Tag Archives: social

Google’s Biggest Competitor isn’t another Search Engine

29 Jan

cross posted from amitklein.com

There’s no doubt that Google Search is a great product, but aside from some cosmetic changes in how results are displayed there hasn’t been any major innovation in search in the last few years (aright, Goggles is pretty awesome):

There are a number of questions which Google fails to answer:

  • “where’s the best bagel in new york?”
  • “what’s a cheap, clean, centrally located hotel in bangkok”
  • “which DSLR camera should I buy?”

In the cases above, you’re most likely to get SEO-optimized aggregator/review site whose primary motivation is affiliate sales.  And forget about finding anything usable to:

  • “what’s everyone up to this weekend?”
  • “should I get a tattoo?”
  • “is business school right for me”

Increasingly, I turn to Twitter and Facebook for these types of questions:

dslr2

twitterdslr6

Aardvark is another really nice product that tries to answer these experiential/recommendation type of questions.  It’s easy to use (via a chat bot) and gets quick and solid responses.  The same question got me three responses within 10 min (here’s two): (more…)