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The Un-Google - The Search Competition
WinEveryGame writes "The Economist is running an article on the state of the competition for Internet Search. While Google clearly dominates, and continues to have positive momentum, its leadership is still vulnerable. The search-engine battle is not over yet." From the article: "In terms of momentum — mass times velocity — Google's lead indeed looks daunting. It has by far the most mass, with an American market share of 43% as of April, which reaches 50% counting AOL, an internet property that uses Google's search technology. This compares with 28% for Yahoo!; 13% for MSN, which belongs to Microsoft; and 6% for Ask, which is owned by IAC/Interactive Corp, a conglomerate of about 60 online media brands. Google also has velocity: its market share grew by 17% in the four quarters to this spring, whereas Yahoo! and MSN both lost share. Only Ask has more velocity — its share grew by 35% — but then again it has little mass."
This is were Google truely dominates, in cult of personality.
It seems more and more when I try to find something on google all I get are a bunch of link farms. This morning I was trying to find a bike jersey for a friend of mine and on the first page of results, it took getting to the second page to find any actual results. I did much better using Yahoo and found what I was looking for on the first page of results.
I speak of the same experience in another thread. Simple fact is, Google appears to be doing nothing to make searching truely better. I give them some benefit of the doubt by saying "appears" since they may have "the next great thing" in the wings and we just haven't seen it yet. But lets face it, searching today is a time wasting experience. What's worse is that several years ago, it was time wasting due to the large number of seemingly random links. Well, those links aren't so random anymore, AAMOF, those links are geared to simply make Google money. I've said it before and I'll say it again, anyone who buys into their "do no evil" marketing fluff can give me a ring, because I have a nice bridge to sell them. How are they any different that M$ in this regard? They have tons of money, some of the brightest minds in the valley, and yet a simply search for a product gives me pages of utter crap. Hell, if a manufacturer makes the mistake of naming their company after their flagship product, you won't even be able to find their main website in a search until the third page!?! But Google still collects their bucks. How is this helping? How is this not evil?
Anyway, off my soap box. Here's to hoping someone can come along and actually do some good here (and yes, it may even be Google themselves).
Google Groups is great, and gives the lie to the idea that Usenet is dead.
Having said that, dejanews had a much better interface. (Simple is good: you'd expect Google to know that).
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
"Google is 8th when you google Search Engines. They are a has been...."
It should be perfectly clear from your own post: noone uses the term "search engine" anymore, it's called a Google these days. Just like Xerox and Kleenex. I just googled "Google" and Google still dominates the first ten pages of results. Stanford is on page 4, Slashdot on page 8. I didn't feel the need to page on until I found Yahoo or MSN in there.
Maybe