Lately we’ve been seeing search engines themselves purchase services that will provide content for their searches. Google’s purchase of Blogger in 2003 parallels Yahoo!’s purchase of Geocities in 1999. Some comparisons:
Yahoo! is known more of hierarchical listing of websites. This being the case alot of broken links are/were listed in their hierarchical listings, plus it can be very difficult to get listed. I can remember in 1997 when I was successfully able to get my church’s website listed in Yahoo’s hierarchical listings. For a while, it remained one of the few (if only) church websites in Mt. Juliet listed in the Yahoo hierarchical structure. Yahoo! has since changed it’s default search results to being more of a search engine, instead of the hierchical structure.
Geocities is known as being the service provider for the first website many of us ever used. That being the case, many Geocities websites have been left abandoned when their owners decided to get their own domain (free of Geocities’ obnoxious banner ads and long URLs).
Yahoo’s acquisition of Geocities in 1999 brought more ads and shorter URLs to Geocities homepages. Yahoo wasn’t necessarily interested in content. It was only interested in finding an already popular service and gaining new Yahoo! members.
Blogger started in 1999 as a blog service provider. Blogger’s focus was content, something Geocities never had. There are a great many GOOD blogs out there which are still hosted on Blogger’s free services. Rarely do you find GOOD homepages (that are exceptionally designed) on Geocities.
Google began in 1996 as strictly a search engine. It’s code of conduct is “Don’t Be Evil.” Hence you will not find any obnoxious banner ads on Google, only subtle text ads on search results.
Google too, focused on content. It’s search results were based on how many people were linking to a particular site. More popular linked sites eventually got listed at the top of Google’s search results. Also its news site listings were based on content of other news providers, and not Google itself. This is much different from Yahoo!’s take on news in that Yahoo has a whole section based on news gathered from the AP. Yahoo! doesn’t write the news itself. Only hosts news stories and photos. Google does no hosting. It only provides links to other news sites. Google has always focused on search listings and content, rather than hosting services.
Both Yahoo! and Geocities are dying. Yahoo! not so much as Geocities. Google and Blogger are thriving. Why? Content. Yahoo’s mistake was trying to do everything at once. Take a look at Yahoo!’s portal page and Google’s page. Yahoo! is trying much too hard to be everything to everyone. Mail, Messenger, News Portal. It’s page represents confusion. Too many services. Too much trouble on the eyes. Google has a much cleaner interface. Everything is right there at your fingertips. Google never wanted to be a portal, and hopefully it never will. Search engines could learn alot from Google. Already MSN’s new interface mimics Google. Altavista, too, has become less of a portal and more of a Google clone.
I’m a bit surprised that Yahoo hasn’t put in the ability for Geocities to do blogs. It’s something that Geocities’ rival Tripod has done. I equate Geocities with cheapness, and I suspect the rest of the netizens do too. Yahoo! recently aquired Flickr, a photo sharing site popular among bloggers. This shows that Yahoo! is still interested in Blogs.
What could Yahoo! do to Geocities that would make it cool again? As stated above, let users be able to blog on it. Cgi abilities would be cool too (as you can do it on Tripod). Less obnoxious ads. Ability to do FTP again (for free members). But I suspect Yahoo! isn’t necessarily interested in improving things at Geocities. Why spend the time improving things on a dying service?
Meanwhile Blogger improved with Google’s purchase. Free users could upload images to their website. Commenting on posts became available.