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What's Next For Google?
j_heisenberg writes "Technology Review has a nice story about the coming MS-Google showdown. I like especially the data comparison for different media on page 2 concerning data content."
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It's a way of life! But seriously, I don't think anyone - at least in the short term - can keep stride with Google. They are constantly upgrading their traditional services - search, Usenet archive, etc. - while at the same time implementing incredible additions, most of which can be found in beta. They're not following: they're leading. Unless they completely ignore any unforeseen future trend, I suspect they will be as dominant in the search market as Microsoft has been in the OS & applications market. And Google deserves it.
A blog like any other.
You're ignoring that Microsoft can push their search engine via Longhorn.
Funny, it strikes me as something they shouldn't do. It has nothing to do with searching, for one. It'll be hard to add ads to instant messaging when so many other services don't. And so on.
Seems like a very bad move for Google.
I used to experiment with different search engines back in the day, From Infoseek, Excite, Yahoo, Webcrawler, HotBot (does this one really count?), etc.
After I stumbled on to Google via some friends at Georgia Tech, never looked back. I try one or two now, on occasion, but can they really say duopoly? Yahoo may have members et al, but for searching, nothing I've tried comes close to Google yet.
Google is in the buisness of managing information. Email is a good problem for google, as finding old email, organization and spam filtering is all about information handling. IMs, not so much. I don't think it's the next logical step.
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Let me use my amazing visibility into the future to predict what will happen...
Google will continue to innovate, developing new features, integrating new capabilities into the developing 'user portal' centered around GMail. They will continue to develope advanced ways to organize, search, and use huge amounts of data.
Microsoft will wait to see what the users gravitate to the most, and will create a nearly identical version of the feature. They will extend it in a few minor ways to integrate more tightly with their operating systems. Since it will be in the OS by default, they will quickly gain a large market share.
On a lesser note, other 'competitors' like Yahoo, will continue to innovate in areas of banner advertising, and flash advertisement integration. They will add new features only after Google releases products that make theirs look primitive by comparison.
The only question my visions have not answered is: How large will Google have to become before slowing their innovation and playing it safe.
Do 90% of users really need more information ? Most of my googlems (google problems) occur because I can't formulate the question properly - E.g., the other day I wanted to know what all the numbers on a plain old fashioned check are for; it took me 30 minutes, and I still never got an explanation of how the transit number ( the 3 part number upper right with a bar, not the aba number) works.
So, rather then more info, we need the ever elusive electronic expert (or perhaps, starting in middle school, a class on searching - the most useful class i ever took in high school was typing).
Another big problem is redundant pages, which would only be made worse by more info - already, google does a lousy job of filtering similar content; e.g., if you look for a laboratory protocol for, say, how to make PBS buffer (don't ask) you will get hundreds of redundant pages,of widely varying quality, many of which are straight copies (unattributed of course)
My prediction: people were willing to pay experts (librarians, consultants) in the old analog digital days; they will pay for them again, once the model becomes clearer. I wd not be surprised if this is already happening on an ad hoc basis at the more savvy consulting, law and engineering firms - a full time search person is cost effective.
Also, much of the technical web is proprietaty, for profit stuff - like the serious academic serial Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, several articles from this journal cost me (well my company) quite a lot. Of course, you can always postulate a major revolution in how this stuff gets publishec, but right now it is for profit.
Very interesting article, with many implications.
From a business standpoint, Google will need a lot more resources to compete with MS. Swallowing Yahoo might not be enough. A consortium between Amazon, Google and Yahoo and a number of universities might still not be enough.
Microsoft; "I spit on your meagre $2-12 billion."
Since the point is winning an architecture standards 'war', the context for these standards needs to be defined first -or last as the case may be. Will these standards ultimately be commercial, governmental (international or national), military or none of the above? Microsoft with greater resources has the advantage of being able to hedge more alternatives.
Microsoft's Windows vulnerabilities grafted onto entry into everyday technologies make the 'Y2K' scenarios a year by year (day by day) nightmare. I don't like the idea of a hacker using either Google or MSsearch to gain access to my thermostats or my refrigerator. Or my Slashdot password, either.
If search is to be a $20-30 billion a year business, what will the computer/cellphone/intranet/PDA/various electronic device security business be worth?
To paraphrase Eistein, 'I don't know how this architecture war will be fought, but the next one will be fought with pencil and paper.'
The ad market for adsesne will eventually dry up, either through click fraud
Google is a technology company that hires armies of problem solvers to chew up problems like this and spit them out accordingly as situations arise.
or through a recession that kills ad spending.
The marketing industry thrived even in the wake of the Great Depression. (That's how Multi-Level Marketing was born) It never fails to reinvent itself because no matter what the circumstances there is always some resource in demand.
Google's whole ad model is built around a simple, devastatingly effective concept: Advertisers only pay if there's a clickthrough. In a recession, when people are buying less overall, the clickthrough rates are likely going to go down.
But -- and this is the big deal -- that will automatically reduce ad expenditures and it will do so in a fairly graceful way. This is a big, big contrast to the agency-driven, big-dollar buys a major advertiser would commit to on a network like Yahoo. Those purchases are much more likely to feel the effects of fast, pannicky spending reductions because the risk they represent is higher in terms of both dollars and questionable rate of return.
Does Google get hurt in a recession? Yes. But I'd argue that they get hurt a lot less -- and with more of a predictable, linear response -- than Yahoo or other competitors.
"It was a summer's tale: Just a boy, his Linux, and a head full of dreams..."