Google Hasn't Won the Search Game Yet

The other day, I jokingly proposed a new startup, kind of a play on music discovery site Last.FM. Maybe it'd be called Lastsearch.FM. Anyway, the basic idea is this: everyone uploads all of the search engines they have in their Firefox search bar, then your system recommends to you new search engines based on some social filtering. It's a joke obviously, the idea of socially filtering out what search engines you need to use is pretty darn silly. But, I realize it says something important: I'm using a lot more than Google (GOOG) search these days. Here's what I have right now in my Firefox search bar:

• Google (general stuff)
• Amazon (AMZN) (goods)
• Answers.com (definitions)
• eBay (EBAY) (goods)
• The Hype Machine (music)
• Edgar 10-K Search (SEC filings)
• YouTube (videos, often music)
• Del.icio.us (not sure, really)
• Technorati (heh, I know)
• Last.fm (music)
• Summize (Twitter search)
• Wikipedia (often the best source)

Sure, for the most part I use Google for general searches, but a good percentage of the time, I know which site I expect to find the result on. I'll do a search like 'site: paidcontent.org Viacom'.

The point is that the number of times I just do a general, ignorant query on Google is growing increasingly rare. My behavior might be a little bleeding edge, but the point is that it's very convenient and useful to divide search among different sites like this, and over time, more people's behavior will go in this direction. What won't happen (probably)  - a mass exodus to Microsoft (MSFT) or Yahoo (YHOO) search, barring something totally (totally) unexpected.

I also want to call out Summize in particular. It's really simple, and basically it just searches people's Twitters, but if you want to get people's take on that's going on right now, it's the way to go. For example, I used it to see how people were reacting to Diary of A Call Girl, the new show on Showtime that has a lot of sex in it. And I used it to gauge reactions to the Russert Memorial today. I also used it the other day when I was in the waiting room at the doctor and it proved to be the best way of keeping up with the scores in real time. You know that stuff that that guy Frank Luntz does, with the real-time debate reaction analysis? He does it for Fox News, and for the most part, it's kind of silly. But there's something to it, and there's a lot that can be done here. This site is going places.

Comments

[Network Effect]

I was wondering when the media would start to talk about this. This phenomenon has been going on for quite some time. The loophole has always been there in Google's lead generation model, but Wall Street and the media has a blind eye to anything bad about one of their darlings. Investors, listed hard to what this author is saying. LEAD GENERATION BUSINESS MODELS HAVE A FATAL FLAW. THERE IS A LOOPHOLE BECAUSE TRANSACTIONS ARE NOT PROCESSED THROUGH THE LEAD GENERATOR. This is why eBay, PayPal, and Skype is a far superior business model and if they can reignite a culture of innovation inside the company, they will definitely not lose the stranglehold they have on commerce, payments and communication. And, because of the compounding network effect of their three customer bases, they will eventually win search and social networking as well. But, if they don't reignite innovation inside the company, they may lose their grip on their current businesses and don't have a shot at winning the next game. And more than likely Google will win if that's the case. But it's eBay's to lose.

[stanlori]

Next time try dogpile.

[borisb]

Very insightful search list thanks!

[mkreisel]

Don't you know youtube is part of Google?

As long as Google can keep or increase its talented people, it will keep getting stronger.

[lzb5ml]

The writer has evolved into a mature searcher. My behavior evolved in a similar fashion fairly qucikly.