
How Bill Gross’ GoTo.com inspired the AdWords business model - rpm4321
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/when_big_businesses_were_small/2013/10/google_s_big_break_how_bill_gross_goto_com_inspired_the_adwords_business.html
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brianbreslin
GoTo was just one of a slew of companies that came out of Bill Gross' idealab.
Bill was truly a fundamental character in the first dotcom era despite not
getting as mainstream coverage as some of his peers did (though don't get me
wrong, he got plenty of press).

The nuances in this article that the Googlers claim were fundamental
inferiorities of GoTo I think are negligible as they would have just had to
tweak their bidding system and it would have been comparable to Google's.

Does anyone know what percentage Yahoo got of Google from the patent licensing
deal in 2004?

~~~
epc
Uncertain about the percentage, here’s the relevant quote from the SEC filing:

    
    
        As part of the settlement, Overture will dismiss its
        patent lawsuit against us and has granted us a fully-
        paid, perpetual license to the patent that was the 
        subject of the lawsuit and several related patent 
        applications held by  Overture. The parties also mutually 
        released any claims  against each other concerning the 
        warrant dispute. In  connection with the settlement of 
        these two disputes, we  issued to Yahoo 2,700,000 shares 
        of Class A common stock."
    

From:
[http://www.secinfo.com/d14D5a.144az.htm](http://www.secinfo.com/d14D5a.144az.htm)
via
[http://www.techuser.net/gcoverup.html](http://www.techuser.net/gcoverup.html)

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magikbum
"In their seminal 1998 academic paper introducing the idea of Google, Page and
Brin criticized advertising-funded search engines as “inherently biased
towards the advertisers and away from the needs of consumers.”"

\-- The times have changed.

~~~
larrys
The whole idea of why the print yellow pages was good was that it was biased
toward people who believed enough in what they were selling to pay for an ad
to sell the product or service. [1]

Everyone gets a free listing but if you want (typically) additional headings
and (definitely) a big or bigger display ad you pay.

As a result if you are a general contractor that does kitchens and bathrooms
and also sells plumbing fixtures as well you would have to spend the money to
be listed in ads in all those categories.

Without having to spend money it ends up being confusing for consumers because
it's like craigslist and inevitably results in people not being able to find
what they want.

The "advertising funded" is actually a benefit not a detriment.

[1] I used the yellow pages to build a business from scratch that I actually
sold. At the time I started I had no employees and there were established
competitors (that didn't advertise) that did the exact same thing. The
advertising is what made the business pretty much (in addition to price,
quality service and all of that).

~~~
cousin_it
> _The whole idea of why the print yellow pages was good was that it was
> biased toward people who believed enough in what they were selling to pay
> for an ad to sell the product or service._

Note that this benefit disappears online, because of targeting. If you see an
ad in print, you know the company had enough money to put that ad in front of
thousands of people. If you see an ad online, it might have been targeted
precisely to you, so the company might well be a scam. I wonder if there's a
business idea in making online advertising into a more costly/believable
signal.

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EGreg
I find myself wondering whether it would have been good for GoTo.com to have
patented its system. Business method patents were around back then, I think.

I have a lot of respect for Bill Gross and all his various IdeaLab ventures.
But it strikes me that how a story is told affects your viewpoint.

I would probably still say the patents would have hurt the public more than
they would have helped.

~~~
dorfsmay
Has the patent on pagerank hurt the public?

~~~
EGreg
I don't know

