July 27th, 2004
First MyDoom. Then Microsoft. No breaks for Google.
MyDoom isn’t the only problem that starts with an "M" that Google is dealing with this week. If you have Google’s news site bookmarked, there’s a new game in town: Microsoft. Given the meteoric success of companies like Google and Yahoo, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has admitted that the company underestimated the business opportunities in what financial analysts now refer to as the Search, Find, and Obtain (SFO) category. Looking to take on Google News, Microsoft as launched, in conjunction with MSNBC, a beta version of Newsbot. However, the site is living up to its beta billing. On my first visit, not only were there duplicate headlines under the "Most Popular Articles" heading (a predictable problem given the way news syndication works), one of the links took me to the wrong destination (see image, above left). SFO is indeed a vibrant category. But I’m stymied by how everyone is ga-ga over Google. I’ve yet to see any proof that Google’s dominant position in the SFO market is something it can protect. Netscape was trumped by Yahoo. Yahoo was trumped by Google. Is Google really that invincible? I think not. Especially with competitors like Microsoft turning their attention to the category.
