Re: The Economist looks at the threat to Google

[davidof <david.george@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> __/ [ Big Bill ] on Tuesday 20 June 2006 09:30 \__
>
>
> > On Tue, 20 Jun 2006 09:59:27 +0200, davidof
> > <david.george@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >
> > > "Google dominates the lucrative market for web-search, but its rivals
> > > are setting out to change that"
> > >
> > > http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7064434
> >
> > If the Economist had anything on the ball it would be reporting
> > Google's problems.
>
>
> True. I think *this* might shed some light:
>
> http://andrewhitchcock.org/companystats/
>
> It also addresses a topic that you (David) raised a few weeks ago.

Be nice to see that from a more popular site - I will have to take a 
look at my logs at some time. There can be good reasons for using 
another company's products - Bill Gates apparently runs OS/X ostensibly 
to research the great Apple experience but he is probably just tired of 
all the malware and viri and with 50 billion can actually afford the best.

The Economist article is largely based around Ask.com pimping the search 
engine that nobody wants nor uses. I seem to remember quite a few of 
these Ask articles bemoaning the fact that no-one uses their great 
little search engine so I gave it a spin. Honestly Google seems to do a 
better job on average even for Images which is where the Economist 
article says they have an advantage.

What I don't unsderstand is why MSN Search has become so so bad since 
its relaunch (remember Balmer said this would be the SE to kill Google. 
I wonder if Microsoft are trying to kill it in order to force people 
over to live.com?