The more people use webkit based browsers and less of the others the better the world will be. I feel for the guys at Mozilla but I can not recommend Firefox to anyone, at least not on Macs. It is the slowest application I run. Application switching to or from Firefox is amazingly slow, as in I can count the finger of my hands as I am simply alt+tabbing to Firefox. In addition it eats memory and if you leave it open long enough it just starts bugging out in weird ways.
Firefox has been getting progressively more memory hungry, indeed. At the moment my Firefox is at 314 MB with very few addons and 4 tabs open (none of the tabs have flash or dynamic stuff going on). I've seen it reach half a gig of memory easily, too.
I've heard that Firefox 4.0 is better though; will half to give it a shot soon.
Mozilla often says 'wait until the next version, the next version will fix all this.' A few versions later and the problems are still many and I doubt that this legacy will change.
Because a monoculture worked out so very well the last time.
The more different browser engines are in use, the better the world will be, because that will force the engines to strive for compatibility. I'd love to see Opera gain some market share.
>I'm hesitant to quote any search engine share market #s currently because I frankly just don't believe them, or at least they don't seem to line up with anecdotal evidence at all. Google seems currently way more dominant than they sometimes get credit for.
Huh what is that supposed to mean? That made the article completely useless. Atleast offer something of substance, even it's an anecdote. Does it mean that Google is 100% according to anecdotal evidence?
But the very next line says:
>Yet at the same time alternatives are arising. And more importantly wrt to the analogy, there are alternatives that in my opinion offer a different enough overall search experience to be preferable to some people, much like Web browsers.
Like which ones? Bing? Duckduckgo? Blekko? Coolio? Anything else?
> Is this an apt analogy for the future of the search engine market?
No, I don't think so.
There are tremendous learning effects, economies of scale, and network effects in search that do not exist to the same extent (or at all) in the browser market.
I. The learning effects arise from the number of searchers and advertisers using a particular platform over a given period of time. This enables Google (with the largest market share) to improve its algorithm at a faster rate in response to the behavioral data that it collects. The sheer amount of data that Google collects permits much deeper (and faster) multivariate analysis relative to competitors.
II. The economies of scale exist because Google can spread its huge fixed costs of developing, refining, and operating its search engine over a much greater number of users. For instance, if Google employs 2x the number of engineers as Microsoft in search, but fulfills 4x the number of search requests, its per search engineering costs are 2/4 = 50% of Microsoft's. The same holds for other significant fixed costs, such as data center costs.
III. The network effects arise from a feedback loop between searchers and advertisers. As the number of searchers increase on Google search, it attracts more advertisers because advertisers can reach a broader and more targeted audience. The reverse is true to some extent as well. For instance, as the number of advertisers using Google AdWords increases, it attracts more searchers, assuming that searchers find some value in the sponsored search results.
Note that the learning effects and economies of scale exist in browsers, but not to the same extent as in search. There are no obvious network effects in the browser market, while the network effects in search are quite strong.
Google's dominance in search will persist into the future, until:
1. A competitor develops a protectable technology (e.g., new algorithm) or user experience that delivers significant value to the average searcher and/or advertiser.
2. A substitute for search emerges, which provides a much more effective method for obtaining information that you would otherwise obtain using Google search.
3. Google is unable or unwilling to respond to the competitive threat in #1 or the substitution threat in #2 in a reasonable period of time.
Given Google's quick response to customer feedback (e.g., content farms) and technology change (e.g., real-time search), I don't have a sense that the company is resting on its laurels.
Note there is still room for niche search engines, such as DuckDuckGo, that emphasize particular features of significant importance to a segment of users. For instance, DuckDuckGo does not collect or store a user's IP address, yielding greater privacy.
I think this line of thinking greatly underestimates the value of UI and the integration of APIs. Take Yahoo. They're moving to Bing for deep results but concentrating on UI and weaving in other structured content for a lot of the head searches. That approach may well be good enough to start gaining share again over the medium term.
1. There are significant barriers to entry in search that do not exist in the browser market, including learning effects, economies of scale, and network effects. Any enhancements to the technology (e.g., algo) or user experience (e.g., UI) by a competitor must provide substantially more value to searchers and/or advertisers to overcome the significant network value (effects) in this market.
2. Despite Google's size it's still quickly responding to market and technology changes making it difficult for a competitor to chip away at its market share. For instance, despite significant investments by Microsoft (and some creative and smart decision-making), Bing has only been able to gain incremental market share, primarily at the expense of Yahoo. Google, thus far, has been able to sustain its dominance, commanding about 90% of the global search market.
"While Bing hit 4.37 percent and Yahoo dropped to 3.93 percent, Google still dominates worldwide with 89.94 percent of the search engine market share, the web analytics company reported."(March 1, 2011; http://blog.searchenginewatch.com)
14 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 53.9 ms ] threadI've heard that Firefox 4.0 is better though; will half to give it a shot soon.
Perhaps a new phoenix can rise from Firefox's hulk.
The more different browser engines are in use, the better the world will be, because that will force the engines to strive for compatibility. I'd love to see Opera gain some market share.
Huh what is that supposed to mean? That made the article completely useless. Atleast offer something of substance, even it's an anecdote. Does it mean that Google is 100% according to anecdotal evidence?
But the very next line says: >Yet at the same time alternatives are arising. And more importantly wrt to the analogy, there are alternatives that in my opinion offer a different enough overall search experience to be preferable to some people, much like Web browsers.
Like which ones? Bing? Duckduckgo? Blekko? Coolio? Anything else?
Yes, Bing, Blekko, Yandex, Searchme/Wikia (before they sadly went away), and I know of others not yet released.
No, I don't think so.
There are tremendous learning effects, economies of scale, and network effects in search that do not exist to the same extent (or at all) in the browser market.
I. The learning effects arise from the number of searchers and advertisers using a particular platform over a given period of time. This enables Google (with the largest market share) to improve its algorithm at a faster rate in response to the behavioral data that it collects. The sheer amount of data that Google collects permits much deeper (and faster) multivariate analysis relative to competitors.
II. The economies of scale exist because Google can spread its huge fixed costs of developing, refining, and operating its search engine over a much greater number of users. For instance, if Google employs 2x the number of engineers as Microsoft in search, but fulfills 4x the number of search requests, its per search engineering costs are 2/4 = 50% of Microsoft's. The same holds for other significant fixed costs, such as data center costs.
III. The network effects arise from a feedback loop between searchers and advertisers. As the number of searchers increase on Google search, it attracts more advertisers because advertisers can reach a broader and more targeted audience. The reverse is true to some extent as well. For instance, as the number of advertisers using Google AdWords increases, it attracts more searchers, assuming that searchers find some value in the sponsored search results.
Note that the learning effects and economies of scale exist in browsers, but not to the same extent as in search. There are no obvious network effects in the browser market, while the network effects in search are quite strong.
Google's dominance in search will persist into the future, until:
1. A competitor develops a protectable technology (e.g., new algorithm) or user experience that delivers significant value to the average searcher and/or advertiser.
2. A substitute for search emerges, which provides a much more effective method for obtaining information that you would otherwise obtain using Google search.
3. Google is unable or unwilling to respond to the competitive threat in #1 or the substitution threat in #2 in a reasonable period of time.
Given Google's quick response to customer feedback (e.g., content farms) and technology change (e.g., real-time search), I don't have a sense that the company is resting on its laurels.
Note there is still room for niche search engines, such as DuckDuckGo, that emphasize particular features of significant importance to a segment of users. For instance, DuckDuckGo does not collect or store a user's IP address, yielding greater privacy.
1. There are significant barriers to entry in search that do not exist in the browser market, including learning effects, economies of scale, and network effects. Any enhancements to the technology (e.g., algo) or user experience (e.g., UI) by a competitor must provide substantially more value to searchers and/or advertisers to overcome the significant network value (effects) in this market.
2. Despite Google's size it's still quickly responding to market and technology changes making it difficult for a competitor to chip away at its market share. For instance, despite significant investments by Microsoft (and some creative and smart decision-making), Bing has only been able to gain incremental market share, primarily at the expense of Yahoo. Google, thus far, has been able to sustain its dominance, commanding about 90% of the global search market.
"While Bing hit 4.37 percent and Yahoo dropped to 3.93 percent, Google still dominates worldwide with 89.94 percent of the search engine market share, the web analytics company reported."(March 1, 2011; http://blog.searchenginewatch.com)