Yahoo vs. Google: Should Yahoo surrender?

Serious competition necessitates not only "breakthrough" concepts, but serious monetization capabilities and serious proprietary technology, on an in-house basis, not an out-sourced to competitors one.

In “Google search kingdom: Benevolent or despotic?” I note the hopes of three companies—Ask.com, Wikiasaria and Powerset—to trump Google in search:

As none of the three companies currently offers a compelling value proposition to both advertisers and users that matches or exceeds Google’s winning formula, I conclude with Google’s own assessment that the company is unbeatable in search and search advertising, to date.

Does that mean Ask.com, Wikiasaria and Powerset should cease trying to beat Google in search and search advertising? NO

(Read my exclusive, in-depth interview last week with Jim Lanzone, CEO, Ask.com; Jim Lanzone’s vision for Ask.com: ‘Real Deal’ Interview)

Does that mean that it is inevitable that Google will continue to be unbeatable in search and search advertising? NO

Google’s ever-ballooning market cap is dependent upon maintaining a perception of a “perfect” search engine and unlimited monetization potential in not only its core search business, but in its diversification efforts as well.

GOOGLE IS VULNERABLE IN SEARCH

I pointed out yesterday in “Google search PageRank excludes relevant Websites” the fundamental flaw in Larry Page’s and Sergey Brin’s PageRank which is the foundation of the search engine Google touts “organizes the world’s information and makes it universally accessible and useful.”

GOOGLE IS VULNERABLE IN SEARCH ADVERTISING

I pointed out before the new year in “Google multi-billion dollar risks in 2007” and “Scoring Google on quality” vulnerabilities to Google’s core business model: search monetization ceiling, “fair use” content gamble and click fraud exposure.

GOOGLE IS VULNERABLE IN DIVERSIFICATION

I underscored yesterday in “Google Radio: Will Audio Ads make money?,” Google’s dismal record in its diversification efforts—Google Checkout, Google Publications Ads, Google Video—and put forth: Google is golden to date in online search, but will it ever be able to make money doing anything else?

Google’s first ever offline ad product is imminent—Google Audio Ads.  In “Google Radio: Will Audio Ads make money?” I present EXCLUSIVE Google data on its plans for its radio initiative and highlight my conversations with competitors to Google Audio Ads, radio talent and a radio station owner.

My conversations with radio professionals illustrate how Google is entering a well established radio market, via its acqusition of dMarc. Moreover, Google dMarc is not offering a “revolutionary” value proposition to radio, a decidely non-revolutionary industry.

WHAT ABOUT YAHOO?

Google can be beat, but by who?

Number two search engine Yahoo ought to be the favored contender. Yahoo hopes Panama will be the winning "destination." Not all concur. Some even suggest, why bother? Rich Skrenta:

Yahoo should accept Google's search and monetization dominance. Yahoo will not recover the search application, and browse views are not competitive and cannot be made to be so. They should do a deal with Google for Adwords/Adsense across their entire network.

I DISAGREE. WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Should Yahoo surrender to Google? If so, why? If not, why not?

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