The value of NBCi (was Re: GoTo Policy Change)

From: Michael Martinez <Michael_at_xenite.org>
Date: Thu 12 Apr 2001 10:07:57 -0600

MIKE GOLBY <mikeg_at_laragh.co.za> WROTE:

>And finally, NBCi? Do you really think so? Is it not more
>likely than an outfit like Terra Lycos to go the same way
>as Go?

TO WHICH MICHAEL MARTINEZ <Michael_at_xenite.org> REPLIED:

>I guess that depends on what NBC hopes to achieve with
>NBCi. They bought, at the very least, a Web-hosting company
>(Xoom), a search engine (Snap), and some other services to
>create the NBCi brand. They've also built partnerships with
>other services. And NBCi has gotten a ton of advertising
>on both NBC and MSNBC, from what I understand.
>
>So, are they meeting their objectives? If so, I don't think
>there is much chance of NBCi going away.

[snip]

>Upon closer inspection, I see some real strength in NBCi.
>It's got a two-tier directory structure which is
>unparalleled in the search service industry. You have a
>reasonable shot in many categories of getting a first
>page placement even though you aren't listed in the
>reviewed sites. I also like the fact that you can review
>your sites' progress and revise the listings. In fact, I
>don't think NBCi has edited any of my listings (although I'm
>getting to be pretty good at writing generic listings the
>directories will mostly accept).

[snip]

>Given today's industry, my money is on Yahoo! + Google,
>AOL/DMOZ + Inktomi, and either MSN or NBCi. Lycos is out
>there, but they aren't exactly chewing up the competition.
>I don't think Excite is going to do well in the long-run,
>either. And I just can't see Altavista hanging on to what
>they've got. Their market share is already eroding. But,
>ultimately, I like NBCi over MSN.

Well, they do say things change quickly in the search
service industry. Today as I write this, NBC has announced
they are buying back all outstanding shares in NBCi and
they have yet to decide what to do with the assets, but
it appears that the NBCi staff is being let go or
reintegrated into NBC.

The marketing behind NBCi may be credited with part of the
service's failure. They didn't aggressively explain to the
surfing public (with their $220 million in advertising
credits) the value of the company. So, even people like
me didn't pay much attention to what is a very good search
service.

The overall collapse of the dot-com industry undoubtedly
had more to do with this decision than anything else, I'm
sure. The collapse isn't just reflected in lower
advertising revenues and deflated stock prices. It's
also reflected in the loss of potential alternative revenue
streams. There are fewer companies able to afford to pay
large listing fees, fewer potential partnerships, etc.
The pool of available cross-media suppliers may be
dwindling at a rate faster than anyone expected.

http://www2.marketwatch.com/news/yhoo/story.asp?source=blq/yhoo&siteid=yhoo&dist=yhoo&guid=%7B1B1DBED9%2DE838%2D40D8%2DB235%2DE2CB7E1FEDEE%7D

On the other hand, MSN seems to be gaining market share
faster than I anticipated. The first indication of MSN's
serious growth came from Websnapshot:

http://websnapshot.mycomputer.com/searchengines.html

There is a problem with this data, in that its sources
are strictly companies which participate in Websnapshot's
program. So the percentages of actual market share are
skewed. Nonetheless, elswhere I recently predicted that
MSN would hit ten per cent market share by the summer.
They may not actually have hit that mark in real percentages,
but if not they are close.

I expect, if all things remain equal, MSN will probably
top out around 15 per cent. But they have indicated there
are some other things coming down the line:

http://www.webposition.com/mp-current.htm#THREE

On the other hand, Altavista has recently dedesigned
its submission service, and they have stopped automated
submissions dead in their tracks. I don't know if this
will be enough to turn Altavista around in terms of its
eroding market share. On the one hand, they are going
to allowed unlimited submission of content by hand, and
they are promising indexing within one week. On the other
hand, it's not who is submitting content to them that
determines how their market share performs. Rather,
it's how well they perform as a search service, and the
quality has declined steadily at Altavista over the last
few months. If they can eliminate the duplicate listings
from real content sites (for example, http://www.site.name/
and http://site.name/ frequently show up as separate
listings even in cluster results, where all pages from a
given site are represented by one page) and if they can
cut down on sub-domain abuse (where substantially similar
content from primary domains is being listed separately)
without hurting free Web-space providers (such as
Freeservers.Com, who offer sub-domain name hosting on
numerous domains), then Altavista may become the darling
of Web surfers again.

But right now surfers are tired of having to slog through
the duplicate results. Altavista blames search engine
spammers and automated submission programs for many of
their problems, but the fact is that bad programming is
hurting them more than anything else. Maybe now they
can turn their attention to cleaning up the mess THEY
have made of their index.

And, for the time being, I don't put much stock in the
Yahoo! layoff rumors, but I'll change my tune quickly
enough if they announce layoffs on Wednesday. I'm
hoping Yahoo! will cut costs through attrition first.
If they start hitting their editorial staff, which is
already overwhelmed with submissions (to the point
that the free submissions process is no longer a
viable route for many sites), then the quality of
the directory service will decline even further.

Michael Martinez
 Science Fiction and Fantasy info_at_xenite.org
  Visualizing Middle-earth, a book for all Tolkien fans
   http://www.xenite.org/



Received on Thu Apr 12 2001 - 11:07:57 CDT