DISQUS

You're right on the money, Matthew. Nothing could be less about privacy than Facebook's decision to protect its membership base.

It's clear that Facebook wants to keep their members inside their garden walls.

Facebook is building a moat around its castle to keep the search giant out.


Dear Google, Facebook's Just Not That Into You
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/080516-1...

Interesting analysis, Matthew. Always better to be best than first.

You raised a key point no one else has addressed: comScore sells the proprietary research and didn't release it publicly. So only a few i-bankers reviewed the data.

That led to an uninformed media frenzy that relied on a couple analyst notes.

The outcome was predictable: doomsday scenarios for Google paid search advertising, wild speculation, anonymous "insider data" and finally, an intelligent discussion of what comScore data truly indicates.

Great headline, by the way.

Kevin Heisler
Executive Editor
Search Engine Watch

Scoble from high in the Swiss Alps: what's your 20 thousand foot view on the technology integration challenges faced by Microsoft? Can you break it down for us - division by division?

How would you recommend Microsoft handle global integration?

Are there any Microsoft integrations in the past you'd point to - although not on this scale - that might provide a road map for how a merger might work?

And let's say Yahoo fights to the finish ... ends up outsourcing search to Google. Then what for Yahoo? Crippling blow ... or fire in the belly?

For Microsoft - how many years do you think the desktop will be dominant? What should their play be in online advertising if Yahoo falls through?

And is Blodget really smarter than Ballmer and Gates?

Great post, Nick. I particularly liked the idea of Red Bull fueling the developer community beyond the point of exhaustion. (Instead of buying the New York MLS soccer team, they should sponsor hackathons). This reminds me of the mobile phone app development challenges for motricity and other third party platforms.

The question is ... How will developers make money?

One of my SEW Experts columnists met with Facebook last week and said there's lots of cool stuff going on. Glad you're covering the space.

Kevin Heisler
Executive Editor
SearchEngineWatch.com

Robert - I think you're trying too hard to make up for lost time on the Microsoft-Yahoo story. It's patently absurd to think Google "doesn't mind" if the merger's approved. Of course Google's playing politics. But the goal is hardly to keep Hotmail users from searching on Live Search.

I have to agree with Danny that you haven't told us what EVERYONE missed. Nice headline, great linkbait, calling out Kara Swisher - good tactic. But what did Kara miss in her very funny take on translating David Drummond's legalese?

This deal is all about sesarch -- paid search, natural search, universal search, local mobile search, social search. Take your pick.

Sure Google's doing mobile deals. They did before the msft bid; they will regardless of its outcome.

that should be email, marketing - with msft/aquantive + yahoo/right media on par with Google/DCLK in display advertising and ahead in nascent ad exchanges.

Robert, There's no question it's all about Search. This weekend, Tim O'Reilly made a case for e-mail driving the deal, only hours before Google played the antitrust card: citing Microsoft-Yahoo's dominance in email marketing and portal traffic.

Maybe Tim was scobleized by this thread. ;-)
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/080203-1...

@Robert - you're right about the 300 million email users. But how would Microsoft and Yahoo create incremental revenue from the user base? Hotmail (along with other MSN properties) was Microsoft's strategy (outlined at Searchification) for increasing share of search. So far, no dice.

I posted on Feb 1 that paid search was driving the hostile bid. So far, no one's made a cogent argument for another deal driver.
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/080201-0...

@ Danny: Not sure I understand why you'd want Microsoft to spend $2 billion to "simply rent a fair chunk of the web." How would that knock out AdSense?

And what kind of ROI would you expect from the $2B investment?

Great post, John. We're seeing the major search engines move agressively into technology platforms that seek to close the marketing loop.

CRM and lead generation go hand-in-glove. You can't effectively manage a paid search (PPC campaign) without measuring ROI through CRM and analytics.

Google Analytics? Free. Google CRM? What do you think?