[Sigia-l] Re: "Best Bets" the Yahoo way

[Listera]

"Brian Ghidinelli" wrote:

> I don't think the idea of paying a premium for priority is either new or
> all that interesting.

It still is in the search business if you are intermingling and giving
preferential treatment to paid customers.

> AFAIK, paying simply moves you to the front of the line.

I love that: "simply." What else do you want Yahoo to do? Cook for you?

> Have you ever used FedEx overnight instead of FedEx Ground?

Yes, I specifically asked for it. I was given a specifically different
service. And I paid a specifically different rate for it. FedEx employee
specifically did not tell me that, if I buy him a drink, my Ground would go
as Overnight. There was absolutely no confusion on either side.

> Did you notice one costs more than the other?  And they don't even have
> a free option!  Those villans!

Google is a very profitable capitalistic enterprise, in case you haven't
noticed. AskJeeves is a capitalistic enterprise as well:

After much testing of paid inclusion the company found that it can
negatively sway search results‹producing more commercial and irrelevant
lists of Web sites, Lanzone said. Ultimately, that hampers the search
experience, he said.

"We're never going to mix church and state again," Lanzone said.

<http://news.com.com/2100-1024-5168805.html?tag=nefd_hed>

> I find it amusing how people compare the business strategies of a public
> company to those of a private firm.

Don't project. Who's comparing business strategies? As I specifically
indicated I don't care what Yahoo, Inktomi or Google does, that's their
"business." My business, as a user, is to look at the results of their
strategies: the search results part.

> The Google you know today will not be the Google you know post-IPO.  Investor
> accountability will eventually bring seas of change that force them to also
> maximize the revenue per searcher.

Who cares about this hypothetical red herring at this point. When Google, or
anybody else does something equally egregious, I'll complain about that as
well. Apologists for Yahoo ought to find some excuse better than "Google
would have done worse if it were a public company."

Ziya
Nullius in Verba