The Microsoft-Yahoo Deal: Everyone Looses!

Microsoft and Yahoo made an announcement late last night.

http://www.infoworld.com/d/applications/microsoft-and-yahoo-sign-search-deal-take-google-139?source=IFWNLE_nlt_daily_2009-07-29

I actually caught wind of the story last night and skimmed over it, but I was too depressed to actually read it. Most of you probably heard about it today.

This really sucks big time!

Why?

It takes away from us all (everyone in the world!) alternatives.

I've tried bing a few times, and it pretty much always sucks. I can never find the site I'm looking for with Bing. Now, I admit, I wasn't really looking for something at the time, I was looking for something I knew was there and seeing if I could find it on bing as easily as I can on google. I couldn't.

I've tried it several times: no salami!

On the very, very rare occasions that I can't find what I'm looking for on google, yahoo has ALWAYS pulled though for me! A case in point. My friends all know I serve as a volunteer on the board of directors for For The Children Of The World. What happens when you search for that? "For The Children Of The World" is a common phrase and admittedly not a good choice for an organization name if you want it to pop up top on search engines. But, if you think about it more. Who is going to search for that exact phrase if they aren't looking for our organization????

On google, it generally doesn't pop up at all or it is about 10 to 20 pages into the search results. On Bing it is even worse.

But with yahoo, it pops right up as somewhere between the first and fifth result every time. Now, give me a break google and microsoft!!!! Are you guys really THAT stupid. Our web address is forthechildrenoftheworld.org for crying out loud, how hard it that to find!

This deal really sucks because it is going to make trying to find what we are ACTUALLY looking for all the harder now. What is worse, it takes something AWAY from the people of the world without giving them anything back in return.

I predict this is the end of the company yahoo, if they really go through with it and rip out their old search solution and replace it with bing! Oh, please, please, please give us at least two options: Yahoo Bing, and Yahoo Classic!!!!!!

~ Basil