It does make sense though.

There is the increased market share. There’s also been plenty of figures thrown around, so lets break it down a little:

US Search Marketshare Jan 08:

• 68.98% - Google.com
• 20.94% - Yahoo.com
• 6.90%* - msn.com
• 4.21% - ask.com

* Excludes live.com

Also some of the other major traffic properties are webmail and news. Courtesy of Hitwise (as is the above), here’s the current sparks:

UK Marketshare of Google, Yahoo! & MSN (Microsoft Live) Webmail

UK Marketshare of Google, Yahoo! & MSN (Microsoft Live) News & Media

But of more importance than the market share - and missed by most commentators - is the strategic value of the companies owned by Yahoo inc. Del.icio.us is the most obvious of those and represents the solution to a major gap in Microsoft’s search technology future.

Google has not really managed to challenge del.icio.us despite putting a fair amount of weight behind it’s rival offering Co-Op and Notebook.

User habits are likely part of the reason why Google’s made such little headway. Interestingly, reluctance to change is also likely to be a problem for Open Social and has been widely disseminated in the media while Notebook has sailed past wihout comment.

Why should del.icio.us be seen as strategically important?

Google’s push for Universal Search has been forced. Ask got there first with 3D, and Google’s natural dislike of rolling out a fully featured product in one go has caused their ‘onebox’ features to be undervalued. The power of personalised search, combined with Universal search will create the foundations of “Search 2.0″.

If Microsoft is behind Google by 62.08% in Search 1.0, they are barely in the same game when it comes to 2.0. Del.icio.us will prove to be the key to changing that before it’s too late.

Not if large chunks of that footfall is accounted for by returns.

Classic shopping patterns of buying without trying, or buying multiple items to decide at home (with friends) which one to keep, along with seasonal dissatisfaction with presents received have combined to cause serious concerns about the health of the credit crunch on the UK shopper. Doom is predicted, shortly followed by gloom for the high street as the value of prime real estate is reassessed.

And yet.

Shopping is ideally suited to online. Websites associated with many of the leading high street brands have broken records - again - this year. Bricks and mortar should only be associated with the warehouses of blue-chip retailers the argument goes. The proper response should be: remember the brand. Remember your core values. Remember your customer.

Digital Confidence, and Brand Currency

At its most basic level, eCommerce provides ease of choice; loyalty is not encouraged. Brand becomes paramount. Your reputation will keep you alive, and even cause you to prosper.

We know that close to 80% of converting traffic for products offered for sale by high street names is brand driven of the form “[Brand] [Product]”. This is true whether the product is branded and sold via a high street retailer, or whether the product is tied to the retailer’s brand.

This should sound familiar to the traditional marketeer: your brand is your key sales tool.

What makes a strong brand? Relevant to the niche/USP there will be a couple of specific terms to concentrate on, but universal vales are easy to identify: value, quality, and customer confidence in your product. For the online team this means support post-sale. This means allowing the consumer to easily find and purchase the product. This means encouraging dialogue where concerns are raised. It means honesty of delivery and security in purchase. Address shopper dissatisfaction publicly, and pro-actively. Be concerned for your customers and they will return. Shopping, above all, should be a pleasure: and we all have our preferred method of shopping.

Bricks and Mortar V’s The Shopping Experience

Think about that Christmas footfall. Think about the TV shots of packed stores and shopper frustration evident in queue jumping and long queues. Then think about the privacy of shopping online, the security provided by a well delivered shopping cart, the time allowed for consideration. If you are reading this you probably prefer the second shopping solution, and that’s a viable purchase route. But it can never conceivably be the only route.

Tie your bricks and mortar to your online presence. Use your brand presence advantage over pure-plays to create the perfect shopping experience. Promote your customer-centric solutions online and off. Store support staff should be the face of your returns policy, environmental and privacy commitments, Q&A repository, awards history and market leading values. In store eCommerce terminals can help raise awareness of the options available to your customers. Drive offline users online and online users offline with carefully tailored and timed offers. Promote both channels and analyse your core KPIs. Ask yourself what works best online and off and reinforce your service appropriately by tying actions to your analytics and following them through.

How does this save the high street?

Switching from product distribution to enhancing the customer experience in high street stores will cause a renaissance in the popularity and PR potential of classic bricks and mortar channels in many commerce verticals. Music retailers may find that they are simply providing an environment for their customers to congregate, with actual music purchase simply being seen as an alternative activity while in the store. Entirely venue driven high street properties should now be considered a viable commercial activity. Delivering advertising to support carefully promoted new or re-positioned products should be the core of the new high street community.

Embodying your brand in your retail unit has the handy side effect of bringing the community back to the high street. Of course, looked at another way, this side effect would be the cornerstone of a new approach to digital marketing.

And yet… What about all the people that you don’t list - bound to be an infinitely larger number than those listed: what if they take offence? OK, so ramp up the ‘roll. List everyone.

But then, what if you look desperate…or worse: naive?

The Oneline Blogroll Stance

I’m playing it safe. Building it up slow. Heck, I’ll need to fiddle with the CSS for a while first before I can get my first blogroll up (oh hell - who goes up first? Surely Matt, right? But then what about the who is highest..? Scoble, perhaps?) so I have an excuse for putting it off.

Somehow, though, I have a feeling this one won’t go away. It is now, however, now at least one post further away.

Yes, there’s marketshare. But that’s not so great. Certainly, in-house talent makes a lot of sense; there’s a good team at Webfives, and assuming they are sticking around post-acquisition it’s an appreciable asset.

But I can’t help but feel that this step seems to symbolise a company that’s lost its core direction and isn’t entirely comfortable in its new environment. Microsoft doesn’t understand online.

Bill Gates was in the business of selling code. It’s been hugely profitable. Profit on the manufactured product was (and is) superlatively valuable. Assuming your code is any good of course.

Yet scale has thrown Microsoft off-track. Vista looks more and more like it’s dead in the water, and Microsoft’s online business has been comprehensively outmanouvered by Google and even Yahoo!.

Google is ‘Thin Client’. Microsoft is getting terminal.

Microsoft need to sell code to be run on consumer’s products. This is their core profit driver. Google, famously, will not discuss its one, core piece of ‘code’: its algorithm. Nor does it need to. Their code simply functions. We access its GUI and restricted in/out functions.

Because Google’s code (yes, and infrastructure) is better than anyone else’s they win. That won’t change regardless of how many acquisitions you make. Not unless you can change the game.

Expect changes. The next few days are live WP fiddling, tweaking, and associated time-wasting. Anyone who knows me knows this is the best part. Live documentation (what, again?) is the watchword, but we’ll be looking at a few interesting details - I promise!

Who are we?

Geeks welcome. Marketeers, pull up a chair. Designers - you’ll be right at home. Usability? Yep. And the special chair is reserved for accessibility gurus of all flavours.

Let’s speak soon.