Download: The True Story of the Internet – E02: Search [video]

At ~9:50 Michael Moritz talks how the 100-year media history tells us that if you can gather a large audience in one place, you will be able to sell them advertising.

It's likely that Google will not be the last search company. What business model could a successor use to generate revenue without falling into the ad trap? Why didn't early search engines choose other models like subscription, revenue sharing with telecom companies, or turning queries into marketing signals for manufacturers/merchandisers?

While John talks about the period before Google, this quote brings up a remarkable déjà-vu:

[~14:30] Although the search companies were having great success, they were turning into something quite different than what they started out to be. They lost the sight of what brought users to them in the first place: The need to find things. The search engine companies stopped caring about search.

When it came to actually locating relevant information on the web, Yahoo, Excite, and the rest of the so called search companies, frankly, stunk. You could spend all day typing various combinations of keywords that you were looking for. Most of the results were links to sites trying to sell you something you didn't want. The world was hungry for a radically better way of searching the web.