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Yahoo Buying Inktomi
soldack writes "Byte And Switch has a story about Yahoo buying Inktomi. I imagine they will stop using Google. What does this mean for both Google and Yahoo? How much of Google's traffic came from Yahoo? How much is going to come from AOL using Google?" markpapadakis adds a link to CNET's story on same.
How large is Inktomi, and how well does it index the pages?
Does Yahoo still control a majority of users? I would have expected that MSN would have the greatest portal penetration simply by being the default home-page under windows, and most people I know have been using Google for their searching for a couple of years now (And I mean non-technical users)...Is Yahoo even that relevant any more?
does anyone else think yahoo made this move because google has become a bit more of a portal of late, i.e. google news? there is no doubt google has the superior search technology, but i think yahoo is a little upset that google seems to be trying to be more than 'just search'.
it'll be interesting to see if any overt enmity develops between these two stanford-born businesses....
smd4985
Inktomi gave up their general full-Web search years ago, in favor of selling embedded search services / software to Web site owners. If you look at their site, they also promote their expertise in the second-ickiest of Internet businesses: search engine placement. Yahoo has probably decided that the Inktomi search software is the best available for outright purchase, especially with their ad-placement programs in place.
Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
Which is approximately as news-worthy.
Yahoo is one of Google's biggest customers--not only in the somewhat significant "hits" catagory, but the more important "licensing" catagory. Yahoo pays Google real cash--and this helps Google.
However, Yahoo is also one of Google's biggest customers. Eventually this was going to come to and end--and it just did IMO.
I'm sure many if not most of people looking to search will head to Google, but the Yahoo partnership was/is a boon for Google.
To me, Yahoo just called for a fight.
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
Yahoo needs Google more than Google needs Yahoo. Google is one of the few sites on the internet that could go subscription only and still do very well long term. If Yahoo goes subscription for all of its services, people will just move on to another portal. Sure I love that Google is free, but considering how useful Google is I would certainly pay say $19 or more a year for its services. In fact I couldn't imagine an Internet without Google, I'm too reliant on it to go without it. I've tried some of the newer search engines, but really none of them are even close to being as accurate as Google. I'd rather go back to surfing the web with Mosaic than give up Google.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Search engines are being bought up left and right, and the price keeps going up.
Teoma bought by Ask Jeeves ($4M).
Wisenut bought by Looksmart ($9M).
Inktomi bought by Yahoo ($235M).
Ask Jeeves realized its search technology didn't work, and bought Teoma. Looksmart, now a "search placement" provider, realized no one would look at its commercial listings if they didn't give users some non-commercial search content as well. Yahoo seems to have come to the same conclusion, after farming out to google, etc. If they want to make revenue, they seem to have realized that they have to invest in some original technology.
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
One lasting contribution Inktomi made
was validating Networks of Workstations
in a commercial context. Remember, at the
time they started, the chief competition
was (DEC-era) AltaVista, which used
the search engine as an example application
for multi-way SMP boxes. Today, you don't
see >2-way SMP used in massive deployments
of applications that are easy to parallelize,
but back when Inktomi started NoW's were novel.