Robert Scoble considers the prospect of Microsoft taking over Yahoo and Facebook and gets paranoid – or maybe it is as in the saying: It’s not paranoia when they are out to get you:
Let’s say Microsoft gets Yahoo’s search. That doesn’t look that brilliant. After all, we know Google is gaining share there and taking Yahoo’s best advertisers (and let’s just forget Microsoft’s efforts, which have been an utter failure so far).
But these two moves would change everything and totally explain why Facebook is working overtime to keep Google from importing anything. First, let’s look at what is at stake here:
Loic Le Meur did a little test with me a couple of weeks ago. He listed his Le Web conference on both Facebook and Upcoming.org. Here’s the Facebook listing. Here’s the Upcoming.org one.The Facebook one can’t be seen if you don’t have a Facebook account. It’s NOT open to the public Web. Google’s spiders CAN NOT REACH IT.
He put both listings up at exactly the same time and did no invites, nothing. Just let people find these listings on their own.
The Facebook one is NOT available to the Web. It has 467 people who’ve accepted it. The Upcoming.org one IS available to Google and the Web. It has 101 people on it.
This is a fight for the Web. We all just crawled inside a box that locks Google out.
Well, the guy worked for Microsoft so he ought to know how the company thinks.