Talk:Strategy for Information Markets/Search engine business models

Really needs focus
So far (as of this version), there is very little to go on. Search engines are obviously extremely important, but what aspect of them are you planning to cover? How can you make it fit with the theme (economics and strategy for information goods and the internet) of this course?

One thing to remember for this course is that specific features of a product are only important if they can fit in with the models we're talking about in some way. Otherwise, talking about features comes down to "it's good if you make good stuff", which isn't helpful.

Some thoughts. I'm not telling you which way to go, but you have to set a direction quickly:
 * revenue: How do search engines make money?
 * competition: What competitors are there? How do they compete with each other?
 * specialization: Do some search engines specialize?
 * international: How does competition work internationally?
 * search engine optimization: How do people "game the system" to get their products listed high on search results? Is this bad for the search engine companies, and if so, how do they combat it?
 * How do search engines work in general?
 * On the cost side, how expensive is it to run a search engine? Are there economies of scale?
 * Is the search engine market tippy? TDang (talk) 21:23, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

ECON 452 first midterm class reviews
Please put your reviews for the class assignment here. you may make your review into a sub-section of this section, or just a paragraph. Make sure the reader can identify your review, and make sure to include your signature. TDang (talk) 00:33, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Review
This is a very good overview of how search engines work. Aside from a few grammatical errors, it was very clear and easy to understand. That being said I feel like there are a few ideas that should be expanded upon. I think you should add more background under the section "Search Engine Optimization" because it is confusing. I also feel like you should add a section where you talk about what differentiates the search engines. I agree that it is a tippy market, however, I feel like you should talk about how the search engines are attempting to attract more users to their site, such as Bing's advertising campaign about "The Decision Engine." Also, I think you should discuss the search engines the way we have discussed networks in class. ie. Is it two sided? Open/Closed maybe? Other than these few tweaks I think it is well done. Greeko (talk) 18:44, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Review #2
Overall I think your team did a good job on the explanation of search engines. You were very thorough in your description. A couple of things I would like to suggest that you do. Maybe you can describe the differences between the search engines. Why is it that Google is the most popular? Also you may want to expand on the idea of image search. I'm not and searching for videos etc. Does it just use the keywords to find the image or is it more complex than that? Also you may want to expand some on Google's new instant search feature. How does this change the search engine business? How do Yahoo and Bing respond to this? Additionally you may want to develop some more on the support by advertisers. Who are the largest advertisers? With all these suggestions you just need to make some small grammar fixes and you will have yourself a good description! Lobbster (talk) 03:10, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Review #3
I thought your group’s report on search engines was very interesting and thorough. All of the topics were easily understood and explained very well so even people without knowledge of search engines could understand it. I also really liked that there were a good amount of statistics used to back up examples, it makes everything more concrete. I agree with the other reviews and you should expand more on advertising and competition between search engines. And expand more on how Google’s new instant search will change the way we browse the internet. One thing I would like to see you expand on would be the censorship in other countries and how Google has to work around that, are there other countries that censor? What kind of information do they censor? Poppy1 (talk) 03:50, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Review #4
I really appreciated the amount of research that went into this page. Your stats are great and it is very well written. I think you might consider exdpanding the section on innovation though. I know google has a search engine out now that searches by photo, meaning you take a picture of something and then google searches the internet for that item, whether it be a book cover, movie, landmark, building etc. Also I think your group could do some more analyzation on how the competition is encroaching on Google's business. Are they doing anything better or different? Overall though a very good page and a great start! Jls324 (talk) 05:15, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

TDang review
I'm reviewing this version:


 * I'd recommend pulling the material on Google AdSense which was done previously, and including it in your section.
 * Good use of references.
 * The material here is really good. The writing can be a bit hard to read, so polishing the writing will be important.
 * Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo all have other businesses besides search, (although I don't know how important that is for Yahoo). Describing how their search business fits with their other businesses would be helpful.
 * Search engines are both about finding information, and about limiting that information to the most relevant. Discussing how the search engines handle this would be helpful. For instance, Google has special, separate search ares for images/news/scholarly articles/shopping, etc. Also, I expect there are reviews/comparisons of how "good" the search results are from the different search engines.
 * I'm left suspecting that you've covered most of what needs to be covered, with some additional ideas above. So I'm going to suggest a related task to help you fill up your entry. If you find enough to do while staying focused on search engine business models, then you may ignore this. Internet search has made it significantly easier to compare prices, particularly among online vendors. Google and Bing also both have "shopping" specific searches. How has this affected price competition? TDang (talk) 18:59, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

ECON 452 second midterm class reviews
Please put your reviews for the class assignment here. You may make your review into a sub-section of this section, or just a paragraph. Make sure the reader can identify your review, and make sure to include your signature.TDang (talk) 17:25, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Second Midterm Review
The content appears to all be relevant to the topic, but there are several small issues that immediately caught my eye:

1. In the first paragraph you site a source saying "..According to Hitwise the top five search engines as of 10/09/10.." This fact is very inter

esting, but then again under the header "Competition" you mention "..This idea is further reinforced by market share research that shows Google at #1.." and proceed to list the percentages. There is no listing of a date this data was retrieved, but it is sited. I would suggest either removing one of them or making some kind of reference as to which one is more or less current.

2.The information on google china in the "International Competition" section is very interesting! Perhaps you could add to this section and discuss how google has dealt with these issues or how its strategy has changed as a result of these restrictions.

"Lark Mohr (talk) 22:20, 8 November 2010 (UTC)"

3. Make sure you correct the citation error "google.com/cse/homecx=006754054018267878976:e9evukygnxw" in the "Specialization" section.

4. The "Costs" section could use some fine tuning / rewording.

5. The "Techniques" section is interesting but a little more explanation and rewording would be very useful. I'm not quite sure i understand the general concepts of using and avoiding crawling.

Overall there is a lot of really good information! The group is doing a great job so far, the only other corrections i would suggest making would be to go back through and reword a few of the sections. Keep up the good work!

"Lark Mohr (talk) 00:47, 9 November 2010 (UTC)"

My Review

I think the team did a good overall job researching and preparing and documenting the topic. The search engine optimization section was really insightful. However, In the competition section, it’s been mentioned that the search engine market is a tippy market due to “supply” side economies of scale, and low test for variety. I really am not sure if this statement is accurate, especially that the supply side economies of scale in the search engine business is debatable. And even if it exist, the dynamic of the economies is that it gives certain companies cost advantage so they can sell their product at a lower cost. In case of the search engines, most if not all search engines provide the search service free of charge, so the economies of scale are somehow irrelevant. Regarding google domination of the search engine market, I think the reason go beyond the low test of variety, for instance, google relies on a simplicity that many other search engines lack. It's fast, reliable, easy to use, and user friendly. And most importantly, The search algorithm seems to bring the most relevant items to the top, unlike other search engine that will show the paying websites higher up on the search result, google refused to do that, instead, google sets these websites aside as “sponsored links” Wmosman (talk) 03:10, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

From the first paragraph, we all know that Google and Bing (which already merged with yahoo!) are ranked at first and second place. Therefore under the “competition” section, they compare with Google and Bing. And on the “international competition”, Baidu is famous and ranks at the first place of searching engine. Also, Baidu is forced to sign and agree with "Golden Shield Project", like what Google did. The reason why Chinese are using Baidu more Google is, Baidu is originally from china, and it already got their stable consumers before Google entered Chinese search engine market. In addition, I don’t think that Baidu voluntarily censors all materials which could possibly break the regulations of the Chinese government. GOOGLE left the Chinese mainland market, and force their market in Hong Kong, which called google.hk. On the review #3, I am not sure the citation error "google.com/cse/homecx=006754054018267878976:e9evukygnxw" in the "Specialization" section. And under the Techniques section, the crawling maybe means some tools work with searching engine, like Yahoo Directory and Google language tools. These may help increase consumers. Overall, the team did a awesome job! "Lishan (talk) 07:25, 9 November 2010 (UTC)"

Second Midterm Review

Could improve organization of the project on a whole by grouping related parts together. These changes would help organize the project better:

-First section after the beginning summary should be “Competition” section and should have a subsection be “International Competition”.

-Second section should be “Specialization” section and should have subsections be “Search Engine Optimization” and “Reviews/Comparisons”.

-Third section should be “Revenue” section and should have a subsection be “Google Adsense”. Maybe try adding more information throughout about revenue changes when significant advances were made to each search engine.

-“Costs” should either be the fourth section and should have a little more information on costs of other companies besides Google, or be combined with “competition” if it only talks about Google.

Raptime21 (talk) 09:14, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

"Second Review" Thought the revenue section was a nice start, maybe include some actual figures on average of what companies have to pay to advertise on engines such as Google. For competition, As stated in one of the earlier reviews i am not sure that the search engine market is tippy. Bing's recent surge in popularity shows users are looking for something different than Google, as even their advertisements promote them as providing more defined results. As a user myself, I will go to different engines depending on what I am searching, which leaves me with a more than low taste for variety. In the costs section, the numbers on google are interesting. Perhaps compare those costs google endures to some of the other top engines costs. In the Strengths and weaknesses category under google adsense, i was wondering if there is anything setup by google adsense to try and control abuse, is there a way they can even account for that? Is there an upper limit to the advertising costs? Overall I think the page is heading in the right direction for the project, it flows nicely and there is some good interesting data presented. Nice references, seems like all info is coming from multiple credible sources. Scher21 (talk)

TDang review

 * Writing still needs polishing. I assume that different group members concentrated on different sections, and that's why the sections read differently. It's time to go through the whole article for readability, and possibly select your one or two best prose-writers to do the polishing.
 * Phrasing should be more formal. I'm particularly noticing the word "ad", which should in most cases be "advertising" or "advertisement".
 * Look again at the introduction. Think about it in relation to everything else that's written in the article. If there are particular facts in the introduction they should be setting the stage for later material. Things like rankings of the search engines belong in later sections.
 * The "Revenue" section has good material, but it should possibly be re-organized. One possibility would be to combine it with the Google AdSense material, using the AdSense material as expanded detail on one part of Google's revenue model.
 * In the section on competition, addressing the Microsoft/Yahoo alliance is good. Some of the writing is off: "The effects of this merger can be thought of in terms of Network Externalities. Microsoft has basically made this a two car race and in doing so has increased the size of it's network. Microsoft has essentially cornered a third of the market through its merger and can now offer advertisers a much larger audience to pander to." This is off for a few reasons:
 * It's not clear where the network externalities are. That's true for search engines generally-there's obviously large supply-side economies of scale, but it's not clear there are particular demand-side economies of scale (from the searcher's or advertiser's point of view). By increasing the size of their audience, MS/Yahoo may have improvements in costs (supply-side economies of scale) and may be more appealing to advertisers.
 * "cornered a third of the market" A market is cornered if it is wholly (or nearly wholly) controlled-cornering a third of a market is an oxymoron.
 * "larger audience to pander to" "pander" is a negative term, it may be true although it's more often applied to content providers than advertisers, but in any case, a more neutral term should be selected.
 * The "International Competition" section is good, but specific to China. Possibly give some mention of other countries (I believe Yahoo is still popular in Japan?), but then give extra details on China? Are any of the "50 various services" Baidu provides strategically important, or are the just random, unrelated services?
 * The section on Specialization needs work. It looks right now as if it's combining discussion of specialized web searching with database searches for non-web stuff (I'm guessing that the reference to Jegs is http://www.jegs.com/, and it looks like that is searching their database of parts). Database searching generally would have to be a different section of the book. For speciality web searching:
 * Are there any companies which are successful offering "niche" web-searching capabilities? We expect that kind of thing in many markets, but maybe the economies of scale are too large in the search engine market.
 * What are some specialty search environments that Google, Bing, Yahoo offer? Are they truly separate from the main engine, or just cosmetically different? (For example, It looks to me as if [Google Scholar] offers a moderate level of specialization beyond general Google Search, both in how the search takes place and in how it's delivered. I don't know, just going by appearance.)
 * How do the specialty search environments actually interact strategically with the more common environment?
 * Costs section:
 * This is about costs, don't introduce it by talking about revenues, put that somewhere else.
 * "I'm feeling lucky"-This shouldn't really be considered a cost. It may cause a reduction in revenue, but that's different. It is interesting, and worth mentioning, but should be moved elsewhere.
 * If it's possible to breakdown costs more, that would be great (I haven't looked at your sources, so I'm not sure what's possible). It would be wonderful to get a feel for how much of Google's costs go to maintaining its current services (electricity, systems administrators, cleaners, rent, ...) versus developing new services or improving existing ones.
 * Search Engine Optimization section needs editing for writing clarity. I'm not sure I agree with the stuff listed under "techniques", but it may be that I just don't understand.
 * AdSense: I know I suggested importing this from another section, so it's not something you've done, but you can still improve it. Right now, it's unclear about the distinction between getting your ad to appear in Google search results (which I believe is "AdWords") versus getting advertising revenue on your non-Google sire by letting Google put ads there (which I think is "AdSense"). It should be clear what's what, and how they relate.
 * If you wanted to expand the AdSense section, it would be good to compare Google's ad-placement service with other businesses which offer similar services (I randomly found Project Wonderful for instance.)
 * The "Reviews/Comparisons" section is a bit too specific about features. There will be a variety of differences in features between any of the search engines, but we don't need to look at them unless they offer a clear advantage, or illustrate some more general point. This section could be left off. Better, it could try to summarize some important reviews/comparisons of the search engines. So, you would want to find very influential reviewers and summarize some of what they say in comparing search engines.

General Comments: This is still overall a good section. There's plenty above which could be done to make it better. Some other things which could improve it:
 * More detail on the history of web search competition. How did things get the way they are now?
 * More on Microsoft & Yahoo's strategies
 * More on investments in innovation
 * Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo all have other businesses besides search, (although I don't know how important that is for Yahoo). Describing how their search business fits with their other businesses would be helpful. (I said this previously, but feel like it's still not adequately addressed.)TDang (talk) 18:30, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Econ 452 Review
There is no doubt that the page Strategy for Information Markets/Search Engine Business Models contains a lot of information on search engines. There are facts about market shares (both domestically and internationally), revenue structures, and strategies for increasing profits for all of the major search engines. With all of the facts, however, the page seems to lack a real purpose. I understand that it is supposed to explain the different business models, but it doesn't really give a "so what" afterwards. Sure, knowing the different strategies search engine giants like Google use does help give examples of the model, but a more general example would be just as helpful. To make the explanation more complete, a section on the relevance of the model should be added. This section could explain why this model is being analyzed and give reasons as to what it strives the reader to take away from reading about this model. In addition, it might be useful to give more comparisons to alternative business models to further demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses (i.e. Does a search engine like Google behave like a monopoly, or does it have characteristics of more than one type of industry? How would the business model fair outside the internet? How does it compare to television marketing? etc.). Additionally, cleaning up the facts in the page would help the page's validity and clarity. For instance, Google is mentioned to have 97% of its revenues come from advertising at the beginning of the page, but then is said to gain 98% of its revenues from advertising towards the end of the page. This leaves the reader questioning which percentage is correct, and it ultimately leads the reader to question the validity of the other stats used throughout the page. Clearing up the facts and providing a "so what" at the end of the page would help improve the overall quality of the page.

NCHS2UA (discuss • contribs) 07:20, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Audit of the article

 * Tried fixing formatting to avoid article being second person.
 * Demographics aren't the only thing that google data mines. Replaced "consumer demographics" with "consumer types" under the Adsense section.
 * The last sentence under the Economic Impact subsection could use some elaboration. How has AdSense been a "downfall" for Google?
 * Is "Publishers cannot use deceptive tactics in order to increase views on their advertisements" really a weakness? I think this actually makes information less asymmetrical between potential buyers and sellers, which is a generally a good thing for both entities (see the Wikipedia entry for Adverse Selection) [[image:smile.png]]
 * Cosmopolite (discuss • contribs) 01:13, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

TDang review April 2012
I suggested early on that those of you working on either this page or the Google advertising page should keep an eye on the other page so they would make sense and complement each other. It appears that there are a lot of redundancies between the two pages however. I'm going to deal with that by wholesale cutting the Google advertising page and combining it with this one. That will make a mess, but will make the redundancies more obvious.

Now that I've combined, I'm reviewing this version. I'll likely be more critical than complimentary, because (a) that's the way I am and (b) that's what will help improve things. Please don't take the criticism-over-compliments to mean I have a wholly negative view.

Make sure to check the all-purpose review thoughts as well.

TDang (discuss • contribs) 22:40, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Big goal: merge the stuff which I sloppily combined into a single coherent page.
 * Mostly write bookishly: "advertising", "advertisement", etc. instead of "ads"
 * "A search engine is a system operating under a certain strategy and application of specific computer programs on the internet that gathers and organizes information and then transmits information to its users and provides search services for users." That sentence should be re-written much shorter.
 * Introduction prose--mostly this is good information, but the writing style is a bit awkward, and should be cleaned up in grammar.
 * SERP--If this term isn't going to be used more in this particular book, then it's not worth introducing it.
 * "For instance, Google earns 97% of its revenue from ads."--This is a very worthwhile bit of information, and referenced appropriately. However, since it's something which could change over time, it should be given in a way which will still be accurate when conditions change. For instance "In 2012, Google said it earned 97% of its revenue from advertising."
 * "Search engines began with text based searches..." this last paragraph of the introduction is snippets of interesting things about search. However, it's not clear how it relates to business models. It should probably be removed, or made into its own section ("Changing features of search engines" or something like that) and elaborated in a way which shows something about the business models not just the product features.
 * "People often ask the question, "How do search engines make money?" This is a valid question since search engines do not charge a fee for searches. Typically, the answer is advertising."--This could be shortened something simple like "Search engines typically make their revenue by carrying advertisements."
 * Project Wonderful--There are lots of small companies doing anything imaginable. Possibly Project Wonderful is an important innovator, but you would need to find someone else (business or technology journalist, for instance) to say that Project Wonderful is worth paying attention to before giving it attention on this page. If someone reliable says that Project Wonderful is worth paying attention to, and their model is different enough than the big companies, then giving them space here is appropriate. The overall tone needs to be less complimentary, however.
 * Vickrey auctions--Here is one possible reference on Google using Vickrey auctions. Here is a more academic paper.
 * Economic Impact--The internet is economically extremely important, and Google is a huge player on the internet, but this section seems like it's not saying enough and should be cut out.
 * Strengths/Weakness--This kind of strength/weakness analysis could be useful, but doesn't make a lot of sense in the current state of this page. It should probably be updated to make it clearer (or possibly removed).
 * Yahoo! and adCenter--This section reads like it's promoting adCenter. It needs to be rewritten to be more neutral in tone. Also, it needs to highlight any substantial differences in the business models between Yahoo and Google.
 * Competition--There's a lot of stuff here.
 * The history aspect of this should probably go early on the page and be referred to as "History". (and it should be referenced)
 * "Although the market appears to be tipping in the direction of Google..."--This kind of thing could go at the end of the history section in something like "the state of the market in 2012"
 * "In Japan, Yahoo! Japan ranks as the No.1 search engine website holding a 57% market share..." This could also be part of "the state of the market"
 * Thoughts on organizing this page:
 * Separate the revenue models from the search algorithms.
 * For the search algorithms, just go into them a little bit. Discussing the nature of human-indexed web directories versus something like PageRank is worthwhile. Describing any differences between how Yahoo!, Google, and Bing now handle their search engines is worthwhile. Any mention of SEO belongs with this stuff.
 * For revenue models, separate into:
 * Advertising on the search engine's own pages
 * Ad-server models like AdSense
 * Other models
 * Specialization--This section is interesting, but unreferenced without concrete examples. I'm afraid it should be pulled out. If it stays, it needs to be framed differently. For instance, are those specialized search engines really web search or some other kind of search?
 * "One major contributor to Google's costs is their very own "I'm feeling lucky" section on their homepage."--This is interesting, but I wouldn't describe it as a "cost"
 * Search Engine Optimization--This is interesting from an information-aggregation point of view, since SEO 'usually implies making a search engine less efficient at delivering what the searcher wants, to replace it with what the optimizer wants them to see.
 * However, this material reads as kind of a "So you want to do SEO?" promotional text. It should be written for an economist/analyst thinking about SEO. For instance, "First, you need to know where you rank in search engine result pages. If you don’t know your current SEO, you won’t know if your efforts are working unless you continuously monitor your ranking and have a baseline to measure from." should be cut out. It should all be re-written so it's not addressed to "you".
 * Google Analytics--There's too much unnecessary information here. We don't need to fully describe Google's products/services. Is there something about Google Analytics which is interesting to an economist studying search engine business models? If not, pull the whole section out. If there is, shorten the section and explain it.
 * "The majority of these purchases major and minor are to protect and bolster their market share on online advertising."--This needs to be supported by a reference.
 * "Currently the 20 most expensive Adwords are..."--Instead of "currently" (since this should still be valid in 5 years), phrase it as something like. "As of this writing in 2012...". Also, a list of 20 words is much more than is needed. Top 5 is kinda interesting. Top 20 is spam.
 * "Refer to the image for a visual description on how the bidding system works."--Since the image won't be included, pull it out and the text which refers to it.
 * References
 * howstuff works is not a good reference
 * http://www.davidgreen.me.uk is not a good reference
 * http://www.havemacwillblog.com doesn't seem likely to be a good reference, and doesn't seem to be working in any case.
 * Wikipedia isn't a good reference
 * zibbet.com doesn't look like a good reference
 * http://www.clickz.com doesn't look like a good reference.
 * In the list of references, there are a number of duplicates. That's much better than not having the references there, but when the exact same reference is used more than once, the multiple uses can be combined and it's much cleaner. Go look at how I do it with my reference to Information Rules here.