Mar
3
Microsoft and me-too-ism
Filed Under MSN Search, Search Engines | Leave a Comment
I wish they’d stop making remarks making comparisons and about competing with Google. Threads like this one at WebmasterWorld, and the article it’s about, have really started to bother me:
Microsoft better than Google soon
"What we're saying is that in six months' time we'll be more relevant in the U.S. market place than Google," said Neil Holloway, Microsoft president for Europe, Middle East and Africa.
"The quality of our search and the relevance of our search from a solution perspective to the consumer will be more relevant," he told the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit.
First of all, they’re making predictions and claims about what’s supposed to happen in the future, and they have no way of knowing, at this point in time, whether it will actually turn out to be so. If not, that type of boasting ends up looking pretty foolish. And even if so, even if does turn out that way, it’s *still* the wrong approach.
Microsoft has been around for quite a while - maybe not in search, but in other ways. They’ve got their own image, “corporate personality” (every company has a unique personality) and their own following. Why should they be putting Google up on a pedestal, as the model to look up to in order to compete, surpass or otherwise achive excellence and make their mark? Why not identify their own unique identity and strong points, and rather than mimic, try to build and reach the public based upon what they themselves have to offer, on their own?
I know that plenty of people are knocking MSN Search as being a crappy search engine at this point, and it makes me feel bad because I really believe that there are seriously committed, competent, good people who care deeply about what they’re working on and are determined and devoted to creating the best search they possibly can.
People who don’t operate in certain niches more than likely aren’t aware of it, but it’s not possible for those who do operate in those niches and reach certain target markets to fail to appreciate the type of following MSN Search has, and how beneficial and profitable their traffic can be to sites that fit in with the needs of the target markets that are reached through Microsoft search.
Rather than aim toward surpassing Google as the engine of choice for the sophisticated crowd, the techies and geeks and the like, why not acknowledge that it isn’t such a bad thing to be the search engine of choice for the average man - or rather, should I say the average woman - who’s a down-to-earth, simple middle-class family or empty nest type person, has trusted Microsoft for years, and now trusts and uses their search engine?
There’s nothing wrong with targeting or being middle-America; that’s what most of us are.