Ask HN: How To Dethrone Google?
Would it be systematic? For example, would a company have to compete in the search space first. Would that even be the best avenue to become the world's largest data aggregator?
Companies that try to go directly head to head against Amazon (Overstock, Buy) end up meddling along unable to really gain any traction.
The ones that actually do compete with Amazon are the scrappy niche ecommerce sites. The ones that can hyper-target their marketing efforts and deliver a far superior and more engaging experience. I used to work for a company that sold specialty products and we didn't have much trouble competing with Amazon when we offered things like really detailed guides, fun product videos, unique and tailored buying advice, etc. Things that don't scale...
I think what we could eventually see more and more of when it comes to competing with Google will be niche search engines. For example, despite Google's flight search, Kayak still provides a far superior experience. Google can't effectively scale their search results the same way a hyper focused and scrappier company can.
There are a lot of verticals that could eventually begin to chip away at Google's market share moving forward. It will continue to get tougher for Google to compete in each of them.
The natural roadblock of course being initial branding to the point where people stop going to Google to find you, instead opting to go directly to your site to search (no easy task).
With regards to consumes, you'll have to offer better since you can't offer cheaper than free. But Google is motivated to offer better service so it'll be extremely complicated. One kind of potential better would make search so much better that people won't press on ads - which Google isn't interested in, so they might not offer such service, so you might have an opening there.
Another option is to attack the adversity side :find a huge ads inventory and create a service more efficient and cheaper than Google. But that's extremely hard because on top of advertising space you need better data than Google.
On desktop, native applications fell by the way side as websites and web apps have become more powerful. Google is your initial connection from the browser (Chrome), to search, to a website (Google Analytics), and to their ads. They own your workflow and thus habits.
On mobile, native apps are more popular. The device (Android), app store (Android Market), app, and ads still have Google influence but definitely not as much as on the desktop. Companies like Flurry have great offerings for app analytics and ads are fragmented among a ton of companies.
Google needs to think less in terms of multi-platform and more in terms of mobile only. If you're mobile only and are capturing market share quickly, Google will be jealous.
Version 1.0 of the software is written and being tested and polished.
Would anyone here like to see an announcement here of going live?
Recently they handle some special cases in cute, special ways but for most of their core work are still basically an old library card catalog subject index with the results sorted by a gross popularity measure. Net, their technique can work quite well when looking for content based mostly on just text, possibly from metadata, and where the user has a list of key words/phrases that accurately characterize the content. In that way they grabbed their 1/3rd.
Instead concentrate on your race, choose your own route, your own pace. The fastest runners may take a wrong turn - and had you been following them you would have taken that wrong turn also.
There are plenty of people ready to prevent obvious market abuses, and we have yet to even glimpse the shape of the world of tomorrow. Focus now on the problems for which we know the shape of the solution, poverty, war, famine, medicine and worry about Google and Big Data when we know what we want it to look like.
What will happen at that point is that a million SEO idiots will create a trillion spammy websites and blogs that the Google Search engine, or rather the Page Rank algorithm, cannot handle. Every Google search returns 90% junk, interspersed with a few genuine search results. The Internet will becomes a Graffiti filled ghetto, impossible to auto-index and we will be forced to go back to the early Yahoo Directory days : manually created categories of real sites. Ironically, the otherwise-useless people who live off being online personas, aka famous bloggers, will have a centre-stage role to play in this new era : their web sites are the ones which are eminently trustable. They wll be the new institutions of online reputation, having been there from since the dawn of the century!
By that point, it is possible that gmail, et al will have lost their relevance, too, (WhatsMail?), and suddenly, Google does not have a single attractive eyeball outlet.
In software, the market often shifts because the platforms change fairly frequently. e.g. Mainframe to PC to Web to Mobile.
Google management is intensely aware of that, which is why they're investing so heavily in voice search, wearables, etc. It's not to mainly grow their market, but rather to keep from being stuck in a shrinking one.
Apple is also intensely aware of Google's vulnerability, which is why they're developing things like Siri and maybe even wearables.
I say, the first company to create a True AI will dethrone any company on the market with ease. Or a company coming up with a product for a totally different market and dominating it and then after capturing users, offering features of other competing companies like FB is doing now. You need a really Big Buzz as well.
I am usually able to predict with a 95.4% accuracy some parts of the future ( no arrogance intended) so I strongly believe one of these things will happen in the near future.
You're going to want a few things: a free modern webmail app, a fast & useful map application, a good search tool of course. Reinvent Adwords/Adsense. Throw in a private social network app, make iOS/Android versions of everything, and just try not to run out of runway. ;)
EDIT: oh and write a modern OS for a vast assortment of wireless mobile communication devices. And make sure manufacturers can chop-shop your OS to their liking. Then you'll need to rewrite your iOS/Android code, of course.
You don't win with a frontal attack. It's a better strategy to come in from the side, or even do the opposite of Google.
Make browsers hide Google's ads, or show yours instead, and you control advertising. You can make a browser plugin that shows ads only based on user preferences. For example something like AdBlock, but putting advertising money to users' pockets rather than Google's.
I think the most likely point of failure for them and pretty much all american tech businesses is the developing world markets especially those which run in different languages. Whatsapp pointed this out and now alibaba has confirmed it.
The "play dirty" approach. Use the same technique used to dethrone Microsoft years back. Right or wrong, Microsoft was called a monopoly for including IE within Windows. What is so different now with including Chrome within Android? What has changed that nobody has the same fight in them to take that battle on.
That will deprive them of 99% of their revenue.
The purchasing intent part is a good question. People use Google search for product/service research, which is where the purchasing intent comes from. The question is, could this research be done better in an immersive VR world?
Advertsising works on TV because the latter is a passive medium. It's the story-teller and you are the listener. VR is more like gaming-- there is product placement-- but the decisionmaker is using the SW to make decisions. Decisioning and being receptive to stories are different cognitive phases, especially with respect to T+1 buying intent. High-fidelity socializing, however, is the last place you want someone trying to manipulate you.