Search Engine Freak Out - Start Quivering

(c) 2009 Aaron L. Richards of Richards Media Net LLC.

Microsoft Freaking Google Out

I was thinking about how Google is kicking Microsoft's butt in Google's core competencies. If you look at Microsoft's core strategies for winning the areas they dominate today, there is a strategic 1-2 punch they consistently delivered in each area.

For some reason they are not applying the same strategy in pursuit of the Search business. In specific categories they are now using the similar tactics defensively. To implement the strategy I am writing about, Microsoft will have to communicate with shareholders, and ante up some cash out of their hoard. Google will freak. If Google pulls this article off of Blogger, do you know of any serious non-Google controlled venues for such articles? Do you have Ballmer's email address?

Let me ask you a couple of questions to set the stage. If you have been around the industry for 10 or so years you will know the answers.

How did Microsoft destroy the market for the Netscape browser? How did Microsoft destroy the market for Netscape and Sun Microsystems Web Servers? How did Microsoft destroy the Real Media Player?

They used their successful 1-2 punch: 1) Embrace and Extend, and 2) Give Software for free – preferably integrated into the Windows OS distribution.

In engaging Google they are having a tough time doing the Embrace and Extend, but are making the effort. If they engaged punch number 2 – giving search ads for free, I think Google will start perspiring.

To up the ante a bit more, Microsoft could leverage in their next release of the Windows OS a website “Pregurgitator.” One disadvantage Google has is that they index low traffic websites once a month or so. If you put new content on your website, there can be a significant amount of time before it is incorporated into the Google search results.

Microsoft’s Pregurgitator would be software incorporated into the OS which would index web pages on the server and send the index to Microsoft’s search engine in a format easily and readily incorporated into Microsoft’s search engine. You can think of this as distributed indexing. The possibility exists for distributed search being implemented into the OS as well, but there are several more performance issues to be addressed for that to be attractive. The Pregurgitator could send indexing data daily, perhaps even hourly to Microsoft and be incorporated into search results immediately, and is less affected by individual node performance.

Increasing numbers of users would be attracted through the creation of an “up-to-the-hour” data availability and search results. Through Microsoft Search, users could retrieve breaking news topics approaching real-time.

Steve – just send me the check when you read this. Larry, Sergey – I really like Google too!, if you want to implement this concept to squish Microsoft underfoot – you can send me a check too!

P.S. Steve, Larry, Sergey – I’ve developed a metric for measuring and comparing the level of engagement of visitors to a website consuming audio, video or other time-dependent media. If you are interested, call me and mention “Engagement Depth.”