« The Long Tail at CSFB Media Week | Main | The Long Tail of Cakes »

December 11, 2005

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341bfb6353ef00d8349a20b269e2

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Redistributing those excess search profits:

Comments

David

Is this a case of Long Tail or Deep Pockets?

Gary - Breast Cancer fighter

Chris, sorry but I don't get your reference to an "arbitrage opportunity". Just wondering what you meant.

alex

what is this sillyness. just charge for ads less!

Darrel

I had similiar thoughts, though I think mine were a bit more cynical:

http://mnteractive.com/archive/web-21-right-around-the-corner/

Brett Morgan

You know what those outsize profits scream to me? A company that has gone further down the road of mastering information overload than anyone else. Paying me $5 to search doesn't help me any when all i am trying to do is find the documentation on an old java library.

If other players want to join in the game, all they have to do is hire usability professionals to help reduce the complexity of their user interfaces.

Apple seems to be the only other tech company that takes user interface design seriously, and look at it's outsize iPod sales. Does that scream arbitrage opportunity to you as well?

Chris Anderson

Brett,

All credit to Google for innovation and execution. But given the commodity nature of what they do--organizing the world's information--I think we can expect a host of imitators, many offering similar services at lower prices or some other switching incentive, which is what Blingo appears to be doing. Right now Google is getting monopoly-sized rents for a non-monopoly. That's what seems unsustainable to me.

Brad

Sounds a lot like, someone throwing in the towel. What is the easiest way to fend-off a rising competitor? Turn their core-competency into a cost center. Just, I am not so sure this approach works when you give your core-product away for free. Google's advertisers pay for quality results, not for click-happy internet users looking for a pay check.

Let's put this one in the marginal ideas bag Bill.

chris

what is most entertaining about this whole get paid to click model is that it is nothing more than microsoft trying to find yet another way to be relevant in today's internet arena.

Mark Baraniecki

As an active user of Adwords, I need user friendliness as well as price and coverage. I find Overture slow, clunky and irritating and hence probably don't use it as much as I could.
I wouldn't call Google a monopolist. Like Dell and Amazon they just compete more effectively in an open market.

Kingston Memory

If government run health care is so bad, I wonder why every elected official in Washington, DC would rather have that than the free market health care you and I have?

The comments to this entry are closed.

Tidbits

The Long Tail by Chris Anderson

Notes and sources for the book

FREE was available in all digital forms--ebook, web book, and audiobook--for free shortly after the hardcover was published on July 7th. The ebook and web book were free for a limited time and limited to certain geographic regions as determined by each national publisher; the unabridged MP3 audiobook (get zip file here) will remain free forever, available in all regions.

Order the hardcover now!