Taking a break from working on my next post, “Social Network Strategy for Web Servicesâ€, I wanted to share two interesting links with you:
Five Reasons Why The Mobile Web Sucks – Publishing 2.0 gathers up all things wrong with the mobile web and drops it as a bomb on those who have gotten too caught up in the charge of the iPhone army. Unfortunately, even this list is still thinking of the mobile web as if everyone were willing to pay the cost of an iPhone or similar mobile device. The real truth is that until costs for data plans are lowered, there is not going to be enough adoption to make the mobile web worth it for anyone other than companies targeting early-adopter or wealthy business-user markets.
Search Engines, Appearance = Appeal – Which search engine do you think is the best search engine? Can you really tell me off the top of your head which one would give you the most relevant results for any given query? The NY Times Bits blog emphasizes that search engines need to put as much effort into their marketing as they do into their engineering.
Personally, I don’t think either Microsoft or Yahoo! can make significant gains in search market share from Google unless they brand their search product separately. When people think ‘Microsoft’, they think of software, not search. When people think ’search’, they think ‘Google’. Google’s entire brand is built around search, and for a competitor to succeed, that is the fight they need to win. Which is one reason why in terms of growth, Ask.com has more potential than Microsoft or Yahoo!
The Bits blog devotes a bit more time to Ask’s efforts:
Just as important is the eye candy. Yahoo!, Microsoft and especially Ask.com are trying to find cues to let users know that their search engines are different from, and better than, Google. Ask has devoted the most to this strategy: it uses little browser tricks to fade pages in and out. It uses more color on its pages. And its search results screen features separate areas for news, video, images and suggested search refinements.