martinibuster - 3:50 am on Jan 25, 2004 (gmt 0)

I don't think that negates the whole search engine model of doing busness, does it?

Google does what it does exceptionally well. So does AV, ATW, and AJ. But Google is the SE of choice and unless you are a DSL/email/IM/News provider and have this audience locked in (Yahoo), you're going to have a hard time breaking the Google/Yahoo grip on eyeballs.

How often do you see another Cola drink come into the market? Not many. It's Coke and Pepsi. Same thing.

What you see is guarana juice, sports drinks, etc. Same thing has to happen in Search. I really believe the search wars are over.

If you are doing search, you can't throw a couple o's in the middle of your name and roll it out anymore. Web surfers don't need another Google. They have one already. And the Yahoo users are locked into Yahooing.

Look at Ask Jeeves, their user base has grown year over year, it's true, but their market share has not. They are stuck at 3-5% market share and there's no evidence of growing interest.

Google and Yahoo are expanding their "lock" on eyeballs.

Broadband is the future, AOL has lost that war, Yahoo is winning it. When the last modem user turns off the light and leaves the room, it's likely to be AOL alone in there wondering what happened to the party. It moved across the street to Yahoo's broadband.

It's a market share grab, and when MS comes to the party Google and Yahoo will have signed up, registered and "locked in" those users.

Longhorn was a threat a year ago when the search arena was different, and we were talking about it way back then that Longhorn posed a threat with search from the desktop. Not anymore. As soon as a surfer logs on to the internet it's back to Yahoo, or Orkut, or Google News, or Google's New Amazing product, and bye-bye Longhorn. They waited too long.

Who's going to be around to join Microsoft's party?

[edited by: martinibuster at 4:05 am (utc) on Jan. 25, 2004]