Netly News

I love you, man

From D5

They started lining up a half hour before the doors even opened to the Grand Ballroom of the Four Seasons Hotel in Carlsbad, California. Wednesday night was to be the main event of the Wall Street Journal’s D Conference, and many here were already calling it, hopefully perhaps, The Smackdown: Bill Gates, the richest man in the world would be appearing on the same podium as his presumed nemesis, the most revered man in the world, Steve Jobs.

The Fathers of the Personal Computer have appeared together a few times. In fact, they were at D two years ago. Still, the power geeks twiddled their over-developed index fingers in anticipation of the fireworks sure to come. A lot has happened in two years. Apple’s share of the digital music market is as overwhelming as Microsoft’s in the PC market. Earlier in the day, when Jobs was on stage alone, he even gave the crowd a taste of blood when he responded to a comment about how popular iTunes had become on the PC platform: “It’s like giving a glass of ice water to someone in hell.”

The historic meeting tonight though turned out to be anything but a smackdown. It was more like a love fest. “We’ve kept our marriage secret for over a decade,” quipped Jobs.

Why IAC is sitting pretty

It takes 3 things to make a "network"—a search engine, content, and an ad-serving technology. The aQuantive/MS deal unveiled today suggests that three networks have at last emerged: Google/Doubleclick; Yahoo/RightMedia & Microsoft/aQuantive.

The big question is, is there room for a fourth?

If the answer is yes, two companies would appear to be in contention for that spot: Time-Warner (which I work for) and News Corp. All that's missing from either company's bid to be the fourth network is a decent search engine. (Both of them now do deals with Google for search.)

If I'm right—and I have absolutely no reason to believe I am—then Barry Diller is in the catbird seat since IAC's ask.com is arguably the last, "best" search engine. "Best" is certainly debatable—there are those who say that ask.com is simply being gamed by too much spam. But it definitely appears that something is jelling here and unless China's baidu.com is up for grabs, old Jeeves is looking pretty good.