The Big Boys Come Out to Play

June 1, 2006

I see that Yahoo! and eBay are joining forces to some extent as they embark on new online ventures focused on advertising (Yahoo! is providing advertising exclusively on eBay) and online payments (you can now pay for Yahoo! services via PayPal, which is owned by eBay).

More eBay product listings are set to show up in Yahoo!’s results, while eBay will show some of Yahoo!’s paid search results within eBay’s search result pages. And both companies are working together to develop click-to-call advertising on their sites (Yahoo! has Yahoo! Messenger with voice; eBay owns Skype).

Amazon dropped Google in favor of Microsoft’s Windows Live to provide search results for its Alexa toolbar and A9 search engine.

Dell and Google have made what was reputedly a $1-million-deal that will see Dell preinstall Google desktop on its computers. The default browser home page will also be sponsored by both companies. Google already pays Mozilla to display the Google search box as the default on the popular Firefox browser — and Firefox has an 11% (and growing) market share.

What all this means for the humble web user is more choice. After all, competition generally leads to lower prices, better service and more choice.

Of course, if one of these big players becomes overwhelmingly successful in all areas, then our choices might be more limited. But at present, this kind of good, healthy competition keeps them all on their toes and the ultimate winners are you and me — the people using their products.

Source: Site Point Newsletter

Posted in Webmaster Corner