Here is the Sky News interview with David Speers in which Rupert Murdoch talks about removing his content from Google’s spiders:
I doubt Google’s market capitalization will surpass that of Microsoft’s (as I outlined as a possibility in 2006), but judging by the growth in cash flow of each company, it’s not impossible over time:
Graph via Business Insider.
No other word to describe it other than WOW.
In December 2007, I observed that there were more online videos viewed in one month than search queries (both were at about 10 billion per month). By mid-August 2008, videos were consistently pulling in more views than search queries, but now, it looks like the roof has been blown away.
Today we read that there were over 20 billion videos streamed in the month of July 2009:
US internet users watched 21.4bn videos in July, up 88% year-on-year, according to comScore. In total, more than 80% of the US internet audience watched online video, with the average viewer watching around 135 video clips a month.
That is a massive growth rate, I think my call that online video advertising will overtake search spending might prove to be true, too. Unlike search, I don’t see one company owning the lion’s share of the pie, however, even though Google’s YouTube will become a near monopoly in video content and consumption, I think the initial few years of online video suggests that it will be far more fragmented and splintered, as has been evidenced by News Corp/NBC’s Hulu taking both market share and ad dollars away from Hulu.
Search captures intent, display captures interest. Over time, display ads and rich media will considerably dwarf search.
From Citigroup’s Mark Mahaney, via SAI:
1) The Click Isn’t Everything - Currently, rich media CTRs average about 0.1%, with entertainment sites having the highest CTRs at 0.17% and Fin. Services having the lowest at 0.06%. Also, 80% of display ad clicks come from less than 20% of the Internet population, indicating that clicks are not necessarily as relevant to brand advertisers. 2) Display Impacts Search 4 Weeks After Exposure - According to comScore’s analysis, there was more than a 50% lift in ‘Net users conducting a query on a brand term one week after exposure to the display ad. After four weeks, the lift was around 38%, which is still significant. Indeed, a month after viewing the ad, 30% of ‘Net users actually visited the advertiser’s site. 3) Branded Display Improves Advertiser Site Engagement - Those who viewed a branded ad in this study spent around 34 minutes per unique visitor on the advertiser’s site, which was a 55% lift in time spent vs. the 22 average minutes per unique when they were not shown the ad. 4) Branded Ad Campaigns Improve eCommerce Spend By An Average Of 7% - When comparing the users who were exposed to the branded ads vs. those not exposed, comScore found a 7% lift in average eCommerce spend per ad site visitor. Specifically, travel spend was 9% higher among exposed users, CPG spend was 14% higher, and consumer electronics was 22% higher. The So-What? Efficacy Of Branded Advertising Is Material - When exposed to branded ads, the impact may not be direct or immediate, but there appears to be strong evidence that users engage better and transact more with brands once they’ve been exposed to them. With new/larger ad formats, and the potential for richer ad formats in sponsored search results, this efficacy should improve.
Read more on Mahaney’s comments on SAI or read our earlier post called Search captures intent, display captures interest.
Contuining on the Twitter is the Facebook of 2009 theme, weren’t we having the same “what is the business model” discussions about Facebook last year?
Yes, we were.
Oddly enough, we were also looking at the same things
—Search: Twitter’s real-time search capabilities have been well-documented (so much so, that even Google has stepped up its real-time search features); Thau said the startup will monetize its search traffic “in some way”—though he didn’t elaborate.
—Carriers: Much of Twitter’s traffic comes from mobile: both through data plans and via SMS. Thau said getting some sort of a cut of the carriers’ data business wouldn’t be a huge source of revenue—but definitely a portion. Twitter’s also working on handset deals that would “integrate the service” into certain devices right out of the box.
—Content: MTV is sharing ad revs from an upcoming show with Twitter, so will we see an influx of similar content deals? Thau said yes—which is partly why they hired a new exec to focus on the media/entertainment business. “The media industry is looking for ways to stay fresh and interactive; you’re already seeing CNN and ABC Nightline using it, and we think more media companies will start using Twitter as a utility.”
Last year, Facebook’s search was “the” threat to Google’s search. Nope. Same thing about carrier (Facebook Mobile) and Content opportunities for media companies and brands (Beacon, Fan, etc).
Don’t get me wrong: both Facebook and Twitter are interesting communications products, but the next Google?
No cigar. Not even close.
Why are we surprised?
When people are less interested in shopping they have a lower propensity to click on listings that sell stuff, no?
You’ve heard it before: search captures intent, video captures interest.
More and more, I think my prediction that online video revenues will cross search revenues by 2018 will become true.
Navigation, Content and Communication
Google would be navigation, clearly they won that game. They are now moving towards communications, with things like Gmail… but as email morphs into social networking, they are now moving into that space more and more.
This is why I think Google and Facebook are the real enemies or combatants in that space.
I don’t see MySpace and Facebook as competitors… and this kind of supports my argument that moving forward, MySpace will be increasingly a competitor to Microsoft’s MSN.com and Yahoo.com, which both aggregate content and editorialize it. This also explains why MSFT invested in Facebook, not just to avoid Google from buying/ investing in Facebook, but also as a proxy to fight Google on the communications front.
MySpace will be an entertainment hub, Facebook will be a tech platform, basically, used largely to communicate. Long term, even if Facebook seems to be more valuable, MySpace will generate far more revenue.
From the Wikia Search emailing list:
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Jason McCabe Calacanis <jason@calacanis.com>
Date: Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 9:13 PM
Subject: [Search-l] Why did Search Wikia Fail, where did it succeed?
To: Mailing list for Search Wikia <search-l@wikia.com>Friends,
I’m thinking of writing up a recap of what went well with Wikia search (nutch/lmprovements) and what didn’t.
Was wondering if in the spirit of disclosure those involved would give a public (or private) accounting… Jason@calacanis.com
Also, Mahalo has some open crawl interest and would love to host this list If it is going to get shut down. Perhaps we should move to a google group before it does?
Note: not looking for Jimmy Wales bashing–just lessons learned.
Best j
No comment. Actually, that’s a lie: how about that stupid email list? I emailed Jimbo and his sidekick and offered them MetaMojo.com (which I pretty much discontinued to focus on WatchMojo.com, wisely), which was based on Nutch/Lucene and they could not even explain what they were up to.
Wales might be a God for investing Wikipedia, but this search project has disaster written all over it. More on Wikisearchwhatever and Mahalo here.
PLAY
