It’s not like search is anything new. From cavemen to spacemen, it has always been important and is part of everything from religion to science. It could even be said that basic search is what we’re doing when we don’t know what we’re doing. Deep hey.
The difference now is that its big business in it’s own right. Cometh the Internet, cometh the search engine and happy days for the bank managers of Larry Page and Sergey Brin. A three-year research project at Stanford University resulting in an industry goliath that made 4.2 billion dollars in profit last year. Not that that should be such a surprise, as the last time students at Stamford experimented with technology to search and categorize the Web, a little company that Microsoft seems to have taken a fancy to was born.
Granted, Yahoo is now far more than just a search engine. Its 426 million email account holders across the world are testament to that, but $44.6 billion seems a bit on the steep side even if the number one stake on the Internet is up for grabs. The markets agree, but despite Microsoft offering a 62 percent premium, the plucky Yahoo board has decided to reject the bid.
Once with a perceived strong-grip on Internet search, Yahoo has for some time been searching for something to hold onto and closed the door in Microsoft’s face last year in the belief that it would be better off alone. The ongoing courting has certainly upset a certain somebody, with legal folk claiming that a marriage could undermine the Internet’s basic principles of openness and innovation.
Whatever the outcome, there’s one answer we don’t have to search for. Search will undoubtedly remain big business, whether it’s consumer, enterprise or perhaps the ultimate winner, mobile. We may even one day look back at the popularity contest, in which website owners pimp out their sites in a never ending quest for that top of page one search result (urbandictionary.com get out of my way), that is today’s search engine and wonder how we ever found anything at all.
PS – A post on search and Internet giants without the G word, now that must be a first!
