
The Importance Of A Competitive Search Market - breily
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/25/the-importance-of-a-competitive-search-market/
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rokhayakebe
I do not know what is technically possible, but I am absolutely sure that to
say Google will remain the All Mighty of Search is similar to saying " Hey, I
am short sighted". Search is painful and will ultimately die and give its
place to something else. Think Ford's automobile vs "faster horses". In the
short term, Input will change from text to voice. In the long term Search will
give place to Suggestions and Decisions. Sort of like a game. Machines will
have so much data about ourselves thru Facebook, Disqus (and the multiple
other places where you exist) and become intelligent to the point where they
will be able to predict our behavior and make suggestions. Example: Xobni will
read that you want to go to Paris in June with your girlfriend and suggest
deals on a daily basis. Google is already doing it with Gmail and it proves
that Search is truly archaic and the innovators should focus on the power of
suggestion.

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yariv
Search is far from archaic. It's here to stay. Even if Xobni or Facebook
figure out how to make useful suggestions by predicting my intentions
(something I doubt would work very well, no matter how much they know about
me), it would have a near insignificant impact on the utility I get from
Google. People will always want to search for information and unless someone
figures out how to build a better search engine than Google, Google will
remain king.

With regards to new interfaces (voice/visual/whatever) that people sometimes
say will be the "next big thing" in search -- these are just features that
Google can easily implement if they prove to be so effective (which they
probably won't -- I'd much rather type in my query than say it). Replicating
the sophistication, performance and scale of Google is much harder.

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xirium
Cuill ( <http://www.cuill.com/> ) and Powerset ( <http://www.powerset.com/> )
are both contenders to make a better search engine. Cuill assumes that you can
make a comparable search system more efficiently. Powerset assumes that more
pertinent results have higher value. Scalability isn't an issue for Cuill.
Cuill's president is Anna Paterson, who is partly responsible for Google's
scalability.

Anyhow, Cuill and Powerset both have scope to make systems which are more
efficient and could therefore be supported by less intrusive advertising. The
switch from AltaVista to Google was influenced by the intrusiveness of
advertising. Perhaps this consideration would inflence a subsequent
transistion.

