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Monday, September 20, 2004
Google was vastly better than anything that had come before: so much better, in fact, that it changed the way many people use the web. Almost overnight, it made the web far more useful, particularly for non-specialist users, many of whom now regard Google as the internet's front door. The recent fuss over Google's stockmarket flotation obscures its far wider social significance: few technologies, after all, are so influential that their names become used as verbs.Mr Brin's and Mr Page's accomplishment was to devise a way to sort the results by determining which pages were likely to be most relevant. They did so using a mathematical recipe, or algorithm, called PageRank. This algorithm is at the heart of Google's success, distinguishing it from all previous search engines and accounting for its apparently magical ability to find the most useful web pages. Google now faces a three-way fight with Yahoo! and Microsoft, which have both vowed to dethrone it as the dominant internet search engine. Yahoo!'s strategy is to interconnect its various online services, from search to dating to maps, in increasingly clever ways, while Microsoft's plan is to integrate desktop and internet searching in a seamless manner, so that search facilities will be embedded in all its software, thus doing away (the company hopes) with the need to use Google. Both firms are also working to improve their basic search technology in order to compete with Google.In response, Google has gradually diversified itself, adding specialist discussion groups, news and shopping-related search services, and a free e-mail service, Gmail, which is currently being tested by thousands of volunteers. It has also developed “toolbar” software that can be permanently installed on a PC, allowing web searches to be performed without having to visit the Google website, and establishing a toe-hold on its users'PCs.Google's technical credentials are not in doubt. The question is whether it can maintain its position, as search, the activity where it is strongest, moves from centre stage to being just part of a bundle of services. Yet the example of Gmail shows how search can form the foundation of other services: rather than sorting mail into separate folders, Gmail users can simply use Google's lightning-fast search facility to find a specific message. So the technology that made Google great could yet prove to be its greatest asset in the fight ahead The launch of A9 and Yahoo's focussed thrust on search( some now claim yahoo search to be faster and say throws out more results), and Microsoft's efforts to integrate search with Desktop,would make Google innovate and roll out faster- we have to see how Google responds - In most of Asia , Google is still not the No.1 search Engine, Yahoo has made tremendous strides in the US market in the recent past. Google's effort to build online community is not gaining volume to the extent predicted, coming as they are from the Google stable.
