[ChuckMcM]

It is absolutely a solvable problem technically, it's entirely cultural at this point[1]. The good news for FB is that they can kill Google just by squeezing its margins[2]. So they don't "need" search, but it will be the difference between what happens next at Microsoft.

There is a point where, like IBM and MySpace and any other market leaders get too far behind the margin curve, it results in a systemic collapse. That happens because the environment changes faster than management can change the company. I haven't figured out entirely what causes some companies to re-invent themselves (Dell, IBM) and others to become someone else's lawn ornament (Yahoo!, AOL).

[1] "they've made a few attempts at search over the years and none of them have really panned out so far." -- which is exactly the symptom of a cultural or organizational impediment.

[2] Bing is helping too of course.

[eru]

Might be luck. But also for eg IBM: they were always in the business of servicing businesses. Hardware was just one way to do that, and weren't many mainframes leased instead of sold?