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Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal

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Re: Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal

#51

Post by dextorious »

nl wrote: post #47
dextorious wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Profit how? From your search engine? 99% of FF users would just switch to Google as soon as they install it. It's not like anybody has made a competent enough search engine yet...

99% of FF users would just switch to Google as soon as they install it. I assume you can back that up somehow? Most evidence I've seen indicates that the majority of people don't change defaults. It's not like anybody has made a competent enough search engine yet http://blekko.com/ http://duckduckgo.com/ http://www.gigablast.com/ http://www.yandex.com/ http://www.baidu.com/ There would be more if there was an easy wa…

"""99% of FF users would just switch to Google as soon as they install it. I assume you can back that up somehow? Most evidence I've seen indicates that the majority of people don't change defaults.""""

Then the evidence you've seen is wrong. If people "don't change defaults" how come they switched to FF in the first place, which is not the default browser on Windows, but is (or rather, was until it lost to Chrome) an extremely popular windows browser?

Maybe naive users don't change defaults, but those users are sticking with (duh) the default IE. Users that moved to FF are more likely to change defaults.

Also, they won't even have to change the default: they just navigate to google.com and search from there, instead of using the search in the toolbar with this unfamiliar "Bing" thing.

"""http://blekko.com/ http://duckduckgo.com/ (...) """

Note the use of the word: "competent". None has results that good that make people actually want to switch to it. (For example, DDG's main selling point is privacy).

The only example I agree with, Baidu was made from a similar algorithm to Google's and with a remarkably similar history (RankDex vs PageRank etc). And even that is mainly popular in China for national/cultural/political reasons, methinks.

Re: Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal

#52

Post by dextorious »

nl wrote: post #47
dextorious wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Profit how? From your search engine? 99% of FF users would just switch to Google as soon as they install it. It's not like anybody has made a competent enough search engine yet...

99% of FF users would just switch to Google as soon as they install it. I assume you can back that up somehow? Most evidence I've seen indicates that the majority of people don't change defaults. It's not like anybody has made a competent enough search engine yet http://blekko.com/ http://duckduckgo.com/ http://www.gigablast.com/ http://www.yandex.com/ http://www.baidu.com/ There would be more if there was an easy wa…

Oh, and another thing: people already switched MULTIPLE times from Yahoo to Lycos to Altavista to Google.

Pre Google people switched search engines all the time -as soon as a better one come along.

Re: Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal

#53

Post by drivebyacct2 »

zobzu wrote: post #22
davidu wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very wrong. Google cares deeply if Chrome wins. You are being way too narrow in your focus. Advertising is not their product, it's their revenue stream. Their product is _everything_ that sits between a user and monetizing an ad. Just look at what they have done from an engineering, offensive and defensive position here. It's all about that ethereal space between users and monetization. That's the battlefield…

True, but also, if Chrome wins, it means they don't have to care about these deals too much anymore. Because right now is Firefox switches search engine, it's very bad for Google. Chrome will never switch. So, yeah. That and that they can use Chrome to lock people into Google services in the future.

>That and that they can use Chrome to lock people into Google services in the future.

Oh no, not more Chrome proves Google is evil...

The only thing I've seen from Google that is a move in this direction is that it will share the oAuth cookie between Chrome Sync and google.com pages to auto login if you're already logged into the browser.

I don't see how Chrome "locks people into Google services" any more than simply enabling them to get there faster (V8, SPDY, etc).

Re: Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal

#54

Post by nl »

dextorious wrote: post #51
nl wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99% of FF users would just switch to Google as soon as they install it. I assume you can back that up somehow? Most evidence I've seen indicates that the majority of people don't change defaults. It's not like anybody has made a competent enough search engine yet http://blekko.com/ http://duckduckgo.com/ http://www.gigablast.com/ http://www.yandex.com/ http://www.baidu.com/ There would be more if there was an easy wa…

"""99% of FF users would just switch to Google as soon as they install it. I assume you can back that up somehow? Most evidence I've seen indicates that the majority of people don't change defaults."""" Then the evidence you've seen is wrong. If people "don't change defaults" how come they switched to FF in the first place, which is not the default browser on Windows, but is (or rather, was until it lost to Chrome) a…

So is your argument that Google should have paid nothing to be the default search engine, because people will switch, or is it that $300 million is an appropriate about for the 1% that won't change the default?

(Btw, why do you quote like that? HN docs on formatting are here: http://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc)

Re: Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal

#55

Post by fpgeek »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #11

I hope mozilla can now afford H.264 licenses. They are the last holdout to make web video easy.

Mozilla would need to be able to convey their H.264 licenses under open-source terms. That would effectively destroy most existing and future revenue streams associated with H.264 (as licensees could elect to use Mozilla's open-source license for free instead).

In other words, Mozilla would need to be able to buy the entire H.264 patent pool. Even at $300M/year, they're nowhere near that.

Re: Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal

#56

Post by fpgeek »

So the "OMG! Mozilla is dead without the Google deal" stories weren't just wrong they were backwards.

The real story was "OMG! There's a bidding war over Mozilla's new search deal that will get them a lot more money."

It is enough to make you wonder whether a player in those negotiations started the previous rumor in the first place (presumably as leverage). The timing certainly fits.

Re: Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal

#57

Post by [deleted] »

nl wrote: post #35
jackowayed wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That estimate seems pretty far off. First, I think it's only fair to attribute ~1/2 of their revenue to search. You've got to give a lot to web ads, gmail ads, etc. Second, I'm not sure it's quite fair to give FF 25% of their total search. It may be 25% of their desktop search, but mobile search is getting bigger and bigger. I'd say 25% is at best an upper bound. Third, I think a large number of FF users would use Go…

That estimate seems pretty far off. Well, it may well be 50% off, or even 80% off, but it does give you an order of magnitude. 100% correct numbers aren't really material: this is a really good deal for Google. You are right that not all their revenue comes from search, and I should have thought of that. 66% of their revenue is from Google websites[1]. They don't break that down, but I'd suspect 90% is search (Youtub…

[deleted]

Re: Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal

#58

Post by ComputerGuru »

jackowayed wrote: post #23
nl wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be the case that having Google as the default in Firefox will pay for itself through advertising. Of course it will, easily (Seriously - people should understand that Google's business is search (and advertising), and they want to commoditize its complements - browsers and phones with browsers on them). Google does roughly 1 billion searches a day[1], and makes conservatively $0.08 per search[2]. Firefox has…

That estimate seems pretty far off. First, I think it's only fair to attribute ~1/2 of their revenue to search. You've got to give a lot to web ads, gmail ads, etc. Second, I'm not sure it's quite fair to give FF 25% of their total search. It may be 25% of their desktop search, but mobile search is getting bigger and bigger. I'd say 25% is at best an upper bound. Third, I think a large number of FF users would use Go…

Also, Firefox users are far more likely to be using AdBlock than Chrome or Internet Explorer users. (yes, Chrome too. Ever since Google featured it on their homepage for a while, average Joes have become fairly likely to be using it)

Re: Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal

#59

Post by azakai »

dchest wrote: post #40
tikhonj wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, openness means you can take the Firefox source and release your own (rebranded) browser with a different search engine. This is exactly what Iceweasel is; in fact, I think they even use DuckDuckGo for searching, but I could be wrong because I don't have it installed.

We are talking about different opennesses here. I'm not arguing that their browser is not open source. This thread is about bidding for the default search engine in Firefox and Mozilla's business decisions. Obviously, Yandex outbid Google in the Russian market. The switch from Google was based on money. The decision was not made in the open. I interpret this as "we value openness, but to keep this organization afloat…

> Obviously, Yandex outbid Google in the Russian market. The switch from Google was based on money.

I find that very hard to believe. How can Yandex possibly outbid Google? Google's revenue is 60 times bigger. If Google wanted to win, it would have won.

Since Yandex was chosen, clearly there are other factors than money here. Perhaps Yandex is better for Russian users? I don't know, I don't speak Russian.

Re: Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal

#60

Post by Erunno »

azakai wrote: post #13
jcampbell1 wrote: post #11

I hope mozilla can now afford H.264 licenses. They are the last holdout to make web video easy.

Not true. Chrome: http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in... Opera: See an opinion piece at http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/2011/01/13/openness

Chrome still supports H.264 and and there are no indications that Google is planning to change that in the near future.
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