BSEC: Search engine panel
After lunch, Jeff Cutler of Answers.com led an interesting panel bringing together three leaders from the search market. Jim Gerber, Director of Content Partnerships at Google, Cliff Hawk, biz dev head for Microsoft Windows Live and Ryan Massie who heads news search and local initiatives at Ask.com were together on stage.
It was an interesting discussion as these three competitors were also faced with defending their business models to an audience of skeptical publishers.
Jim Gerber provided an overview of four related businesses within Google – Google News, Google Scholar, Google Video and Google Book Search. He stressed how in all four models the content owner controls pricing and access.
Cliff Hawk walked through the new organizational structure at Microsoft, with the new Windows Live. According to Cliff, Windows Live is about tools, utilities and web services, user choice and selection and customization of content. Windows Live, which will leverage many of the tools of MSN, will incorporate RSS, gadgets, mail and messenger. According to Cliff, the imminent launch of Microsoft’s Ad Center Ads (the Microsoft version of AdWords), may provide some opportunities for early adopters to buy keywords while auction prices are low.
Ryan Massie, of Ask, provided a brief history of Ask.com and how they finally had to kill off Jeeves the Butler, as users didn’t perceive that Ask was a true search engine.
A clear theme throughout the discussion was that these search engines could threaten traditional content aggregators. As more and more premium content is exposed through the search engines, content aggregators will have to prove that they are adding value. Most aggregators have begun to move up the value chain, through development of workflow-based applications, through the provision of ancillary applications that help corporations manage their content purchasing or by adding significant metadata to improve the user experience. Those who view themselves as simply a pipe may find it harder and harder to hang on.
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