The creative director at Kinetic Results winds up Search Week with a look back at 2005 and a look ahead to 2006.

In its ever-expanding hope to someday rule the online galaxy, Google seems ready to bite one of the biggest hands that feed it.

Last week marked the beta launch of Google Base, a classified ad service. But the real story happened earlier, when news of the product had leaked at the end of October to the apparent chagrin of Google. In response to the leak a statement from the search giant said "We are testing new ways for content owners to easily send their content to Google. We're continually exploring new opportunities to expand our offerings, but we don't have anything to announce at this time."
 
"Nothing to announce" is a miracle of understatement. Another option would have been something like this: "We are going to seriously invade eBay's turf, even though eBay is a major buyer of Google ads."

Google has a lot of experience of late making people mad. Their Google Print is back in action after a months-long delay and despite legal action brought by the Association of American Publishers. Head of Google Print, Adam Smith, assures everyone that they will only be scanning out-of-print and hard to find books. Uh-huh.

Doubtless the very big brains of Google have already calculated what proceeding with Google Base will mean to their immediate and long-term revenue and have decided to proceed. I'm no financial wizard, but I think this means they aren't worried about

A) eBay retaliating and pulling away some money, or…

B) absorbing the potential loss of the eBay bucks.

Those same big brains at Google have probably also already found the employee responsible for the leak and ordered him or her to pack their bags for a new assignment at Google Indonesia. Google later came further out in the open with a Sunday piece in The New York Times in which they revealed their plans to revolutionize advertising in general, basing it on the pay-per-click model. In other words, "You only show your ads to people most likely to buy your goods and services." Makes a lot of sense. Why use a shotgun when you can use a laser?

I am expecting, though no one has leaked this to me yet, that Google will be offering a podcast service before long. They will likely sell ads on your podcast for you as well. By the way, I know I'm not the only one who thinks "podcast" is a bad name, although I'm sure the Apple folks love it. I'm suggesting good old fashioned "broadcast." Cameron Reilly of The Podcast Network suggested in a comment on a blog post of mine that "mediacast" might work. Either or.  But if and when Google gets in on that game, I'm urging them now not to give it a newer, sillier name like "googlecast." 

Then on November 10, Mr. Gates and friends outlined Redmond's plans for hosted applications to rival those being announced with alarming frequency down in Mountain View. It might be a good idea at this point for Gates, Ballmer and company to re-read my colleague Kevin Ryan's Open Letter to Steve Ballmer. The watchers, pundits, has-beens and never-weres are trying to jump each other on announcement of the demise of Microsoft. Don't be so sure. I remember a very good AFC playoff game back in 1993 when an unknown named Frank Reich brought Buffalo back from a 35-3 third quarter deficit to rally his team past the Oilers 41-38. Right now Microsoft is just in its 35-3 third quarter deficit to Google. Microsoft an underdog? (And you thought Britney's baby was a sign of the Apocalypse.)

PPC continues to outpace traditional SEO. Look for click fraud to rise, as well as the proliferation of click fraud reconnaissance efforts. As long as the search engines aren't looking too closely at potential click fraud, companies are going to have to find it themselves. And why would the search engines look? Unless there's an obvious case, like maybe a couple thousand clicks coming from the same IP in India in one day, they don't mind taking your money. It wasn't very long ago that click fraud detection was a pretty obscure trend in search, but now a search of that phrase, in quotes, will yield nearly 40,000 results.

On the subject of PPC, I was debating with a colleague the other day about the lack of imagination in PPC ads. Take any phrase. Let's say, "carpet cleaning." Look at the PPC ads on that phrase. Not an imaginative one in the bunch. Said colleague says research points to the straightforward ad as the best result-getter, but I'm arguing for the David Ogilvy idea that "every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image." As for the research, I say we try again. Here's Ogilvy on research: "I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post for support, rather than for illumination."

China is the next big search market. Look for November's ad:tech Shanghai to bring in tons of new business for American search firms, or at least to start opening the doors. I expect, or at least hope, that what our two countries lack in the way of political cooperation may be bridged by commercial cooperation. And for those who want to argue the point that restricting trade to totalitarian regimes means economic hardship and eventual collapse, I will point them to Cuba.

But speaking of China…. In their never-ending effort to scare the public, the History Channel was airing a week of "Death and Gloom and Plague" documentaries, one of which had to do with "What if The Bird Flu Hit the US?" I know I'm not the first to think of this and let's hope it doesn't happen, but the documentary suggested that a lot more people would be indoors, shopping online. I say we boycott the first company that tries to use that scare tactic in their marketing efforts. "Don't go to the mall and catch your death, shop online with us from the sterile safety of your own home!"

Just for fun: At the time of writing, Google search on the word "search" finds Lycos at #1, AltaVista at #2 and Google at #3. A similar search on Lycos shows Lycos way back in the pack. And, tellingly, a search of the same word on MSN finds Google at #1 and MSN at #4. I know that probably doesn't mean anything -- so, as I said, just for fun.

David Wilkie is Creative Director at Kinetic Results, LLC, a strategic online presence management agency headquartered in Dallas.