Where Microsoft and Yahoo! Can Beat Google (pfblogs.org)

With the acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft looking ever more likely, it's time for the future combined entity (yes, that's right - MicroHoo) to face reality. If the purpose of the merger is to beat Google at search, then it will fail. Google has won the search wars - get over it. Google is now the web's default home page and every potential competitor needs to accept this and figure out how to co-exist. Does this mean MicroHoo is doomed to failure? No - not if they focus their resources in the right areas. If MicroHoo lets Google own search, it opens up the rest of the web to compete in and dominate. Here are the three most important steps MicroHoo needs to take: Stop producing content. As CNET has learned, producing content is expensive and the margins are horrible. Google does not have writers, editors and producers on staff. Google seeks to organize the web's content, not produce it. Both Microsoft and Yahoo have lots of people generating content and as long as resources are going into this area, MicroHoo's margins will never get close to Google's. Instead of producing the content internally, focus on becoming the platform on which users generate their own content. Both Microsoft and Yahoo have jumped on the user generated content bandwagon to a ...