3 ms·

Brief History of Google "Killers" (not so much)

21 points by CalmQuiet 17y ago

chaosmachine 17y ago
Not a bad article. I hadn't heard of a few of these. If anything is going to take market share away from Google, I think it's Twitter. Being able to search "live" information is really useful.
- michaelneale 17y ago
  Well I think it will be something that is "not search" - not to so much take market share away, but to make their business less relevant (like google has sort of done with Microsoft). Twitter may be it, but I don't think its different enough...
- davidw 17y ago
  In tech, what tends to happen, rather than someone losing or gaining much market share, is that the market is redefined, or new ones open up that are bigger and more important. I.e. Microsoft didn't take any mainframe share from IBM, Google hasn't taken any OS market share from Microsoft.
  - michaelneale 17y ago
    Damn - I just said the same thing as you, only I think you said it clearer ;)
  - chaosmachine 17y ago
    You're right, the pie is always growing, but there are some queries that just work better on Twitter, even though you might get reasonable results on Google with enough digging. In those cases, Google loses as people learn to start trying Twitter first. An example: Last night I was trying to find a stream of a live hockey game. Google was finding lots of forum threads about previous games, but nothing current. So I tried Twitter, and there was a link in the second result. Next time I'm looking for a live stream, I'll probably search Twitter first.
axod 17y ago
Setting yourself up as a goog killer seems like a way to get ms interested in acquiring you though.
csomar 17y ago
no twitter nor facebook will replace my google position in search, I use Google simply because it's fast and crawl a lot. Google don't give best results (and no search engines can do) even human edited search engine can't do, just because information add up every day. solution? May be a shared search, where people vote for the best results and comments, I see Google Wiki a good step, I alwas vote for the best results and comments on interesting links (or may be fav them). If google succeed in this technology (considering the trend of the search queries), nothing can't beat him. Even if Microsoft does implement it, it won't succeed because it needs a lot of users to get votes and comments. Twitter? No results are bad, they are good only for news, if twitter grow really (and not 60% quits!) then it may be a better place for news. right now nothing will beat Google (only my secret startup :LL)

21 points by CalmQuiet 17y ago

Not a bad article. I hadn't heard of a few of these. If anything is going to take market share away from Google, I think it's Twitter. Being able to search "live" information is really useful.

michaelneale 17y ago
Well I think it will be something that is "not search" - not to so much take market share away, but to make their business less relevant (like google has sort of done with Microsoft). Twitter may be it, but I don't think its different enough...
davidw 17y ago
In tech, what tends to happen, rather than someone losing or gaining much market share, is that the market is redefined, or new ones open up that are bigger and more important. I.e. Microsoft didn't take any mainframe share from IBM, Google hasn't taken any OS market share from Microsoft.
- michaelneale 17y ago
  Damn - I just said the same thing as you, only I think you said it clearer ;)
- chaosmachine 17y ago
  You're right, the pie is always growing, but there are some queries that just work better on Twitter, even though you might get reasonable results on Google with enough digging. In those cases, Google loses as people learn to start trying Twitter first. An example: Last night I was trying to find a stream of a live hockey game. Google was finding lots of forum threads about previous games, but nothing current. So I tried Twitter, and there was a link in the second result. Next time I'm looking for a live stream, I'll probably search Twitter first.

axod 17y ago

Setting yourself up as a goog killer seems like a way to get ms interested in acquiring you though.

csomar 17y ago

no twitter nor facebook will replace my google position in search, I use Google simply because it's fast and crawl a lot. Google don't give best results (and no search engines can do) even human edited search engine can't do, just because information add up every day. solution? May be a shared search, where people vote for the best results and comments, I see Google Wiki a good step, I alwas vote for the best results and comments on interesting links (or may be fav them). If google succeed in this technology (considering the trend of the search queries), nothing can't beat him. Even if Microsoft does implement it, it won't succeed because it needs a lot of users to get votes and comments. Twitter? No results are bad, they are good only for news, if twitter grow really (and not 60% quits!) then it may be a better place for news. right now nothing will beat Google (only my secret startup :LL)