Amazon Is in the Best Position to Beat Google

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By Jacob Maslow

Seache engine buttonIn a theoretical world, there are many names that come to mind when it comes to a potential contender for Google (NASDAQ:GOOG). Of course, when we are talking about potential contenders, we are looking for companies with the financial strength as well as the technology infrastructure to actually do the deed. Usually, when we are talking about beating Google in the global search engine game, only two names come to mind: Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) and Bing. While Baidu does have a lot of users, it is primarily a Chinese market player. The same goes with Yandex. In most theoretical discussions regarding a search engine world post-Google, the discussion normally turns to Yahoo and Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT)  Bing.

The problem with this kind of analysis is that it ignores one fundamental fact. The reality is that Yahoo and Bing are actually playing Google’s game. They are simply presenting information that their software retrieved, and pairing that information based on the search term used by the user. They use different formulas to weigh the rankings of the results, but it is still the same basic formula.

The problem with this is that Google’s game plan uses a disconnected chaotic open model. There is really no prior relationship between the content being displayed and the search engine. Not surprisingly, a lot of the searches that are produced are irrelevant. In many cases, they don’t really add any concrete value to the lives of the search engine users. This is one open secret that followers of the global search engine market often ignore and overlook. People are just blown away by Google’s amazing revenues, but in reality, Google could have been doing a much better job. The good news is that there is a very powerful potential competitor for Google that has the infrastructure and technology to destroy Google.

Amazon Has the Reach and Infrastructure for a More Connected Model

The interesting thing about Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) is that it is sitting on the raw ingredients it needs to put together a very strong competitor for Google. As I have mentioned earlier, Google’s overall search system uses an open model. It is very chaotic because anybody can put together a website and, using the right backlink tricks as well as on-page SEO, can get ranked highly. However, as far as the end user is concerned, the content is garbage. Amazon has the infrastructure to produce a relatively closed and highly interconnected system that can deliver value on a sustainable and reliable basis to searchers.

The Amazon Future?

The reason I can confidently say that Amazon is well positioned to steal Google’s crown is that it has all the technology needed. It can provide content infrastructure for the right strategic counter-production partners. It has the traffic to pump to that content. And finally, it has the ad serving and monetization technologies and opportunities that would make the whole content generation enterprise worth it for all the parties involved. In fact, if you will look at Amazon’s assets from a 30,000 feet perspective, it has everything it needs to completely destroy Google.

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