Search engines are also continuously searching, for the best strategy to follow. Recently, when I started to use Google Search History, I realized that I became for the first time a relation of this company. Now they know my name. As a company profile, the search engine could be categorized as a market maker. This is an intermediary business that mediates between different parties. In this case they are in the middle between demand and supply of information and maybe knowledge. All marketplaces are based on the same model; brokering between demand and supply. As we know from soccer and other games, the referee doesnt play himself. The referee is independent. In the finance world you will also find this independence with market makers. They are allowed to invest on their own behalf, but front-running is forbidden; this means that a broker is not allowed to trade knowing that he has to market a significant investment for a private client. In that case the brokers independence is no longer guaranteed, which will negatively influence the investment market. Chinese walls will prevent that those two businesses are separated within every financial company. Yet a company should grow and in the situation where your business is of such a size as the largest Search Engines, you cannot buy just any other company because you need to search companies that grow as fast as you do, otherwise the price of the stock will diminish. and when autonomous growth is also limited, what should be your next step? A path that seems feasible for search engines is that of the online shop, like the Online-book-store business model. Companies that own relations are the most valued in the world. Banks know this; the value of a relational database is unlimited. A presence all over the world, online at any moment in time and available in any language, will give the search engine this possibility of turning relations into gold. And they are starting collecting relations for some time now. First they will know your name and e-mail address. Than they start to really know you. They start to know what you are looking for, what your preferences are. And with this information they are able to sell you new products or services. An ideal starting point to continue strategic growth. There is one problem however ... 2006 Hans Bool |
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