Like advertisers bidding their way to the top, dominance can present a fairly hefty price tag in the search engine market. Overture has again stunned the search engine world by announcing the $100Million purchase of FAST, maker of the second largest search engine, AllTheWeb. Last week, Overture paid an estimated, $140Million to purchase AltaVista. Overture is about to assume possession of what is arguably the largest search database on the planet, easily outdistancing Google’s database of 3,083,324,652 web sites by approximately 711,675,348 unique sites.

Search engine users will need to accept the number of top-rate search tools is going to shrink over the next year. There is a major financial shake-up happening in the industry as the largest three, Overture, Yahoo and Google all vie for position against each other. The big three have looked to each other for ideas on how to model themselves for sustained profits in a difficult economic environment and have supported each other in past years, in some cases are still engaged in cooperative competition. For example, Yahoo still uses Google results to one degree or another, and still accepts paid listings from Overture through the Sponsored Matches listings.

One of the most obvious conclusions is Overture’s purchase of two well known and respected search tools is designed to limit direct competition from these firms. Another is the notion that Overture is positioning itself to prevent the popular British bid-per-click search tool E-Spotting from increasing its share of the growing European search market. This leaves questions about other large players in the search engine marketplace such as Ask.Com and MSN. Rumors have MSN looking to make a major acquisition in the future and Ask Jeeve’s search tool, TEOMA is a rather attractive option for them.

In the long-run, the acquisition of the small but highly inventive firms such as INKTOMI and FAST by the larger entities will likely limit both innovation and the number of choices available for searchers. Perhaps these moves will open the doors for new products to emerge to fill vacuums left by the old, however, given the state of the Internet economy, the moves of the past months are more likely to produce ever more instability as the market struggles to define and redefine itself. Much like the wait for top placements to appear on search engines, only time will tell how it will all shake out in the end.

New Search Software Likely to Cause a Stir

It is widely known that the only way a search engine makes money nowadays is via paid placement or pay-per-performance search listings. Now that many of the top search engines have embraced this successful revenue model a new piece of software called ByteShark has come along to cause a stir.

ByteShark is a search agent which interfaces with search engines, sorts the results according to your preferences (many options) and then displays them. Now the beta that StepForth tested was hardly revolutionary, however, this program signifies a new trend of personal search software where users can now determine how they want to view the results.

The big shaker here is that users can view search engine results in their own way without any advertising, thus incurring a double-whammy as it undercuts the search engines at every turn. Dubbed the "TIVO" of the Internet, this personal search software will likely raise some stormy opposition. - www.byteshark.com

New SingingFish.Com Audio and Video Search Engine Makes Nice Waves

Seattle based audio/video search tool, SingingFish.Com has passed the first of many milestones on the road to becoming a successful mainstream search tool, the 1Million queries per day mark. While there are over 3,700 specialty search engines currently working on the Internet, there are very few devoted to searching and indexing audio and video files. SingingFish.Com has emerged as the largest and most comprehensive.

Unlike other search tools, SingingFish has never attempted to be known as a destination site but has instead licensed its search tool to work with industry heavyweights Real Audio and MS MediaPlayer9, along with a number of smaller regional ISPs. SingingFish has managed to swim under the surface until this week when they announced the 1Million searches per day stat. Next time you are using Real Audio or MS MediaPlayer9, think about the Seattle software that have swims above the other fishes – SingingFish.Com

Founded in 1987 by Debra Ruffell and Nigel Brown, Ruffell & Brown Interiors has grown to be one of the largest independent decorating stores in Canada. Located in beautiful Victoria British Columbia, Ruffell & Brown Interiors maintains two massive showrooms, one in Victoria and one on the Internet. Ruffell & Brown take their website very seriously. Having a Top20 website presents the business with the opportunity to reach thousands of people they could never reach before. Long-distance clients can view their massive Victoria and make informed purchasing decisions while cutting marketing costs for the business.

Known for its selection of window treatments and wall tapestries, Ruffell & Brown recently announced the launch of its new addition to home decorating, area rugs and runners. Traditional styles, Christmas scenes, Art Deco, the Kathy Ireland Collection and many, many other themes.
If you live in the Victoria region, take a few minutes to visit the staff at Ruffell & Brown at 1-2745 Bridge Street. Regardless of where you live, you can check out their website at www.ruffell-brown.com

Prepare yourself for a very interesting ride over the next few months. With the recent surprise buyouts of AltaVista and AlltheWeb/FAST by Overture and Inktomi by Yahoo!, the search engines will soon be making some major changes in the way they display results. AltaVista and AlltheWeb/FAST will soon be incorporated into a single web property where Overture plans on testing new search engine technology. You can bet that any search engine placements at that search engine will be experiencing some significant fluctuations. What Yahoo! will do with Inktomi in May is a bit unknown and will likely not include any major changes in algorithm, however, with Yahoo! there is just no telling what will come next.

Another pending news maker is Microsoft. Now that all of its competition has been expanding MSN has been left behind. this is not going to sit well with Microsoft and will likely trigger another buyout. The rumblings are that MSN will seek out Teoma/Ask Jeeves. This seems likely and we will all be holding our breath to see what comes next.

The 419-Advance Fee Scam, more commonly known as the Nigerian Money Scam has bilked billions out of people around the world. Most people who use Email have received a copy of a letter stating that a huge amount of money has been left in a bank account by a deceased Minister or General from Nigeria or Lagos and can only be accessed by an out-of-country business. The Email invites the recipient to reply in order to receive a large portion of this sudden windfall. Playing off the greed and racism of the recipients, this scam is as old as the hills but still manages to rope in thousands of victims each year.

This week the Nigerian Money Scam took another victim, one totally unconnected to the scam. Last Wednesday, an unidentified 72-year old Czech man gunned Nigerian Diplomat Michael Lekara Wayid in Prague after losing money to this scam. The grift which is named after the section of the Nigerian Legal Code outlawing it, has even managed to take money from US Banks and Law Firms. If you receive a 419-Scam letter, DO NOT REPLY. The best advise is to forward it to the following address and forget about it. Forward the email to PHONEBUSTERS at, wafl@phonebusters.com. PhoneBusters is a highly successful joint project between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Ontario Provincial Police. For more information on the scam, follow one of the links below.

Nigerian Net Scam, Version 3.0 | New Scams Call for Old Measures
How a Bank Got E-Mail Scammed | Meet the Nigerian E-Mail Grifters