The next Google • Hacker News Board

Re: The next Google

#61

Post by u2077 » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:02 PM UTC

KindAndFriendly wrote: post #4

"The next Google can’t just be an input box that spits out links" I think one strong contributing factor to Google's success is its simplicity. All the listed competitors add a lot of complexity imho. While all the customization buttons, knobs, lenses, meta crawling, code generation features etc might add some value for the advanced and technically skilled user, it provides rather little value for the average user wh…

I think they each capture different markets. Google is simple because for most people it is “good enough”. Google isn’t going to spend a ton of time developing new features for the (large) minority that find it inadequate.

Google also has a few good things going for them:

- it’s the standard when it comes to search and is setup by default on just about every platform

- People use the brand name itself when talking about looking stuff up (no one says “just duck it”)

- They control the ad market, the standards for what a “optimized” site is, and the web standards themselves.

Re: The next Google

#62

Post by spaniard89277 » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:04 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…

There are plenty of profiles for "people".

This is the thing. I'm the power user in my circle. People comes to me for suggestions about pretty much anything involving tech. Sometimes just because they see me with different stuff.

So if I'm not the average user I may look for other options, as other people like me may do. If I find such options reasonable for the average user, that will be my recommendation to them.

Re: The next Google

#63

Post by xiphias2 » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:05 PM UTC

alphabetting wrote: post #27

In my view Google could possibly be the next Google. They're leading in AI right now and if they can get the magic we've seen in some of their papers into products like Search or Google Assistant it would be major moment.

Pathways was the first time when Google got to a level where they could collapse multiple searches into one. They needed working chain-of-thought prompting to make deep learning useful for researching solutions for problems.

Re: The next Google

#64

Post by beamatronic » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:07 PM UTC

spaniard89277 wrote: post #48

beamatronic wrote: post #24

No search engine has tried to address the issue of the user's context for the search. - does my current location matter for the search? - am I trying to spend money (shopping), or trying to get information (facts)?

These are variables taken into account by Google AFAIK.

The user does not get a choice

Re: The next Google

#65

Post by melony » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:08 PM UTC

spaniard89277 wrote: post #62

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…

There are plenty of profiles for "people". This is the thing. I'm the power user in my circle. People comes to me for suggestions about pretty much anything involving tech. Sometimes just because they see me with different stuff. So if I'm not the average user I may look for other options, as other people like me may do. If I find such options reasonable for the average user, that will be my recommendation to them.

Tiktok didn't dominate by appealing to niche tech power users.

Re: The next Google

#66

Post by dogleash » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:08 PM UTC

> We need new thinking to create something much better than what came before. In the last few years, different groups of people came to the same conclusion, and started working on the next generation of [foo]. For this new generation, [bar] is necessary, and [baz] are not an option. But that’s where the commonalities end. Beyond that, they’ve all [zoz] in very different directions.

This pitch voice makes me want to gouge my fucking eyes out.

Re: The next Google

#67

Post by cmarschner » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:09 PM UTC

People don‘t understand that Google is in a game of user data: you can only win this game if you have the largest market share, plus a plethora of additional data sources like ads. Microsoft invested 10s of billions into bing to get to the level it is at. But more clicks and user behavior data means you would win against bing.

The only company that could theoretically build a web search engine due to the amount of data they have is Meta.

Search is one of the biggest moats ever built.

Re: The next Google

#68

Post by bambax » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:09 PM UTC

Most of these features have been tried, and abandoned, by Google itself. It's possible Google stopped doing them because they hurt its ad business, but it's also possible (and likely) they confused users or were difficult to maintain and not actually used. (What's a "non-commercial website"? And what happens when it suddenly becomes commercial? And when there are millions of them? etc.)

I predict that in 10 years Google Search will still be dominant, and we'll still be complaining about it.

Re: The next Google

#69

Post by sanxiyn » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:09 PM UTC

_jal wrote: post #49

mkmk3 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this comment is a bit strange in the present, considering search engines like duckduckgo, which is basically Bing promoted with a "we don't track" advertising campaign (also hashbangs are pretty cool). DDG is not at google numbers, I know, but you don't need google numbers to make money. I don't think privacy is a very special angle to advertise from either, promising to remove amazon-affiliate blog-spam from…

> but you don't need google numbers to make money The article is titled "The Next Google." I was responding to that, not "A Profitable Also-Ran".

While "The Next Google for Wall Street" is one interpretation of "The Next Google", I am more interested in "The Next Google for me".

Re: The next Google

#70

Post by plutonorm » Tue, Apr 05, 2022, 6:10 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 agree, none of these are the next google. Except perhaps YouWrite which taken to the limit is asking an AI for the answer rather than searching the internet.