Yahoos New Pretty Maps Are Doomed

Has Google disrupted the businesses of Yahoo and Microsoft? Yes! It got me out of bed to write this post. No, that's not the disruption I'm talking about (I'll hopefully be able to take a couple of days off of blogging unless someone else announces something cool between now and the weekend). To see how you don't need to look any further than the rejuvenated mapping world. First, congrats to Yahoo. The TechCrunch's revealing of it. Zvents. I've written about them before. I want you to visit them again. And again. And again. Until you understand the new Google gold rush that's underway. Hint: Yahoo and Microsoft's employees need to get this. What do they need to get? That it's not about maps, it's about the advertising platform that Google has built. It's not about prettiness, it's about who has the most user generated content (I still hate that term). Huh? First, let's focus on the advertising platform component of how Google is disrupting Yahoo and Microsoft. Google pays Web site owners MAJOR DOLLARS to put its advertising component (er, service) on its Web site. Visit Zvents. Click on one of the featured events. See the Google ad component there? Now, tell me again why that can't be a Yahoo or Microsoft ad component? I'll tell you why. Google's ad component pays better because of its dominance in search (and, because they told all the banner advertising people and companies to screw off and die - they understood that users will click on blue underlined text and are being rewarded for that understanding). Quick, what else do you see on the Zvents page? I see a Google map. With a Google logo. What don't you see? No Yahoo map. No Yahoo logo. No Microsoft Virtual Earth map. No Microsoft Virtual Earth logo. Disruption! But, it gets worse. Let's head over to the "The Yahoo! Maps Embeddedable APIs (the AJAX APIs are limited to 50,000 queries per IP per day and to non-commercial use." Aha! Yahoo has bean counters too. Don't feel bad Yahoo. They run the place here at Microsoft too. But, they don't get what Google is doing to them. Google is building an advertising platform. It is disrupting our businesses. And we're letting them do it. Now, convince Zvents to take that Google Map off of their page and put a Yahoo one (or a Virtual Earth one). Hint: they won't do it. Why? For two reasons: 1) The Yahoo and Virtual Earth licensing terms keep them from putting the map next to a Google advertising component. 2) There's a perception that Google will treat companies who stick with all of its components better (maybe by giving a discount in the future, maybe by serving out better ads, maybe, by, alas, making both components better through using attention data! 3) They know that putting Google logos on their site is "cooler" and "more buzz generating" than putting Yahoo or Microsoft logos on their site (and they'd be right, heck, I work for Microsoft and I'm talking about their site). But, it gets worse for Yahoo and Microsoft. Why? User generated content. Yes, I still hate that term. But it's key to how to build a very profitable and sticky business. I believe Google is going to get there first. Why? Just because they have a development model that lets them move very quickly and get stuff out the door faster than Microsoft or Yahoo. Why do I believe that? Past behavior. Google had its new UI out months before Microsoft and Microsoft had its new UI out months before Yahoo. Disruption! So, now, Google will not only have a great advertising platform in place, a great mapping component (I still like it better than Yahoo's, by the way), but you'll be seeing that component improve right in front of your eyes through the addition of user generated content. What do I mean? Well, let's say you know my favorite Sushi place in Bellevue WA. Microsoft's Virtual Earth, by the way, found it too! Now, let's say I want to put a photo of the front of the store on the map for you to see. Let's say I also want to take pictures of the menu. And write a little review. Wouldn't that make the map more useful? It would. More disruption ahead! So, what can we do to disrupt Google? Clone the Google API, RossCode says. Clone the Google API, David Mercer says. Clone the Google API, the blogosphere says. Disruptive! Robert Scoble is the founder of the PodTech.net's Vice President of Media Development.

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