
Google's Competitors Falsely Claim Google Dominates Because It Was 'First' - nextparadigms
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110921/14190816043/how-quickly-we-forget-googles-competitors-falsely-claim-google-dominates-because-it-was-first.shtml
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PaulHoule
It was the first one that didn't suck and it was the first one that made
money.

Infoseek was the first search engine I saw. They were thinking of charging
people for subscriptions.

Altavista came out with a bigger and fresher index, for a year or two they
were the best, but they were being totally rolled by spammers, just like the
others.

Then there was Google, which was spam resistant and much more relevant than
the competition. Then Google figured out how to make money and nobody's caught
up since.

Arguably Bing "doesn't suck" but it doesn't make money.

~~~
boredguy8
"It was the first one that didn't suck"

That's also untrue. I remember being viscerally mad at Yahoo for moving away
from Inktomi because Inktomi results were much better for what I searched
for...or I had gotten my searches to work for Inktomi. Who cares? Eventually,
Google got better, and I started using them.

I use a lot of Google services, but when I search the web I use Google because
it works. Searches have very little traction. The only thing it takes to move
my searches elsewhere is consistently better results. All it takes for me to
try a new search engine is Google not working well a few more times a month.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Lycos was ok in the super early days but as the amount of content increased a
simple search engine was no longer effective. Inktomi was great because it
didn't have portal-bloat and it had pretty high quality results. But when
google came around it blew everyone out of the water because not only were the
results generally of higher quality but it was enormously faster. Combined
with a smart datacenter strategy and a smart advertising strategy they
dominated the market with ease.

Edit: To follow up, google was able to deliver better results (due to
pagerank) faster (due to map/reduce and sharding) cheaper (due to highly
automated data centers filled with commodity hardware). This combination set
them up for dominance, the ability to generate better, more context
appropriate ads (due to pagerank, map/reduce, etc, etc. and an effectively
massive excess of processing power per search) and the ability to be
profitable at a much lower CPM for ads (due to cheaper operations) was what
allowed them to become a multi-billion dollar company and leave all other
search companies in the dust.

------
felipemnoa
Wow, the arguments as to why google is a monopoly are almost surreal. It seems
that the main argument is that they have a better/popular product and hence
they should be punished for that. Whomever is pulling the strings from behind
is really playing dirty. I hope it comes back to bite them in the ass big
time.

This whole thing looks too much like a witch hunt.

~~~
aristus
You are offended because Google is being held to a different standard, and you
are right. That's the whole point. Monopolies are held to a different
standard. This exercise is about determining whether a) Google enjoys a
monopoly and b) has abused it to the detriment of competition. The nature of
this process is ugly, and everyone involved is self-interested. But I don't
think it is a "witch hunt".

The question is not whether Google does good work, or that its search engine
is popular on its own brand & merit. It does and it is. The question is
whether Google is using its dominance in one area (telling people where things
are) to gain dominance in other areas (telling people to use its products over
others).

Even if Google's non-search products are _objectively better_ , it can be a
bad thing in the long run as the next generation of competitors are locked out
by Google's dominance in search.

Defenses like "competition is one click away" are disingenuous, in my opinion.
Clicks follow a power-law distribution. But I don't know what the right answer
is. This might all be sour grapes. That's what the hearings and investigation
are supposed to reveal.

~~~
magicalist
> Even if Google's non-search products are objectively better, it can be a bad
> thing in the long run as the next generation of competitors are locked out
> by Google's dominance in search.

The problem is in how you try to fix this. You could just as easily end up
hobbling google with nothing to show for it but enabling the last generation
of middlemen to stick around even longer.

(Nextag and Expedia come to mind...)

> That's what the hearings and investigation are supposed to reveal.

Here's hoping. These proceedings aren't big on subtlety, so unless there's a
smoking gun, I'm expecting mostly innuendo and posturing from everybody.

~~~
aristus
The remedies tend to be forced divestiture (eg, Google forced to some portion
of DoubleClick, I forget which one), full breakup (a la AT&T), or huge fines
(as with Intel in Europe).

None of those are surgical. The breakup of Ma Bell may have helped
competition, except that instead of a national monopoly we were saddled with a
dozen regional monopolies. It's all a huge mess and I wish I knew the answer.

------
jinushaun
First?! Geez louise, I still remember the day when I first heard about Google
while talking to a computer nerd friend of mine over AIM. We were probably
discussing an article on Slashdot. I still remember the days when I was
constantly evangelising the awesomeness of Google and secretly changing the
default home page for everyone else in my family. Good riddance Yahoo,
Infoseek, Lycos and Altavista. Good riddance sneaky sponsored search results.

------
kevingadd
When people testify before congress like this, is it under oath? Lying to
congress should be considered perjury.

~~~
staunch
It is under oath. This is not the kind of thing that should be prosecuted.
Jeez.

~~~
wpietri
Why not? A paid mouthpiece saying something false in order to mislead Congress
into doing what his paymasters want seems like a serious issue to me.

~~~
dissident
He might be saying something false, but he's saying something he believes is
true. They're not asking him for an account on some event that took place,
they're asking for an opinion.

Lying under oath has to be a clear and deliberate misrepresentation of the
truth. That can't be proven in this case. It's a perfectly valid opinion to
believe that Google is successful because it was first, whether you agree with
that opinion or not.

~~~
brown9-2
Is believing that the sun revolves around the earth a valid opinion?

~~~
Natsu
It is if you accept relativity's statement that there is no privileged
reference frame.

That said, you'd have to be clueless to think that there were no search
engines before Google. Haven't they at least heard of Yahoo?

------
staunch
By "got there first" he could quite likely mean that they were the first to
achieve search market domination, which is entirely true.

~~~
felipemnoa
Is there any indication that that is what he meant?

~~~
ohashi
It seems like a pretty ridiculous definition considering the words chosen.
Getting there first implies doing something first. Google didn't invent search
nor did it invent the business model of PPC (GoTo/Overture did it - who were
bought by YAHOO).

------
mbesto
> _Being first to market does grant a significant advantage._

This was the first comment I saw on the article and I immediately began to
cringe. This is so dead WRONG! For the life of me I can't find the reference
but I believe their is a book that talks solely how being first in a market is
a massive myth.

~~~
trevelyan
Not intended to come across as aggressive, but have you started a business?
How about one that competes with entrenched players in an existing space? Or
one that appears on page seven or eight in Google for relevant search queries
when your competitors are on page one?

There is a reason most YC companies are trying to disrupt markets rather than
compete head-on-head with existing business models. Because while it isn't
impossible to break into markets dominated by competitors, it is much harder
and you are at a severe disadvantage. How do you reach consumers? How do you
build brand awareness? How do you advertise profitably? And why should the NYT
or RWW or anyone write about your business when there is already a bigger
story out there?

There are ways around these problems, but they all involve tradeoffs that work
against small startups and that take time and money to overcome. Blogging
heavily to try to overcome SEO problems will take at least 12 months in the
best case to see any results and gets less effective every year, while
requiring quite a bit of work up-front that does not drive revenue. Viral
loops can take time to function effectively in the real world. And meanwhile
you have to be building something that _will_ drive revenue eventually in
addition to addressing user concerns, iterating and improving your product.

Your best bet is often just to produce something really good and aim for word-
of-mouth. But even in this case, your speed of growth will be much slower than
initial entrants ceteris paribus, and you'll often need to compete by giving
more stuff away for free. If Google didn't have VC funding they wouldn't have
been able to spurn the sponsored placements that their competitors used and
would have ended up with an internal marketing department. Would their product
have seemed so much different/better then? So ask yourself -- can you give
away your product for free for four or five years while you find a better way
to make money (AdSense)? And do you really have an advantage in this search
compared to your profitable competitors who are also looking to innovate and
improve their products, and who also have non-trivial budgets to back their
development efforts?

~~~
mbesto
Not aggressive at all. Yes, I've started two actually (completely boot
strapped mind you). One was a creative agency (huge market saturation) and one
that is a niche social network (another huge market saturation). I haven't
technically started my third, but I am essentially responsible for growing a
consulting practice right now.

> _There is a reason most YC companies are trying to disrupt markets rather
> than compete head-on-head with existing business models._

I also think the reason most YC companies disrupt markets is because they are
generally younger and less experienced entrepreneurs who have little to no
market network. And in many cases either sell B2C or sell to B2B to the same
tech companies that sell B2C. Many small businesses (the one I worked for
currently) are created by individuals who have massively entrenched business
networks. The practice I currently am growing has gone from 3 people to 10 by
the end of the year. We compete with IBM, Accenture, Capgemini, etc. in the
professional services industry. We do ZERO SEO or generate word-of-mouth. Are
we disrupting a massive services industry market? Yes.

Honestly I feel like you've gone off on a little tangent here about my
original point. While you've raised many wonderful and valid points (that I
don't have the time to give my answer) it doesn't negate the fact that being
first really doesn't mean anything other than "I learned a lot". Ideally I
want to be third or fourth, so that way I can just take all of the painful
(read->expensive) learning experiences that the first guy did when trying to
capture his product/market fit and just run off from there.

Categorically, let's look at some successful companies/products - Apple's
iPad/iPod/iPhone - not first / Google's search - not first / Ford's Automobile
- not first / Reddit - not first / Microsoft Office - not first

Being first as a qualifier for success is a myth. Doing it RIGHT first will
make you successful.

~~~
Hyena
Your experience is much more representative and more likely to succeed. Noting
that there is a shortage of Italian restaurants or exploitation of a scaling
problem in advertising and so on is how most successful companies get built.

More deeply, it is a strange incoherence: "only disruptive companies are
successful" leaves you wondering what there'd be to dirupt, since everyone
else went bankrupt years ago.

~~~
trevelyan
I'm not saying only disruptive companies are successful. Nor am I saying first
movers are. I'm saying that it is more difficult to be disruptive if you
aren't among the first solving a particular problem.

~~~
mbesto
When then you're technically no longer disruptive because the market is
already established.

[http://steveblank.com/2009/09/10/customer-development-
manife...](http://steveblank.com/2009/09/10/customer-development-manifesto-
part-4/)

------
itswindy
That's besides the point, even if the writer is 112% correct. What you do with
the power you have now, no matter how you got it matters. But advertising
based search engines are biased, they will want you to click on ads and will
favor their partners (brands.)

Larry and Sergey were right, it's a shame they fell for a few $billion more:

"Currently, the predominant business model for commercial search engines is
advertising. The goals of the advertising business model do not always
correspond to providing quality search to users."

"But less blatant bias are likely to be tolerated by the market. For example,
a search engine could add a small factor to search results from "friendly"
companies, and subtract a factor from results from competitors. This type of
bias is very difficult to detect but could still have a significant effect on
the market. Furthermore, advertising income often provides an incentive to
provide poor quality search results."

~~~
itswindy
For those that didn't notice, this is from Larry and Sergey's original
PageRank paper <http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html> , before
Eric Schmidt showed up as the "adult." Google is now the largest advertiser on
earth.

I agree 100% with them here!

------
jpalomaki
"They dominate just because they got there first"

An argument quite often used by those who can't compete on the same level.

Google is leading not because they were the first, but because they serve
their customers well and continue to evolve. Go to the Google blogs and you
will see great examples about how they spend lot of time trying to understand
what users are meaning with their queries and refining the search to provide
more relevant results.

------
j_col
Using their search home page recently to promote their new social network, for
example? Pretty hard to compete with that kind of marketing coverage if you
were trying to launch your own social network...

