I just read an interesting article on MSNBC about the differences between the corporate cultures at Google and Yahoo!. This goes right along with much of what I blogged yesterday and what it will take for Yahoo! (or any other search engine) to compete against Google.
The most telling paragraph in the article is this:
“There two fundamental different approaches,” he said. “Yahoo! comes at search as a way to monetize traffic. Google goes at sponsor search as a way to monetize a very interesting technology that they’ve developed.”
Yahoo is looking for ways simply to make money from the Internet. That’s not a bad thing, surely I’m trying to do the same thing. In my mind, however, the failure at Yahoo is that they are not finding their USP (Unique Selling Position). That’s Basic Business 101!
Google, on the other hand, is constantly looking for their USP through innovation and (GASP!) invention of new technology. This is the singular most reason why Google is on top and Yahoo!, despite rolling out its own search engine, has failed to hold its 45% market share it initially held. Yahoo! is happy in the role of the “me too” engine. It simply wants to find ways to make money saying “me too!”