Paid search growth sluggish outside the big G

So many interesting things going on in digital media right now I don't have time to discuss any of them...except, very briefly, by my calculation non-Google paid search revenues in the UK grew by a risible 14% last year from £294m to £335m. (Take the new IAB/PwC figure for 2007 UK paid search revenues; knock off my old calculations from Google's 10k for their UK revenues in 2007; that's it.)

MSN's and Yahoo's (and probably Ask's) search advertising is massively underperforming a fast-growing digital economy. This should come as no great surprise. Google continues to focus on user experience and helping people find the information they need and providing us with the fundamental building blocks of the web (the stuff John Udell memorably called "web DNA"). Microsoft and Yahoo continue to focus on launching new ad platforms and arguing about what they're going to buy each other for. See the big difference? That's why Google's making all the money.