There's More Than One Search Business Model

I suspect billions of people will be happy to receive their answers to complicated queries directly on the search results page, uninterested in where the information comes from, so long as it’s accurate enough.

But to everyone who depended even a little bit on web search to have their business discovered, or their blog post read, or their journalism... See more

Early on, as a search technology company, we worried about Verity, PLS, Open Text. We were too young to realize that existing companies' biggest problem is legacy. Period. They can't focus on new businesses because they've got to manage their old ones. And so when we moved to web search, it was never clear to us that Verity, PLS, and Open Text woul

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The next Google will look nothing like Google. While there is a big opportunity for companies like DuckDuckGo or Neeva that primarily compete on a single vector (e.g. privacy) but otherwise replicate the Google experience, I am excited about those creating a new, more engaging, personal, and contextualized search experience. This may look like a si... See more

That meant there were three strategies available to media companies looking to survive on the Internet. First, cater to Google. This meant a heavy emphasis on both speed and SEO, and an investment in anticipating and creating content to answer consumer questions. Or you could cater to Facebook, which meant a heavy emphasis on click-bait and human i... See more