As business models go, Googles pretty solid. They have cornered the market for search and then expanding out with related services. Search advertising, Google Maps, Google Scholar, Google images etc. are all related ripples emanating out of the search core. There have been attempts, albeit futile, to crack their business model. Yahoo and MSN have both tried and, in my opinion, not made a dent. Of late, there are some nascent but strategically significant threats. First, came from wikipedia like search engine. Now, there is an attempt to collate search results and let human guides help you with sorting through them. I believe the answer to good search is through human intervention. I believe the chances of success of a wikipedia like search engine are greater than they are for human elves walking you through search results. Time will tell! Read the article>>