Where Google still is playing catch-up

Two items hitting my attention streams today got me thinking again about the fiercest competition in technology now -- that between Yahoo! and Google.  There's no doubt that Google is winning the search war, but it's interesting to look inside the uber fight and at where Yahoo! is winning the battles.  These include the areas of finance and news.

The New York Times had a lengthy analysis today of Google News, characterizing the service as suffering from stagnant growth.  It noted how the news of the death of Tim Russert hit Google News about an hour after other news sites.  While Google News has played a significant role in the disintermediation of mainstream media, it is causing these organizations to rethink how they monetize their content, including perhaps changing the way stories are written.  Nonetheless, as the article implies, Yahoo! News, the number one news site by a wide margin, remains popular because it assembles its content through an editorial staff. Perhaps consumers of news like the human touch after all.

The other tidbit of news was how the New York Stock Exchange has introduced a new product that will provide access to the real-time stock prices that had been available only to brokerage clients until now.  NYSE Realtime Stock Prices initially will be available through Google Finance as well as CNBC.  This is another area where Google lags behind Yahoo, and this is an attempt to take a dominant position.  As the Mashable post on the news points out, however, Google is once again a step behind as Yahoo! Finance added real time quotes a month ago.