DISQUS

I've been playing with the new Ning for a week now and it just doesn't work for me. It's Geocities 2.0.

I agree with Markus that the biggest business Google or any large repository of search data can do is in intension. They know what people are looking for because people ask them millions of times every second.

Back in 2004 at the Web 2.0 conference someone from ComScore (I believe?) gave a presentation on the direct correlation between search volume and sales of cars. This trending worked at the macro, nation level and micro, local level and, if I remember correctly, the search volumes could predict the trailing curve of sales by about 2 weeks.

Think about it and it makes perfect sense. The search engine is the best-scaled, universal information gathering tool we've come up with as a culture. Everyone uses search engines for information gathering when they're early on in what companies call the sales funnel - when they're considering a larger number of options for purchase. Then they use the search later too, when they're closer to a decision. To have access to that trending and customer would be incredible for companies looking to influence decisions.

To be Google and have access to that trending data is immensely powerful. You could move markets with the information. Isolate certain queries from a specific area, set up some alerts for volumes and you can capitalize on the assymetry of information, if you're inside Google. This has always been the proverbial other shoe waiting to drop in the Google business model, and points to why geolocation / local is so important to them.

Although...

If you're a middle class programmer, and folks keep telling you how great a job you've done with your development, and you could lay in some savings for giving up a small portion of the company you'd built (and you were 22!), taking a little cash sounds like a great idea.

I don't think it's right to speculate on the ranking of each factor - cash, contacts, experience, connections - that a deal brings forth, but, though it's not cool to acknowledge, never underestimate the motivation of cash.