Winning Online

All the renewed discussions of a Microsoft-Yahoo partnership only put in stark relief the dominance that Google has over the entire search universe.    According to Nielsen Online, in this previous month of March, Google had 64.2 percent of all searches on the internet happening through their search engine.  Yahoo was #2, at 15.8 percent; MSN was #3 at 10.3 percent.

The fact a Microsoft-Yahoo alliance would not even bring the two within half of the search sphere of Google raises the question whether the move is worth it.  And, I believe that the two joining forces is not even a true two-equals-one proposition, but one where the sum of the parts are potentially less than the proposed whole.  Unless one of the two can bring something above and beyond - something innovative - to the table, what will make searchers take their queries away from Google and its almighty algorithms to another place?  Sure, a combo would help the two companies make up some ground in aggregate, but even with this partnership it still comes down to this: what will they offer - or create - that will compel people?