Well, we simply organize the search results by search engine under a heading
with their banner advertisement (if any).
Raisch continues:
> Ads from competitors might potentially
>appear on the same page, gathered from different sources, and
>this reduces the perceived value to the advertiser -- which
>reduces the fee the advertiser is willing to pay.
Maybe, but not necessarily. I completely agree with Raisch's analogy of
earch engines with traditional media such as magazines. Search engines
publish indices (or, more accurately, partial views of indices). What
magazines and other advertisment-based publications do best is bring
together advertisors and readers who might use those products. While it is
undeniable that an advertisor would prefer that readers never heard about
their competitors, the presence of competitors doesn't stop them from
advertising if the audience is a desirable one. Think about it: how many
competing beer or car manufacturers advertise during the same game? How
many competing technologies advertise in Wired?
I also agree with what I suspect is behind Raisch's view: that probably the
whole idea of advertising-based Web services is broken backed in the long
run. _Suck_ has covered a lot of this ground recently.
> If you modify
>the page, reaping the benefits of the search without paying for it,
>you are working at odds with those who provide this service.
I disagree. First, the whole idea of reaping benefit from others' labor
applies equally well to standard search engines: they make hay out of the
poor HTML scribe's labor. But that's not the right way to think about it.
I think it is better to think about it this way: search engines add value to
those who publish on the Web by making their stuff accessible. Agents like
WebCompass's add value to the search engine's results by providing more
metadata about a document than the fact that it contains some boolean
combination of keywords. As such, I disagree with Raisch and with the
NYTimes' recent CyberTimes article labeling metasearch tools, like
WebCompass, Savvy Search, Metacrawler etc, as 'para-sites'. The search
engines' agents add value to the Web their way; there is room for other
agents to add value to the Web in their own ways.
>I would like to hear from those who run Lycos, Yahoo, et. al. on
>this topic and whether or not they view themselves in this light.
Of course they do.
>Technology applied indiscriminantly without a clear understanding
>of the goals of those it affects is revolutionary, not evolutionary.
>And revolutions can be very expensive.
I don't know what you are suggesting here. Can you explain?
>Original portions [mutatis mutandis -bu] copyright 1996 by Rob Raisch
Best,
Brian Ulicny
Limbex Corporation
13160 Mindanao Way, Suite 234
Marina Del Rey, CA 90292 USA
(310) 309-4281 x4505 (office/vmail)
(310) 309 4282 (fax)
http://www.limbex.com/ (URL)