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It got me thinking. After all, in 2002, tons of folks were asking the same question. Why Google, why now, when there were dozens of other search engines out the
by Goladus 19y ago
It got me thinking. After all, in 2002, tons of folks were asking the same question. Why Google, why now, when there were dozens of other search engines out there?
Why google, why now(2002)?
People need to search the internet. Google is far and away the cleanest, fastest, most effective, and easiest to use. It took 15 minutes of using www.google.com to reach that conclusion. Some people didn't realize how incredibly valuable the service was, but it was basically impossible to deny the superiority of the service. Recommend Google to anyone: Grandma, your little sister, your mac-using artist friend, an exchange student and watch them use it.
Facebook isn't so obviously superior. It has lots of great features and is well-designed, but compared to google it's very complicated to use. Restrictions on joining networks, friend confirmation steps, javascript glitches, and tagging are all evidence of a learning curve that is simple nonexistant with google. Furthermore, many of the things that make facebook effective exclude other features. Facebook is not simply a way better version of myspace, there are pros and cons.
If I had to put money on Myspace or Facebook, I'd pick Facebook, but not with the same confidence that I'd have picked google over every other search engine back in 2002.
- pg 19y agoYou're measuring FB too much by Google criteria. Cleanness and efficiency matter more for search than for what FB does. FB's plan seems to be to own personal relationships the way Google owns finding stuff. That could be very big. Maybe bigger than search, maybe not. Who can say? But it will be important and they are the clear leader.
- myoung8 19y agoI agree, although Google's goal is to create a searchable directory of the world's information, right? Are personal relationships information? I think they are represented that way online, or at least on Facebook. It's not the best comparison right now, but I think it will grow stronger with time as their services converge--barring an acquisition by Google, of course.
- pg 19y agoThat goal of Google's is just the vector describing their path through the same space every other tech company exists in. They can't turn it into a line. So FB doesn't have to worry if the intersection of the extensions of their and Google's vectors are far enough away from the current tip of Google's.
- Goladus 19y agoI agree. Google connects people to information. Facebook connects people to people. Information, once created, doesn't change. People do.
- Goladus 19y agoI don't mean to measure FB by Google criteria, that was mainly a response to what seemed to be a rather vacuous question from the article. Maybe I misunderstood, but people asking "why Google, why now?" in 2002 probably didn't use the internet at all or had a vested interest in some other search engine. I can believe social networking technology will be huge, but I think enough human relationship aspects are mutually exclusive that it will be far more difficult for one service to completely dominate. "Why Facebook, why now?" is a much more interesting question than "Why Google, why now?"