Search Sense

Before I begin I have a confession - I am a Google fan through-and-through. It’s natural results have become the benchmark of the search industry. The results are relevant, it’s intuitive and quick to use and I can’t find a better alternative. But I am also a fan of Wikipedia and Knol worries me.

It’s a no-brainer right? Let’s monetise, sorry ‘organise’, the world’s information.

Since the phenomenal success of the most effective new advertising system for a century, Google Adwords, search engines have been monetising every bit of real estate they can lay their hands on. Yahoo! decided that it’s ‘natural’ results could be bought by advertisers using it’s ‘feed’ system, and everyone tried placing CPC adverts in a variety of locations. Natural results in Google, however, have been left largely untouched and advert-free.

Hmm, well Google does place news, images and videos (via youtube) within the search results - all of which have differing degrees of Adwords penetration. Late last week our friends at Mountain View added a new way of getting into their own search results via Knol. Details as yet are thin on the ground, but we know that select authors are being invited to write articles within their area of expertise ‘to find a way to help people share their knowledge‘… Sounds like a more ivory tower like version of Wikipedia to me.. But with Adwords, and close to the top of the natural results guaranteed?

The guys are Techcrunch are debating this under the heading ‘Google knol a step too far?’ It’s worth a look.

Personally I think that Google will make Knol earn it’s place in natural results fairly but at a cost to commercially orientated websites, many of which have been forced to invest more into the Adwords campaigns over the past few years as a result of algorithm tweaks…

The process of organising the world’s information just got a bit more lucrative, I think.

Cross-posted on Open

Rumours of Google buying YouTube first reported by TechCrunch have been apparently confirmed by a story in the Washington Post

just now:

Google Inc. is in talks to acquire popular video-sharing site YouTube Inc. for roughly $1.6 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. The discussions are still at a sensitive stage and could well break off, this person says.

A spokeswoman for YouTube could not be reached for comment. A Google spokesman said, “We don’t comment on rumors and speculation.” Rumors of such talks were reported earlier on the TechCrunch blog.

It would be a great deal both sides. YouTube belongs with a company that understands networks, not a media company still thinking in terms of channels and audience share. It also needs strong partners and deals to head offss threats from the likes of MySpace Video, which has made a real impact by mimicking the simplicity and the usefulness of YouTube’s features (see Viral Video Charts top 25 videos and there are often as many MySpace as YouTube videos scoring lots of “buzz”).

Google on the other hand needs to stake a better claim to video on the web than its current offering, Google Video. And the massive user base of YouTube would be a great growth opportunity for its sponsored ads service, AdSense.