Don't Be Evil - Restoring the Public Trust in Business, Politics and the Media

Don't Be Evil - restoring the public trust in business, politics and the media


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			Poynter Google's Ten Things Conflict of Interest

Choice vs. lock-in - 4/08/2006 12:51:00 PM

Battelle interviews Gary Flake, "a veteran of Overture, Yahoo and now Microsoft's vaunted research labs (he's founder and director of the new 'Live Labs')." It's a great interview, as Gary is open and direct and gives insights into Microsoft's strategy to win the search wars. Gary talks a lot about 64-bit servers, relevance algorithms, and improving the user interface. It's clear that Microsoft is making a big bet on search, and is baking search into many of their products -- from the upcoming Windows Vista to the Windows Live online service.

But from reading the interview, it doesn't seem like Gary or Microsoft have grasped what has made Google the king of search. They don't seem to understand that much of Google's brand and competitive advantage comes from users' trust in Google, not from the servers and network gear that make it work.

The choice of search engine is about more than relevance, and more than a pretty user interface. For a lot of people, it's about trust. Even if MSN search was just as relevant as Google, just as fast as Google, and sports a better UI than Google, many people will still choose to trust Google first.

It's not because Microsoft is evil, it's because Microsoft (and Yahoo and AOL) try to lock the user in.

Google links directly to MSN and Yahoo right next to Google Finance -- not because Google's getting referral cash, but to show that they provide the best information rather than lock-in. MSN and Yahoo only feature their own properties unless they're paid to show partner sites.

Gmail lets the user forward all email to the service of her choice, or use Outlook and POP/SMTP. Hotmail and Yahoo Mail lock the user in by not offering forwarding or POP access, while Gmail gives the user the choice.

Search for a street address in Google, and you'll get links to Yahoo maps and Mapquest right next to Google Maps. Do the same thing in MSN or Yahoo, and you won't see competing properties - instead you're locked in.

Search for a music artist in Google, and Google features free links to MSN, AOL, iTunes and others. I'll give you one guess about the choice MSN provides.

If Gary thinks Microsoft will win the search war with 64-bit servers, improved relevance and a pretty UI, he doesn't understand why a lot of people are choosing his competition.

Microsoft has taken every opportunity to lock in their users, from defaulting MSN as the homepage and search engine in IE to restricting user choice in featured search results. But in spite of Microsoft's overwhelming dominance of the desktop, MSN is running a distant thrid place in search market share -- apparently lock-in isn't working so well.

"Don't Be Evil" sounds hopelessly naive or manipulative, but as a guiding philosophy it seems to be working pretty well for Google.

Gary, what are the chances Windows Vista and Windows Live will opt for choice over lock-in? At least give the 64-bit servers and pretty UI a fighting chance.