Re: About Bloody Time!!!!!
Mike Masnick (mdm8@cornell.edu)
Tue, 24 Feb 1998 10:58:23 -0500
At 12:30 AM 2/24/98 -0800, The Jester wrote:
>WEB RANKINGS FOR SALE
>Internet entrepreneur Bill Gross is funding a new venture called
>Go.To.Com,
>which offers a radical new approach to Web search services. Traditional
>search engines, such as Yahoo! and Lycos, have been criticized because too
>much of the material they deliver is irrelevant to the original search
>request. Go.To.Com's strategy to responding to queries is based on the
>idea
>of ranking the list in order of advertising dollars received, so that if
>someone searches on the word "flowers," for instance, the floral service
>that paid the most would be listed first. Gross points out that the same
>strategy is used in the Yellow Pages, where companies that pay the most
>for
>the largest ads get the prominent positions. "It's a stockmarket for
>attention," says Gross. "I think it's going to change the marketplace
>forever." (Wall Street Journal 20 Feb 98)
>
>Finally.
I don't know. The reasons I see this not working:
1) It simply takes the telephone book ideas and pops it on the web.
Generally, any attempt at simply moving the old medium to the new medium,
without trying to add the real features and benefits the new medium
provides to the product, are bound to fail.
2) It needs a critical mass. Sure it sounds like a good idea, but how many
people will use it until enough companies have paid their dues. How many
people will pay their dues until enough people use it?
3) Personally, I'm not sure I want to get the company that paid the most as
my first search result. I want the most accurate, which often will not be
the one with the most money.
-Mike