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Look Out MSN Search, Here Comes Gbrowser
Thursday, February 03, 2005
It is official, the search engine wars are in full swing. On
Tuesday, February 01, 2005 MSN officially rolled out its new search
solution to all of its websites, including MSN.com
This comes on the heels of growing speculation that Google plans
to launch its own browser, possibly in an attempt to attack Microsoft's
greatest strength in Internet Explorer. Is it possible that MSN
actually rolled out their search engine to prevent Google from doing
the same thing they did to Yahoo! with the release of Gmail?
Google appears to have been planning a browser for some time. In
April of 2004 they purchased the domain gbrowser.com (notice the
similarity to gmail.com) and recently they lured two of the lead
developers on the Firefox browser project to join the Google team.
When asked what their role would be at Google, both developers were
unable to specify what their roles were. Yet with Firefox's relative
success at chipping away Internet Explorer's stronghold on the browser
market, Google is certain to take notice of the minds that were
able to make a dent in the Internet Explorer stronghold.
Google Has a History of Attacking Strengths
The common thought when considering an attack on a competitor is
to attack their weaknesses. Google, true to their history of bucking
tradition, has a history of doing just the opposite. Rather than
attacking their potential competitor's strengths, Google identifies
its competitor's strengths and attacks those strengths directly.
This is exactly what they did when they launched Gmail.
Before the launch of Gmail, the search engine wars were being anticipated
by the SEO community. Yahoo! had acquired Overture and Inktomi and
had announced its plans to abandon the Google search results. Similarly,
MSN had announced that they too would be leaving Google's search
results and would develop their own internal search technology.
Both Yahoo! and MSN posed a real threat to steal a significant portion
of Google's search market. However, at the time, Yahoo! proved to
be the more imminent threat as they would go to market with a proven
search technology in Inktomi and an established advertising network
with Overture.
Yahoo!'s real strength in attacking Google was the draw that their
portal had. The tool that offered Yahoo! the most certain return
traffic was Yahoo! Mail. Although Yahoo! has several different tools
that bring users back time and time again, nothing was as powerful
as their email system. As people came back to Yahoo! to use their
e-mail, or other tools for that matter, the hope was that they would
grow to become loyal to Yahoo!'s search results as well.
Google realized the strength of Yahoo! Mail, so they launched Gmail
as an offensive on Yahoo!'s greatest strength. At the time Google
launched Gmail, they were offering 10 times the amount of space,
an obvious attempt to gain press and increase the desirability of
Gmail.
MSN Search Provides a Bigger Threat
Although MSN Search currently holds a smaller share of the search
engine market than Yahoo! or Google, they are actually the bigger
threat to Yahoo!. Yahoo! had the ability to push their search results
to the millions of people who come to their portal to use their
tools. If Google is able to provide users with the same tools that
they find at Yahoo!, users no longer have a reason to visit Yahoo!.
However, any computer user who is using Windows most likely will
use Internet Explorer, even if it is to eventually download an alternate
browser, and we all know that most people are comfortable enough
with Internet Explorer to not even look for an alternative.
Because MSN has the constant attention of consumers through Internet
Explorer, they have many more channels to push their search results
through. Do not be surprised if the next version of Internet Explorer
comes with a search bar included as well as more redirects to MSN
search results when a bad address is typed in the address bar. As
long as MSN has such a strong majority of the browser market they
will be able to push their search results.
MSN also has the advantage of developing a new search technology.
Yahoo! entered the search engine battles using technology that web
searches had been using for years in Inktomi. The problem is that
users had already used Inktomi search results and had chosen Google
instead. Although Yahoo! made changes to the algorithm that powered
Inktomi's results, the changes were not significant enough to make
a strong distinction from Google's search results. Whether the MSN
results will be of a significantly higher quality than Google is
yet to be seen, but by developing a new search technology, MSN has
the ability to provide users with significantly different results
than Google.
Google Will Need To Duplicate Gmail with Gbrowser
With MSN's search becoming the latest threat to Google's search
market stronghold, Google will once again attack its competitor's
strength. Internet Explorer has recently shown some weakness in
losing market share to Firefox, and it appears as if Google is ready
to attempt to bring down MSN's greatest strength.
If Google hopes to have any success in bringing down Internet Explorer,
they will need to duplicate the success of the Gmail campaign. When
launching Gmail, Google knew that they would make little to no impact
on Yahoo! if they were to simply offer an e-mail program that was
open to the general public. What reason would a person have to join
Gmail if they had a perfectly fine email account at Yahoo!? An open
launch to the general public would result in an initial influx of
new users, many of which would be curiosity seekers who would quickly
forget about their new, secondary email accounts.
Instead of launching an open campaign to invite the general public
to participate in Gmail, Google chose to employ a viral marketing
campaign of six degrees of separation. No single person had the
ability to get a Gmail account unless they knew someone who was
permitted to extend an invitation. People who had an account, and
who in turn were allowed to give away six invitations to others
to join Gmail became Gmail's primary advertisers. A feeling of exclusivity
became quickly associated with having a Gmail account, and soon
message boards were filled with people offering just six accounts
that they were able to give away. The effect is a brilliant example
of just how effective Gmail can be. Gmail did not and will not become
the most popular e-mail program in a short time span, but over time
the six degrees of separation will make Gmail the most popular email
system available (if you know someone).
If Google wants to be at all effective in dethroning Internet Explorer,
they will have to reach into their bag of tricks once again to make
Gbrowser an option that carries the same desirability that Gmail
carried. Google can certainly count on the Microsoft haters to give
their browser a spin, but in order to get the audience that really
matters, the vast majority of Internet users, Google will need to
extend a personal invitation.
MSN Must Act Quickly
Now that MSN has launched their search results, they will need
to act quickly to protect against Google making any serious impact
on their browser market. MSN has already done several things right.
They are the first of the major search engines to offer their search
results in an RSS format, opening up their results to all webmasters.
They also offer Encarta answers to search results, provide music
searches, feed discovery, definitions, provide math calculations,
news search, and other features that are becoming increasingly important
to offer.
However, MSN has not yet launched its own sponsored links program.
Although this is certainly a program in the making, MSN will need
to launch this service as soon as possible if they want to compete
with Google and Yahoo! on every level.
But more importantly, Microsoft will need to have a new version
of Internet Explorer available to launch once Gbrowser makes its
debut. Yahoo! successfully dampened the blow of Gmail by matching
the increased storage space that Google came out with. If Microsoft
wants to keep its browser market share safe when Google launches
Gbrowser, it will be important that they answer Gbrowser with a
competitive product.
It Is All Very Welcome
The results of the search engine wars have been nothing but positive
so far. The launch of Gmail provided users with significantly increased
storage for email. Yahoo! has improved their search results and
Google is continuing to try and improve their search results. If
Google launches a new browser it will no doubt offer new options
that will only help users organize and find information.
The search engine wars have become much more than a war for the
attention of Internet searchers. Because Yahoo! and MSN entered
the search market hoping their strengths would provide them with
the necessary momentum to topple Google, Google has brought the
battle to Yahoo! and MSN. The search engine war is now the war of
vying for Internet user's attention through search, email, browsers,
news aggregation, etc.
No matter how the search engine wars turn out, the people who will
ultimately benefit will be Internet users…and the shareholders
of the winning company
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