Shockingly, although it includes news, music, travel and sport categories, the most sought-after searches (in the UK) revolved mostly around celebrities and awful televison. Although Oasis were at number four and the US election at number six, so maybe there’s a glimmer of hope for us all.
The top searches were:
1. Britney Spears
2. Big Brother
3. X Factor
4. Oasis
5. High School Musical 3
6. US Election
7. Amy Winehouse
8. Heath Ledger
9. Kate Moss
10. Eastenders
Following on from yesterday’s news that Lycos will soon cease to be, it appears another search engine has bitten the dust.
Anyone visiting SearchMash will be greeted with the homepage message “SearchMash… Has gone the way of the dinosaur.” I like to think this partly supports my opinion that search is undeniably becoming more and more competitive at an alarming rate. That said, SearchMash was owned by Google, so with the site recieving low traffic volumes and no decent financial return, its reasonably fair to understand why they shut it down. The cynical side of me thinks that this could be a newish tactic by Google – buying up the smaller searchers, then closing them down to ensure they can stay top-dog. Afterall, we’ve seen other companies do it in just about every imaginable industry, from property to retail.
As an aside, I hope they don’t get hold of SearchCrystal just yet. I stumbled upon this hidden gem a couple of days ago and suggest you have a look at it. It’s a fairly innovative approach to search AND comes as a widget.
Anything Google says, you sometimes have to take with a pinch of salt.
However, in the wake of yesterdays blog about Yahoo Glue, Google has announced its SearchWiki, the new application that will let users customise their search results by re-ranking, deleting, adding, and commenting as to whatever suits their needs.
To quote the release on the Google Blog;
“With just a single click you can move the results you like to the top or add a new site. You can also write notes attached to a particular site and remove results that you don’t feel belong. These modifications will be shown to you every time you do the same search in the future. SearchWiki is available to signed-in Google users. We store your changes in your Google Account. If you are wondering if you are signed in, you can always check by noting if your username appears in the upper right-hand side of the page……The changes you make only affect your own searches.”
Right, well, Yahoo users in the US might have glimpsed the new offering, Glue.
At the moment, it’s only running as a trial and has a small amount of content available, but looks pretty cool. Think Google’s Universal Search, but displayed a bit more aesthetically… It pulls together search content content from all over the internet onto one single page, including image results, Youtube videos, news and blogs.
As I said, it’s fairly limited at the moment, with only a handful of topics available to users – ranging from Kylie Minogue, through to Cupcake Recipies. Suprisingly, it’s been previously tested in India, so go figure. Perhaps the orders for this came from Mr Yang – people in power always go a little nuts – which is why he finally quit?
Who knows, but I do sincerely hope we’ll soon be seeing Glue up and running in full – despite the fact that Yahoo really shouldn’t be playing too much with search and needs to focus on a different business model.
Once again, I return to an issue I’ve already mentioned before… The importance of websites realising that in order to be competitive, they have to move forward with user’s needs.
So, it’s with no great surprise that Ask, an old-school search engine, has opted for a total facelift and new approach to dealing with user searches. If you happen to be as old as me, you’ll remember that they did this before, back in 2006, when they gave their butler-image the sack. Now, after alread intoducing new applications, they’re going to be focusing upon being the search engine of choice for users who are asking direct questons. (eg. Is there no end to the talents of DigitalGeekUK? Will he ever be the next Bill Gates? Why have I read this far?!) Recent data from ComScore support this, as they found that Ask is more often used by people searching for specific answers to questions… (The clue is in the name)… Search Queries that use questions make up around 5% of searches on Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Live, but accounts for 15% of Ask’s searches. Sounds like a lot, but remember that Ask only has a 2% market share in online search!
So, it seems that Ask will be restructuring themselves around this as we well know that rivals are increasingly looking at ways to set themselves apart from Google in the competitive world of search. The new Ask site will be launched in the UK on October 20th, but is already live in the US. Sneak preview here, guys.
It looks a lot like Google, and doesn’t try to hide this fact, openly claiming to have “borrowed” design ideas from the mighty search leader. Ask also claim that the re-designed site will be faster, improve search results and produce more relevant results for the user.
Whilst they undoubtably have a challenging task ahead, it’s not all bad news. Even with such a small UK marketshare, the lastest figures from Neilson show that during August, 46m searches were conducted on Ask, which is roughly one in five of all people using a search engine. Maybe the figures will be even better this time next year?
Right, well, it’s not often I get confused online – being a total geek, I can practically see binary code as a oil painting. However, I’m not fully understanding the concept behind The Second Web.
It says it will be launching in November and seems to be, at it’s most basic, a web-browser within a web-browser. Fundamentally, not a bad idea – especially considering it’s apparently been dreamed up and built by a 16-year old – but huge problems come with it. Second Web has been built with the intention to find a new way of selling advertising space online, and already it’s become a nice little earner: With the option to buy .com-domain names (that already are being used in the REAL internet) for only $5, more than $25,000 has been made before Second Web is even online. This causes a real headache legally, as it can easily break copyright laws and potentially damage brands. For example, if you put www.google.com in the Second Web browser, you’re faced with a page that says nothing but “REMOVED FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT”. What I can see here relates to an earlier post on this blog, where I commented about the ludricous amounts of money domain names can bring to their owners if they ever sell them on. It’s very likely that users have been snapping up big internet brands the (Myspace’s, Ebay’s and MSN’s of the digital world) in the hope that they can sell them back to these companies at an inflated rate.
I might have this totally wrong – maybe companies are happily buy up their domains for a second time in order to re-serve them on this second-level internet browser. In my opinion, it seems unlikely, as all sorts of issues arise; the fact that I doubt the sites will be indexed very well by search engines; the fact that to access this second-level, you need to have the browser-in-a-browser open; the fact that you could possibly be hounded by commerical lawyers for using someone else’s legally owned name.
I’m also failing to see any solid advertising opportunity, due similar reasons that relate to what I’ve already mentioned – How would paid-search ads for a second-level-site be displayed in the top-level internet?! How (if at all) would top-level sites be advertised, second-level?! It seems to suddenly have a lot of issues and get very confusing when we start to talk about advertising. I’m also worried, it seems to have no relationship to any of the relevent monitoring bodies – eg. the IAB - nor does it appear to be a registered online business.
I might have this totally incorrect (can anyone enlighten me?) and I’m categorically NOT stating solid facts or making accusations. I honestly admire the thought and effort behind this project; there’s no denying it’s in the entrepreneurial spirit, but I can just see so many potential problems and pitfalls with the idea. It seems quite likely to me that established internet users, companies and advertisers will want to protect themselves as much as possible - probably through legal means and actively avoiding the site, but I’m happy to say that I could be totally wrong. All I can really say at this point is, let’s see what happens?
So, from humble beginnings a decade ago, Google turns double-digits and simultaneously is recognised as the worlds most powerful global brand, as charted by research-consultancy firm, Millward Brown. Interestingly, out of the top-ten brands on this list, four are computing-based: Alongside Google (1), there sits Microsoft (3), IBM (6) and Apple (7). Furthermore, China Mobile (5) and Nokia (9) bulk up this techno-team. Unquestionably, this is a reflection on the importance of technology in modern everyday life, but perhaps any questions should be directed towards Google and the massive monopoly they’re building for themselves?
There are hundreds of articles and blogs floating around surrounding the ethics of Google, particularly in their data-collecting/retaining methods. Whilst I’m totally for companies being allowed to make profits, no matter how big the amounts involved, I like to try and understand the motivation behind the cash. When Google bought DoubleClick, I was worried – and partly, I still am – that the biggest search engine on earth was buying one of the biggest measurers of ad-trafficking and measurement. Not only does this possibly stamp out competition, but the issues raised surrounding data and the fact that Google will soon be Big-Brother-esque in their knowledge of users. (Therefore able to increase revenue even further). It just seemed to be a bit bullying when it happened, and a far cry from the informal Google “Don’t be evil” slogan. Other stuff happened this year, such as Brand-protection no longer being allowed on PPC-ads, so competitors could appear on each other’s terms; another money-maker for the company.
Whilst Google undeniably do a great deal of good, both online and off, (from free source coding and decent email through to setting up a $1bn charity fund and uniting knowledge-sharing), it nevertheless remains that some of it’s business practices can be viewed to sway slightly away from what the company preaches.
