DuckDuckGo is blowing up

#1

Post by MatthewPhillips » Thu, Mar 29, 2012, 1:24 PM UTC

DuckDuckGo is blowing up
duckduckgo.com

Re: DuckDuckGo is blowing up

#2

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 29, 2012, 1:35 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: DuckDuckGo is blowing up

#3

Post by Gobitron » Thu, Mar 29, 2012, 1:36 PM UTC

That's a fantastic looking curve, but keep in mind the absolute numbers shown. They are at 1.6 million direct queries per day. Still a ways to go to be truly competitive (3 billion per day for Google). Still, if they keep up with current growth rates, they could do some real damage.

Re: DuckDuckGo is blowing up

#4

Post by mise » Thu, Mar 29, 2012, 1:37 PM UTC

I certainly felt some difficulty first in setting Duck Duck Go as my default search engine. Google trains you repeatedly, implicitly, over the years on how to optimise your query for Google. I often still find myself adding "!g" to my DDG query to perform the search on Google, but at least Google isn't my first point of contact any more.

Re: DuckDuckGo is blowing up

#5

Post by PaulHoule » Thu, Mar 29, 2012, 1:37 PM UTC

if i get that right, people are doing a lot more API calls than direct searches... Which begs the questions of (i) who they are, (ii) what they're doing, and (iii) how this can be monetized?

Re: DuckDuckGo is blowing up

#6

Post by TeeWEE » Thu, Mar 29, 2012, 1:40 PM UTC

I use duckduckgo as my default search engine now. If i need some more info i just use g!. Really like the bang syntax!

And its doesnt track all my stuff, and this stupid google+ (failure) is not integrated. I just want to search stuff. Google did it right in the past, now duck duck go is my uberlord.

Re: DuckDuckGo is blowing up

#7

Post by jstalin » Thu, Mar 29, 2012, 1:40 PM UTC

I <3 DDG.

Re: DuckDuckGo is blowing up

#8

Post by muyuu » Thu, Mar 29, 2012, 1:42 PM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #5

if i get that right, people are doing a lot more API calls than direct searches... Which begs the questions of (i) who they are, (ii) what they're doing, and (iii) how this can be monetized?

The graph is for direct searches though. You can see API calls stable at around 9M for quite a while, and direct searches have sky-rocketed.

You're right that there are a lot more API calls still (~x6). But the gap is closing quickly.

Re: DuckDuckGo is blowing up

#9

Post by geoffw8 » Thu, Mar 29, 2012, 1:42 PM UTC

Wow, thats a great curve. Just wanted to throw in my personal experience with DuckDuckGo, and it doesn't necessarily reflect on DuckDuckGo specifically, however:

After seeing them pop up here once or twice quite recently I thought I'd give it a go, I opened up preferences in Chrome and switched my default search over to DDG. It felt good, made a nice change but was certainly a bit "odd". I found what I wanted, most of the time albeit it with a slight drop in quality vs Google.

But my biggest gripe with them was confidence. I'd just started out at a new job as a programmer and as you can imagine, I was searching for a good few things, usually things I was struggling with and I just didn't feel sure that I was getting the best results I possibly could be. You might think thats totally crazy, but when your battling an issue as many of you know, you want more than anything to work out whats going on. I didn't have any margin for error, I wanted the best results right there that second.

Specifics aside, knowing that Google is far superior in their results makes it real difficult to use another search engine really, extra features (!so etc) or no extra features. I personally search because I need to "find" something and I usually don't know where that something is, opening up Stack Overflow isn't that much of a chore for me. Its the other bit I need help with.

Anyway, I commend their mission and hope they succeed in taking a fair slice of the market. I think he's a great entrepreneur and I wish him the best of luck. I can't imagine what it must be like to be head on with... Google.

Re: DuckDuckGo is blowing up

#10

Post by joshmlewis » Thu, Mar 29, 2012, 1:42 PM UTC

Gobitron wrote: post #3

That's a fantastic looking curve, but keep in mind the absolute numbers shown. They are at 1.6 million direct queries per day. Still a ways to go to be truly competitive (3 billion per day for Google). Still, if they keep up with current growth rates, they could do some real damage.

Just one at a time is all it takes. :) Replace starfish with searches..and bend your imagination a bit.

"A man was walking along a deserted beach at sunset. As he walked he could see a young boy in the distance, as he drew nearer he noticed that the boy kept bending down, picking something up and throwing it into the water. Time and again he kept hurling things into the ocean.

As the man approached even closer, he was able to see that the boy was picking up starfish that had been washed up on the beach and, one at a time he was throwing them back into the water.

The man asked the boy what he was doing, the boy replied,"I am throwing these washed up starfish back into the ocean, or else they will die through lack of oxygen. "But", said the man, "You can't possibly save them all, there are thousands on this beach, and this must be happening on hundreds of beaches along the coast. You can't possibly make a difference." The boy looked down, frowning for a moment; then bent down to pick up another starfish, smiling as he threw it back into the sea. He replied,

"I made a huge difference to that one!""