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Comment by dave_sullivan | Hacker News Reader

Sounds like bing probably represents better bang for your advertising buck than google at this point. Could be good deals there for marketers.

For microsoft's part, it just seems like they're always one step behind google, which is one step behind Facebook, which sooner or later will be one step behind someone else when they've maxed their revenue from their current business and feel compelled to stray from their core competencies. History repeats itself and the young grow old.

Also, thought it was an interesting bit about bing gaining marketshare from yahoo (their partner) and not google. Ouch.

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I've noticed the same thing. One of my startups targets an audience that is less tech-saavy than normal (teachers/parents) and Bing/Yahoo AdCenter is my predominate source of traffic. I have the exact same ad/campaign running on both AdWords/AdCenter and the latter generates more traffic at a cheaper CTR and CPC. The trend holds true for organic search traffic as well. This demographic still loves using Yahoo/Bing.

I don't like this idea of companies being one step behind. I mean, yes, Bing is one step behind Google (in some regards anyway). And Google+ is one step (or a dozen) behind Facebook. But it's not like the new hotness invalidates existing business models. Where things are most interesting is where companies compete by embracing their own values (eg. Android vs iOS). I know Microsoft is famous for copying others' innovations, and back in the 90s they did it quite effectively, but for a lot of companies it feels like grasping at straws during their decline. I'd rather see companies focus on their strengths. You never hear people talking about how Amazon is "one step behind" all the newer sexier companies, and they're still on the bleeding edge.

It's not so much that the new hotness invalidates existing business models--I don't think it does--it's more that wildly successful business models will suffer from the law of decreasing returns sooner or later and this causes companies to go into areas they wouldn't normally if investors were not so focused on continued hyper growth and the new new thing. So if I'm reading you right, I think we agree on the point, if not the analogy :-)

Yes. It's not just the investors though, it's also the media circus that silicon valley has become.

Can you explain why you think Bing would be a better bang for your advertising dollars? Because less users would mean lower ad rates?

Sure, fewer advertisers = lower demand & lower prices, less users OTOH = less supply & higher prices... not sure which side of the equation is having more effect (I suspect it varies) but I'm thinking there's some value there over adwords.

My guess is that Bing users tend to be less tech-savvy(default on Microsoft Windows and all that) and thus more likely to pay attention to ads.

It could be a big bang for the buck, but you're limited to only 15% of the users...

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