It's a shame you got down-voted due to snark, but you're spot-on.

MSM newspapers don't pull enough weight on the Internet for them to play the
"take my ball and go home" card. Personally, the only newspaper I'd be
disappointed to see leave Google's index is the New York Times, but not even
that would force me to switch to Bing.

If your killer-feature is the indexing of a crusty, dying industry that fewer
and fewer people see value in, you're not going to overtake a competitor that
holds 70% of the market.

------
TravisLS
How long would it be before Google gets into this game as well?

And how long before fragmenting search results across multiple search engines
leads to a thriving new market of news sources that don't sign exclusive
distribution deals?

~~~
timf
He mentioned (in the video of this at least) that it could be used as a
bargaining chip to Google which makes a lot of sense, so I suspect Google will
immediately be part of the game.

~~~
tomjen2
I doubt it somewhat - Google isn't the kind of company that likes to be in the
position of dependence on anybody else.

------
chrischen
This strategy does not benefit end users. Therefore, end users should avoid
it.

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kwamenum86
Fountain of youth for 2 dinosaurs, I say.

Microsoft could lose relevancy if it doesn't gain a foot hold in the "markets
of the future."

We are all familiar with the woes of the publishing industry.

The press could form an exclusive partnership with Microsoft to take down
Google.

I wonder how risky this is considering you would still have indirect links to
the publishers' content via, for example, blog posts or sites like Hacker News
where there is meta-discussion of the content of those sites going on.

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chedigitz
Normally I agree with most of Jason's ideas, except on this one.

While, I agree old media needs to reexamine their business models, leaving the
google index is a temporary band-aid, that does not solve the real problem.
Murdoch, should focus on creating more value for his products. Paywalls, make
sense when enough value is created, justifying the subscription cost.

In my eyes this is good news for entrepreneurs, its a lot easier to innovate
when the giant is distracted trying to revive its old biz model.

------
netcan
This is an interesting idea. I think it has more chance of sinking Rupert then
hurting Google at all, but I wouldn't say wouldn't certainty that it can't
work. Maybe Google can be made to pay too, a precedent.

An extremely interesting consequence of success would be setting a price for
indexing content. It wouldn't be a perfect price, but it would be a price.

*I think this is argued better in the video. It mentions Google paying for access to the Twitter feed, paying ofr content to index.

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jeromec
Would this affect Google News? I don't think I'd miss search results without
certain news publications, but it would water down my primary input for news.

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BigDamnDeal
This might work if Murdoch wasn't saying that he's not at all interested in
being indexed, but in serving paying subscribers. Calacanis missed Murdoch's
motive for opting out of Google: Not because Google's specifically a bad place
to get traffic, but because Murdoch doesn't understand the benefits of search
traffic enough to find a more appropriate solution.

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phil
This is the same strategy that Sirius used when they tried to 'break' normal
radio by signing Howard Stern.

That deal seems to have worked out pretty well for Stern, but was a disaster
for Sirius. It might work just as well for Bing!

~~~
cakesy
Looking at one example, the one that favors your opinion is useless. Yes,
sometime this works, sometimes it doesn't.

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scharan
This is a smart move. If news starts disappearing from Google, why would
people use it at all! And, the fact that Google supports "opt-out", makes this
all the more easy!

~~~
dbz
People would use it because it is an amazing search engine.

I never use google for news, and I will use google even if bing pulls this
little(big) stunt.

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Tichy
Enough of this nonsense already, please.

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blasdel
robots.txt as ransom note

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTe15DEWp30>

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Adam503
Zombie Bing Crosby crawls out of his grave and eats the brains of Google
engineers.

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979s
It seems as if it pays to be evil.

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holdenk
Except exclusive content deals could be viewed as Microsoft using its leverage
in an existing monopoly to unfairly compete in the search engine space.

~~~
chollida1
> using its leverage

What leverage would they be using to get a content deal?

~~~
dspeyer
The leverage of having tons of money obtained from their monopolies. For
Microsoft to "offer more revenue" they would have to pay the money straight
out of their own coffers. It's unlikely their non-monopoly divisions (which
are barely profitable) could support such a scheme.

------
cloudkj
Well, I'm sure they can do some damage and slowly kill off Google engineers
with their awesome jingle:
[http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/08/0...](http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2009/08/06/the-
bing-jingle-winner-is.aspx)

