Word: markets
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Every year, the market-research firm Millward Brown conducts a survey to determine the economic worth of the world's brands - in other words, to put a dollar value on the many corporate logos that dominate our lives. Lately the firm's results have been stuck on repeat: Google has claimed the top spot for the past three years. The most recent report values Google's brand - those six happy letters that herald so many of our jaunts down the Web's rabbit hole - at more than $100 billion...
...moment, Google's most pressing problem is Microsoft. The software giant is spending $100 million to market its new search engine, Bing - and in the process, to get us all bummed about Google. Bing's slick ads are unavoidable and blistering. They suggest that Google is broken, that it rarely leads us to what we're looking for and turns us all into blathering zombies who spew out search keywords in casual conversation...
This sort of constant improvement pays off: two-thirds of all searches in the U.S. are now conducted through Google - about 7 billion a month. Yahoo! has less than 20% of the market, and Microsoft less than 10%. Despite Microsoft's claims, most people think Google works pretty well...
...more people use them; if a search engine notices lots of clicks on Spears' music videos after searching for the pop star, it can begin to highlight those videos in future searches. That's how the Yahoo! deal will help Bing beat Google, Microsoft says. By massively expanding its market share to a potential 26%, Microsoft will get access to a much broader pool of user data, which will in turn make it better at predicting what you want when you search...
...housing bubble inflated, the math increasingly favored renting. House prices went up and up while rents stayed relatively flat, meaning you could get a lot more bang for your buck by choosing a lease over a deed. Now, with the housing market in a pulp, the tables are turning. Choe's most recent rental cost him $1,500 a month. His new mortgage payment, for a same-size house, is $1,570 (after a 20% down payment). "Not a bad deal," he says - especially considering that once Choe takes into account the money he saves on taxes by deducting...