There's lots of buzz/talk about a recent search relevancy test that reportedly showed that MSN came out on top, beating Google, Yahoo! and Ask. Then there's the widely reported news that Amazon/Alexa has switched from Google to MSN/Windows Live search. Then there's the unsubstantiated rumor (per a story in the WSJ) that Microsoft wants a piece of Yahoo! to compete with Google. And then there's the news that IAC is going to begin a hip/funny TV campaign for Ask.com (per MediaPost [reg. req'd]).
All this points to more and more frenzied competition in the search marketplace — as if it could get any more competitive. As an aside, MSN's high-profile TV/online campaign for search, the MediaPost story points out, did nothing for its market share.
I think for the foreseeable future, Google's consumer market share is largely unassailable. Where then does any vulnerability for Google lie? Others believe that trying to do too many things and straying from Google's core mission is the source of its vulnerability. However, I believe Google's failure to integrate social media and community features or to have a social network is a fundamental problem.
At the margins (e.g., Google Calendar, tagging in Base), and with its APIs, Google is integrating third-party and user-generated content. But its Orkut service/network is only a hit in Brazil of all places. Yahoo! by contrast has invested heavily in "social search." However, Google failed to anticipate the rise of sites like MySpace and YouTube. It did reportedly try to buy Friendster early on. But otherwise, it hasn't done much in this area.
By contrast, the rise of MySpace has been phenomenal: it has more page views than Google, more traffic than Amazon and is the number one site for 18-24 year olds. It's this arena of "social media" where in my opinion Google's real blind spot — and its vulnerability — exists.
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Back to the relevancy test I mentioned above. Per Susan Kuchinskas, Google came out on top in Local Search:
Google did blow away the other search engines when it came to special features, Gurr said. According to the report,
We also looked at the local results searches. This are directories that make it easy to find a phone number or location. Most of the local search features worked fairly well but Googles was an exceptional feature. In search after search the local feature was 100% accurate. If we did a local lookup on a Cincinnati car dealer, we got car dealers in Cincinnati. In other search engines we were shown results for car repair, tire and brake shops and other car related listings that were not car dealers.
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Update: It occurred to me this morning that Google Talk is another basis for a social network for Google. Skype and AOL are building social networks off their IM platforms. However, Google Talk has a much smaller installed base than either of those.
May 12, 2006 at 2:51 am |
[...] Yahoo! has invested heavily in human-edited “social search” (MyWeb and del.ic.ious, among other apps) as a way to differentiate from Google’s “machine approach.” And even though at some level PageRank is a form of “social search,” Google has to date largely shunned social media except at the margins. Here’s my previous post about Google ignoring social media at its own peril. [...]
June 27, 2006 at 4:38 pm |
November 10, 2006 at 5:34 pm |
[...] Some time ago I wrote a blog post, “Google’s Social Awkwardness,” about how how Google had neglected to sufficiently invest in “social media” or anticipate its rise and was blindsided by the popularity of MySpace. Then there was the Rupert Murdoch statement that Google could’ve bought MySpace for half of what he paid but passed. I’m speculating when I say that the company’s bias toward “build” vs. “buy” was the culprit there. Although, arguably that’s changed in the process leading up to the YouTube acquisition. [...]