Understanding the Free Web

Recently Mashable gave us a very concise explanation of Google‘s interest in providing tools which compete with Microsoft Office. The reason is nothing to do with word processing and spreadsheets, and everything to do with time spent on line. Basically while we’re logged on we’re available to be part of Google’s ecosystem, whereas if we working only locally we’re not.

One of the questions giving rise to the article was “how will Google respond to Microsoft providing Office as part of Microsoft Live.

Not being one who’d readily argue with the web’s most insightful reporters, I’m sure this is right. Even though I can think of several reasons enterprises would opt for Google Apps as opposed to Microsoft software.

Time on-line is obviously a major criteria for anybody providing internet based services, including Yahoo, Microsoft, Twitter and a host of new entrants.

But it seems to the real point of competition between those wanting to be our portal to the web is “credibility on-line”. Who has the most quality content, is best at managing spam, porn, stupidity etc, and provides the best tools to help us exploit the Internet.

Let’s face it, Google exploits us at every turn, so do the rest of the mature businesses, and so will the rest of the new entrants.

They all basically do the same thing – enabling those seeking information to find others interested in offering it. In all cases they use their position as brokers to allow advertisers space to sit in on the conversation.

It doesn’t matter, whether we “search” or “publish” or “advertise” we’re all part of creating the value in the Internet. And they’re making money out of it. Nothing wrong with that, we might even make a little ourselves

But this is yesterday’s model. Today’s is starting to look quite different.

To support my notion I’m particularly interested in the (relative) new entrants who appear to offering us lots, but with no obvious business model.

How on earth do the likes of Twitter, Stumbleupon, Del.ici.ous, Digg, Diigo, Disqus, Zemanta, Lijit (and who knows how many more) intend competing with the big guys.

My suggestion – they plan to usurp “search” by limiting search to quality controlled sites, and they’re crowd-sourcing that quality control to us. We’re separating the good from the bad and the downright disgusting – bookmarking, liking, sharing what we find and telling these businesses what’s good and where to find it.

if only a small percentage (less that 5%) of the sites on the web are real as opposed to spam, and if only 20% of the real sites offer quality information and ideas, 99% of the stuff out there can be ignored at no risk to the user experience.

If new entrant A needs only to index and search 1% of the total sites, as opposed to the 50% or more that the mature businesses have, there’s a competitive advantage in both cost and quality. Just like in every other market entrant A will succeed because of both.

You’ll rightly suggest I’ve missed the point. Google certainly isn’t stupid and can figure this out long before I ever could. And Google’s response is there for us all to see – Reader, Bookmarks, Wave (soon), Blog Search etc. It’s doing exactly the same thing. It’s already building the results into it’s business with things like Page Rank and Quality Score.

But for sure Google isn’t the end-game.