Google Fighting Spam?

Google is building a case against spam on blogs and explains why it’s so important to have a spam free website. After reading these articles, I almost bought in the idea that Google actually cared about its users. I mean with 80% of the search engine market, Google doesn’t need to care about the quality of SERPs. As long as people keep on coming, it’s all good news because traffic to Google = money through AdWords. So why this sudden change of heart? Monopolies never had to consider their customer’s needs. Google doesn’t act like a monopolist because it doesn’t see itself in such a strong market position.

Bing: search competition

Well, there is more competition for Google since Microsoft has launched Bing and had the deal with Yahoo. The new search engine is growing strong and Microsoft is kind of using the momentum to imitate what Google is doing with web applications. For example, Microsoft has a strong Map application and is working with a lot with mainstream social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter. Even more dramatic, Microsoft is stealing quality content away from Google.

What is really scary about Microsoft is that it has strong know-how when it comes to software development. While the number of Google applications are just growing by the day, they are all somehow beta releases. There are just too much functionality delivered and I don’t see how the market can take all that. Microsoft on the other hand has a strong record of delivering release products at the right time. Microsoft software was never known for it’s stability or sophistication but those few functions that were delivered were really easy to use and there always seemed to be the right number of people who needed that function. It’s as if Microsoft had a God-given gift for picking the right design and timing for everything.

Any firm that is in competition with Microsoft acknowledges and respects Microsoft for what it is capable of doing with industry partners. Even if Google seems to be an unstoppable giant, it has to keep in mind that Microsoft has pushed a couple of big guys around before them. Even if it looks very weak and harmless right now, things could change very quickly in the industry as the Murdoch saga was just an example.

Social media

This is another battleground for Google because people increasingly use social networking to search for information. Of course, nobody can index the web like Google does, but the way in which people search for information by using social media is way different than the way search engines work.

The social media search model is based on people sharing information with each other. There is a certain amount of trust and human contact that is involved in social networking that a search engine cannot offer to its users. While the search engine guesses the user’s question throughout the keywords he is entering, people who are connected on a social media platform don’t have to guess what they are looking for: they just talk to each other.

There is also another area in which social media beats search engines and that is in real-time search. Since Google’s page ranks are based on backlinks, a certain amount of time is required for an important web page to gain the position it deserves in SERPs. On social media, this a totally different since trends happen as people create content on social media. Those who will use social media will be exposed to what is relevant at the moment.

Conclusion: things change fast in the new economy

Things are going extremely fast since only a few years. While it took decades for the industrial revolution to bring in change in the way we do things, the information economy has had many changes in a few years. As a result, no one can sit on its achievements and expect to eat from a cash cow for a long period. Things can change so fast that firms are forced to innovate incessantly. What will be funny to watch is that management of innovation has not evolved at the same pace as the market. So expect a lot of big players to emerge at the same speed at which they fall.