
Google competitor DuckDuckGo says it's getting shut out - srathi
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-rt-us-google-duckduckgobre8al00i-20121121,0,6650221.story
======
paulsutter
This article is pure crybaby bullshit PR about a nonexistent problem. Does
anyone care about DDG anyway? They're trying to solve a completely imaginary
problem, and they haven't got a hope in hell of creating a viable search
engine as that costs billions of dollars.

Why is this article even on HN?

~~~
yegg
Hi, this is Gabriel Weinberg, the guy mentioned in the article.

The main issue I have is with duck.com. A lot of people remember that we are a
search engine "duck something" and so naturally try duck.com. As a result,
there is a lot of confusion, e.g.:

"I was telling someone about DuckDuckGo and they thought it was Duck.com and
they went to Google. Is Google using this to find people who make the mistake
to Duck.com instead of DuckDuckGo?"

"Can't you do something about this? I keep going to Duck.com when meaning to
visit DuckDuckGo.com They are using the DuckDuckGo name to get people to
search Google."

This only started happening after I asked about the domain name. It used to
point to a history page about Duck Corporation (previous name of On2 --
<http://web.archive.org/web/20100802014055/http://duck.com/>), similar to
<http://www.on2.com/>, which was acquired by Google in the same acquisition.

Google should legitimately not sell it to me, though it would have been of
course nice to do so when I first asked in 2010. I think an appropriate remedy
would be to either point it nowhere, point it to the original page it had been
pointed to for many years, or point it to the acquisition page (as
<http://on2.com> still does) -- all things they do in other cases if you look
at past acquisitions.

Just to be clear, it is only anti-competitive because it causes confusion, and
relates to their core search product. The facts of the situation (that it
switched shortly after I asked, and only seemingly that one domain) make it
appear to be deliberate. And if it were not deliberate, I've brought this up
many times and there has been ample time (including now!) to correct the
situation.

With regards to being easy to add search engines to Chrome, see
[http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2011/02/usability-
issues...](http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2011/02/usability-issues-with-
adding-search-engines-to-web-browsers.html). I've written up the differences
extensively, with screenshots and explanatory notes.

~~~
hahainternet
> Just to be clear, it is only anti-competitive because it causes confusion,
> and the facts of the situation make it appear to be deliberate. And if it
> were not deliberate, I've brought this up many times and there has been
> ample time (including now!) to correct the situation.

So if Google changes it they admit that they may have harmed you and you get a
legal remedy. If Google doesn't change it you claim there's no reason not to
and you get a moral argument.

Sounds like you're trying to construct a situation where you win and Google
loses no matter what. How about just deal with the fact that it's not your
domain? I quite like camping.com, doesn't mean I have the right to it.

~~~
yegg
Changing it now isn't a legal admission of anything.

In any case, there would still be no useful legal remedy available to us. We
don't make much money, so what would the damages be?

The last thing a startup wants to do is take a big company to court. You're
just asking to be bled dry.

------
Matt_Cutts
From the article:

"In an interview on Wednesday, [Gabriel] Weinberg said it is difficult to make
his DuckDuckGo the default search site in Google's Chrome web browser, and
that Google disadvantages his company in the Android mobile operating system
as well. ....

"It's one-click to get onto Firefox and it's five steps on Chrome and people
generally fail," he said.

The Google spokeswoman said popular search alternatives were offered on its
Chrome browser in a dropdown menu, such as Yahoo and Microsoft's Bing, but any
search engine could be easily added."

~~~
noibl
Wait, 'one-click'?

In Firefox if I click the dropdown on the search field, then click 'Manage
Search Engines' I get a dialog in which can be found a link to 'Get more
search engines...'.

Clicking that opens an add-ons store tab with the 'Search Tools' filter
applied, none of whose above-the-fold suggestions has anything to do with DDG.
That's not one-click, it's a runaround.

In contrast, Chrome _automatically_ adds search engines as you browse the web
and lets you set any one of them as the default. It also has clearly labelled
fields to let you create your own by copying the format of the ones listed.
Getting to there takes 3 clicks and a scroll.

Two reasonable gripes: the existence of the free-edit fields is not
immediately obvious upon clicking 'Manage search engines...' and neither is
the fact that the domain name in the second column is an editable keyword.

~~~
delackner
Click-and-hold on the firefox search engine icon in the search field, and a
list of engines appears. I clearly see "Add DuckDuckGo" as an option in that
list while I am on the site, and you can slide the mouse over to that option
and release. So yes, one click.

~~~
eric-hu
I don't think this is available in Firefox for OS X, there's 2 icons in the
search field and neither one responds to click-and-hold

~~~
rangibaby
Just click on the Google "G" (or whatever you have as your default search
engine) when you are at the site and "Add DuckDuckGo" shows up as an option.

------
blrgeek
Excellent PR efforts by DuckDuckGo.

But not entirely sure that the arguments presented in this article are valid
and would sway a technical crowd.

Given how trivial it was just now for me to switch to DDG in Chrome, I don't
see how that's anti-competitive.

~~~
notatoad
Excellent PR?

It sounds like a bunch of lame whining to me. I didn't use DDG before, but I
at least respected their work. This is just weak. Google has done great things
for the tech world by building chrome and android and releasing them as free
and open source, to attempt to bring them down because you think it takes too
many clicks to change the default search engine is shameful. Yegg, if you
don't like it build your own browser and mobile operating system.

~~~
blrgeek
You, the HN reader, are not the target of this. Of course it ticks you (and
me) off the wrong way - but your reaction is likely an unintended consequence!

It's excellent PR because it creates a coherent David Vs Goliath narrative
that journos will buy and so will the bulk of the non-technical populace. A
few more variations of this in different publications, and you'll see that it
might seep into the public consciousness.

~~~
notatoad
Me, the HN reader, is who DDG markets to. They try to sell themselves as the
search engine for the informed user - the people who care about privacy and
understand how google tracks you. The "bulk of the non-technical populace"
will see an article about search engines and skip over it. They will never in
their lifetime change any setting on their computer away from the default.

~~~
blrgeek
Good point - till now DDG was marketing at us.

Could this be where they're trying to move towards a more mainstream market?

They did take VC funding, and they may need to show growth in the mainstream
market to their investors.

------
ck2
Many people like DuckDuckGo for good reasons but let's be clear:

It does not do any of it's own indexing.

It's just a frontend to other very very expensive backends that have millions
of dollars behind them.

The entire company can be shut down overnight if it's data feeds are cut.

~~~
joenathan
According to DuckDuckGo's FAQ you are wrong
[http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216399-s...](http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216399-sources)

The DuckDuckBot crawls and indexes the web.
<http://duckduckgo.com/duckduckbot.html>

~~~
ck2
I suspect it's trivial at best.

Every test search I've ever done on DDG shows near identical results to Bing.

I'd like to see a search that uses it's own data, examples?

Gigablast was the last serious third-party backend that had a chance for
independent data. It's like old-school Google.

Gabriel should try to buy Gigablast and merge it with DDG so he has his own
independent dataset.

~~~
lubujackson
Blekko has millions behind it and does a full index of the web.

~~~
ck2
Ah now that is an interesting engine.

Checking to see if it's hit any of our sites.

3k pages, not bad. Data is kinda stale though.

------
Sephr
They are completely forgetting about the standard cross-browser
external.AddSearchProvider API. One-click install initiation works fine in
both Chrome and Firefox in a DuckDuckGo + Google Suggest search plugin I put
together at [http://eligrey.com/blog/post/encrypted-duckduckgo-with-
googl...](http://eligrey.com/blog/post/encrypted-duckduckgo-with-google-
suggest-search-plugin)

------
ochoa
This might be part of the problem

[http://duckduckgo.com/?q=duck+duck+go+says+it%27s+getting+sh...](http://duckduckgo.com/?q=duck+duck+go+says+it%27s+getting+shut+out)

[https://www.google.com/#q=duck+duck+go+says+its+getting+shut...](https://www.google.com/#q=duck+duck+go+says+its+getting+shut+out)

------
adventured
Maybe DDG should get around to actually competing in the search market by, you
know, building its own search engine. Let's see if Weinberg has any real
engineering chops, or if all he can do is complain.

Until DDG bothers to step into the real search arena and compete, they get no
interest from me.

------
crazypyro
The only thing that caught my eye was Google redirecting duck.com to
google.com when DDG expressed interest in purchasing the domain. That seems a
little underhanded, but not illegal....

~~~
AJ007
Yeah, doing a reverse IP lookup with domain tools shows a list of 1,029
domains currently directing to google.com (some direct to youtube.com)

Duck Duck Go has a TM application filed on April 2, 2008. Google acquired
duck.com's owner in 2010.

There is a very reasonable case for a WIPO domain dispute, which isn't
particularly costly (granted if Google lost, and then sued you it would be
expensive.) Very good way to generate a lot of press coverage.

~~~
mbreese
> Duck Duck Go has a TM application filed on April 2, 2008. Google acquired
> duck.com's owner in 2010.

For any sort of mark dispute, you shouldn't go by when Google acquired On2,
you have to go by when On2 acquired the name. I assume this was closer to the
domain creation date of 1995 (or the On2.com creation date of 1999).

~~~
mseebach2
Wouldn't it be a factor that On2 isn't/wasn't in the search space at all? Only
after the Google acquisition did duck.com come to be associated with search,
and then only by virtue of Google redirecting it to their main page.

~~~
gillianseed
Yes, On2 is/was a video codec technology company, and the reason for them
owning duck.com was that they were previously named 'The Duck Corporation'.

------
aymeric
I think we all see this as a marketing stunt from DuckDuckGo.

~~~
adventured
Reminds me of Scott McNealy complaining about Microsoft instead of beating
them with products in the market, while his company was busy imploding and
becoming irrelevant. That's DDG's future if they go the route of whining
instead of competing.

Linux, Google, Apple, Oracle, Intuit, (and countless open source software like
Apache) et al. demonstrated time and time again that Microsoft could be
trounced. Yet there was McNealy whining like a baby to the trust busters,
while his own company was melting down.

Weinberg = McNealy

~~~
patrickaljord
At least Sun did Java, what has Weinberg brought with DDG? Nothing.

~~~
adventured
Sun was responsible for a lot of tremendous technology (understatement of the
year), the only point was that while McNealy was whining, his company was
burning.

------
javert
Weinberg has absolutely no right to initiate force against Google. This
disgusts me.

------
warmwaffles
What is wrong with people using Google's product and Google showing preference
to their products first then others? I mean after all, you are using THEIR
software running on THEIR system. Don't like it? Go use something else. No one
is forcing you to use Chrome, etc...

~~~
general_failure
exactly. DDG must make their own browser which doesn't allow the user to
change the search engine. revenge!!!

------
cpg
I have been a happy DDG user for more than two years and it's one of the best
things I have done in a while. It works well, and it's great for productivity.
So, that Google does not take it extra easy on them is not surprising.
However, as Google matures, they will realize they need an AMD to their Intel.
Something that poses little business threat, yet diffuses the antitrust
threat. ... Watch.

~~~
barrkel
I set DDG as my default search in Firefox; the results were abysmal. It felt
like being transported back to altavista.digital.com, wading through middling
irrelevant links searching for info. I got fed up with having to put !g into
every query to get a good result, I ended up switching to DuckDuckGoog instead
(and this is my current search provider).

~~~
shawn-butler
This <http://duckduckgo.com/feedback.html> is a good place to place
intelligent, constructive feedback.

The web community (that is, all of us) really, really needs an alternative to
Google. I don't care whether you love or hate them. We desperately need an
alternative.

~~~
icelancer
MS spent gazillions of dollars trying to do it with Bing and isn't close yet.
Google is simply the best service out there by a very wide margin. When people
close the gap, there will be a viable alternative. There's no cosmic law that
says there needs to be an alternative to product X.

~~~
shawn-butler
I have no access to the internal budgets of Microsoft so I can't really
comment intelligently. I am a cross-platform smartphone developer so I use
wp7, wp8 as well as Google APIs daily in order to do my work and bing doesn't
seem so bad for consumer oriented searches. YMMV. For the queries I execute, I
agree their results are subpar.

But I feel compelled to respond. If there is no alternative to Google for
something as important as indexing the output of human knowledge production...
we are in serious trouble. The library of Alexandria burned and we still have
no idea why [0].

Google is interested in one thing, getting you to look at ads. In their
defense, well-targeted ads (++efficiency!). However when given the opportunity
they have exploited their leadership position for every commercial advantage
and recently to the detriment of search (e.g., I do not care to see what a
bunch of "thought leaders" in google+ have to say on the topic I'm searching
for). Their support for "Do Not Track" is grudging at best. [1]

Their business model is approaching that of a virus infecting a host. They
enter an external market and utilize their near monopoly in web
search/advertising to drive the value proposition for competitors to near-
zero. And that gives me pause. It is like Starbucks opening in every local
branch of your public library.

So, I support DDG and I give them feedback on my own time in the hopes they
aren't also inherently out to screw me in the end. Also because I do believe
(and this is an assumption on my part) that a "cosmic" -- well that may be an
overreach -- law is involved. Search is not a natural monopoly [2].

[0] [http://www.economicshelp.org/dictionary/n/natural-
monopoly.h...](http://www.economicshelp.org/dictionary/n/natural-
monopoly.html) [1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google#Do_Not_Trac...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google#Do_Not_Track)
[2] [http://www.economicshelp.org/dictionary/n/natural-
monopoly.h...](http://www.economicshelp.org/dictionary/n/natural-
monopoly.html)

~~~
icelancer
"Need" implies that it requires state intervention on Google's
products/services; that somehow Google's position as the market leader in...
whatever it is exactly we care about (search, I guess) is a very bad thing.

Except that market forces are what they are, and there is no compelling reason
to compare Google who has tons of backups and with many competing services
(though most are bad) to the Library of Alexandria which had a very concrete
single point of failure - which is the entire problem the Internet was
developed to solve.

Google having competitors is good for all of us. But it doesn't "need" one, as
if we must forcibly install a competitor in... well, whatever area you think
they "need" a competitor in (Google services quite a wide range of areas).

>Their business model is approaching that of a virus infecting a host. They
enter an external market and utilize their near monopoly in web
search/advertising to drive the value proposition for competitors to near-
zero. And that gives me pause. It is like Starbucks opening in every local
branch of your public library.

Google horizontally integrates by buying companies and reforming them into
their own services.

And Starbucks' share price has been significantly reduced from its high
earlier this year. (And recovered after losing 50% of its market share by
closing a lot of its unprofitable branches some years ago.)

It's a self-correcting problem.

~~~
shawn-butler
I never stated I advocate state intervention. I said search is not a natural
monopoly and as a result we as a market need viable competitors. As the
perceived cost to us for both is zero, those competitors need "charitable" use
to improve because the product is the activity. You can only improve human
search by analyzing human searches. One might argue I suppose that there is
enough capital to throw at the problem (say, pay me to use ddg until it
catches up or pay Google to provide data), but I question whether that can be
the case due to the network effects of the integrations you mention.

The Internet was not designed to provide highly-available redundant backups of
data. It was designed to route packets across disparate peer networks in a
manner to minimize congestion. Is there an ietf rfc you have in mind that
illustrates your assertion? [0]

I do not follow; what does fluctuations in Starbuck's stock price have to do
with the discussion? It was used as an example of a brand latching on to a
public resource, libraries, in the hopes of becoming indistinguishable from
the activity, namely reading.

[0] <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1958>

------
option_greek
Frankly all this cry baby entitlement mentality lowers DDG in their users
eyes. It makes one wonder if they are just another mouth piece for Microsoft
(like Fair search camp).

------
neya
First of all, in my opinion, executing a frighteningly ambitious idea[1] is
like performing inception. You need the simplest version of the idea for it to
be "planted" in the user's mind.

People aren't using DDG much not because of any difficulties in the browser,
because they don't want to. This is a very lame excuse. Google never won its
users because they were able to convince users to set their Search Engine as
default in their browsers.

As for DDG, the problem starts their name - "DuckDuckGo". You don't need to be
an analyst with years of experience to say that this won't work because even
their name is not something that is a)Catchy b)Easily rememberable c)Simple.
Contrast this with Google. That's just one quick, easy to remember word. Now
compare, Duck+Duck+Go. That's three words and it seems _long_. It looks like
they didn't put much thought into this. This is not to say that DDG didn't do
their homework properly, but just that it seems a little immature, given their
name and their strategy. It looks more like they just read PG's essay[1] and
started something out of the quick inspiration.

To kill a huge competitor like Google, you need to provide more _value_.
Google is very hard to kill right now because, 1)Their search is vastly
superior 2)a lot of people are _locked_ into their ecosystem 3)They have
created a valuable _brand_. No, by locked, I don't mean it's a bad thing. For
example, I use Gmail, Google Contacts, Calendar, Blogger, Google Apps for my
domains and a lot of other stuff because _I want to_. A single sign-in into
their Eco-system lets me use all these services. And now, the best part is
there's Android which seems to integrate all these things so easily like a
snap that makes my life just a breeze.

So, first you need to understand that Google is now more than a search engine.
Because if it was, Bing would have overtook it long back. You need to analyze
the reasons why people still use Google. It's not just a search engine that
they're using it for. Google has taken years and years to build the trust
factor into their users. It has taken them years to make all these users "fit"
into their eco-system and create a tremendously valuable _brand_ . It's not
like that they did it in just one day. So, just starting a new search-engine
and expecting people to join on board is not going to happen. Despite so many
"Ad" controversies, Google is still the king here because of the trust factor
that no one else in the industry is able to provide. The trust factor that
they will remain here, unlike the rest is the most important value that they
provide to their users.

If you want to kill Google at this instant, you are going to do a lot more
hardwork than you thought you should do, you need a _brand_ of similar
magnitude and the important essence here is the time and trust factor which
everyone seems to ignore.

[1]<http://paulgraham.com/ambitious.html>

~~~
davemel37
I actually think their name is one of the strongest things going for
them...and Google being more than a search engine to be the very reason Bing
is gaining market share and brands like DDG actually have a shot at competing.

Regarding the name...it is unique and very MEMORABLE (repetition is one of the
four mental glues.) It has just as few syllables as Microsoft, and is super
easy to pronounce... From a branding perspective they are taking a very strong
positioning play of being the Search Engine that respects privacy. Smart
strategy if you ask me... to position themselves opposite the dominant brand
with a hot button differentiation.

Regarding the trust factor, and the being locked in to google, those are
actually both weaknesses of Google. The locked in issue is part and parcel
with the privacy issue, which is the market DDG is trying to penetrate.
Regarding Trust, I don't see why I need to trust a search engine to use it. In
fact, the privacy thing again is the very reason I DON'T Trust Google...

People Use Google because Google focused on Search when all other search
engines tried to be so much more. Once Google won the category (where people
say, "Just Google It." They assumed they owned the market and started betting
on the future convergence of search and social, etc... I actually think in 5
years from now, Google won't be the dominant player in search, although I do
think Android will become a bigger money maker for them...

DuckDuckGo is doing a fine job with their name and brand strategy...up until
this article and complaint which undermines their focused strategy. By
complaining about Google, they appear to be in the game of competing as an
equal search engine, not a DIFFERENT search experience, which is the play they
need to make to win. It's the reason Burger King can't take over
McDonalds...because they just claim to be better, not different. Pepsi on the
other hand claims to be for the New Generation, Different than Coke which is
classic, and the real thing. Just like Listerine has the brand of being more
powerful than scope because they used the slogan,"The Taste You Hate Twice a
Day." They said we are different, not better.

Human perception is near impossible to change... Complaining about monopolies
is like saying, "we are better but they wont let us play."

If DDG wants to win, they need to pound hard about how they are different, and
if they insist on complaining about Google, it should be consistent with their
brand strategy and focus on how Google is more than search, and DDG is for
when you just want to find what you are looking for with true privacy.

~~~
neya
I just visited duckduckgo.com again (though full of hesitation) and as a
designer I can tell you:

1) Their design is very complex and un-appealing with no simplicity that a SE
should posses (For Eg. Google, Bing have a very simple design). They don't
design Search engines to be simple because they _like_ it that way, because
they have invested a huge amount of money in researching about which colors
and patterns work best. For example, DDG uses a red menu-bar on the top which
tells me they haven't done as much research. I keep repeating this, but
hopefully enough people will realize this:

DO NOT over-use red. Red is used to denote only important elements on a
website (like a sign-up button), a call-to-action element (For example,
compose button on Gmail). Look at DDG, they have a whole top-bar in full red.

2) As a general user, there is no difference between DDG and Google in my eyes
because both have a sponsored link at the top. Both try to benefit from my
searches, so I see no perceivable difference between Google and DDG. Now, I
already know Google has a superior Search algorithm, period (from what I
perceive). So, there is not a single reason for me as an end-user to use DDG
over Google.

And one more - Look at the irony, even you reference them by DDG and not
DuckDuckGo, whereas you reference Google by just Google and not by any other
short form. This is exactly what I meant. Brand Naming is something that we
don't even pay attention to, but plays a much much important role.

~~~
irahul
> 1) Their design is very complex and un-appealing with no simplicity that a
> SE should posses

Enough people have already said it. I feel like a broken record but what's
_very complex_ about a text box and a logo?

> because they have invested a huge amount of money in researching about which
> colors and patterns work best.

Interesting. Do you have any citations to back it up? I haven't heard of
Google researching what colors work best for a search interface. Or bing for
that matter.

> DO NOT over-use red.

The thing about design advice is everyone fancies himself Steve Jobs. Even if
I started listening, I would never have a definitive, agreed-on opinion.

> Red is used to denote only important elements on a website (like a sign-up
> button), a call-to-action element (For example, compose button on Gmail)

Where is this definitive design rule book of yours? As long as you have
sufficient contrast, that is enough to attract attention to important
elements. Are you saying if I have a red background and a white compose button
with black text, user will somehow see the background as call-to-action and
not the button? Now don't go on how red background will not look very good.
That's not the point. The point is color alone doesn't decide which section of
the page is important.

> Look at DDG, they have a whole top-bar in full red.

Since they merge in serach box with the bar, that section is important.

> Now, I already know Google has a superior Search algorithm, period (from
> what I perceive).

This has been done n times. There is no clear pattern when it comes to
choosing google vs bing results in a blind search result. As far as the end
user is concerned, it's not possible to tell which one is algorithmically
superior.

> Look at the irony, even you reference them by DDG and not DuckDuckGo,

What's the irony here?

> whereas you reference Google by just Google and not by any other short form.
> This is exactly what I meant. Brand Naming is something that we don't even
> pay attention to, but plays a much much important role.

Oh my. How much it has hurt Microsoft. They should have just called themselves
MS and be done with it. I can't fathom how much of a hit y-combinator and
hacker news are taking because their names can be abbreviated.

/s

~~~
Cookingboy
But Microsoft by itself is not a "consumer" brand. Bing is, XBox is, Windows
is, Live is, Office is, Microsoft is only the name of the corporation behind
those products and people don't use it in daily conversations. "Hey Dad, I
want a Microsoft XBox so I can play games with my friends on Microsoft Online
Services" -- said no kids ever

Y-Combinator/HackerNews is even less a consumer brand. Of course, that's only
a problem if you are trying to appeal to the mass market, YC/HackerNews isn't,
but DuckDuckGo is.

~~~
irahul
So are you seriously saying brands which can be abbreviated aren't adapted as
well by consumers as brands which can't be? And do you have anything other
than "I said so" to back it up?

~~~
ebrenes
It's not whether the brand can be abbreviated or not, it's what you choose to
build your brand around. A short, easy to remember name is crucial [1].

You don't hear much about International Business Machines, but you do hear a
bit about IBM, because IBM built it's brand around the abbreviated form which
is easier to remember. Likewise, HP is now the word du jour to refer to
Hewlett-Packard.

Abbreviated forms are fine, and have actually been used to bolster (or change)
a company's image. Outside of tech circles if I say MS I'll most likely get
awkward glances, but the moment I switch to saying Microsoft I'll get
immediate brand name recognition. Likewise, you don't hear many people talking
about P or C&C, but drop the name Pepsi or Coca-Cola and you'll also get
instant brand name recognition.

So the question becomes is DuckDuckGo really an easily recognizable, easy to
memorize, that generates imagery associated with the given product/service? Is
it really that appealing?

Surely, it's memorable due to it being so weird, but is it memorable in a way
that I'll link up with search? I dunno, but there's some validity to what's
been said so far about the name being a bit too long or awkward for the
company's sake.

1\. [http://isbm.smeal.psu.edu/library/working-paper-
articles/199...](http://isbm.smeal.psu.edu/library/working-paper-
articles/1995-working-papers/12-1995-creating-effective-brand-names.pdf) p.11
"Accordingly, the criteria rated most important were relevance to product
category (5.99), connotations and images generated (5 X3), and overall appeal
(5.79). They did not lose sight of the fact that names should be memorable.
Ease of recognition (5.77) and ease of recall (5.42) also were rated highly."

~~~
irahul
I am not questioning building a brand. As I said elsewhere, in blind tests,
people have a hard time distinguishing google search results from bing. Brand
name is one of the major factors when it comes to consumers.

People preferred pepsi to thumsup in blind tests. Thumsup sweetened its drink
and faced a major backlash. Thumsup drinkers associated themselves with
Thumsup brand and took pride in "not sweet as pepsi".

I do understand that brand plays a major part for the consumer.

What I was questioning was the ridiculous assumption that somehow calling
DuckDuckGo as DDG is diluting its brand, and always calling Google as Google
is indicative of its strong brand.

~~~
ebrenes
As I see it, using DDG instead of DuckDuckGo is not the core problem. It's not
that doing so dilutes the brand (it does in way, but that's really irrelevant)
I think the main point is that if the users feel compelled to rename then
there is something in the original brand name which is inefficient or
cumbersome which thus detracts from the brand's overall value.

And I do not think it's ridiculous to assume that repetition builds brand
awareness. The study I linked to said as much, indicating that repetition was
one of the best ways to establish brand identity in the minds of consumers.
That's why as a company you're best served by aligning your brand name with
whatever moniker people are more likely to use and hence why a short,
memorable brand name is more powerful than a unique but long-winded archaic
name (at least in this day and age).

------
saumil07
I worked in Search and on Search-related problems for nearly 4 years so here's
my 2c.

For most users Google is "muscle memory". It is quite good for most Search
needs. The angles of attack that tech-savvy folks think are amazing (category
filters, privacy, fancy CoverFlow UX, bigger index - all real differentiators
tried by real companies) - most normals don't give a rat's ass about.

IMO the only real ways to compete are as follows:

a) build something specialized that is several-x better in the specialty
(Kayak) b) build something on top of data that Google doesn't have (Facebook
Search, whenever it stops sucking) c) go head-to-head with nearly equivalent
quality and buy your way in on the CapEx and the Ad/Mktg dollars required to
change muscle memory (Bing)

Beyond that, most companies have had trouble w/ direct search because Google +
Wikipedia gets the job done, by and large. SearchMe? Dead. Kosmix Search?
Pivoted successfully before acquisition. Cuil? Dead. Mahalo Search? Pivoted
several times away from Search. Qwiki? Pivoted successfully.

The sad thing is that Search is such a fun and challenging space with so much
work to be done; I want the space to be more competitive but most consumers
like the status quo just fine.

Lastly - a salute to @yegg for taking this one on. He's a far braver than I,
and most others on this thread critiquing his work.

------
elssar
Just for kicks I searched for 'search engine' on Google - once on
Chrome(logged into my Google account), and once on Firefox(not logged in).
Didn't get Google on the first page on either searche, did get google custom
search engine though(which is a completely different thing). Duck Duck Go was
in the first page both the times, as were Bing, Yahoo, some engine called
Dogpile(never heard of 'em but it was #2 on Chrome), the Wikipedia article for
Web search engine and a few other links. There was a list of popular search
engines at the bottom of the page in Chrome, DDG wasn't there, but lots other
were, and it was compiled from other sources.

Don't see much discrimination there. Especially when they don't even list
their search engine on the first page

Chrome search screenie - <http://goo.gl/HffYt> Firefox search screenie -
<http://goo.gl/nUe7t>

~~~
zem
dogpile was pretty big back in the day. they were the first popular "meta
search engine", aggregating results from several other search engines.

------
mindprince
On chrome, when I right click on the search bar on duckduckgo.com (or any
site), I get an option to "Add as search engine...", on clicking it, I get a
dialog box for specifying Name, Keyword and URL. What chrome can do is add a
checkbox to this dialog box for making it the default search engine.

------
bifrost
DDG is my default search engine, I use it every day. It is vastly superior to
using Google, and they don't track my searches, I don't really need any better
reasons to use it. It is really annoying that I can't easily switch my default
search engine in my phone, especially because typing things into the text
entry bars basically feeds them straight into Google, which basically
publicizes all I do on my phone. I can't stand Chrome as a browser on my
laptops, so I don't use it, but if I did I probably would want to be able to
switch my search engine as easily as you can in FF. I expect to see antitrust
movement soon.

------
nicholassmith
The biggest takeaway is that Google owns duck.com (through acquisition),
duck.com pointed to a web page for the company they acquired up until
DuckDuckGo made enquiries about potentially getting it, duck.com was then
pointed toward google.com. That's probably the biggest dick-move Google has
made, and they're perfectly within their rights to do it. It's still a dick-
move, Google doesn't need to worry about DDG ever attaining marketshare in a
meaningful manner, and DDG have said they're not interested in that.

------
lazyjones
Current Firefox Nightly uses Google for search when something is typed in the
location bar even when a) DuckDuckGo is the default search engine, b) Google
is removed from the search engines list completely.

Go figure... I've lost all respect for both Mozilla and Google recently.

~~~
lazyjones
Correction: a) when DuckDuckGo is the _selected_ search engine. Changing the
default search engine (from Firefox's perspective, not what the user thinks it
is) apparently requires fiddling with about:config.

------
ekm2
I am ardent DDG fan,but i cant seem to win over my non-CS buddies to use
it,simply because duckduckgo sounds funny& laughable.I wish they could switch
to a flashier name.

------
emehrkay
Safari you have to edit your host file to point yahoo's search to ddg (which i
did)

------
rustynails
I really like the idea of duckduckgo, but it just doesn't do it for me. As an
example, I can't find articles posted in the last hour, let alone the last
week (eg. iOS 6 jailbreak).

I know it's slightly off topic, but this would certainly encourage me to use
this - and I have a community around me that tends to adopt what I do.

~~~
thrownaway2424
I agree. I have tried DDG and found their quality and freshness are both much
worse than Google. Bing at least presents a credible alternative in terms of
quality, depth, and freshness, but DDG is only good for people who actually
don't care much if they find what they are looking for.

------
capo
It's very disappointing that DDG is resorting to the same whinny PR tactics as
the less than savory competitors.

It's fairly easy and straight forward to add DDG to Chrome or Android, much
easier than other platforms in fact, you’re not being “shut out” because
you're not the default engine.

------
iomike
never heard of 'em.

~~~
aymeric
It is a search engine that allows you to find pages on the internet. The name
comes from the misspelling of a large number:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googol>

------
kushti
Google's real motto: "Do evil and say don't be evil"

