Yahoo to Keep BOSS under Microsoft
And I don’t mean job security for Carol Bartz. Yahoo’s BOSS (Build your Own Search Service) is a popular, free way for developers to access the Yahoo index and to implement Yahoo search for your site. With the pending Microsoft-Yahoo deal outsourcing the search business, there has been some concern over whether BOSS will be discontinued.
Never fear, says Yahoo—BOSS is sticking around. Like the main search results, the BOSS results are slated to use Bing’s index as well. But the bad news is that BOSS may not continue to be a free offering. Ashim Chimbra addressed developers’ concerns in the Yahoo Tech Group and alluded to possible pay structures in the future (emphasis added):
Under this agreement, Yahoo! is permitted to continue offering the BOSS web service, with search results that would integrate Yahoo! services and content with algorithmic results provided by Microsoft. As always, our intention is to provide a BOSS offering as long as it makes business and economic sense to do so. We are still examining what the BOSS offering will consist of, with some services powered by Microsoft, unique content that Yahoo! currently provides, and the potential for additional Yahoo! content in the future.
Prior to the announcement of the Yahoo!-Microsoft search agreement, we’d already shared our intention to explore a fee-based structure for BOSS. We continue to explore an appropriate fee structure or other revenue model as we work through the future of BOSS.
As you know, we must receive regulatory clearance before actual implementation of the search deal with Microsoft can occur. Only then can we finalize the future shape of BOSS. Of course, we will provide additional clarity and certainty when we can.
So clearly, they’re keeping their options open for pricing. What do you think? Will they be able to keep it free, or is the deal with Microsoft underlying evidence of the need for revenue?
How Many Ads Make $1 Billion?
Now that Twitter has been able to convince some pretty wealthy folks that their little ol’ 140 character deal is worth in the range of $1 billion it’s time to get down to brass tacks. What does that mean? Since people now have this huge number in their head there will be continued and likely more vocal calls for Twitter to at least reveal some plan to generate revenue worthy of that valuation number. Hey, it’s the Internet though so maybe not!
AdAge is pretty convinced that this is something that needs to be addressed sooner than later.
With the funding, Silicon Valley and the venture community are once again setting their sites on the marketing budgets of American business to support another free “cloud” web service, in this case 140-word bursts of text. Indeed, they’re counting on the exponential growth of advertising revenue in a flat market for a company that — while certainly useful to marketers — has yet to earn its first dollar.
“I think they can build some kind of ad business, but the more relevant question is can they build an ad business worth a billion plus dollars,” said Warren Lee, VC at Canaan Partners. “That would require tremendous volumes of impressions and reasonable conversions. Lots of execution will be needed. Not impossible but unlikely.”
So we have a detractor here. Well, not completely but certainly not thinking that advertising alone will get Twitter from Point A to $1 billion. The trouble is tow fold. First, Biz and the boys have no plans to make any advertising model moves in 2009. As a result there will be more and more time for people to figure out how to use the service for free and then there could be some resistance to having to pay for anything related to Twitter. Twitter is establishing a bit of a mindset that may be harder to break than people think. (Check out Andy Beal’s thoughts on this via BlogTalkRadio).
So what’s next? AdAge’s take is
Mr. Stone said that ads won’t come before 2010 and Twitter’s early-stage venture backers have told Ad Age the ad business, narrowly defined, isn’t that interesting to them. On its site, Twitter touts marketing success stories from Pepsi, Jetblue and Dell, which consist of the brands using the service to connect with fans.
The cash could allow Twitter to make some acquisitions; perhaps one of the URL shorteners like Bit.ly, one or more of the Twitter applications, or one of the many, many firms now making dashboards to manage Twitter for corporate clients.
With a valuation of $1 billion, Twitter’s investors believe one or more of the following outcomes are likely: an IPO or an acquisition at a healthy price.
So can they do it, Pilgrims? If they can do it how will they do it? Put on your Twitter business model cap yet again and tell the world exactly what these folks have hit or miss regarding the future of the world in 140 character chunks.
Facebook Sued for Stifling Competition, Click Fraud
It’s a saga we’re all familiar with by now: create a pretty awesome web service, start a trend, become a media sweetheart, make lots of money (VC or acquisition), get slapped with a lawsuit. Or two. Or fifty billion. Facebook added two more lawsuits to its heap recently: a countersuit from Power.com and a click fraud proceeding.
Facebook filed suit against Power.com in December. Facebook claimed the one-stop social-media aggregator was infringing upon their copyright, violating their TOS and scraping proprietary data. At the time, we weren’t sure whether “proprietary data” included user information.
Power.com finally decided not to take this sitting down. TechCrunch reports that Power.com has now filed a countersuit, claiming Facebook is “unlawfully withholding the data that users own (as stated in Facebook’s own ToS), and is stifling competition by refusing to allow third party services like Power.com to access the data, among other things.”
Facebook also faces legal action from RootZoo, an erstwhile advertiser. After analytics from their Nov 2007-June 2008 campaign varied greatly from Facebook’s reported data, RootZoo requested Facebook’s logs and a refund. Facebook said no to both.
RootZoo’s complaint uses 2 June 2008 as an example of the discrepancies between the two. While Facebook reported 804 clicks on their ads, RootZoo’s analytics programs show 300 clicks from the social networking giant.
While there have been rumblings about Facebook click fraud for some time, this is the first suit in the matter.
What do you think? Does Facebook have anything to worry about from these legal claims against it? Is there anyway to avoid getting slapped with lawsuits once people see you’re making some money?
Sources Say Google’s Brin Orders Bing Study
I am from the Tri-State area (for the uninitiated that encompasses NY/NJ/CT area that is within striking distance of New York City) originally so I am used to the New York Post. In fact, it’s a fun read on most days because it is a tabloid that tends to ‘over-embellish’ a bit but you know that going in (unless you’re a tourist then please just spend your money and leave quietly 
). A headline from yesterday, though, got my attention because of the sheer NY Post shock factor. It read: Fear Grips Google, Sources: Sergey Orders Bing Study. Way to go headline guys…. that one worked.
According to the paper
You’d think nothing would get under the skin of search giant Google.
But co-founder Sergey Brin is so rattled by the launch of Microsoft’s rival search engine that he has assembled a team of top engineers to work on urgent upgrades to his Web service, The Post has learned.
The sources are telling the Post that Brin himself is personally involved in doing some algorithm diving to see just what Bing has come up with and why there may be a real threat to the World According to Google. Of course, as you read a little further you learn that, while fun to consider for a moment, that there is not likely to be any all hands alerts at Google any time soon.
Why? Couldn’t someone like Microsoft actually knock Google from its perch high atop the Internet Mountain of Revenue? Hey, anything is possible but until there is a true sea change effort in search it’s difficult to imagine Google being displaced. While the reviews for Bing have been nice the reality is that other than the interface it may just be business as usual from a search perspective
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After all the end of Google as we know it headline stuff the article rolls over and plays dead
While Bing is presented differently from Google — with a colorful home page and easy-to-navigate search categories compared with Google’s stark white page and search box — there is little difference between the two when it comes to searching for simple terms.
So is there genuine concern in Mountain View? Is Sergey losing sleep or wondering if he will need to get his deposit back on that space travel deal? Not likely. Google’s response was predictable.
A spokesman for Google declined to comment about Brin’s interest in Bing but said: “We always have a team working on improving search.” He added: “We dedicate more time and energy to search than anything else in our company. Our algorithm is constantly evolving.”
Now we are a couple of weeks into Bing-mania. What’s your take? Is this something that the folks at Google should be losing sleep over and thus convening secret committees of mad search scientists to thwart the threat of Bingenstein? Or is it just people fishing for something / anything to make it look like Google has some genuine competition that could hurt their bottom line rather than just create market share stealing at the secondary search level that includes Bing, Yahoo and Ask?
