I had an interesting conversation over the weekend regarding the Microsoft - Yahoo! bid which revolved around discussing the future direction of the web.  One comment I made was that the ability for the search engines of the future were that ‘targeted’ advertising would not fulfil it’s potential.

My reason for this is that people are becoming more aware of how their information can be used - as we saw when Facebook’s ‘Beacon’ advertising backfired in November ‘07.  Purchases on external sites were posted on Facebook profiles so people could share their purchase history.  This freaked a few people out, and even made Mark Zuckerberg apologise on the facebook blog.

Well this is all well and good, and may appear to be a victory for the consumers - but it’s not.. not at all.  I’m sure the information is still kept ‘behind the scenes.’  It’s for this reason that I’m slightly glad that Microsoft got in bed with Facebook ahead of Google.  Imagine two years’ worth of your home computers search results (the time Google claim they keep someone’s search history on their servers) mixed with the demographic information available via analysing your own (and your friends’) facebook profiles.  That’s a helluva lot of information to use to target someone.  With or without publishing it.

Therefore, I’ll come to the conclusion that on-line advertising is going to get much more powerful - and not just in how it’s targeted (although that will have a fundamental effect).  Since adverts can be targeted so well, the chances are that we’ll see them slide into the background, rather than the traditional way of popping up several pop-ups to annoy the hell out of you.  Your search results’ adverts won’t just be tailored via your keywords, but by your previous results, demographic, and a whole lot more.

I know that sometimes (in my vain moments) when I Google for myself, up pops some very old information.  Given massive independence by my parents as a young teenager - I was allowed 1 hour a day on the internet.  My name is attached to loads of old information - some of it looks as though it could have been published yesterday too.. luckily for me none of it is controversial.

This is one of the reasons that I can see the benefit of an OpenID-like system.  Imagine giving someone control so that they stored their information?  I sign up to facebook - my OpenID server gets sent the database schema - and I can control what bits are passed on to facebook.  Other sites could then do alternative mappings, so that they could get my facebook data off my server - and have their own databases schematics too.  It’s not an idea that would work - as caching information is far to easy.. but the principle is nice.

So Control - we don’t have much control over our information on the net.  My advice - don’t post anything controversial.  Also, don’t post anything interesting - or insightful - or material other people may read.. it may just come back and bite you in the bum.

In response to this BBC article.

Looking at the ‘big picture’ we can see that there’s a fair amount of potential conflict in such a merger between these two behemoths - however, there’s also much that MS can gain from a takeover. Yahoo! is a strong brand, but has played second fiddle to google for far too long, in the UK at least.Their attempt at partnering with BT to increase their UK market share didn’t have the desired effect, and Yahoo! are clearly struggling against Google who are even more on the ascendency.

I think there is a clear difference in philosophy between the two “Internet Portals” as they were once known. Google have always been open, and allowed the user to view the ‘net’ as it was. Their homepage historically has always been very ‘empty’ (before the days of iGoogle) - whereas Yahoo! wanted to frame the net and view it within a Yahoo! environment, so to speak. This has ultimately backfired, with the generic ‘net’ far more creative and awesome than any ‘branded’ net could be.In such a way, the relative paths of Yahoo! and MS appear to go down the same path. Providing their customers with a quality service - as long as you’re a customer you’ll reap the benefits. Whereas Google have gone for a more “laissez-faire” approach. They contribute (but don’t control) a number of software projects. They donate their time and expertise in the way of the “Google Summer of Code” - which many companies and individuals have benefitted from - yet they can still wrap-up and package competitive SaaS software.

Moving to a different point, the main worry of this merger (should it go ahead) is what would happen to Zimbra. It was recently acquired by Yahoo! possibly to fortify their ageing web-mail interface. As one of the most prominent exchange-challenging mail server suites - I’m quite worried that an MS buyout could see that project severely disabled in the name of “killing competition.” If so it would mark Microsoft’s first attempt at being able to knock open source development… we shall wait and see.