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Microsoft and Time Warner Team Up Against Google 137

Posted by Zonk from the still-haven't-found-what-i'm-looking-for dept.
PlayfullyClever wrote to mention a Reuters report on an online advertising deal between Microsoft and Time Warner. The two companies are teaming up to take on Google's advertising network. From the article: "The [WSJ] said the two companies were now focusing on a deal that would combine their advertising-related assets, with little or no money changing hands. It said they expected to reach an agreement before the end of the year, but that it was still possible that Time Warner's America Online unit could strike a deal with competitor Google instead."
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Microsoft and Time Warner Team Up Against Google More

Microsoft and Time Warner Team Up Against Google

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  • Google Must Be Quaking In Their Boots (Score:5, Funny)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Tuesday December 06, 2005 @06:11PM (#14197613) Homepage Journal

    TW/AOL:Losses in the billions.

    Microsoft Entertainment/Internet Operations: Losses in the billions

    Google have every right to be worried. With the losses these two titans amass, they could well suck up a lot of advertising revenue on the way to losing record billions.

    hello, this is microsoft support, press 1 to refinance your mortgage, 2 for MSN help, 3 for pills that enhance your bedtime experience, 4 for office help, 5 to see if you are an instant winner of the tw/msn lottery, 6 for xbox help, 7 to register a microsoft product over the phone or stay on the line to hear nagamo mazoomba, former vice president of internal standards group, request your help in getting $43,675,00 out of a bank account in the caymans.

    • Bull Schitt (Score:2, Informative)

      by melted ( 227442 )
      >> Internet Operations: Losses in the billions

      Hundred million of pure, net profit last year.

      • mod parent down - astrodomer (Score:3, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Your "facts" have no place in this anti-micro$oft discu$$ion.

      • Re:Bull Schitt (Score:3, Insightful)

        by AstroDrabb ( 534369 )
        The GP wrote:

        Microsoft Entertainment/Internet Operations:

        Why did you chop off the first part? He/She was referring to the entertainment/internet ops. Last I heard, the MSN ISP was not pulling in the customers. Last I heard, XBox has been in the red since day one. Last I heard, XBox 360 has tons of bugs. Maybe MSN search is making some profit, but that doesn't negate what the GP stated. If you look at these two business units, they will most likely be in the red. Most of MS's business units are in

        • Re:Bull Schitt (Score:2, Informative)

          by LordNimon ( 85072 )
          Last I heard, XBox 360 has tons of bugs.

          Not to stray off-topic or belittle your point, but the Xbox 360 does not have tons of bugs. Most of the so-called bug "reports" are just rehashing what someone else said. Also, almost all of the issues I've heard are really the result of user error (e.g. not reading the manual). I don't know of any one verifiable bug with the Xbox 360. That doesn't mean that there aren't any, just that the statement "has tons of bugs" is wrong.

          • almost all of the issues I've heard are really the result of user error (e.g. not reading the manual).
            No, almost all of the issues are really the result of a fundamental design flaw. Putting a disclaimer in the user manual is irrelevant -- it'd be like the owner's manual for a car stating "Warning! Do not drive more than 10 MPH, because the only brake that works is the parking brake!"
          • To get back on topic. it is interesting that microsoft already accept that they are failing in the search engine wars and are seeking assistance and hoping that partners can succed where they have failed. After all their mindless M$=B$ marketing drivel and claims of being able to succeed in an actual competitive market they are already looking to others for the skills they obviously lack.
        • MSN until recently stood all by itself and did not depend on Entertainment. It still doesn't. It's now a part of Windows division.
        • What medicine?

          This is pretty standard fare for Microsoft, and your reaction is pretty standard fare for the Google worshippers that live here. The only thing that has changed is names (and that the story isn't about how they pushed the competiton under with law suits)
    • > TW/AOL:Losses in the billions.
      > Microsoft Entertainment/Internet Operations: Losses in the billions

      In other news, Anne Alyst (B.Com, MBA, CFA) of Foobar Fiduciary, has upgraded Steelcase [yahoo.com], Restoration Hardware [yahoo.com], Furniture Brands [yahoo.com], and La-Z-Boy [yahoo.com] to "Screaming Buy" based on the possibilities for expansion into new growth markets.

      Ms. Ann Thrope, senior partner at Lotta Trimmings Hedge Fund, agrees that the fine folks at Foobar Fiduciary may be onto something. Not only does Ms. Thrope say that the mark

  • MSN Quick Fix (Score:5, Insightful)

    by biocute ( 936687 ) on Tuesday December 06, 2005 @06:11PM (#14197621)
    So the deal is that AOL would drop Google as its main Internet search provider and switch to Microsoft's MSN service, because under their current agreement, Google derived about 11 percent of its first-half revenue from AOL.

    But what happens if AOL users still go to Google despite the default search site is MSN?

    MS still commands about 80% of the browser market, and its browser defaults searches to MSN, if this cannot help it, I doubt a deal with AOL could.

    I believe a more substantial way is to be a good search provider, and users will be self-inviting.

    I guess Time Warner stands to win whichever way the deal goes.

    • Re:MSN Quick Fix (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Cenuij ( 526885 )

      Search no, advertising yes.

      This wont help MS in the search wars at all but being able to double the audience of your target ads overnight ( MSN + AOL portal ) certainly doesn't harm the ad revenue bottom line.

    • Re:MSN Quick Fix (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Wisgary ( 799898 )
      Exactly what I thought, as soon as I read the article I thought "Oh come on, the first thing anyone does when they reformat or install a new IE version is go to Tools>Options>homepage www.google.com" If the default search for IE is MSN search, and not even the dolts who don't know crap about the internet use it, how is this deal going to help MSN at all?

    • Re:MSN Quick Fix (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Well, you never know. If AOL defaults to http://search.msn.com/ [msn.com] instead of http://www.msn.com/ [msn.com], the UI may be similar enough to Google's that people will use it, not knowing any better.

      Don't believe me? Well, they ARE using AOL, aren't they?

      • Re:MSN Quick Fix (Score:5, Interesting)

        by mOdQuArK! ( 87332 ) on Tuesday December 06, 2005 @06:41PM (#14197848)
        Got quite a few family members who use AOL, and they _ALL_ hit Google as soon as they need to search for something, bypassing the AOL default searching mechanism.

        They like its simplicity and the fact that it's pretty good about giving them something close to what they were looking for, even with some of the weirdest keyword queries I've seen.

        Anecdotal, I know, but don't rule out Google's mindshare even among the technically incompetent.

    • Re:MSN Quick Fix (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ATeamMrT ( 935933 ) on Tuesday December 06, 2005 @06:34PM (#14197802)
      But what happens if AOL users still go to Google despite the default search site is MSN?

      The people I know who use AOL, and this is a small number of people with dial up, they use AOL to search. They don't open up a second IE window to use google.

      MS still commands about 80% of the browser market, and its browser defaults searches to MSN, if this cannot help it, I doubt a deal with AOL could.

      Does MS still do this from IE? I thought there was a setting where the user can select what search engine to use, or to disable searching from the address bar. I never search from the address bar, so I don't know.

      So the deal is that AOL would drop Google as its main Internet search provider and switch to Microsoft's MSN service

      On the surface, this might look like a good deal for MS. But I remember how everyone thought MSNBC would become bigger than CNN. Correct me if I am wrong, but is MSNBC even #3? What happened with marrying the largest computer/tech comany with NBC?

      MS is marrying with a dying company. How much longer will dial up be a market? How will AOL continue to stay alive, how much impact will their search website have?

      MS should be looking forward. I see this as a short term deal, to get more of a market share in search engines. But that advantage will be gone in a few years. I think MS is trembling that google will dominate all searches, and MS will be about as popular as dogpile.

      • Re:MSN Quick Fix (Score:3, Insightful)

        by IAmTheDave ( 746256 )
        Not to mention - I believe - that Yahoo! once used Google results as well. Yahoo! no longer does (as far as I'm aware) or at least agregates them, and Google didn't seem to suffer too much. Do I have my information wrong?
        • I think Google makes most of their money from advertising revenue. Yahoo probably utilized their search for some kind of licensing fee... However much that fee was, it is probably dwarfed by the amount of money Google pulls in from their AdSense.

          -If
        • You are quite correct.

          It used to be that once Yahoo had exhausted its own directory results, it would switch to Google. It was a good combination. Once they dropped Google, I dropped Yahoo and went direct to Google, simple as that. I imagine lots of others followed too.

    • Re:MSN Quick Fix (Score:3, Insightful)

      by shrtcircuit ( 936357 )
      Having watched the less technically-inclined use the Internet, they will use whatever search engine shows up on their screen so long as it spits something back when they type in a few words and click "Go".

      If AOL switches to MSN, >95% of the users will not care unless MSN can't give them what they need.
      • That is not an observation that I have seen. While some users I deal with do simply stay with MSN, most seem to prefer Google and will go through the bother of figuring out how to change their homepage. Remember, MSN is the default on most new Windows boxes, and if your theory held an validity, Google would be a bit player, and that clearly is not the case, so at the end of the day, I have no idea how AOL using MSN means a damn thing.

    • Re:MSN Quick Fix (Score:2, Interesting)

      by nizo ( 81281 ) *
      What would keep AOL and MSN from changing their nameservice records for www.google.com to search.msn.com instead?
      • One simple word: Lawsuits.

      • Re:MSN Quick Fix (Score:2, Insightful)

        by vishbar ( 862440 )
        That would be one of the worst mistakes that they could make. Google is nearly a household name for internet searches, and I'm sure that there are MANY AOL users that are Google addicts. I'd predict losses in the thousands if they ever tried to pull a stunt like that.
      • sony would love this. a new underhanded scam for us to direct our hate towards. would never happen though. i don't know about google's legal prowess, but they would have a solid case here.

    • Re:MSN Quick Fix (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Ruff_ilb ( 769396 )
      I'd agree with this - despite the home page or default search site, google is now a household brand (if you could call it a brand) that's got a pretty permanent hold on what MS and other companies discounted as something useless. As google expands to the email and IM (I know, that's a stretch) areas, google is used for more and more things. I doubt it'll lose much from just having the default engine switched.

      Then again, as MS is well aware, half of any "prediction" is just going to be guesswork.

  • MSFT and AOL (Score:5, Insightful)

    by navycow ( 778959 ) on Tuesday December 06, 2005 @06:12PM (#14197627)
    Remember when AOL and Microsoft were mortal ememies? This only goes to show that just as in politics, there are no long term enemies, just long term interests

    • Re:MSFT and AOL (Score:1, Insightful)

      by WesG ( 589258 )
      It will be interesting to see what Google is like in a couple years. It seems that all roads lead to Microsoft....
      • It seems that all roads lead to Microsoft....

        Right sure. Except all the other roads that lead elswhere, and unless you hadn't noticed theres a 5 lane motorway running straight up to Google HQ at the moment.

    • Re:MSFT and AOL (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ndogg ( 158021 )
      Mortal enemies? AOL was using Microsoft's software even when they had other options. The rhetoric between the two had no substance.
    • I'm honestly surprised Microsoft hasn't bought-out AOL yet. Every release of Windows since '95 has had the AOL installer included, and for those people that don't want the REAL internet, their choices have always been either: AOL or MSN. I find it very puzzling that they wouldn't buy out their main competitor?!? Every company does it! (Adobe/Macromedia, Oracle/Siebel, CompUSA/Computer City, ...etc/etc...)
    • I remember begging the folks that I worked for (a cable-modem company involved with TW. Won't say which *grin*) to partner with AOL and just use their content, rather than us creating our own. "Will Never Happen!" I was told. "They are the enemy!" This was at a time when MS was a 30% investor in us. A few years later comes the AOL/TW merger and I was laughing my ass off. Seeing MS get more involved with AOL is a great example of throwing more good money after bad.

  • PlayfullyClever = Troll (Score:5, Interesting)

    by whitehatlurker ( 867714 ) on Tuesday December 06, 2005 @06:15PM (#14197655) Journal
    I'm not sure why these people get so many articles posted. They are quite up front about who they are / what they do [playfullyclever.com]. I guess Zonk likes to reward honesty ;-)

  • In other news... (Score:3, Funny)

    by $RANDOMLUSER ( 804576 ) on Tuesday December 06, 2005 @06:15PM (#14197656)
    Sears and K-Mart team up against Wal-Mart.

    Two weakened giants leaning on each other for support.

  • Even if that alliance holds, I think google will win. Microsoft had its time and that times is gone.
    • "Even if that alliance holds, I think google will win. Microsoft had its time and that times is gone. "

      Regardless of what I think about the company, there's no denying that Microsoft will be around for quite some time. I think Google's genius is that they've let the word "google" slip into usage as a verb, meaning "search." It doesn't even matter if you're using their engine or not. If you're using a search engine to find something on the internet, most people would say you're "googling" for it. There's no

  • assets are one thing... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by thelost ( 808451 ) on Tuesday December 06, 2005 @06:19PM (#14197686) Journal
    but how you promote those assets is entirely another. The combo of MS+Time warner AOL would indeed be formidable, if that is they learn how to target advertising in the way that google has, and to work with the viewer, not harangue them with flashing banners. Of course it's not hard to take a page from the good google book and emulate its successes. Of course as it's suggested if this deal does happen google stands to loose a great deal of revenue as AOL would no longer use Google to provide their search services. This might proove to be more damaging than any competition in advertising, because as has been seen google thrives just as much when in competition as when forging ahead in new directions.
    • Since the Borg Collective and AOL are all about pushing an inferior, overpriced product to an uneducated bunch of end users via slick marketing and since Time-Warner is AOL's parent company, I'd suspect that this might be a very good fit for both of them. I have to agree with an earlier poster who mentioned that any time the Collective "teams up" with another company, the other company is either assimilated or gets screwed.

      Frankly, I avoid the MSN home page, MSN searches, etc. because I refuse to "feed the

  • Could be better (Score:3, Funny)

    by sbrown123 ( 229895 ) on Tuesday December 06, 2005 @06:19PM (#14197690) Homepage
    I think its probably in TW/AOL best interest to work with BOTH Microsoft and Google. Ofcourse, TW/AOL is not known for its bright business decisions in the past.

  • Doing business with Microsoft? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Tuesday December 06, 2005 @06:20PM (#14197695) Homepage
    Uhm... I don't know how "nice" they are to larger companies with larger legal budgets, but every smaller company I've ever heard "teaming up" with Microsoft has gotten screwed over when it was to MS's advantage to do so.

  • So much going on here... lets look at this closer. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ATeamMrT ( 935933 ) on Tuesday December 06, 2005 @06:20PM (#14197699)
    The Journal said that, under negotiations between Time Warner and Microsoft, AOL would drop Google as its main Internet search provider and switch to Microsoft's MSN service.

    How much of googles searches does AOL account for? How will this affect Google Adsense? Less views = less money for those in the program?

    Billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who has been critical of Time Warner's strategy, has also said that he would hold Time Warner board members personally responsible if they forged a deal for AOL that valued the Internet provider too cheaply.

    How will Carl Icahn do this? Is this one very rich man trying to kill a deal?

    Why would Time Warner want to screw AOL? Hmmm... what is going on behind the scenes? Or is this a sign that AOL is changing its strategy?

    Or maybe Microsoft is scared of google, and is doing everything they can to prevent their search services from going the direction of excite.com.

      1. El Reg [theregister.co.uk] suggests AOL brings in US$380m ad revenue to Google.
      2. It wouldn't make any difference to Adsense publishers, Adsense advertisers (Adwords) would probably want to look again at MS advertising options.
    • "Why would Time Warner want to screw AOL? Hmmm... what is going on behind the scenes? Or is this a sign that AOL is changing its strategy?"

      Just a thought... but it is usually standard practice for a 'dying' company's CEO's or Board of Directors to 'try' a separate or new strategy to guide the company some other direction. Then they give themselves huge bonuses for the brainpower they expended, regardless of whether their 'new strategy' worked or not. When it doesn't work, they get fired, get a good separati

  • A Question (Score:3, Funny)

    by SlashAmpersand ( 918025 ) on Tuesday December 06, 2005 @06:21PM (#14197707)
    If Time Warner's AOL unit were to strike a deal with Google instead, how many chairs do you think would be thrown in Redmond?

  • Throwing their money down the drain... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by puppetman ( 131489 ) on Tuesday December 06, 2005 @06:23PM (#14197726) Homepage
    Two big, bloated companies, where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing (ever), combining to take on a small-ish, smart, fast moving company like Google (that happens to have gobs of cash to fund their wildest dream).

    I don't think anything will happen, other than a bunch of money being spent.

    If they really wanted to compete, they would hire a bunch of really bright people, form a new company for them to work at, with a new independent management team, and money to spend. Let them go after Google using the best tools and technologies, and then give them an instant market by using whatever they come up with at Microsoft/AOL/TimeWarner.

  • You gotta give their enemies credit (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ShatteredDream ( 636520 ) on Tuesday December 06, 2005 @06:28PM (#14197762) Homepage
    If and when Google does survive all of these attacks, they'll be a stronger company for it. Of course, the nearest term consequence could be a company whose eventual aggressiveness would make Microsoft look like a kitten. At least they won't sneak up and take everyone by surprise the way that Microsoft seemed to in the early 1990s with Windows 3.1, 95 and NT 4.0.

    Of course, since they're in the business of storing and processing information, Google could end up being a greater threat than Microsoft ever could in the wrong hands.

  • How Stupid is Slashdot? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Tuesday December 06, 2005 @06:32PM (#14197785)
    In addition to posting blatant advertising for the BeatlesBeatles and Joel on Software and TheEscapist and other stuff in a very "Microsoft/TimeWarner future partnership ass-kissing networked" sort of way, they don't even have a problem accepting submissions and posting them from blatant trolls and rip-offs like the submitter of this article (see the following current headline on the site of the submitter of this article):

    In short, the editors are such fucking incompetant idiots that they willingly and knowingly entertain the submissions of admitted plagiarists. On the other hand, it's a really great way to make sure that Slashdot is never taken seriously anywhere by anyone. Seriously, Slashdot editors (Malda, etc) -- get your shit together. Half the joy of even bothering to show up and check Slashdot out each day now isn't for the articles or discussions, but to see what careless, stupid, sell-out, dimwitted shit you guys will do next.

    Win Slashdot? (12/05/05) - PyWiz

    Some of the slashbots have started to take notice that all of our posts are blatantly plagiarized. They wonder out loud in their replies why we would do such a thing? Well for all you curious slashbots that wonder why we felt the need to beat the world's most famous News for Trolls website, your answer is here [playfullyclever.com]

    Slashdot: News for Trolls. Stuff That Doesn't Matter.

    Okay, first of all for all of your slashbots that are out of the loop, we (known on Slashdot as PlayfullyClever) are blatant plagiarists. Almost (and by almost I mean more than 90%) all of our posts are reposts found using the Anti-Slash Database Tool, which allows the user to search for high-modded posts on a particular topic. Basically when a new article comes out on Slashdot we skim the summary for key words and plug them into the database tool. When we find a relevant-looking (I say relevant-looking because we don't actually read the summary so sometimes our posts are a little off base) post, we simply copy paste it and post to Slashdot. The funny part about this is that almost all of our posts get rated 5, just as they were originally. It is especially amusing when we get a high rating in spite of the fact that someone spots our plagiarism and points it out in a reply, as happened here.

    Why would we do this? Well, there are several reasons. First of all, we do it for kicks. As I said earlier, it is rather amusing how little new information is actually added in Slashdot discussions. Simply towing the party line will get you a 5 rating, even if, as happens in many cases with our reposting, the post is slightly or completely offtopic.

    The second major reason is promoting our site. We have a link in our signature and of course when we submit articles we get hits from people clicking on our name. We've gotten over 500 unique hits in the past 3 days the site has been up, and considering the quality of site we have, that's some quality advertising.

    Some of you might be thinking that we're selfish and that we're destroying what once used to be a respected discussion forum. Well, you're wrong. First of all, with all the FPs, Penisbirds, and GNAA trolls, our reposting is hardly degrading anything of worth. Second of all, the moderation system is build to handle just our type of cleverness (namely, playful) by allowing readers to mod us down if they don't find our comment interesting. Obviously, even though it is plagiarized, our comments still hold the interest of a large number of moderators. Of course there is the slight moral problem of representing someone elses work as our own, but I mean come on, this is the 21st century, get over it.

    In conclusion, all you slashbots who whine about PlayfullyClever being a "blatant plagiarist": you're right. Now STFU. kthx, py

    • Re:How Stupid is Slashdot? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Tuesday December 06, 2005 @06:46PM (#14197886)
      Did the mods even READ my post? Read the post. Look at the submitter of the article. Click on the submitter's name/link. Duh.

  • You have to love Slashdot. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ninja_assault_kitten ( 883141 ) on Tuesday December 06, 2005 @06:33PM (#14197792)
    "Microsoft and Time Warner team up against Google" - Based on the article, it could have also been worded, "Google and Time Warner team up against Microsoft". No decisions have been made and both Microsoft and Google are looking to team up with Time Warner.
    • Thank You. I am glad someone else noticed that. The article clearly stated twice that it's not set in stone.

      It said they expected to reach an agreement before the end of the year, but that it was still possible that Time Warner's America Online unit could strike a deal with competitor Google instead.

      Time Warner has been holding talks with both Microsoft and Google over AOL, sources familiar with the situation have told Reuters and other media.

  • And they wont win because.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xmorg ( 718633 ) on Tuesday December 06, 2005 @06:36PM (#14197822) Homepage
    Their sites are WAY to cluttered!

    Google is simple. There arent millions of distrations. You dont have to SEARCH for the search bar. you dont have to wait for the eyeblasters to load so that they can in turn obstruct your searching. GEEEZ people. it looks good the first time but after the 9999999th time you login just to do a simple search, and have to wait forever for the main page to connect to billions of addservers to serve you graphic adds, you end up back at google.
    • Google is simple. There arent millions of distrations. You dont have to SEARCH for the search bar. you dont have to wait for the eyeblasters to load so that they can in turn obstruct your searching. GEEEZ people. it looks good the first time but after the 9999999th time you login just to do a simple search, and have to wait forever for the main page to connect to billions of addservers to serve you graphic adds, you end up back at google.

      BINGO. The Google home page loads instantaneously, almost faster than
      • ...almost faster than an HTML page from my local filesystem

        Probably because it is a page on you local filesystem. It is likely being loaded from cache, except possibly for the first time each day that you load it (and at that time of the morning, you probably haven't had enough caffine yet to notice if its a bit slower)

    • Have you even bothered to look at, say, MSN Search?

      It's around 12KB including the graphics (similar to Google, which is around 10KB). There are no more distractions than Google.

      Moreover, I find that MSN Search often gives better results (excluding the Image Search, which is quite frankly garbage).

  • Trust (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SimonInOz ( 579741 ) on Tuesday December 06, 2005 @06:51PM (#14197918)
    Why is Google successful?

    Trust.

    Google appear to put the user first. Indeed, that's where they started, building a search engine to help people. Money came later (and haven't they done well?).

    Microsoft and Time Warner started with wanting to make money. That comes - and, more to the point, feels as though it comes - way before the user.

    And we don't trust them.

    Google ads rely on advertisers (the person with the ad, and the person with the ad space) trusting them to put the right ads in the right place. Google does - and everyone makes money. Trust, trust trust - the foundation stone of trade.

    But who would trust Microsoft and Time Warner to do that?
    • Google ads rely on advertisers (the person with the ad, and the person with the ad space) trusting them to put the right ads in the right place. Google does - and everyone makes money. Trust, trust trust - the foundation stone of trade. But who would trust Microsoft and Time Warner to do that? All I see is MS making a land grab at someone else's success. Perhaps they could go back and do some real innovating and come out with an operating system or office software or other platform that really is revoluti
      • All I see is MS making a land grab at someone else's success.

        No, Microsoft is providing a user base, and Time Warner is providing the advertisements... kinda like I bring the baseball bat, you bring the ball. Together we'll kick the other team's ass. And when you consider the numbers that AOL/TW and MSN have in their respective user bases, the revenue they can generate there alone could pose a viable threat to Google. I'm not a fanboy of either MS or Google, just saying...

        -everphilski-
        • No, Microsoft is providing a user base, and Time Warner is providing the advertisements.. Ok, and who is going to supply the page views? People have to want to look at content to have ads work. Where google is eons ahead is the size of their network and size of their engine's traffic. MSN+AOL=Paper Tiger.

    • Re:Trust (Score:3, Informative)

      by AnotherDaveB ( 912424 )

      Dunno about about the search engine angle but as an advertiser I'd suggest that Google was successful because their Adwords program was

      1. Cheap
      2. Very, very, very easy to use
      their nearest (small advertisers welcome) competitor Overture [overture.com] was
      1. Expensive
      2. A pig to use

  • Good! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Phillup ( 317168 ) on Tuesday December 06, 2005 @06:54PM (#14197939)
    Crappy companies banning together...

    Makes it even easier to avoid both of them!!

    (Ya'll stand a little bit closer together now... I only got one shotgun shell left and I want to make it count.)
  • somebody's trying to mate elephants with hippopotamus.

  • doomsday. (Score:1, Insightful)

    by CDPatten ( 907182 )
    AOL got 120 million visitors, yahoo 115 millions, MSN 110million, google 70million this past September. MS just became top dog by almost triple google and about double yahoo as far as online advertising markets reach goes. There are companies that are dying to get their hands on a way to get in front of 200million people, that's allot more appealing then 70million. Google might have slightly better tech for the time being, but MS will catch up, and they will steal google's thunder. Google hasn't been a

    • Re:doomsday. (Score:5, Informative)

      by colonslash ( 544210 ) on Tuesday December 06, 2005 @08:48PM (#14198721)
      It is easy to pull numbers out of your ass. In fact, I'll pull them out of onestat's ass: The 4 largest search engines on the web [onestat.com] are:
      1. Google 56.9%
      2. Yahoo 21.2%
      3. MSN Search 8.9%
      4. AOL Search 3.2%

      If your numbers are from TFA, I can't see it because the link is giving me a Yahoo! error page, so I went to Google to find some info.
      Are your numbers for unique visitors to any page owned by the companies in your list? Do those numbers even matter- aren't we talking about ads in search results?

    • Re:doomsday. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Killall -9 Bash ( 622952 ) on Tuesday December 06, 2005 @09:35PM (#14198955)
      AOL's search page gets hits because it's (last time i checked, which admittadly wasn't recently) the default serch page for AOL.


      Yahoo gets hits because they were giving away free email when AOL execs were still wondering why someone who has an ISP would need a free email account. Their search engine, while not as powerfull as Google's, does have its merits.... better geographical searches (nice for when i can't find any pizza menus to order from), and a higher likelyhood of search results I was looking for rather than 50,000 pages of exactly what i asked for.


      MSN getting 110 (10 million less than AOL) is nothing short of abject failure. Its the default homepage on 90% of the computers IN THE WORLD.


      In short, AOL's niche market (internet training wheels) is soon to be obsolete, and MSN.com can't get more hits than AOL.com even when its the default search page on most of the computers in the world.


      My prediction-- Google will outlive the PC platform (im assuming that the world wide web will outlive the PC). MSN and AOL will not. Yahoo..... who knows.

  • Yahoo link to TFA is dead (Score:3, Informative)

    by massysett ( 910130 ) on Tuesday December 06, 2005 @08:22PM (#14198561) Homepage
    Try this link instead: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1896641,00.as p?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594 [eweek.com]

  • trust? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by dotdevin ( 936747 )
    The bottom line is that people use Google because it works and they can trust them. Do you trust MS or AOL/TW?

  • Neither should win (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It seems that most people are in favor of Google "winning". I don't want either to win. Why? It's bad for us. It's bad to have one complacent company in complete control of a market. Here's what happens, as history shows over and over and over.

    1. Company 1 becomes a rising star.
    2. Everyone loves company 1 because they have good products, service, blah
    3. Company 1 beats out company 2, 3, 4, and 5 to become master of it's universe
    4. Company 1 has no competition, so they have no motivation to innovate, pr

  • I've just made a deal... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    that will keep the empire out of here forever.
  • ....Are better than one.

  • SOLID (Score:1, Funny)

    by dexomn ( 147950 )
    M$-AOL. Because good clean code counts. With the track record of the software coming from said companies; we can only look forward to a stable, robust, and premium priced internet service. *shiver*

  • Google... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ... is my best friend. :-)

    *opens firefox, displaying google.ca - begins hugging the computer monitor*
  • wow, just because google came up with such a good idea and totally dominated all those power hungry companies, they still want to take it down... http://ggstfu.com/ [ggstfu.com] stupid aol
  • You know, I hate internet ads as much as the next guy. I realize that without them, site like slashdot couldn't survive, but honestly, I don't click on banner ads unless I'm REALLY looking for the particular product/service in that ad, which doesn't happen too often...
    Recently, I finally set up my http://www.google.com/ [google.com] homepage... Interesting service for those of you who haven't set it up yet... Frankly, my browser has pointed to a blank page for years... This is the first time I can think of since netscap
    • On occassion, Google ads have done me a few favours. I've gone onto Google searching for a piece of software and found something via an ad and bought it.

      Even if it doesn't, it doesn't get in my way and annoy me.

      • Exactly what I'm getting at. M*crosoft makes money by shoving in your face, and forcing you to deal with it. Google makes money by actually providing something useful... Its an interesting puzzle to wonder, would m*crosoft make more money because they can shove a popup in front of 9/10ths of the planet, or google, because people actually click their link ads because they want them? I wonder what would happen if google teamed up with sites like ebay, and the OSDN... I bet b*llgates (yes, thats one word) and

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