Bill Gross, possibly the world's greatest innovator couldn't possibly be happy with Google. You see, he created a company back in 1998 called GoTo.com. GoTo invented Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising, the dominant business model in today's internet advertising sector. GoTo sold to Yahoo! in 2003 for 1.7 billion - not bad, right? Well, read on . . .
GoTo sued Google in 2002 for copying their business model, and Google settled for 2.7 million shares of Google stock with Yahoo! after the acquisition. Those shares are worth about $1.257 billion today. Sounds like a lot of money, but you have to look at it in context. Considering Google's main revenue source is PPC advertising, and considering Google took in $10.6 billion in revenues last year, I think they got a bargain.
In 2004, Gross was at it again, launching search engine Snap! with yet another innovation in Internet advertising. Snap! offered PPC advertising AND Pay-Per-Action (PPA) advertising. This meant that the advertiser only pays when a customer completes an action - be it the purchase of an item, or the completion of a registration form. Snap! pitched us a few years ago, and I loved the concept - still do. Unfortunately, Snap! is one of the Internet's best kept secrets, (with an Alexa ranking of just 2,533) and never got to prove out the PPA model with any significant volume.
Now, here comes Google, with a beta of their version of PPA. Go get 'em Bill - and this time, don't settle for a lousy billion dollars. In all seriousness though, is there any room left for innovation in search, or is everyone just incubating features for Google to implement?
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