SCN: Re: search engine funding (was: hmmm)

[J. Johnson]

There are some interesting developments on this theme--an article in
Monday's (6-04-01) N.Y. Times, p. C1+, disscusses another approach to
financing search engine services:  selling preferential treatment of what
is returned.

Recalling the statment reported in the original posting, that users ought
not screen out advertisements, as they pay for these services--too late! 
This article notes:  "the effectiveness, and thus the prices, for such ads
has plummented as users have trained their eyes to ignore them."

So now access to shaping "the results themselves, and not the billboards
on the side of the road" is being sold, with the major search services
preferentially returning links to sites that have paid for that.  (Kind of
scary.  I might start missing the ads!)

The article is a good read.  Might be available on-line.

And if any one has other ideas for funding such services, I suppose they
could be worth a good deal of money.

=== JJ =============================================================

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