Microsoft
Microsoft clearly sees that the next area for major growth is paid search. Since they just launched their own search engine paid search is a natural progression. They were once partners with Yahoo on organic search, and it looks like they are looking again to venture forth on their own. Microsoft is blazing a path into search in 2005. First releasing their own search and now looking to ad partner paid search. While they may have a monopoly in desktop operating software. They have their work cut out for them to try to topple Google. But they have the money to make a run at it. And they should make an impact since they have the advertising background to support it.
The Wall Street Journal just had a cover story about click fraud and how some one user dropped his the amount he spends on pay-per-click from $20,000 a month to $1000 a month. He feels he was ripped off. The pay per click vendors need to restore confidence in their system. Precautions need to be put in place. Unscrupulous competitors need to be prosecuted. It should be a felony, as you are stealing. There are even companies in India where they pay you when you click on sites. MSN is making big bets on RSS. They have talked about changing its name.
Google recently released quote a bit of information when they filed a patent. It described the value of links, the decay of links over time and several other issues. One of the most important lessons learned was to keep getting links. Fresh links are given more weight than stale links. And don't link to the wrong sites! Since they don't seem to be updating page rank on a regular basis one needs to look at backlinks to estimate PR. Not only do you have to see where your links are coming from, you need to see where the sites that are linking to you are coming from. You don't want to be associated with a "bad neighborhood". Who defines what a bad neighborhood is? Can a neighborhood change. Is google getting too picky? Sure why not.
Yahoo
Yahoo has begun testing publishing ads on partner sites. This will allow it to grow its revenue for pay per click as it will greatly increase the impressions an ad can be displayed for. It appears only on a few selected sites, as it is in beta, but later this year a wide release is expected. What will Google do to stop current web publishers from jumping ship? If Yahoo announces that the percentage of revenue share, the logical thing would be to disclose what percentage of revenue they are sharing. Then it will be a battle to see who will give more, who will pay faster etc. Right now there is no competition, but that will change quickly as the two other giants enter the battlefield. It should get quite interesting for webmasters. Providing relevant content for their readers will become more lucrative. Yahoo recently introduced their own blogs. As a leader in the RSS field, they are keeping up with the hottest trends. They have now added a blogging service. And a easy way to keep track of RSS feeds with MyYahoo. Yahoo is doing its second update in about 2 months today. Although not much changed. Looks like some purges.
Adobe to buy Macromedia
It looks like Adobe will finally get web design software that is top notch with their purchase of Macromedia. This will create a web publishing powerhouse. With this acquisition they will now take advantage of the much supported Flash technology. Will they form some sort of licensing deal with Microsoft to include the technology in their browser? While they don't dominate office technology, cleary they dominate web creation and print technology. Adobe is also overtaking Quark as the publishing software of choice. While those that have used Quark for years may stick with it, those just starting out are using Indesign. Quark is a private company, that had a great product, but isn't keeping up with the pace of technological change. Adobe now has an integrated suite that will allow designers to easily switch to the application they need. They no longer have to save and import. They have also announced an upgrade to the Photoshop/Illustrator suite that adds more functionality. It will be tough for anyone to offer what this powerhouse now has. Will they now try to tackle other desktop software applications. Or will they develop a new type of technology for web browsers. Capitalizing on their graphic background. Or even launch a graphic intensive search application. Now that would be interesting. They could even come out with their own browser.
Some new articles coming soon.