

Apple's Siri seen cutting Google out of valuable mobile ad views - bretthellman
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/11/04/apples_siri_seen_cutting_google_out_of_valuable_mobile_ad_views.html

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sjs
I have trouble taking this seriously.

> Arora noted that before buying an iPhone 4S with Siri, he was required to
> search for an Indian restaurant through Google's website.

 _Required_? This guy hadn't heard of Yelp or Urbanspoon so he used Google for
everything. Fine, nothing wrong with that. But how does one arrive at the
conclusion that everyone else used Google to find everything?

> "Google would have made money if I clicked on any one of a number of
> advertisements for restaurants on the search page," he said. "Siri
> completely bypassed Google and went to a database called Yelp."

A database called Yelp. Ok. I cannot believe this AppleInsider crap is on HN.
What a non-story.

To go on a bit of a tangent, what is it that compels people to want or need a
rival? It seems like it's trendy to hate Google these days, and people just
kind of assume that everything Google or Apple does is to spite the other one,
and not to just make their own stuff better. I don't understand it. I
understand that Apple and Google compete in certain areas but why do people
outside these companies like to get behind one and hate others? It's really
stupid and has going on for decades. Apple vs Microsoft. Linux vs Microsoft.
Microsoft vs Google. Apple vs Google. Apple vs Samsung. It's beyond tired. Can
we please just give it up?

~~~
hello_moto
Calm down. It's Saturday and you're reading a blog. This isn't a scientific
journal bro. Chill out. This ain't for you to read you dig?

Telling them to shut up is like telling flame-war (language fanboys, LISP
elitists, NoSQL followers) soldiers to go to church of pragmatism.

Ain't gonna happen.

~~~
sjs
I happen to love Apple, Lisp, and NoSQL. I also like Google, Ruby, JavaScript,
Python, C, and consider myself pragmatic. Make what you will of that.

And yeah it's Saturday and I'm reading HN. I'm not telling AppleInsider to
stop being AppleInsider, not sure where you got that from. I am talking to my
fellow hackers here, making a plea for a little bit of sanity and discretion.
(Sorry about my ranting, I tend to rant when I'm annoyed. I don't want to
harsh your mellow but maybe my ranting ain't for you to read, bro. It's
Saturday and you're on _Hacker News_ you dig? This isn't Facebook, or a drum
circle on the beach.)

Is it such a stretch to imagine that maybe, just _maybe_ , Apple bought Siri
because they thought it would make the iPhone more useful and not because they
wanted to "kill" Google? I mean, why even post this drivel to HN? How are we
supposed to have a moderately intelligent discussion about some ill researched
and ridiculous claims made by some guy who hasn't heard of Yelp, and an
informal poll of 40 people?

edit: And yes I'm aware that Steve Jobs had it out for Google. That doesn't
mean that everything Apple now does has to be with the sole intention of
hurting Google. If you think about how many people own a iPhone 4S in relation
to how many use a PC of some kind then the idea that this minor dent in
Google's search revenue is going to somehow kill Google is beyond laughable. I
understand seeing this crap on AppleInsider, but not on HN.

------
brd
I think this was always an obvious side effect of Siri. The more interesting
question is how does Google provide a competitive solution without
cannibalizing their own revenue?

~~~
bretthellman
If you're afraid of cannibalizing your current revenue you die. Apple's never
been afraid of this in fact this is discussed in the Steve Jobs book. Example
the iPad is eating into Mac sales and that's ok.

~~~
andybak
Indeed. That has been Microsoft's biggest weakness for several years now.
Innovative initiatives are shut down because they threaten Windows, Office or
both.

The Courier story is the most recent example but far from the only one.

------
erohead
"Arora noted that before buying an iPhone 4S with Siri, he was required to
search for an Indian restaurant through Google's website."

Sometimes I wish I could downvote articles on HN...

------
joelrunyon
Really obvious commentary here.

It's pretty obvious that Siri is a shift in how users interact with their
mobile devices but I think it's a little naive to say "The business model of
Google is at risk" as if Siri is some unstoppable force that no one can stop.
It's pretty dang new itself and to assume that Google isn't working on or
doesn't have the technology to do something similar (and profit off of it via
adwords) is a little ridiculous.

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evo_9
What is to prevent Apple from taking Siri online and using it as a search
engine to compete directly with Google?

That seems to be where they are heading with all this (that huge new data-
center they just built starts to make sense too).

~~~
tmgrhm
It wouldn't be competing _directly_ with Google though, would it? Siri offers
a limited range of functions (currently, though this will inevitably widen as
Apple makes more modules (and possibly opens it up to third parties)) whereas
Google indexes (almost) everything on the web and searches by text.

I agree though: due to its nature of remotely processing input, Siri could
become a search engine accessed via a web browser assuming the computer has a
mic (which most current Macs — especially the biggest-sellers, MacBooks — do).
It would become a single interface for accessing dozens of services — like
Wolfram Alpha and Yelp — and tapping petabytes of information.

~~~
evo_9
No you're right, they are not ready right now, but they seem to be heading
toward that collision somewhere down the road.

I was thinking mic would be necessary too but they would certainly have to
have a fallback for machine's that lack that capability (aka, a text input box
box). Apple could even do their spin on it and have the question spoken back
to you after you enter it so Siri can 'hear' it (Apple has to spin it unique
in some fashion similar to how Bing has a background picture distinguishing
itself).

~~~
tmgrhm
For some reason I didn't even consider that you could control it via normal
text input, but you're obviously right as that's what Siri will eventually use
after the voice-recognition software is used. This totally widens the possible
market then, you're right.

I think the main bottleneck at the moment though (and why Siri was limited to
the iPhone 4S even though the 4 and 3GS run it perfectly) is due to server
load. They simply don't have the infrastructure to handle all the requests.

------
richardofyork
For the first time it appears Google's web search could see a viable and
strong competitor in Siri, especially if Apple acquires Quora and integrate
Siri with Quora. I wrote about this here: [http://nextgenui.com/user-
exerperience/googles-pagerank-algo...](http://nextgenui.com/user-
exerperience/googles-pagerank-algorithm-will-become-irrelevant-cognition-will-
succeed/)

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juliano_q
Even if _all_ iPhone users start to use only Siri instead of Google, will
Google really be in trouble? IOs have around 25% of the smartphone market. Is
this number relevant compared to _all_ users of Google in the world? (this is
actually a question.)

------
bretthellman
We have a poll/conversation going here: <http://hall.com/apple>

~~~
benatkin
Low information density on that page. Really do not need to see an activity
stream of people I don't know voting Yes or No.

~~~
bretthellman
@benatkin good points. We're working on a iteration now to address.

