Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Adobe, Apple, Salesforce Fight for Innovators

Wow! What a month. 

Realignment of Advertising

View	NEWS: Yahoo Reveals Details of Its New Ad Sales Sy

View	NEWS: AOL Ad Project, 'Platform A,' Plots Plan B

View	STATS: March Searches, Clicks, CPC, and Demand

View	NEWS: Newspapers Past, Present, and Future

Microsoft bids to buy Yahoo. Yahoo and AOL challenges Google in the new market that integrates CPC and CPM advertising. Google shows mixed success - moving to integrate DoubleClick with their dominant share of the CPC market. Legacy newspapers worry about job security.

The Future of Innovation

View	NEWS: Google Developers, start your engines

View	NEWS: Yahoo opens up to semantic web and developer

View	NEWS: Microsoft Embracing Data Portability?

View	NEWS: Evolving the OpenID Foundation Board

View	NEWS: Progress report on the OpenSocial Web

What is the real battle? It's the control of innovation through developers. 

• Open standards like Open Social, Open ID, and the Semantic Web make data available to developers. 
  

Amazon opens product information - what's available, what's popular, what customers want. Salesforce opens data about customer relations. Facebook opens data on members, friends, and interests. Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo can open the profiles for millions of email users. Substantial privacy issues aside, this trend paves the way for the glue that simplifies life.

• Free hosting and services allow more developers to participate. 
  

Apple wants iPhone developers. Microsoft needs to retain legacy developers. Facebook, Google, Myspace, Yahoo, Amazon, Adobe ... each wants the mindshare to be the leader among developers. Each has the cash flow to delay monetization. The winner controls the innovation that fuels growth for years to come. 

Conclusion

It's a great time to be a developer - and investor.