SubscribeSearch 2.0 vs Google's Goliath
The Animas Weblog has written a couple of interesting posts in response to Ebrahim Ezzy's Search 2.0 posts, featured on Read/WriteWeb recently (part 1 and part 2). In the first post, Animas frames his argument as a David vs Goliath struggle (the search 2.0 startups being, of course, David).
However in the Gospel according to Animas, sadly David gets smashed by Goliath:
"With few exceptions, I’m not convinced that any of the Search 2.0 companies have any technology that creates a meaningful barrier to competition from traditional engines."
In the follow-up post, Animas looks at the search 2.0 things that Google is doing "under the hood". Animas first argues that "Google’s ability to improve their search relevance in response to personalized usage data is pretty staggering." He/she (the name of the Animas blogger is unknown) then lists out the ways in which Google could already be improving their search relevance:
- AdWords clickthrough data (all advertisers, all queries)
- Organic clickthrough data (javascript redirection for select search users, myself included)
- AdWords conversion tracking data (transaction tracking pixel offered to AdWords advertisers)
- Toolbar data (anyone have stats on the number of toolbars currently installed?)
- Google Analytics data (data for any websites participating in this free–for AdWords customers–program)
- Google Checkout
Also mentioned is Google’s Personalized Search. Animas notes, however, that social networking is something Google needs to improve (a point also made recently in a CNET article entitled Google's antisocial downside).
Animas' conclusion is that "Google is one step away from doing all of the things that the Search 2.0 companies in Ezzy’s writeup can do."
But actually, this was pretty much Ebrahim's conclusion too. At the end of Part 2 of Ebrahim's article was this statement:
"While the intelligence required to conduct social search still resides in people, the key to harnessing it lies in the network. TSEs have greater opportunities for traction, with their substantial user bases - a key ingredient of any social network."
Personally where I diverge from the Animas view is that I think the small search 2.0 startups have every chance of discovering something that Google (or Yahoo or MSN or Ask) haven't yet discovered. Just because Google has the technology and resources to improve their search relevance, doesn't necessarily mean they will.
Also, how do we know that what Google has under the hood is the equal of what one or two of the new generation of search 2.0 companies have under their hoods?
I asked Ebrahim what he thought about the Animas posts. His reply was that we've yet to see the PERFECT search 2.0 application. Ebrahim expects to see that by the end of the year. Of course, I imagine he's talking about his own search 2.0 startup Qube!
But the point is: don't count out David just yet ;-)
Audio Version /
Comments (8) /
Trackbacks (0)
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/505
Comments
# 1
Anima says: “Among these Search 2.0 companies I believe that the users and the traditional search engines are the winners. The losers may well be the investors and entrepreneurs behind the startups.”
My guess is that probably won’t happen.
That’s because the most successful old-line search engines have moved on to the supposedly greener “portal” pastures.
It reminds me of the way the once powerful railroad companies of the 1800’s were eclipsed by the internal combustion industry, which led to trucking during the first half of this century.
The railroad barons mistakenly thought they were in the railroad business, not realizing they were really in the transportation industry. Back then, they had the resources and the customer relationships to dominate the new path of commerce but let the opportunity slip away to a bunch of newcomers with names such as Ford and General Motors.
We might well see the same thing happen to many of today’s big online “portals”, which, like the railroads before them, are beginning to become irrelevant to their original customers.
Unfortunately for them, though, the big portals are no longer designed primarily to help users find what they’re looking for as quickly as possible.
Instead, the “portalization” of search sites has placed a greater emphasis on selling stuff and generating ad revenue.
In essence, the portals have placed their own needs above those of their users. Dangerous territory, there!
The big “portals” will need to rethink and very possibly redo many if not most of the commercial arrangements they now have if they want to avoid irrelevancy in the newly evolving search 2.0 world.
In essence, they’ll have to be willing to cannibalize themselves by embracing a new approach that eliminates at least some of their current revenue streams. But successful companies rarely cannibalize themselves.
It took the railroads about fifty years to lose their hammerlock over commercial transportation. Given the pace of Internet time, we might see the same thing happen to the big portals.
What you say is right, we shouldn't count out on Davis (search 2) just as yet.
Nikola
Posted by: Nikola | August 8, 2006 06:56 AM
# 2
Google *is* Search 2.0. Remember altavista and excite and all that other crap? What's more, Google search is run on Web 2.0 principles. PageRank is the wisdom of crowds. It's AJAXed up. It's the web as platform. Personalised search is even more so (Brin: "the ideal search is like an extension of your brain" Page: "the ideal search won't even need you to type things in). Inexact quotations, sorry, but they're on the case.
The real next search is through microformats aka semantic web. That will not happen for a considerable amount of time, since it requires buy-in from content producers, software publishers, developers and academics. It will (and is) beginning in fits and starts, and some of these will gain traction. But a real revolution is years off.
Posted by: Ian Delaney | August 8, 2006 08:20 AM
# 3
One thing that works in favor of the startups is that Google, at least, has been willing to make acquisitions where they could have just executed on startups' ideas themselves. I have no visibility into how many deals they consider vs. how many they actually execute. But perhaps this is part of Google's Do No Evil value to steer clear of the draconian tactics that have given Microsoft a bad rep with regard to innovation.
I agree they shouldn't be counted out. However, I do believe the primary innovation of some of these Search 2.0 companies is more about experimenting with user engagement than it is about the technology. I hope some of them become great acquisition targets for the traditional engines, or for some other social apps where synergies exist.
Also, it's worth noting that my post focused on Google despite the fact that Google is perhaps the least social of the big 3. This was primarily because there's more info publicized for Google about modules of technology that could be leveraged. It's great to see Yahoo announcing some great social tools at SES: http://builder.search.yahoo.com/
Posted by: Animas | August 8, 2006 09:03 AM
# 4
Uck, I'm so bored with the "barrier to entry" argument applied to new companies. There is no insurmountable barrier to entry for *any* technology company given sufficient time and money. Every idea can be knocked off, without exception.
Posted by: Jeffrey McManus | August 8, 2006 10:04 AM
# 5
Here's another minnow in the search 2.0 arena - not even really in alpha, let alone beta, this search tool goes one strp further than rollyo and yahoo search builder and lets you pipe in the sites you want to limit the search over via an arbitrary web feed, piped into the page using JSON. Obvious sources for feeds are social bookmarking systems (so every tag combination can be used to generate a new search engine at no extra cost to the user).
Though the interface is homebrew, searchfeedr is a working prototype with all the code in plain text:
searchfeedr - http://blogs.open.ac.uk/Maths/ajh59/searchfeedr.html
Posted by: Tony Hirst | August 8, 2006 02:46 PM
# 6
#2, Ian
Although Google has started to focus on the social aspects, its still far from being \'social\'.
Lets verify it with the principles of social search:
- Data belongs to those that create it.
- Participation is encouraged and facilitated.
- One thing leads to more like things rather than fewer.
- Everything is both familiar and new.
- Everything is editable.
- Data and services provided for user\'s individual benefit.
- User-driven organization and filtering.
- Embrace and enable rapid change and feedback.
Does google incoporate these principle required for \"social search\"?
(Black Hat) SEO is destroying google (to some extent), so the semantic web with its \"open standards\" doesn\'t stand a chance in \'search\'. Even if it works, somehow, it would take atleast 4X more time to index the amount of data google stores currently.
Posted by: Drake | August 9, 2006 12:24 AM
# 7
It seems like there’s a battle of words raging between the major search engines about their search services. Everyone seems to be ‘upgrading’ their spiders or algos or bots to bring back better and better results. But as much as we hear about that, one has to wonder if it’s more than lip service being paid to user demands for improved relevance in online search.
Open Question: Do pay per click search engines have an inherent incentive to have imperfect algorithmic results as a means to boost click throughs to their paid listings? I mean, think about it: if every search returned a ‘perfect’ set of 10 or 20 algorithmic results, what reason would any user have to click on the revenue-driving paid listings that also appear on a search results page?
In a pay-per-click world, maybe the perfect set of results is the one that provides enough relevant results to keep users coming back for their next search, but not so many that users have no reason to click on the paid results to really find what they’re after.
For the big search engines, perfectly relevant ‘free’ results might simply hurt the bottom line. Do they really want to be better, or do they just want to sound like they’re trying to be better.
- As posted on snap blog
So, what you and the #1 (nikola) say is correct, search engines don't really want to improve, it might hurt the bottom line.
Posted by: Justin | August 9, 2006 03:50 AM
# 8
I think you already know about "Quintra". (dont't you?)
If not, you'd better look them.
Maybe this is one of them being quite within the bounds of possibility.
Posted by: June | August 10, 2006 12:19 AM
