Yahoo! Yields Search Dominance to Google

Unsichtbarer_Mensch wrote to mention a Seattle PI story in which Yahoo! CFO Susan Decker states that they're not aiming to be the No. 1 Search engine. From the article: "Yahoo!'s comments underline the difficulties any Internet company faces in trying to challenge Google's dominance of the Web search industry. Google has at least double the market share of Yahoo! and Microsoft Corp. in Internet search, the largest and most profitable segment of online advertising. 'In some countries, it's already game over in search, with Google the clear victor,' said RBC Capital Markets analyst Jordan Rohan in New York. 'Google's product development pipeline runs at such a fast rate that it's very difficult for any company, Microsoft or Yahoo! to catch up.'"

Innovation

[truthsearch]

it's already game over in search

That's a great attitude for promoting competition and innovation! It's good to hear we'll never see any new ideas come out of these companies.

the analogy police might arrest me for this, but..

[B3ryllium]

Isn't that like saying "IBM yields OS Dominance to Microsoft" when talking about IBM PC-DOS or OS/2 vs. Windows XP? :)

Just a matter of time

[Vivek Jishtu]

First it was altavista then yahoo and google. Lets see who is next :)

Re:Innovation

[decipher_saint]

Trying is the first step toward failure...

only a message to investors

[snooo53]

This doesn't mean Yahoo is going to abandon searching by any means. Instead I think this is a message to investors not to grade them by their search marketshare becuase they don't consider that important anymore. If anything, this opens up the door to more innovation because they can be the quiet underdog. Yahoo can focus more on R&D and let google try to struggle to maintain dominance when investors are breathing down their necks about profit numbers and market share

Not too long ago, didn't AMD essentially throw in the towel to Intel by saying they weren't going to compete for the fastest processor anymore? And look at what they are offering today with their 64bit processors. As long as yahoo continues to innovate they aren't dead

Very interesting coincidence

[truthsearch]

The /. quote on the bottom of this page:

Lack of capability is usually disguised by lack of interest.

Looking out for #1

[digitaldc]

"It really ought to be their goal" to be No. 1, he said. "Whether it's realistic or not."

I'm a big dreamer. I shoot for unrealistic goals all the time and it totally works for me.

Re:Innovation

[mspohr]

Many times in the computer world it has been pronounce "game over" and many times the game has changed. (think WordStar, EasyCalc, Lotus123, MS-DOS, MSIE, and yes, Windows and MS Office).

The market leader always likes to tell people "don't even try to beat us" but people can and will beat them.

Yahoo has gotten better

[SilentChris]

I've got to say Yahoo has impressed me lately. Not in search, which still pales compared to Google, but in everything surrounding it.

1) Less clutter. They still have the occassional (highly annoying) Flash ads, but a year or two ago people screamed at them for literally clogging the pages with ads. Today they've scaled them back quite a bit, and the content vastly outnumbers the ads (which it should).
2.) Yahoo Mail Beta. If you get a chance to use this thing, do it. It's f'ing amazing. Think Outlook in a website. Works great on Firefox. Easily blows the doors off even Google Maps in terms of sheer "How the hell did they program that?" One can argue whether or not Outlook in a website is a good idea (I love it) but you can't help but be impressed by the programming.
3.) Yahoo News. Sorry, Google still owns search, but their news site (even out of beta)... lacks. Yahoo cleanly brings a ton of sources together with a lot of great photos. Browsing the "Most Viewed Photos" is fun (even if it results in seeing one-eyes cats).
4.) Yahoo Widgets. Which they bouugh (Konfabulator). Excellent acquisiton. Konfabulator's always been awesome (I've programmed a number of widgets) and the graphical polish is way better than anything you see on most Windows apps.
5.) Yahoo Groups. Still the best source for free pr0n. I mean... a great way to get friends and family together. ;)

I still use Google all the time for search, but Yahoo is commanding more and more of my attention for everything else. If they used Google as the search engine, I'd probably head there full time.

Re:my only fear is...

[BewireNomali]

dude, do no evil is diametrically opposed to any publicly held company. they can and will do more evil.

when amazon started up, everyone thought that they'd get smashed by the brick and mortar retailers - B&N, Borders, et al. The only way they were able to thrive was through diversification. I caught my business partner buying sex toys on Amazon. If only she were hot.

The contention was that the brick and mortars could discount the internet guys into oblivion since they didn't rely on the web as a sole source of revenue. It's a valid contention to a certain degree, but Amazon exists and isn't doing badly.

So if I were a google shareholder - I'd be very afraid that they aren't making money off anything else. I don't think Microsoft is actually a serious competitor here - rather Yahoo - with its all encompassing portal services. It's an interesting and well integrated one stop solution. Google honestly seems slapdash in comparison. And lets not forget, Live.com is coming along nicely.

The web Gods shine down on Google as its taken Yahoo and Microsoft eons to mount serious competition. But to date - Google only sells one product that seriously and significantly affects the bottom line. shareholders won't stand for that. Google's leadership will be forced to diversify or be deposed. Thus the erosion of the culture begins.

Re:the analogy police might arrest me for this, bu

[mrklin]

Yahoo's strength, and the company itself has said that over and over, is that it is a media company which encompasses being a directory, a portal, a provider of services - one of which includes search.

Same thing can be said the other way around...

[MOGua]

'In some countries, it's already game over in search, with Google the clear victor,'

But don't people in China, Taiwan, and Japan all use Yahoo!?

China is a very important market; coincidentally, there's news today about Google agreeing to censor results in China.