AOL Deal Could Speed Google's Undoing

AOL Deal Could Speed Google's Undoing: "AOL Deal Could Speed Google's Undoing... What a difference 10 days can make. Earlier this month, it appeared as though Microsoft and AOL were going to pair off, the Time Warner business unit shedding its old ties with Google for new ones with MSN Search. At the time, rumor had it that no large sums would change hands.

Well, a large sum?$1 billion large?is leaving Google for Time Warner. In return, Google gets 5 percent of AOL, expands the advertising sales relationship between the two services, and the right to make a rude gesture in Steve Ballmer's direction.

With this deal, Google gets to save face, but it may also plant another seed of its ultimate undoing...

Google initially attracted users with a sparse interface that gave search results center stage and treated paid results?advertising?essentially as a necessary evil.

More and more advertising has been creeping into Google's results pages, sometimes there seems to be more paid results than free ones.

This depends, of course, on what you're searching for, but the change is quite noticeable. And is about to become much more so.

If the news stories are to be believed, coming soon to a Web browser near you: Google ads with images, sold by AOL.

According to a story in the San Jose Mercury News: "The partnership could also herald a new experience for people who use Google's search engine, because it allows AOL to place advertising with images on Google's search results pages. Until now, Google's search engine has been devoid of any image ads."

Is this, taken alone, a big deal? Not really, but it places Google one more step away from what attracted so many of us to the service in the first place.

It also creates an opportunity, perhaps, for a company with very deep pockets, to try to become a better Google than Google. I wonder who might do that? "