David Evans’ paper, Markets with Two-Sided Platforms, discusses how these two-sided platform businesses serve distinct groups of customers and need each other in some way. They provide these customers a real or virtual meeting place, and they facilitate the interactions between members of these customer groups. They essentially act as intermediaries between the two groups […]

Lots of people have been talking about social sites cannibalizing search. I’ve addressed this in a prior post since it comes up a lot. eMarketer published a report today that has two interesting findings. First, Google, Bing and Yahoo have little to worry about. They still represent nearly all (like 97.8%) of the search traffic […]

Google announced that it is releasing a desktop operating system late next year. It is unclear at this point how this fits into Google’s overall strategy and thus whether it makes business sense or not. A sound business strategy for Google involves focusing on the online advertising business which they have mastered and has […]

In a move to monetize its site traffic, Yahoo has announced it’s going to start making its own short clips. In a reversal of its prior strategy, Yahoo is making original video content to appeal to segments of its audience that represent its biggest users, e.g. mothers. It is getting “famous” hosts to anchor these […]

Yahoo just agreed to store peoples’ search histories for only 90 days. Google had slashed its time to 9 months. And Microsoft says it will reduce theirs to 6 months if Google does too. If these search engines were using data retention as a way to compete for consumers concerned about their privacy I’d be […]

A recent WSJ article, Google Gears Down for Tougher Times explains that their mantra has always been to put long term projects ahead of the short term interests of shareholders but not anymore.
Like many other companies, the focus needs to be on the here and now, (survival mode to be more dramatic) which has […]

Ten years after its founding, the search giant has not one, but three books, that are nicely reviewed in last weekend’s Financial Times. Randall Stross has the business history which according to the review nicely describes the evolution of the company and benefits from “rare insider access.” Then there’s another one by a French intellectual—the […]

Michael Arrington has a good review of MySpace’s MyAd’s platform. It looks pretty smart: display ads sold on a cost-per-click basis that can be targeted based on 1200 categories of users MySpace has developed based on user behavior on the site. As Arrington mentions, if you are looking for California women between 25-30 who like […]

In celebration of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we’ve teamed up with Susan G. Komen for the Cure and Citi to raise awareness for a cause that affects countless Americans every year. We’ve re-launched a new and improved Pink Ribbon on MySpace and Facebook that gives users tons of easy ways to show their […]

Underestimating Google can be disastrous, says Don Reisinger on CNET recently, especially if you are a mobile carrier. I’ve been saying this for a while too but I’d like to play devil’s advocate for a minute and suggest that overestimating Google can lead to a waste of money and focus even if it isn’t […]