Hey Hey..Oh My?

I had a spirited conversation with Elad Baron, CEO of Bitwine, yesterday about the effect of real-time search, coupled with proprietary data stores (Facebook + Twitter come to mind). Bitwine, Elad, and his members live in the 'now' and soon to be 'now' world, so he follows this closely.

The conversation was spurred by Google's announced partnerships with Facebook, MySpace and Twitter for real-time updates to their search results. So, the real-time web has naturally spawned real-time search which unlocks another avenue to mine demographic/profiling information with intent. Probably a good thing for advertisers, definitely a positive for shareholders, and if advertisers get great results, it will accelerate the downward pricing trend for purchased 'bytes' (e.g. software, music, information).

But isn't it revealing that, in an era where billions of dollars are being spent on SEO and buying keywords to 'direct' traffic, Google (and MSFT's Bing) need to ink deals with vendors for access to data within their built proprietary applications? It's the inverse of the 'norm' where companies, beg, borrow, or steal (yes, that is SEO) search engine mind share. The world's gone upside down...or perhaps, reverting back to the status quo.

On one hand, it's great to see so much timely information available and innovators building oodles of shareholder value by adding utility for many in the value chain. On the other hand, we need to think about emerging from an era of proprietary applications, with attended vendor 'account control' to an era of proprietary data prisons, again with vendor 'account control'. We ought not only to be wary of the effect of data prisons, but also the impact on exposing so much data, often from quite young folk. For example, Facebook's recent 'update' of their privacy settings brought an outcry of protest from the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others.

It seems as if Twitter's yet to be announced advertising plan just may be the tipping point for a data vs access battle royale. Crawlers vs content. Unlike the traditional content business, however, in this case the content, or personal profiles/links are really proprietary, at least for awhile, to the content sites. Till recently, FB members could control who has access to their profiles, on the other hand, Twitter was far more 'open', enabling people to mine profiles of unrelated 'followers'. Postings to FB had a more intimate feel, Twitter for more universal content. Each building an ecosystem that balances breadth with depth, united in their interest to mine user data. These ecosystems are linking with each other, perhaps leading to a cacophony of time slicing for viewers, and maybe a lessening of the emerging power of the closed data systems.

John Battelle takes a look at the implications of an element of the strategic battle looming between FB and Google, as it pertains to the exposing of member data. So, it's fair to say that MSFT, GOOG, FB, Twitter, et al are preparing to, as Tiger reportedly said 'go ghetto' on access to the data which members entrust to their repositories. I would not be surprised if one of the scorned players, and surely there will be scorned players, raises a new front on the 'fair use' debate, broadening it from bandwidth, to data.

It's unclear if 'there's more to the pictures than meets the eye'

Steroids and Yahoo/MSFT

After nearly a full year of wrangling, Yahoo and MSFT have completed their search deal. With massive investments in R&D and marketing, and now the Yahoo deal secure, I was thinking about whether, after 7 frustrating years, MSFT is ready to really compete in the largest, and most pivotal Internet space.

Let me start with a bias...I think that the 'best' product, offering the most value, usually wins. Best, of course is an ambiguous definition. Nonetheless, as both services are 'free', cost is measured via opportunity cost. All things being equal, however, an incumbent market share leader usually beats competitors who offer only similar value. As in war, an invading force requires an overwhelming advantage to dislodge an opponent.

A common expression when trying to position a new product vs an entrenched competitor is to say 'gee, our product is like theirs, but on steroids'. Obviously, this is now a dated expression, taken from the days when steroids had a connotation of bringing speed, strength, virility, and other good stuff with no downside. But, the expression masks something, a lack of sustainable differentiation. If anything, merely an incremental advancement that does not stand the scrutiny of the market. I have a hard time recalling products 'on steroids' dislodging market leaders. It takes much more innovation, or fundamentally changing the value curve to do so. Google did it to Yahoo, and Yahoo did it to AOL. Curious, I wanted to do a quick test to see if Bing is bookmark worthy.

Let me share a totally random and singular (unscientific)comparison; here's the top five results, with the top 3 irrelevant for me, when searching 'Bing is Google on steroids' in Bing:

Mexican Steroids - Web - CyberDefender
www.4-men.org/ steroids / mexican-steroids.html [Found on Google, Bing, Ask.com]
ws.infospace.com/cyberdefender_EDC/ws/redir/qcat=Web/qcoll=relevance/qkw=Mexican%​20... ·

Steroids - definition of Steroids in the Medical dictionary - by the ...
... Google Bing? ... Steroids. A group of drugs that includes the corticosteroids, similar to hormones produced ...

medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/​Steroids · Cached page
steroids definition of steroids in the Free Online Encyclopedia.
... Google Bing? ... steroids, class of lipids lipids, a broad class of organic products found in living systems encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/​steroids · Cached page

Search Wars: Forget Bing, Google Has More to Worry About from Twitter
Stealing any thunder Microsoft might have managed to generate for Bing , day 2 of the Google I/O ... Google Wave, Email on Steroids! — Inventor Spot - Inventions, Innovations, and ...
techblips.dailyradar.com/article/search_wars_forget_​bing_​google_has_more_to_worry_​about ·

Five Reasons Why Microsoft’s BING Outshines Google – Geeks.com
Five Reasons Why Microsoft’s BING Outshines Google . By Bryan Lambert - Sunday, June 14, 2009 ... With Bing you get image and video results on steroids. For instance, with the image ...
www.geeks.com/techtips/2009/​Five-Reasons-Why-Microsofts-BING-Outshines-Google.htm · Cached page


And from Google, using the identical 'Bing is Google on steroids:

Five Reasons Why Microsoft's BING Outshines Google – Geeks.com
Bing is what Google was 10 years ago, fresh, innovative, and (dare I say it) cool. ... With Bing you get image and video results on steroids. ...
www.geeks.com/.../five-reasons-why-microsofts-bing-outshines-google.htm - Cached - Similar -

19 Comments - User Centric Releases Results of Eye Tracking Study ...
usercentric google versus bing eye tracking study .... It would be very earlier to compare Bing with Google however no doubt Bing seems ...
www.billhartzer.com/.../user-centric-results-of-eye-tracking-study-google-versus-bing/ - Cached - Similar -

Bing Launch Has Google Scared | Internet Marketing News
It is very unlikely that Bing will be able to knock Google from the top of the ... Yotify- Google Alerts on Steroids - 1995 views; Find High Pagerank Blogs ...
www.emarketing-newsletter.com/bing-launch-google-scared.html - Cached - Similar -

Google Wave, Email on Steroids!
Google Wave is what email would be like if it were on steroids! ... "Bing" on the other hand is another story! So there you have it. Google once again leads ...
inventorspot.com/articles/google_wave_28263 - Cached - Similar -

What the Bing is this? Live Search Makeover Review | FlipCurve - 9:24am
Jun 4, 2009 ... Bing honestly feels a little like Google on steroids, which I feel will lead to either a love it or hate it response. ...
flipcurve.com/.../what-the-bing-is-this-live-search-makeover-review/ - Cached -


In this random example, the Bing juice just didn't go far enough. Google on steroids, hardly. A homerun? Hardly.