The next Google • Hacker News Board

Re: The next Google

#331

Post by lhorie » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 11:13 PM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #45

I think 'more customization' which is a theme with a lot of these alternatives is a fundamental dead end. I don't know where this persistent myth comes from that people love choice and tinkering, because they clearly don't. There's a huge cost associated with having to make choices, and one feature of successful modern apps is that they're frictionless. That's why TikTok is so successful. There's no login, no user ch…

I would go one step further and question the premises that a) the next google must necessarily be dominant/monopolistic and b) that said dominance must necessarily ride on top of free user economics.

What TikTok shows to me is that users want specific things when they go to a site: for TikTok, they want fresh entertainment, plain and simple. I go to HN when I want tech discussion. I go to reddit when I want aggregation of niche topics. I go to costco.com when I'm looking to shop.

Google is frankly a horrible experience for ecommerce, it simply cannot compete w/ the likes of Amazon or any retail store website, really. Being a search portal, it's fundamentally incompatible with the concept of evolving through permanence of a hivemind; every new search is like reseting a would-be community to zero all over again, so you cannot gradually build up a collective commons on Google like you can on HN. Youtube has recently gotten pretty bad with cycling fresh content on the front page. For stack overflow sort of stuff, any other search engine does more or less the same. For trivia, Siri/Alexa are fine substitutes. The Google search properties have become mediocre on average; they're not particularly great at any particular thing.

Are many of these domains walled gardens? Yes, think of things like Doordash/Uber Eats grocery catalogs, a ton of brick and mortar shops are choosing to integrate with these delivery apps, and these catalogs are completely invisible to Google. News SERPs on Google are often garbage since they just link to paywalled content half the time, might as well just get a subscription from the actual news outlets. Etc.

IMHO, the next Google is already here, and it's everybody else wisening up to the simple business fact that they need to own the top of their funnels.

Re: The next Google

#332

Post by user3939382 » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 11:14 PM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #225

idiotsecant wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The death of the web is because most people don't want what you want. They don't mind walled gardens, so long as they are easy to use and have the content and connections that they want to see. The audience of HN is extremely skewed towards preferring systems that allow tinkering but that's not what the market wants.

This. People don't realize that the early web was elitist. Now, the entire population is online. And, as you said, most people simply don't care about the stuff we care about. That's also why "Google's search results are soo bad." They're not. For the bulk of Google's visitors, they're good enough.

> For the bulk of Google's visitors, they're good enough

I'm not sure that's true. Just to pick an example, basically any type of product search now leads to auto-generated spam/borderline-spam websites that scrape reviews from Amazon, which are themselves often fraudulent.

I guess you could say that's "good enough" but only in the sense that someone being scammed at some point consents to something that makes them a victim of the scam.

For many searches, you'll see "reddit" autocompleted to the end of the search because Google's organic results are not good enough and people are trying to weed out the spam somehow, albeit in an imperfect way that restricts results to one site.

Re: The next Google

#333

Post by jacobr1 » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 11:15 PM UTC

mgkimsal wrote: post #321

Melatonic wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google still searches forums pretty decently - I think what you are describing are two separate phenomena 1. Yes Google search has gone to shit - even putting stuff in quotes now does not do an exact search (there is another checkbox you ALSO need to use for that). It tries to be too smart even when no user is logged in. 2. Giant mega forums like Reddit have really taken over. Instead of a dedicated forum people just…

I'd spend more time in reddit if they had better search.

Using site:reddit.com in google usually gives pretty decent results

Re: The next Google

#334

Post by richardsocher » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 11:17 PM UTC

chrisshroba wrote: post #120

legohead wrote: post #98

I just went on a mini vacation to Vegas, and was thinking how nice it would be to just call up someone and ask for some simple advice. I did a bunch of online research before I booked things, but man was it painful. There are so many copy-cat blogs who just throw together a bunch of basic information with no real research done in order to get those clicks/adwords. For example: best hotel pool in vegas. Seems simple e…

I find reddit works remarkably well for this. I've gotten great actionable recommendations within an hour or two for: - good coffeeshops - tacos - Korean grocery stores - places that have traditional style al pastor tacos - finding a specific coffee brand at a local grocery store - finding EDM songs similar to a particular song (dullscythe) - hot chicken - canolis and a bunch more similar things. I would think if you…

that's why we have a reddit app inside https://you.com - you can set your preference for it once and boom, you'll get results from reddit whenever relevant.

Re: The next Google

#335

Post by redmen » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 11:18 PM UTC

idiotsecant wrote: post #100

mostlysimilar wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a simple box where you put a question in and it gives you answers Google is very good at this, but this is exactly what I _don't_ want in the "Next Google". I want a _search engine_ for the web, not an answers engine that tries to know what I want better than I do. Search the web. Give me links to websites. This seems obvious to me, but everyone is trying to be like Google. I'm convinced the death of the web and in…

The death of the web is because most people don't want what you want. They don't mind walled gardens, so long as they are easy to use and have the content and connections that they want to see. The audience of HN is extremely skewed towards preferring systems that allow tinkering but that's not what the market wants.

You mean people don't want to spend any energy and want to be fed sugar and fat without (ideally) even having to open their mouths?

Google is a drug dealer selling to the digitally crack addicted. The death of cocaine was meth, and the death of the web was google.

Re: The next Google

#336

Post by makeitdouble » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 11:18 PM UTC

guntars wrote: post #166

sam0x17 wrote: post #145

Any Google killer needs to have search indexing technology and infrastructure as a core competency to be truly successful. Kagi has done a great job of solving some of the UX and privacy problems endemic in online search these days, but at the end of the day they could be snuffed out at the whim of the big search providers (Google, Bing) if they decide to kick them off until they can get their own indexing solution o…

Interesting, I actually think that the indexing and the infrastructure part of building a search engine is much easier now than it was in the early 2000s. It's the ranking that's the hard part. PageRank helped put Google on the map and they've battled the hordes of low-ethics SEO practitioners ever since. I think it's generally agreed that PageRank wouldn't cut it today. I tried Kagi as the default search engine for…

> converting units (Kagi has this, but it didn't always work), getting a time in a timezone (same), shopping results, the QA answers, etc.

Honestly I’d be happy with a search engine that does search well, and use dedicated tools for the other widgets.

I think browsers could do a better work at using the omnibar as a command line tool to cover these cases. For instance I’d really wish it would be easier to map incantations like “/mtg intl” and have a predefined action executed. Bookmark keywords are already half the way there.

Re: The next Google

#337

Post by wanda » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 11:18 PM UTC

Google had it search nailed for a long time. I don't expect Kagi to replace it if it's asking questions like "what killer feature do you want from a search engine" (paraphrased)

I don't want any features. I want a search bar, a search button, and results that relate to my query based on more than simply matching a keyword to a query word, but based on less than whatever Google factors in these days and certainly not based on whether someone has paid to have their domain featured for a query. I have never clicked a paid promoted search link on Google, or any other service, and I never will. If you have to pay for your content to be displayed as matching a query, it probably shouldn't be. Content should speak for itself.

The one thing I 100% never want to see is a selection of results that are at all influenced by what lots of other people have clicked on. I want to see results that pertain to my query, regardless of whether they have attracted the interest of others who have searched for something the same/similar.

I also don't want to see results that are influenced by my previous searches, by my location, or by data gathered about my Google account unless I specifically want those to be factored into my search.

Features like ways to refine search like inurl: or intitle:? Yes, cool, have them available.

Also, I expect a search engine to load fast. I don't expect a ton of JavaScript to be required for an input box and a button, and I don't want doodles of the day and other junk. They're fun, sure, but at least let me turn that off because I'm a psychopath.

I don't think we'll see a true Google competitor. Would I pay for a search engine that was just as good but kept it simple and returned better results than the trash Google can come up with? Yeah, probably, but I think all that will happen is that Google itself will come up with Google Premium Search, run it for two years and then shut it down.

I don't think for one second think that search is easy, it most definitely isn't, and Google has a head start on its competitors -- but I do think that Google was more effective 10 years ago than it is now. I cannot however say whether that's down to Google overcomplicating their search algorithms or whether there's just x% more garbage out there, where x is some very large number.

Re: The next Google

#338

Post by TheHegemon » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 11:19 PM UTC

jimmygrapes wrote: post #198

chrisshroba wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find reddit works remarkably well for this. I've gotten great actionable recommendations within an hour or two for: - good coffeeshops - tacos - Korean grocery stores - places that have traditional style al pastor tacos - finding a specific coffee brand at a local grocery store - finding EDM songs similar to a particular song (dullscythe) - hot chicken - canolis and a bunch more similar things. I would think if you…

I have found that this only works if you take recommendations with the understanding that you're almost always getting "the reddit answer". Every sub has theirs, and their reasoning might be because they agree with some entirely unrelated thing, and have bonded over that to the point that other recommendations between each other are heavily weighted and rapidly creates a "go to" response. Example: check r/sandiego fo…

Everyone knows it's Tacos El Gordo obviously /s

Re: The next Google

#339

Post by tobyjsullivan » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 11:20 PM UTC

mattcwilson wrote: post #315

simulate-me wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Desiring choice isn’t elitist. Early web adopters were passionate and willing to put in more work. Nothing wrong with that, and nothing wrong with liking simple default settings either.

Wondering if, by “elitist”, GP meant more like “out of reach to many laypeople because of learning curve.” Is there a good single word for that? “Difficult” and “complex” aren’t quite right. Anyway - you’re right, nothing at all wrong with wanting choice. I think the point being made here though is that “layperson gravity” / mass market appeals / lowest common denominator is going to mean that tuneable web search wil…

"High barrier to entry" ie, only accessible to an elite class (1337, if you will)

"Elitist" feels pejorative. Also a not-inaccurate way to describe a system which presents high barriers to entry.

Re: The next Google

#340

Post by redmen » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 11:22 PM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #225

idiotsecant wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The death of the web is because most people don't want what you want. They don't mind walled gardens, so long as they are easy to use and have the content and connections that they want to see. The audience of HN is extremely skewed towards preferring systems that allow tinkering but that's not what the market wants.

This. People don't realize that the early web was elitist. Now, the entire population is online. And, as you said, most people simply don't care about the stuff we care about. That's also why "Google's search results are soo bad." They're not. For the bulk of Google's visitors, they're good enough.

It's not true I don't think.

Anyone I watch older than 50 years old is constantly frustrated by google, they just don't know what's good, what's not. I think they use it because it's the "norm" and that is the only reason.

And as far as everyone else.. I have no idea to be quite honest. I have a fairly big handful of non-techie friends who think google sucks but is good enough so there is no real incentive to change.

With any habit people don't change it unless they have a huge reason to. No one stops eating double cheeseburgers until their doctor literally tells them they are going to die. I think that's what we're up against here.