
What Scares Google - robg
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/google
======
wheels
> _foretelling a day when a perfect search engine would comprehend all of the
> world’s information and the meaning behind every user query_

There.

That line.

That's why Google will eventually be dethroned.

Google sees the world through the lens of search -- through the lens of
querying. With a little adjusting you could massage the above into Microsoft's
strategy in a different era.

It's not entirely clear what it will be, but someday we're not going to access
all of the world's information starting with short query strings that we type
into a search bar. When that happens, Google's worldview won't be able to make
the jump, just like Microsoft and IBM did not in the past. They're a search
company.

~~~
patio11
_They're a search company._

They're an advertising company, which happens to own a search engine.

(30% of their revenues come from advertising on sites not owned by Google. By
way of comparison, that is ten times what Google makes from every revenue
source _other_ than advertising. See their 2008 Annual Report if you don't
trust my math.)

~~~
Eliezer
"Google is an Artificial Intelligence company. They just don't advertise the
fact."

~~~
zkz
Source?

~~~
joe_the_user
It's like porn! You might not be able to define intelligence but you know it
when you see it.

Noam Chomsky points out we know English automatically, not through having been
taught rules.

Similarly, I don't know have any references and artificial intelligence nor do
I know exactly how does their search system works (well, I know page rank but
I know they've done lots of work beyond it). But I can tell they're semi-
intelligent by experiencing the semi-intelligence of their searching system.
So they are an artificial intelligence company whether they say it or not,
whether they know it or not, simply by the fact that what they create operates
semi-intelligently to me.

------
jtg
> “Most of the emphasis within the company is on the next couple of years, and
> we tend not to think about longer than that,” says Peter Norvig, Google’s
> director of research.

Does anyone else, after having read this article, find that it isn't really
about what the title suggests? There's no direct admission or direct quote
from anyone at Google about what scares them.

The closest this article comes to telling us what scares Google is
extrapolating that Google's slightly different method of developing products
(fail fast, fail often) is a sign that they're scared. It's quite a stretch.

The Atlantic may be a venerable publication, but the title on this one sure
looks like linkbait to me.

~~~
goof
Yeah, misleading article title.

I really like Norvig's attitude. When big companies start worrying about how
powerful they're going to be in 10 years it's a bad thing. It leads to fear
and paranoia, which makes it harder to not be evil.

------
qeorge
I had a comment on why I think articles like this one are silly, but
remembered Fake Steve did a much better job here:

[http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/07/lets-all-take-deep-
breath-a...](http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/07/lets-all-take-deep-breath-and-
get-some.html)

For example, from this Atlantic article:

 _"Microsoft never got its collective head into competing against the simple
and free stuff available on the Web._ "

Fake Steve:

 _"They're starting to look like the new Scott McNealy. Remember him? Ran a
company called Sun, which had a great little business going until McNealy
became obsessed with Gates and started doing things like paying millions of
dollars to buy StarOffice so he could get into that booming free software
business."_

------
loumf
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=profit+microsoft+ibm+go...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=profit+microsoft+ibm+google)

Microsoft has started brand new billion dollar businesses (TFS, SharePoint)
recently --- Google, so far, hasn't shown they can do anything except sell
ads.

~~~
zeynel1
Yes, you beat me to this. The premise of the article is bogus. Both IBM and
Microsoft are doing well. I also checked in WolframAlpha
<http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=microsoft,+google,+ibm> I like the way
it returns a well-designed summary. I'll try to use it more.

~~~
Perceval
Yes, but IBM had to completely change its stripes in order to survive. They
used to make business computers. Yet they sold off every last bit of computer
manufacturing, the last part going to China as Lenovo. Their core competency
is no longer computer design and manufacture, it's now basically just business
consulting.

So, yes, IBM is doing well, but it's no longer playing the same game in the
same market that it once was.

~~~
anamax
> They used to make business computers. Yet they sold off every last bit of
> computer manufacturing, the last part going to China as Lenovo.

When did IBM stop making System/Z (the mainframes)?

------
ekanes
I would imagine Twitter scares Google. For the first time ever, there are
questions for which Google isn't the best place to type out your query.

"What do people think of X?" "What's happening in _country_" etc.

Google determines quality based on variables which take time to shake out, in
part because that's harder to fake.

Twitter can be gamed, but on the whole it seems to give a decent picture,
perhaps because in effect you see many results on the page in front of you,
rather than links to the results.

~~~
quantumhobbit
As with wikipedia, google can just index twitter. If twitter becomes a true
threat(which I personally doubt) google can always tweak PageRank to work with
fast evolving twitter news. Instead of searching twitter many people will
still search google and click on twitter results if they happen to be
relevant.

~~~
pt
For that, Google needs the Twitter fire hose. I am not sure if Twitter would
be willing to offer that to Google at this time.

~~~
andreyf
Or they can just look at the topology of the connections and the RSS feeds of
the tiny fraction of people representative of the entire thing. Not a big
deal, IMO.

------
10ren
Google Earth was bought, not made (they acquired Keyhole, Inc). And I don't
think it makes any money for google, at all.

Many huge companies have diversified revenue streams, within a broad industry
- like Nestle, General Electric, Proctor and Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive.

Google has diversified products, but it doesn't have diversified revenues.

That said, information comprehension is like science in that the more you
look, the more there is. Google's mission may have a _lot_ of runway left in
it.

~~~
dasil003
Totally. IBM got blindsided by software as a product. Microsoft got blindsided
by the Internet. Google is not going to be blindsided by some kids who
magically perfect search in 10 years. It'll be something completely outside
their core competency.

------
byoung2
It's hard to imagine where search will be in 10 years without speculating
about where the web will be in 10 years. I think when we get better at
organizing information when making web pages (or their future equivalent),
search will get better and easier, and Google for search will be less
relevant.

------
z8000
This is really what scares Google.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWe7eUdgx1I&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWe7eUdgx1I&feature=related)

