Everyone wants to be the Google of something these days, writes Marketwatch's Bambi Francisco. Truveo, AOL's video search unit, says "we want to be the Google of video." Krugle, a search engine for
programmers with a Google-ish name, boldly proclaims, "We are the Google for programming code." Francisco notes that while big engines like Google and Yahoo have established themselves as default
general search engines, she is increasingly drawn to such vertical players when searching for specific things. All this suggests that Google's dominance is not as impenetrable as it seems. In fact,
ask any big media company what Internet business they would most like to be involved in, and many would say search. For print publisher McClatchy, it would specifically like to be involved in
vertical, or category search. After McClatchy completes its acquisition of Knight Ridder, it will own 25 percent of Topix.net a searchable news aggregator in the same vein as Google News. Topix
breaks down news into over 360,000 different topics. Meanwhile, News Corp., which to date is batting a thousand with its Internet acquisitions, is planning to buy a search company before the end of
May to be integrated with MySpace. Francisco argues that as news and programs have become commodities, media companies will need to focus on services like search to prove their efficiency and
relevance to today's digital consumers.
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