If I were Google, I would start buying stakes in new search start-ups. That way, if one of these new engines end being so profoundly awesome that it beats Google's engine, Google can have some control over it.
For that matter, that would be my strategy if I were Microsoft or Yahoo too. No matter how many people or how much money you have at your company, you pretty much have one bet on what the next big thing in search is going to be. Multiple competing products within a company is hard to manage and forcing them to cooperate somehow could quickly kill them all off. Investing in other SEs allows you to hedge your bet.
"If I were Google, I would start buying stakes in new search start-ups."
So what you're saying is that if you were Google, you'd provide a subsidy to anyone willing to make some sort of plausible search engine?
They're stuck, here. They can't buy stakes in smaller companies without eventually paying someone to build a better Google (at the expense of the current Google), but there's not much else they can do to get around the fact that, as the best company in their business, they have nowhere to go but down.
I notice a different formula applies for an upstart competitor. Quintura gets mentioned in the third sentence. This is different from Men's Wearhouse, where an article on suits being back benefits business regardless of how many people see the company name. They can afford the "expert, expert, client quote" pattern burying their name deeper.
I'm not sure I agree. This article is so much more substantive while following a very popular meme. There may be some PR in there, but it seems more buried than the more obvious examples.
For that matter, that would be my strategy if I were Microsoft or Yahoo too. No matter how many people or how much money you have at your company, you pretty much have one bet on what the next big thing in search is going to be. Multiple competing products within a company is hard to manage and forcing them to cooperate somehow could quickly kill them all off. Investing in other SEs allows you to hedge your bet.