Duck Duck Go can compete, they just need to innovate harder in one direction to get enough space between them and google. And of course that direction needs to have a solid value proposition.
1. That's an edge case for developers. Which I sometimes do at the farm. But doesn't help with average users -- unless they want their average users to be programmers.
2. Easy for Google to copy.
3.This is terrible, pushing brand helps destroy verity on the open web.
1. There are bang's for lots of sites, http://duckduckgo.com/bang.html (e.g. !amazon bags isn't really for developers). You can now refute this with your "easy for [insert competition] to copy" argument.
2. Fine
3. I'm sure that many people find this useful, but it is very subjective. What results should be higher than an exact match to a search term?
OK, so !amazon isn't strictly for developers. There probably is some appeal there for close cousins, such as sysadmins and web designers.
The world at large, though, hates having to use those kinds of tricks to find what they're looking for. Doing away with the need to learn and use that kind of stuff is exactly how Google managed to torpedo all their competition without batting an eyelash in the first place.
>Duck Duck Go doesn’t do anything significantly different
Further to this, Duck Duck Go is targeting people who don't want to be bubbled and tracked, which is completely different to the other search engines.
Having said that, I tried Duck Duck Go for a few weeks and found it wasn't giving me the results I wanted (there's a !bang for Google but that seems a little silly).
They are a viable lifestyle business. But it depends on what sort of business they want to be. They've taken VC funding which signals they're after more than sub 1% market share.
The author is a man posing as a horse. The article is clearly not serious. The one before it was entitled "Piracy Should be Legal," in which the horse says that the internet is a copying machine because Xerox invented it.
I believe it's meant to be parody. That, or there's a horse somewhere that can type rather well with hooves.
18 comments
[ 29.6 ms ] story [ 313 ms ] threadIn 1997, everybody knew that search engine market was mature and centered around AltaVista.
Duck Duck Go can compete, they just need to innovate harder in one direction to get enough space between them and google. And of course that direction needs to have a solid value proposition.
I disagree. Here are three things that make DDG 10x better for my use case:
1. Providing a common interface for searching API docs. For example, "!jquery live", or "!rails validate".
2. The 0-click box, which frequently gives me the answer I need without having to go any further.
3. Privileging of official sites. This is especially helpful for sites whose domain one couldn't easily guess.
2. Easy for Google to copy.
3.This is terrible, pushing brand helps destroy verity on the open web.
2. Fine
3. I'm sure that many people find this useful, but it is very subjective. What results should be higher than an exact match to a search term?
I like the feature as well. Beats Google's "site:" operator!
3. The exact match domain should be top in most cases. But smearing brand all over the page like horse manure stifles smaller companies.
The world at large, though, hates having to use those kinds of tricks to find what they're looking for. Doing away with the need to learn and use that kind of stuff is exactly how Google managed to torpedo all their competition without batting an eyelash in the first place.
Further to this, Duck Duck Go is targeting people who don't want to be bubbled and tracked, which is completely different to the other search engines.
Having said that, I tried Duck Duck Go for a few weeks and found it wasn't giving me the results I wanted (there's a !bang for Google but that seems a little silly).
Duck Duck Go doesn't have as much data as Google, and probably don't crawl as deeply. This is another factor that hinders their competitiveness.
If they want to compete they should look to more nascent data sources; rather than going down the path of destructive competition.
"Bing Is Not Google" used to be a joke of mine. Now it's actually a useful trait.
Essentially the same story as why Opera is still very much in business.
I believe it's meant to be parody. That, or there's a horse somewhere that can type rather well with hooves.
It's explained on the about page: http://www.horsesaysinternet.com/about-oscar/
Xerox had a major influence on the internet. The idea is also echoed by those such as Jaron Lanier.
Their respect for my privacy is 10000000000x better than Google's.
For a small minority it's a really big deal; which is fair enough.