WebProNews

Interesting report by Michael Liedtke that looks at how Yahoo and Google appear to compete in the same industry, but with different business models.

Google?

"Google also takes a more laissez faire approach toward innovation, embracing new ideas and products long before the company's management figures out how everything fits into the overall business plan.

"We are compiling this collection of very cool technologies and taking our sweet time figuring out what to do with them," Google chief financial officer George Reyes said during an investment conference in early December."

Yahoo?

"Yahoo takes a more practical approach to technology, first identifying what people want and then building or buying a product designed to give visitors one less reason to leave its Web site - already the world's most popular online destination.

Yahoo wants to be "essential to people's personal and professional lives," spokeswoman Mary Osako said."

We also get a glimpse of a business model that could be the downfall of Google...

""In some businesses, the salespeople tell the engineers what to do, but at Google the engineering team is really our driving force" said Marissa Mayer, the company's director of consumer Web products."

Last time I checked, successful companies look at what their customers want and then develop products to match. I remember Jack Welch's book talking about bad situations, where they had created products simply because they could - thinking that customers would surely like the product - only to find that there was no demand for it. Did someone say desktop search? ;-)

Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world's most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts. Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian.

You can read his internet marketing blog at Marketing Pilgrim and reach him at andy.beal@gmail.com.