Re: ONLINE-ADS>> We CAN live without Yahoo!

Ray Taylor (taylor_at_bizbiz.com)
Tue, 10 Mar 1998 19:47:18 +0000

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Mark J. Welch wrote:

> Maybe I'm naieve, but don't Yahoo and AltaVista each need hardware
> and bandwidth that probably cost tens of thousands of dollars per month
> (assuming the hardware is leased)? I agree that a hundred thousand
> dollars would be a good start to create a "better-than-Yahoo" index,
> although I suspect the real cost to do it right would be closer to a
> million dollars. But just creating the index is not enough: you need
> to deliver it to millions of web surfers daily, which adds to the cost and
> programming complexity. Scaling is a Big Deal, as we have consistently
> seen in every web enterprise's growing pains.
>
> There is also a cost to hire editorial staff, and programming staff.
> If the new service were successful in drawing websurfers, I suspect
> it might cost a million dollars a year just to battle the "index spammers."

Yes, hardware and bandwidth costs could be high. But not nearly as high
as Alta Vista where they use their hardware very inefficiently (by not
cleaning up the database).

Delivery to millions of users is obviously important. But if you keep a
control of the growth, and plan each increase in capacity alongside
increase in media support, then you should also bring in the additional
revenues needed to underwrite the cost of the increase in
(hardware/bandwith) implementation.

Cost of hiring staff? Another scaling issue.

But battling the spam? If any such project did not solve the problem of
spam right from the start, there would be no point in going ahead with
the project.

But you are quite right, the cost could creep up.

On reflection, I'll settle for $1 million. Any takers?

Ray Taylor
Vice-President Optimism
New Media Communications
London

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