PGTS Journal Edition 0020
November, 2003

November Feedback

Once again not much happening this month. A slow trickle of mail from hopeful applicants continue to this site. However there is nothing available at PGTS.

Feedback is also very light this month.

Not Looking So Smart ...

Last month (October) saw Search Engine LookSmart in trouble (according to an article published in The Age). MSN has decided to dump LookSmart, and the decision will gouge a large hole in the SE's projected revenue.

Of course, many would-be industry pundits have long considered that paid listings in Search Engines is bound to be a booming business. And to date, they have consistently been proven wrong. Which begs the question of why journalists continue to regurgitate the same unthinking pap? It seems that many of the lessons that should have been learned from the dot-com meltdown still have not been learnt. It should be apparent by now that there is something fundamentally wrong with the paid-for-listings business model. If anyone wants to study a business model of working search engine, then Google is a classic example. The reason for the success of Google has been in no small part due to the fact that, at the outset, the company decided not to use a payment for listings model.

So what next for Microsoft? The article in The Age speculates that they are in the process of building their own Search Engine ... Microsoft build a Search Engine ???!!! Now, I'd really like to see that! (Been a while since I had a truly deep and hearty belly laugh).