John Battelle’s Searchblog: Skrenta: Intent or Content?
Battelle (and his commentors) discuss how “…all the majors punted on the presentweb – the fresh stuff that’s being discussed *right now* via blogs, feeds, and pings…”
Let’s be honest here… if you were the EVP of Search at AOL, responsible for a LOB that generated north of $300MM of revenue FY2003, and had finite resources to pursue a seemingly unlimited number of resources, where would feed search sit on your list of priorities. The reality is, probably pretty low at present.
Why? Because, while you do want to innovate (and differentiate your offering), the reality is that feed search is firmly in the “entreprenuerial” stage of its market lifecycle. By definition, competition will increase once the concept is proven and the value apparent, which happens in the growth and maturity stages. Now, of course, different technologies, products, solutions (what have you) progress through the market lifecycle at different paces; it’s entirely possible that the lifecycle of feed search will develop substantially more quickly due to the state of web search, local search et al.
But for now, it is rightfully the domain of the entreprenuer, where it will remain until investment from the “majors” is warranted.