Er, well, at least PC World techlogger, Harry McCracken is calling Yahoo the most interesting company in search:

But some of the tools at Yahoo Next show that search can sport a variety of user interfaces, each of them distinctly different from Yahoo in its current form. None of them are revolutionary in and of themselves, and some (such as Mindset) feel more like intriguing ideas than anything else. But it’s good to see that Yahoo–which until fairly recently simply outsourced its search to Google–isn’t taking anything for granted about how search should look and work.

I agree with Mr. McCracken that Yahoo is doing more innovative things right now in the search arena. It started by them opening up their search through their various APIs, but some developers feel they could go further there and specifically spell out what the costs are for commercial programs (or allow certain types of commercial use without fee). They are trying to win the search game through creativity and I think over the last year, at least, this strategy has worked. At least with early adopters and a good portion of the developer crowd.

Yahoo has made some smart acquisitions too like buying Konfabulator and Flickr. Two services I’ve stated before that Microsoft or Google should have bought. Instead, both of them felt they could do their own thing (Microsoft Gadgets and Google sidebar widgets).

This “be creative” push hasn’t worked in the stock market so much though. GOOGle stock has enjoyed huge swells over the last year while YaHOO stock has only flucuated a few dollars up and down.

Google hasn’t done anything very innovative lately. The sidebar and Google blog search are promising, but hardly yet earthmovers while Gmail is getting dusty in the wake of the new Yahoo mail and the rumours of Microsoft retooling Hotmail as Mail (wonder what Apple thinks of that?). Google Labs needs to get back to work.

Meanwhille, Google is alienating bloggers by holding an event that people aren’t allowed to blog. Ouch.

And what about Microsoft? The venerable giant with the one-two OEM punch? Never count them down or out, even though they are facing some mutiny. Their stock hasn’t done anything lately either, but they have Xbox 360 coming in November and in late 2006 Vista and Office 12. I’ve read where some people are saying 2006 will be Microsoft’s year. I disagree. If they have a turnaround year it will be 2007 or later. 2006 is going to be another “wait and see” year for them, at least the first three quarters. People are tired — at least I am — of wait and see announcements from Microsoft.

Of course none of this matters if Microsoft buys AOL, right? Because MSN will swallow that chunk of the search market … or will they? I don’t think if they do buy AOL … or buy into AOL and somehow become the backend search partner, they will necesarily keep the same percentage of search users.

I think Yahoo will gain — and already has gained — from the continuing AOL fallout. They can thank smart acquisitions and a strong investment in creativity for this. If this continues, then the stock might very well begin following suit.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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