Google’s
mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally
accessible and useful”. In the era of exploding digital content and incredible
amount of information made accessible by the World Wide Web, Google’s mission
summarizes why the “search” is so valuable. The amount of data is only as valuable
as the access to it. And while the business of search was not understood well
by most tech giants at its infancy, as good search translated into less time on
the portal, Google’s business model, adopted and refined from Overture has
proved that the business of search can be immensely profitable by bringing in
advertisement into the equation. Such important, yet profitable business
obviously attracted intense competition – including efforts from Microsoft and
Yahoo. Judging from recent comments by Mark Zuckerburg, it seems like Facebook
is also planning to expand into search business. This obviously excited
investors of the social network as this represents an entire new business for
Facebook. It is also interesting as Facebook’s search will likely to be
differentiated from Google by adding social aspects to it (e.g., instead of
searching for sushi restaurants in the neighbourhood, one might search the
restaurants that friends have been to and “liked”).
What
does all of this mean for the battle for search? I believe that baring extraordinarily
inventions or functions by Microsoft or Yahoo, catching up with Google in the
business of search would be difficult. A generation of people are wired to
opening up Google for active search and it would require quite an innovation or
social engineering to change such behaviour. The exception is Facebook (and
Apple to some extent), which has the social angle and could steal some user mindshare
away from Google, and its partnership with Microsoft’s Bing may prove that a
more social-aware search is the next big thing in the current social era.
However, as the search business is largely supported by ad dollars, the money
will likely flow to the most effective place or where people go to for
information. This remains a search tool instead of a social network and likely
to stay that way – so I believe that Google, with its current services and on-going
innovation such as Google Glass, will maintain its leadership in search.
Having
said that, I do believe that the future of search is far from certain and I believe
in two big trends. We perform search for information, but we also like
simplicity. Google or Bing + Facebook’s search will likely continue to offer
options after options based on your keywords inputted. Eventually, however, there
will be a shift to a more one shot, one kill approach – that is, you will get
one exact answer for what you are looking for. Apple’s Siri is a good example
for what may come in the future. When you “ask” Siri, you get one most relevant
answer instead of pages of website, advertisements and irrelevant information. On
that note, the second trend I believe in is the innovation in the way we
perform search, regardless of which company or engine is behind it. Again Siri
is a good example, as we can speak to Siri through iphone to perform a search.
Google Glass, can also serve for search engines when you look at objects,
shops, merchandise, etc. In the end, I believe that the battle for search is
hardly over. There are still much innovation and developments to come and it
will continue to change the way to look for and consume information.
