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- Steve Balmer of Microsoft announced Thursday that they were opening 3 R&D centers in Europe as part of their ongoing efforts to catch up to Google in Search Engine market share. The search center locations would be in Munich, Paris and London.
Microsoft also announced that it was going to be increasing its $600 million/yr European research and development budget. They are also anticipating employing several hundred including software developers.
The center in Paris is expected to be open in March 2009 and they are getting some pretty nice tax breaks too. Microsoft will get 30 euros back for every 100 euros it invests.
Speaking in Paris, Balmer said:
We are the challenger, not the leader, in search, but we believe strongly that search is in its infancy and there is so much room for innovation. For companies like Microsoft search is the key for unlocking huge new opportunities in advertising.
In the US, Microsoft barely has 8% of the search market share, compared to Google’s 62%. But in Europe, Microsoft’s share is even less at 2 percent.
Wikia Search Update »
Wikia Search was launched in Alpha earlier this year and we have been watching it out of the corner of our eye to gauge its progress. At first, wow, it was bad. The search results were slow and chocked full of irrelevant sites. But, hey, it was only an alpha release and creating a new search engine is a HUGE undertaking.
Then in June ’08, the alpha was re-launched. They knew the results were bad and needed to improve before they could become a real player in the search engine market and they expected the results to begin to show improvement within a few weeks.
So, what do we think now that about 2 months have passed since Alpha relaunch? Well, wow, it is bad.
Here is what a search for “buy computer online” will show:
- An article about Best Buy from Wikipedia. Ok, fair enough if you want to give props to Wikipedia first above all else, even though that does not help me buy a computer online. Maybe a link to Dell or HP or something like that would be more helpful.
- A link to ebay’s main search page where I have to retype my search query “buy computer online”. Well, at least it is possible to actually buy a computer from the site you directed me to. But could you not at least direct me to the Electronics category or even, *cough* the Computers category?
- A link to about.com where I can download computer games. But wait, I have not even bought my computer yet – I am trying to make a purchase first and then I can download and install games. Proverbial “cart before the horse” I think.
- A link to Apple’s home page where I can at least see a computer, eventually, after I first wade through the gaudy iPhone pitch and then stumble on the little button at the top that says, “Mac” – assuming I know what a Mac is and am not a complete computer novice.
- A link to a site that will tell me how to make money online (refer to comments on #3 listing).
- A link to oreilly.com where I can download PDF files and a bunch of other stuff that is no help because I still do not have a computer yet.
- A link to the Scottsdale Public Library, which is possibly where I am physically located because I still do not have my own computer and am using one of theirs.
- I give up…
What’s is more, at the top of my search page is a small graphic that prompts me to see results from Google and Yahoo. Wait, I thought that was one of the points behind WikiaSearch – to take market share away from Google and Yahoo.
Anyway, I would not hold your breath on a Beta launch of Wikia Search anytime soon. They are way behind nearly every other search engine in the Internet and the main way the intend on improving is by having you and I edit their search results telling them when we find something irrelevant. I think the concept is good, but I don’t have time to do that. A search engine is not a destination; it is a waypoint. I want to type in my query and move on.
Wikia Search Alpha Launched »
Jimmy Wales announced the Alpha release of Wikia Search, which many have been waiting for for about a year since he first announced the project. I jumped over there to the alpha site to check it out and was registered in just a few minutes. Registering allows access to some of the “social” features like building your profile, uploading photos, you know – the usual stuff that a social network offers.
For those not familiar with the project, the idea behind it is a human-edited search engine designed to be harder to spam. Human-edited like Wikiapedia and harder to spam un-like Google.
Since it is Alpha, the results are pretty bad at the moment. However, as more people visit the site, they are sure to improve in the coming weeks. Visitors are encouraged register and start working on the “mini-articles”. These will help to improve the search results and their purposes are listed as:
- Short definitions
- Disambiguations
- Photos
- See also
The other interesting feature of Wikia Search is that Wales feels he can grab about 5% of the Search market, which could be possible considering Wikia Search incorporates the human-edited aspect of Wikiapedia and adds Social Networking features as well. But, if the interest wanes after a few months, that might be a bit ambitious. Currently, there is a great buzz surrounding the project, but that usually happens anytime something like this is launched. The trick will be to maintain and increase the level of user participation, which will be helped by the Social aspect I am sure.
More to follow as we play around with it, but don’t wait for us – try it for yourself.
November Search Engine Market Share »
There were no significant changes in Search Engine market share from October to November ’07, according to Virginia based Internet information provider comScore. Google is still way out in front compared to the others and, although Yahoo! dropped and AOL/Time Warner grabbed a little more share, everyone basically kept their same positions in November.
Of the 10 billion searches tracked, here is how they broke down during the month:
- Google captured 5.9 billion
- Yahoo! accounted for 2.2 billion searches
- Microsoft dropped just below the 1 billion mark at 984 million
- Ask was used 463 million times
- and AOL/Time Warner sites were used for 453 million searches.
AOL/Time Warner had the largest jump during the month (0.3 points) and Yahoo! had the biggest drop of -0.4 points.
For all you visual people out there, we have a pretty, little Flash graphic in the right column, so check it out 
Google Owns SEO Company »
I was somewhat surprised at what I read when I came across a post by Scott Buresh on Search Engine Guide. The title is A Slippery Slope: Google Owns a Search Engine Optimization Company.
“What does this mean for those hiring other companies and looking for great search engine placement? We will just have to wait and see.”
Scott Buresh
Scott’s article elaborates on the fact that when Google purchased DoubleClick earlier this year, as part of that package they also got the SEO company Performics, who was a wholly owned subsidiary of DoubleClick.
I had certainly heard of Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick and the similar purchases made by MSN (they bought Aquantive) and Yahoo! (they bought Right Media and BlueLithium).
Google’s ownership of an SEO company has been discussed on other sites as well. And many of those discussions point out that it is a somewhat odd (some say unethical) partnership, which is the point that Scott was making in his article. It seems questionable to me on two fronts:
- It seems that Google could be accused of playing favorites to Performics and that could give them a definite advantage over other SEO companies. After all, if you wanted to have the best chance of a successful SEO campaign, wouldn’t you hire the SEO company owned by the most popular Search Engine? Even if Google comes out and states that they are in no way helping Performics with any “insider” information, just the fact that Performics is owned by Google would seem to give them some serious clout in comparison to other SEO companies.
- Everyone is interested in ranking on Google because it is the Internet’s most used Search Engine (check out the Flash graphic in the sidebar at the right to see their current market share). However, Google is interested in selling PPC advertising to companies who want to achieve high rankings. They want companies to setup Adwords accounts and then pay to be listed in “Sponsored Links” section of the SERPs. So when a company ranks well in the free organic results, Google does not get paid. Until now, it would appear.
Earlier this year, Scott wrote an article on Medium Blue’s web site which gave more perspective on the blurring line between Google’s PPC listings and the organic listings.
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