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In an earlier post, I suggested that if Microsoft bought DoubleClick, Google would launch a competing network and price it close enough to free to crush Redmond’s acquisition. As instead Google grabbed the deal, here are my revised observations and prognostications, with weekend help from smart writers across the blogosphere.

* Like Paul Graham wrote, Microsoft is dead. For those needing the Cliff notes, “dead” doesn’t mean MSFT is going away. It means they’re just not relevant anymore. And Graham was writing before this DoubleClick deal.

* Paul Bryant suggests one way Microsoft could kill Google: block all text ads in IE. My favorite quote from Paul’s post: Microsoft would probably need to block their own ads too, in order to make the effort legitimate, but how big a loss would that be for them really, on a relative basis? Not going to happen, but interesting.

* Microsoft & ATT are already shouting “antitrust”. Expect a DOJ or Senate investigation into Google’s “monoply” in 2007/2008.

* Google will sell Performics off from DoubleClick (Stephan Spencer’s scenario #1), just to avoid adding fuel to the antitrust fire.

* Google will assimilate DoubleClick’s patents and IP (nice discussion from Bill Slawski about those) , but suspect they’ll scrap rapidly scrap the Doublclick codebase and rebuild it. Google didn’t buy DoubleClick for technology: they’d rather build their own bricks (from Eric Schmidt). I’d wager the DoubleClick code is a few years old and crufty. Google will rapidly rebuild it, integrate it into the AdWords interface, and sell the advertising via the auction model, CPM and CPC both.

* Google bought DoubleClick for the advertiser relationships ($100m or $300m per year?). But even more important, Google bought DoubleClick to cut off Microsoft’s future air supply (Paul Kedrosky).

* Microsoft will make an offer to aquire Yahoo! within 12 months. Not sure if that deal will go through, but I’m pessimistic about the success of such a merger if it did.

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  • George Michie: Art, your observations about negatives are very interesting. Hopeful the selection bias will get people to read before they click,...
  • George Michie: John E., thanks for stopping by! You make an excellent point over as SEL, but I think what will happen is a positive selection bias....
  • John: I too am concerned about the long tail effect. Users are going to have to “wade” through competing websites to find anything...
  • John Ellis: As a paid search marketer, I am little concerned about the long-tail effect. Hopefully, I am wrong. FYI – See my thoughts here:...
  • Jc: Yeah when you’re talking about Google, they already have a large set of randomly sampled statistics on user behavior from their tests...
  • Art: Here are some observations I have so far. 1. Example: In my daycare campaign I have “jobs” as a negative phrase match keyword. When I do a...
  • George Michie: Dale, it will be fascinating to see how this plays out. I have to believe that it won’t result in a greater propensity for...
  • George Michie: Another interesting possibility: If users no longer scroll, but “just keep typing” does that mean that the click volume...
  • Dale Stokdyk: For me, it’s hard to believe the 3 second rule is enough — in my gut, I suspect impressions will increase. Also, I...
  • George Michie: Great point, JC, They made the comment during the press conference that they think* users will conduct more searches around the...
  • Jc: I think it will be very interesting what will happen to impressions and CTR. Based on the assumption that whatever Google does increases their...
  • George Michie: Dale it’s a great question. I wonder what fraction of searches actually happen from Google.com vs toolbars vs an iGoogle...
  • Dale Stokdyk: George, I use the Google Search Bar 99% of the time — I wonder about others? Was fascinating to watch the search results change...
  • George Michie: :-) Somewhat less so…Yahoo?…don̵ 7;t get me started :-)
  • Jc: Now my question is, do you share the same level of faith about Bing? Haha.

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