There was an excellent interview with Jeff Bezos (I believe in HBR), where he discussed how the company chose to enter the cloud computing market.
Faced with many excellent proposals, lots of cash to invest, and a talented employee base, they could well have chosen to pursue all of them.
Instead, they chose just one to focus on completely.
It's not news that Amazon can enter many more markets. But if they do start new ventures, expect a whole-hearted and long term effort. (Kindle is one such effort that is just getting started, so I'd be very impressed if they launch another so soon.)
No form of advertising captures intent like search advertising. No data source, statistics, or demograpic information comes close to a user saying "I want to buy widgets, show me your widgets." Until Amazon or Facebook or whomever capture intent like Google does, their advertising will be doomed to being fractionally as effective.
They know intent when people are shopping for things on Amazon. For them to threaten Google's dominance in advertising, they need to be able to predict the intent of (and, in doing so, effectively target ads ad) people who are not shopping for things on Amazon. Google can predict intent for people using the Internet because Google has become, essentially, synonymous with online usage in most markets they care about.
Yes, Amazon knows when you type in "Wii" at Amazon, you personally are interested in Wiis more than PS3s. This article says that because Amazon knows their customers, in aggregate, prefer Wiis over PS3s, then some magic happens and now Amazon can effectively deliver advertising at people who did not search for anything on Amazon.
When browsing happens off of Amazon.com, Amazon gets to know that Americans prefer Wiis to PS3s, and Google gets to know that Bob Smith just typed "buy ps3 online". Which party is more effective at predicting Bob Smith's intent to sell Bob Smith's attention to the appropriate advertiser?
But all Google can really tell when someone searches on 'widget' is that the user wants to know more about widgets. Isn't Amazon's data, knowing who searches on 'widget', and then buys a widget, substantially more valuable?
Amazon knows quite a bit about me: they know I bought a Canon camera in 2000, that I have a bookshelf full of fantasy books, 4 entire seasons of 24, and most everything Joss Whedon has ever made. They can reasonably extrapolate from my book purchases that I'm a trilingual Republican Catholic computer programmer. They know everywhere I've lived for a decade.
Google knows a bit about me, too, but pretend they only see one search from this morning: [air fares Nagoya to Okinawa].
If you can tell me why Amazon's decade of data is more valuable than Google's single data point in predicting my purchasing behavior in the near term, you will make a few billion dollars.
Google potentially has every search you have made, every email you sent and received, and every You Tube video you have watched, and every phone call you have made, most sites you have visited, and knows which adds you have already clicked on. Over months to years, heck they know which addresses you have gotten directions to. Finding ways to use that information is hard, but it's a lot wider than what is this search.
Amazon might have a lot of information about some of their customers, but Google has an insane amount of information about some of their customers. Which is more useful across the total web is a several billion dollar question. But I don't think Amazon can scale advertising information into that level yet.
My search data is likely to be spread around huge numbers of IPs. I'm rarely logged into google. Plus they really have no way of knowing whether I "converted" once I leave the search results. I may open tabs for the top 10 results, but it doesn't mean that I like what I've found, or that I would want to be presented with that kind of information again.
My amazon account, on the other hand, has been tied to me for at least 7 years, and likely has every search I've done, every product I've viewed, and everything I did up to and including eventually making a purchase.
I've gotta say, based on my own experience as a reasonably typical internet user, Amazon probably have less data on me, but it's bound to be better-quality.
Google uses cookies so the IP issue is meaningless. They also track what advertizing people click on...
However, I suspect you and I are not really the target market. I use Amazon and don't use Gmail but a large number of people spend a lot of time online looking at content hosted by Google, or including Google advertisements.
PS: Amazon might know which books, and electronics I like, but Google knows which car I have and when I am looking to buy the next one.
By "spread across IPs", I meant "from different physical computers", rather than the sorts of dynamic IP behaviour from a single host that can, as you say, be overcome through the use of cookies for tracking.
And how does Google know what kind of car you have? It knows what kind of car you might have been looking for information on, but that could have been because you were looking to buy one (and decided not to), or because you were helping a friend change the spark plugs. The data is considerably less rich when it's just search data without any ability to track conversions.
That said, I didn't actually think about Google Analytics when I originally replied. That is likely to be a source of data that is as good as Amazon's, if not better. Search-derived data on its own is of limited value.
It's not about a single piece of information. It takes one login before a new PC's history is linked to every other PC you have used and logged in from. Ok, linking to whichever account you use the most from that PC.
In the same way, Searching for an "Acura TSX pricing" in 07 says little. But, if you then search for "07 Acura TSX Owner’s Manual" in 09 you probably bought that car. I don't think Google algorithms are smart enough to say "bugatti veyron videos" relates to a desire for a faster car not the ownership of said car, but who knows. Google has focused on mining data for a long time and are fairly good at it by now. Search over time can say a lot, search for diapers in 00 and “toy’s for 5 year olds”, and you might have a kid born around 00 or are at least interested in buying stuff a child that age.
A lot of this is probabilities, thinking there is an 80% chance I have a 07 Acura TSX is a lot better than guessing I probably have a car. AKA showing me advertizing for a low end BMW is probably not a waste relative to the average user.
I usually don't login to google, hence my original assertion.
I've not seen any evidence that Google actually do any analysis that is quite that smart. My best guess is that they just do keyword analysis. This is something of an educated guess, because I know someone who worked on keyword extraction at Google.
Even if Google _could_ extract that kind of rich data you describe, I very much doubt they have done it to the point where it is in a format that is suitable for providing targeted ads (beyond what they already do, which as I said, I would guess is keyword-based).
The difference with something like Amazon's data or Google Analytics is that it is structured data that is already perfect for providing recommendations and targeted ads.
They kind of already are, for me at least. I know that if I decide I want to buy something that I think Amazon probably sells, I'll just go a look it up on Amazon directly. I have a couple of other sites that I also know and trust for IT stuff but Amazons prices and fulfillment are generally very keen, especially now with that they do 2nd hand and marketplace stuff. Even if you could save a currency unit or two somewhere else, it's not really worth the time investment to find out - Googling for random products is a massive pain - you just get way to much shopping/price comparison/aggregator type crap back.
On reflection, this is the only time that I actually use a 'vertical' search engine for anything. Although Amazons massive product range belies the term vertical, everything else that I search for goes through Google, basically, so this would make Amazon - roughly - my vertical 'purchasing' search engine.
Disclaimer: I work for Amazon, but my opinions do not necessarily reflect the company, yadi yada.
One of the things that you touched on that needs to be fleshed out more is the fact that Googling for random products is a massive pain. Not only in the sheer volume of data you get back, but also because so little of it is trustworthy.
Say I want to buy a new digital camera. I look at the Nikon D40 and wonder "is it any good"? I Google up "Nikon D40 reviews" and I get a gigantic list of pages. Some are clearly spam, others clearly astroturfing for Nikon, and others look like they could be legitimate reviews... but you really don't know. Signal to noise for consumer-level research really sucks on Google.
Now take Amazon on the flip side (that I use all the time, and not just because I work there). I trust the reviews that are there - because I know that bad/good reviews are not removed or otherwise manipulated. The star rating isn't spam, isn't fake, isn't bought and paid for like millions of "review sites" scattered across the tubes.
Yes, there are ways to break Amazon's review system, but for the most part it is a trustworthy metric, and although not a complete replacement for in-depth research, particularly for big-ticket items, it is still extremely helpful for everyday shopping.
Yes, there are ways to break Amazon's review system
Why would anyone want to break Amazon's review system? There is no incentive to do it. There are gazillion review sites because they make money through ads, affiliate marketing etc, and lots of them are junk/spam.
The ROI in breaking Amazon's review system doesn't justify even trying it. That is why so many people trust Amazon's reviews than any other site's.
I can think of at least one person: the manufacturer. If my product is receiving poor reviews on a much-visited and trustworthy site, it would be in my favor to skew my reviews on said website to the high end.
So while there's no reason for Amazon to break the system, there are certainly many others who would.
One thing I have always wondered about is why don't Amazon show ,whether reviewer purchased the item from Amazon or not, next to their review. NewEgg does it and I do give more weight to those reviewers who actually bought the item. I am guessing that this could have some privacy concerns for certain items (say vibrator) but they can make user opt out of this feature if they want.
That may or may not be true. Every search has a stimulus. Most people don't wake up with a craving for widgets and go straight to google. Something that they encounter offline or online leads them to believe that they need to buy widgets. The problem with traditional display advertising is that it takes a shotgun approach...the goal is to show people as many banner ads as possible in the hope that you can make an impression with one of them (and prompt someone to search for your product). Someone with the amount of data that amazon or facebook has could do a lot to improve the general quality of those ads.
Why would Amazon get into PPC advertising when they can just market their own products? Or sell their competitor's stuff in their stores for huge commission fees?
I mean think about it, Amazon has pretty much everything, Wouldn't they rather display a TV that they sell, that has a $100 profit margin, instead of a display ad for a competitor, with a $.50 cost per click.
Thid could be big. Amazon customers have the "shopping chip" turn on. Obviously they are going to be more engaged in ecommerce than traditional keyword pased google placement.
Amazon already runs an API which can we used to build widgets and interactive media to sell products. What I would like to see is Amazon opening its platform/API to allow product page interactive applications, somewhat like facebook did but ecommerce centric.
facebook has some twee new feature, and bought out some other company, not so much.