This was a great story about how Google’s search distribution deal dramatically increased cost of entry for Neeva, a putative competitor. This also reminded me of the Monster/AB InBev deal mentioned in “The Little Book that Builds Wealth:” To be fair, it is occasionally possible to take the success of a blockbuster product or service and leverage it into an economic moat. Look at Hansen Natural, which markets the Monster brand of energy drinks that surged onto the market in the early part of this decade.

Today’s Wall Street Journal includes a great article on the cold war between Google and Microsoft (subscription required). The author looks at why Microsoft is launching a free, online-only version of Office, and why Google is responding in part by launching its own OS. He believes that “neither Google nor Microsoft really have an interest in challenging each other’s core franchises if it means risk to their own. Their posturing is primarily defensive—fear of loss is greater than hope of gain.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the kinds of businesses that will start and thrive in this economy. The bulk of web 2.0 companies were built (and bought) based on the thought that they would aggregate and re-sell people’s attention. As we moved through the business cycle, some companies developed exotic ways of targeting their users (Facebook), others used AdSense to generate a trickle of revenue, others based their businesses on driving search revenue (AVG, w3i, Conduit, Dynamic Toolbar, Freecause) and still others just left the problem for their future owners to solve.