Is Google Laughing At Us?
Repeatedly we’re reading predictions that Google is going to be replaced as THE search engine pretty soon. Naturally, the runner-up search engines would have a hand in Google’s demise if they could. But I see it as indicative of Google’s true strength that despite the best efforts of their enemies, Google seems to be riding the waves so far.
Why would Google laugh at all the dire predictions that this behemoth is going to hit the runway? Well from their perspective things have probably never looked better. Let’s take a look at the facts.
- They rule the roost as far as search is concerned, and at the moment no other search engine looks even close to catching up with them (I get around ten times as much traffic from Google as I do from Yahoo or Windows Live and it’s probably a similar story for most websites out there).
- They are expanding in every direction and into different segments of the online market.
- They are the authority as far as achieving a high profile business online is concerned.
But, they’re losing something that’s vital to any business large or small, and that is customer satisfaction, particularly among customers who are more web-savvy. What are Google’s customers (including myself) starting to worry about or question?
- More than once it has been suggested that the Google apparatus is dangerously large and their databases retain information that could be used against us.
- They are beginning to sound arrogant when complaints are leveled against them: it’s as if they know they’re #1 so it doesn’t matter if a few complain.
It would be interesting to hear other points of view on this topic. Please comment. 
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i don’t think that another search engine will replace google.
we have seen many approaches in the last decade, but the basic concept of a search engine has not really changed, the interface nowadays is almost the same as it was at the beginning.
so what makes a search engine good? it is the size of its index. are google results really more relevant than yahoo or msn results? i don’t think so, but usually google will deliver more results.
in the near future, will anybody else be able to build a bigger index than google? i don’t think so…
so, what you say is a bad thing, google’s size, is actually what makes google so good.
i think what will happen is the way how we retrieve information in general will change, i see myself turning to google less and less often, because i don’t need to search for information in there, information is delivered to me instead, through blog subscriptions, rss feeds, and through twitter.
google already understood, thats why they came up with their social graph api.
concerns about privacy, well, than this world of social networks must be a very scary place for you, there is not too much room for privacy i guess.
personally i don’t care to much about this, because how can all this information be used against me? well, it will be used to market products or services, it will be used to deliver very targeted advertising.
and very, very targeted advertising is not advertising anymore – it becomes information. i am fine with that.