Sorry Google, You Missed the Real-Time Web!
The era of dominance is shrinking. IBM dominated tech longer than Microsoft did, and Google's period of dominance will be even shorter. As with IBM and Microsoft, a great and wealthy company will remain (after a painful period of post-dominance restructuring). But during the period of dominance, it is hard to imagine anything else. Vast fortunes are lost in attempting a head-on challenge (whether they are search engine challengers to Google, operating system challengers to Microsoft, etc.), and disruption never happens that way. Google has no problem adding enough semantic smarts to see any challenger off. It's the Real-Time Web that will unseat Google. This idea has been percolating for a while, but it took a plane landing in the Hudson River to make it obvious.
Event-Streaming Mashup of the Plane Crash
In case you missed it, this live streaming mashup of the plane that crashed in the Hudson River yesterday did what no media company could do. It is the future of media -- crude, simple, and missing loads of things we would want, yes, but new media always show up that way.
Last month, I saw the power of Twitter's real-time search when I needed to find out about Gmail outages. That was hardly a fascinating topic, not prime-time worthy. But many other people pointed out other simple yet valuable usage cases.
But that was only Twitter, and not prime-time news. The mashup yesterday was fascinating because it drew on all the real-time sources, including video, to create a compelling story. The tool used to do it, Storytlr (our review), bills itself as "Your life online"; in other words, lifestreaming, which has tended to get a big ho-hum from me. I mean, who is really in interested in my daily blah-blah-blah. There are 6 billion souls on this planet; get over yourself, please. Following this story, though, maybe it could become an event-streaming mashup platform for media.
And in Other News: Yahoo Boss + Twitter = Real-Time Search
This BOSS developer understands that real-time needs context and that that comes from archives, and you need search for that. BOSS and Twitter make an awesome combo. Both are API-driven and enable tons of creativity and value creation from the community.
Why Real-Time Is Google's Achilles Heel
Google cannot be real-time. It indexes the historical web, and it does it better and faster than anyone else. It finds me after-the-fact reporting on major stories from major media companies. But it misses the real-time story. And that matters today.
Sure, Google can play in the real-time web. It can buy Twitter and anything else it fancies. It will always be a big and powerful company and will make money from search just as IBM made money from PCs and Microsoft makes money online. But IBM did not dominate the PC business, and Microsoft does not dominate the online business. Likewise, Google will not dominate the real-time web.
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The meta-lesson revisited: disruptive innovation happens outside the curve of head-on competition.
yep, this is an exciting area. if you bring real-time signals from the social web into search, you get killer "what's hot" search results. (full disclosure - i work at http://www.oneriot.com and that's what we're doing). The key is to make sure that your signals are wide enough not to be biased, but targeted enough to deliver pertinent, fresh, socially relevant results - and fast. When you get it right, it's very, very good (e.g. http://flickr.com/photos/tobiaspeggs/3202105696/)
Success comes in waves. Reach the top of the heap, then "protect that top". Like IBM and MS, Google has edged into the unresponsive, corporate stuffed-shirt world, not the brash bunch of creative nerds that e.g. MS was... Monetizing, monetizing, which is "not evil".
You're wrong. Google could just buy twitter if they wanted. Google's dominance isn't coming to an end at all... what would make you think that?
How many people actually know what twitter is? How many people use it? Go out in the real world, out from under your rock of geekery and I think you'll be sadly disappointed that your post is irrelevant.
It is also ok to say that the real time web is just at its beginning... It's definetely a great matter of interest in many startups like Notifixious, for example!
BL, Right On! Google NEEDS the 8-72 hour ish cycle period to update it's index across all of it's servers partly for physical data replication time but also to keep seo spammers at bay.
I tried searching for "usair hudson"
NOTHING. NOTHING.
Used #usair in twitter... found EVERYTHING.
@journik
It may be that search becomes less important, but I think that Google is already attempting to get into the real-time web world.
Because I have Gmail, I often use Google Talk to keep up with friends during the day (along with Twitter). Google Reader, as a feed reader, helps me keep up with content as it is published.
Then there's Google Docs/Sites, tools for collaboration and whatnot.
Not saying that Google will remain on top, just saying that they're constantly pushing into new areas beyond just indexing the historic web.
@trigatch to borrow one of your own expressions, "YOU are wrong."
there definately IS a pendulum effect happening.
1. yahoo builds search engine
2. everyone excite infoseek lycos all do
3. yahoo goes directory
4. google builds quantum leap search engine
1-4 is one wave cycle ... all on time delay.
next 4 count cycle starts with all REALTIME collaborative:
1. facebook, tumblr
2. twitter
3. ???
4. ???
PROOF: google just killed several realtime mobile apps and orkut is dead. Why would google buy something they already failed at?
It´s all about speed these days and Twitter search is by far the most powerful and useful tool on the web, making Google very much look like Web 0.5.
It´s not about working quicker, instead it´s all about avoiding time wasters like having to check your messages on 10 different platforms and social networks. People use clever aggregators like Friendfeed, PeopleBrowsr or cellity for staying in touch automatically.
# 3, of course they can buy Twitter, I said that, so what? Its a peripheral add on to their core, like Microsoft buying Yahoo or any other website. And yes all disruptive innovation is underground at the start. Sorry, but that is no duh obvious.
# 5, yes, that is my simple observation. Real time is the ONE use case where Google has failed me in practice. Twitter should make their search bar more prominent. I have actually made the mistake in a rush of typing in a search query into the what are you doing box!
Adam, Google can add all the cool features they like, real time is FUNDAMENTALLY different from historical. Ask any trader!
What I don't understand is how this hurts Google? Google has many functions. Most search people use, we don't want these real time twitter posts. I mostly want factual valid information, I generally don't care when, it just needs to be what I want. The only thing I can see this hurting is Live news coverage. Which would only hurt... live news. Google isn't in the business of live news, they do have 1 aspect for Google news that shows updates of things. I'm not sure how Google not being in the live telecast of Twitter makes their company go under.
Sure, it is nice for a very small aspect of news to be live. But I think the majority of news is also just dandy being given by proper reporters at given times. I will always listen to my NPR, I will always read an array of news sources. I've never actually found myself thinking, man I need the news that's happening this instant.
This seems a little sensationalist to me. Unless people stop consuming all content that's older than 12 hours, search (i.e. Google) will continue to be massively important. Kill me if my interests are ever distilled to only what happened within camera-shot of somebody in the last day.
Scott, not trying to be sensationalist. Well OK, just a bit :-) But Google is a habit. Once you break that habit even occasionally it is a different world. Not everybody needs real time. Some people hardly ever need it. Some people - traders (or all types, Ebay, financial, whatever), news biz people, anybody selling anything where availability impacts price - need real time and it REALLY matters to them.
I completely agree with you, Bernard. I used to do at least 80 % of my searches on Google, the rest elsewhere. Now I do 80 % on Twitter search, 10 % on Google and the rest elsewhere. It has been a very quick shift.
And I use Twitter search for just about everything: researching a topic for a keynote speech, checking how the cellity competitors are currently doing, looking up somebody to see whether he matters in public life, checking backgrounds of a cover story, looking for candidates for my company, even if I like to know how the weather is like in a particular place I type in "weather" and the name of the place like "San Francisco" (try it, nothing will be faster and more accurate).
With Twitter search the old dream of a human based real time search engine comes true, I just love it.
It would be very sad, if it would just be sold to Google. There is so much potential, that I would love to see Twitter search become the first real challenger for Google, waking and shaking the place up a bit.
Bigtex, who said anything about Google "going under'? That would be a ridiculous idea. I said "It will always be a big and powerful company".
While I understand where you're coming from, I think the notion that Google somehow lost the real-time web race is false. The real time web isn't dominated by anyone. Some of the comments note that most people don't even KNOW what Twitter or Friendfeed are, but everyone knows who Google is. There's absolutely no reason they can move into the space, raise its awareness, and dominate it as well. The field is still wide open.
IBM lost because MS won. MS lost because Google won. No one has won the real time web yet, so it's still up for grabs.
I think Google is completely aware of this issues. Over the past years they have done a great job in trying to boost fresher content from blogs, new websites, etc to the top of the SERPs for a period of time to suit queries. Of course they can only index what is available to them and we all know those arms are growing every day.
Sure real-time search is great, but their always be a large portion of search queries that call for what has been done before.
Scott Brinker (# 1, oh I wish we had threaded comments). Yes and we need VC who have the courage and insight to fund these. More VC like Fred Wilson in other words. Less like the ones who Umair Haque is roasting here: http://bit.ly/RBP7
Chris, yes this is still really, really early days. This is like Google in 1999, or Linux in 1992. So Twitter has absolutely not won the race, lots of new entrants to come. But they have made a damn good start.
Jaan, of course Google are aware of this and they can make INCREMENATAL changes to refresh more often. But seriously how often can you index the whole web? Even with mega humungous, gigantic server farms costing gazillions? Real time is FUNDAMENTALLY different from "a little less out of date"
I agree that the real-time web is interesting and that Google probably can't compete in it too well. However, in terms of scale of usage and revenue potential, I fail to see how real-time can beat historical search/web.
For what it's worth, I think that to unseat Google the next dominant tech company must focus on coming up with the next generation revenue model - one that is better than advertising.
One interesting aspect of this real-time data influx in a setting like twitter, is knowing what to search for and what's relevant as news. Otherwise, I'm left waiting for one of my friends to speak up about an event - like a plane crash - and if that's the case, would it be any faster than learning about it on Google News?
I'd also like to mention how cool the site dipity is. looks like storytlr adds new functionality, but dipity is still very cool.
www.dipity.com
Posted by: michaellambie.org
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January 16, 2009 12:30 PM
Louis, you clearly need both historical and real time. That's where the Yahoo BOSS + Twitter combo is so cool. Of course Google can do that as well.
But don't equate Twitter as the real time web. They are one source and they are many more and will be man, many more.
Firelark, yes, as Clay Shirky says we have a filtering issue. This is where tons of innovation is happening and will happen. The fact that Twitter enables this innovation via an API is one reason for their success.
Real-time web data has huge immediate value but that value decreases over time whereas historical data value remains fairly constant and can even increase over time.
A year from now that first tweet from the crash will be an interesting artifact from the event but the story in today's NY Times will have far more value.
Yes its exciting and useful but the notion of twitter vs. google or real-time vs. index misses the point. There is a clear place for both but if you made me choose I would rather own the world's digital library more than the world's digital newspaper.
Excellent post Bernard, I completely agree with you. I'm currently working on a project (buzztap.com) with the goal of providing better real-time sports content from blogs, message boards, twitter, etc. It will certainly be interesting to see how Google competes with some of these newer technologies given the current state of the economy.
I don't agree. I think google has real-time ability. You just need to implement sitemaps and ping google if information is updated/added. Of course google decides if/when/how this information is retrieved/indexed and available in search results. But this does not mean that google is not capable of competing with other services.
@bob wan kim Orkut is dead? with more than 60 million users and two of the fastest growing internet communities in the world (Brazil and India), I honestly don't think so. The apps they have killed lacked the momentum Twitter has, and in a economy downturn like this one it only made sense. If Real time search seems promising I really don't see anything Google can't address tech wise and culture wise. Bernard missed one thing: Google still acts as a startup which clearly keeps them apart from IBM and MS (who never did after achieving mainstream success), and that's what matters when it comes to level this type of breakthrough. And if mobile apps are a concern, I believe they are already addressing this with Android.
Adam, Google can add all the cool features they like, real time is FUNDAMENTALLY different from historical.
My point wasn't so much that they were adding cool features, but that much of what they did was beginning to enter into the domain of real-time. Such as chat, RSS, friend connect, etc.
Adam, good point, those are good initiatives. They get it and do work it, but don't have a natural dominance in real time. Its a level playing field - which is no longer true in historical search
Tiwtter's search results are not real-time: I saw latency anywhere between 2 and 9 minutes between the tweets and when they showed up in their search engine. That's forever.
The real tell-tale for me yesterday: Twitter beat the Drudge Report by a good 5-7 minutes on the story.
Absolutely. And mobile, which is probably the biggest area of real-time activity and will only get more prominent, is a real slugfest right now--it's unclear who is going to come out ahead there, in the long run.
Exciting times :)
while your twitter anecdote of the plane-in-hudson-river story is an interesting one, I don't see how the "real-time" nature of twitter has any affect on people other than, perhaps, the people in the immediate vicinity. I don't feel any less informed because I heard about this story the next day on my old-timey FM radio. Can anyone here present some examples of twitter's real-time nature actually making a difference? the only thing that comes to mind are BoC on Woot.
Try again.
Real-time web is unachievable at today's technology, in terms of computational resources. I believe that Google is doing a batch computation of its PageRank, ie, the PageRank is run every few hours or so, when certain new data have been updated/collected by the crawlers. I think that it would be impossible for anyone today to achieve real-time data decomposition because of super-massive memory that is required (even with Google's cluster of computers in their hundred's of thousands). One of the method to solve PageRank is via standard decomposition method and I don't know if this is what they (Google) use or the more efficient Power Method. Google matrix (more than 10 billions rows by columns) is the biggest one known to man. Decomposing such a huge matrix is limited by computing resources and this limitation increases if the PageRank is required to run in real-time. I am not aware yet of any online (real-time) version of PageRank and perhaps Google has already developed one, but we don't know about it yet.
Anything relying on HTTP polling is not anywhere close to real time and will only get worse as it tries to scale up in size and complexity. Widespread adoption of a decent open standard publish/subscribe message routing technology with QOS management will be the watershed event. If Twitter hangs to its current model model, they may well face strong competition from major players such as Google who'll embrace the future. Think Compuserve vs. SMTP all over again.
@Falafulu Fisi to rank the historical web you indeed need a matrix. Why?
Because you need to order years and years of content according to the relevance defined by key words.
You don't need such a matrix for twitter. Why? Because the only order that matters for twitter is chronological, which is an order that's stored in the twitter database. You simply do a text search and order chronologically. Simple.
PageRank has no meaning for twitter. I use TwitScoop in Tweetdeck. It takes virtually no computing effort to run TwitScoop - at least compared to what it takes to run Google's search engine - yet is returns a very valuable result (at least for me it does). And it returns something that Google simply cannot return.
The effort that makes Google invincible is the development and continuous improvement of its algorithm and running that gigantic network of nodes for indexing. The effort that makes Twitter invincible is ... starting Twitter. You can build a Twitter killer - many people have tried - and it may have some success, but it won't kill Twitter.
Twitter will grow and grow and grow. And you know why? Because the people that gain from killing Twitter are outnumbered about five million to one - for now - by people that gain from having Twitter.
Steven
Steven Devijver said...
...rank the historical web you indeed need a matrix. Why?
Well, because you don't have a clue to what I am talking about, do you? Here is an article about Google matrix that might give you a head-start?
The World’s Largest Matrix Computation
Now, Google uses the Power Method to solve the PageRank algorithm, which is mentioned near the bottom of the page under the sub-section heading "Applications". Power method operates on matrices as its input.
Because you need to order years and years of content according to the relevance defined by key words.
You have to differentiate between archives and news service. Google is information retrieval of archived information and not CNN-type or Fox-type news service, where breaking stories are brought live as they happen. I would categorize Twitter as a news service.
Google is very useful , while twitter is useless to me. I don't need to know breaking news via twitter, I can do that by going to CNN, BBC, Fox or other newsmedia site to read on those.
I think that Bernard Lunn's points on Google is irrelevant, since Google is to retrieve archived information and not to index real-time information such as plane that crashed in the Hudson River, because why would one wants to Google about those info, where you can get them from CNN, BBC, Fox, CBS, etc... ?
Steven said...
And it returns something that Google simply cannot return.
For example?
Steven said...
PageRank has no meaning for twitter.
Do you understand what PageRank is? If you don't, then your statement above is meaningless.
Finally, can you tell me a very good reason of why should I use twitter, given I that I don't have time to know about useless real-time information, because I am busy using Google to read about useful stuff (work-wise and personal educational & development-wise). I try to watch the evening news and that's once a day and that's enough. I don't want to know about every break'n news out there that is happening in real-time.
Why does Twitter's success have to imply the demise of Google? Is world dominance everything? Haven't we learnt anything yet about "Ubuntu" (you cannot be a "Human" in isolation) ?
We can all co-exist symbiotically and make things better collectively. Power curves are part of any network development -- hubs dominate for a while and then level out (density wise) as vitality emerges elsewhere in the network.
We are entering a new era where co-opetition and symbiotic contributions to ecosystems are going to be the norm.
Twitter is Good, Google is Good, Semantic Web and/or Linked Data Web technologies are Good. They all make the Web a better place.
Kingsley
I thought it might help to post an extract from the article by the BOSS developer who did the mashup with Twitter, who addresses the issue of "freshness" (which is perhaps a better term than "real time" as that has specific technical meaning). The original article is linked to in my post.
"Freshness (especially in the context of search) is a challenging problem. Traditional PageRank style algorithms don’t really work here as it takes time for a fresh URL to garner enough links to beat an older high ranking URL. One approach is to use cluster sizes as a feature for measuring the popularity of a story (i.e. Google News). Although quite effective IMO this may not be fast enough all the time. For the cluster size to grow requires other sources to write about the same story. Traditional media can be slow however, especially on local topics. I remember when I saw breaking Twitter messages describing the California Wildfires. When I searched Google/Yahoo/Microsoft right at that moment I barely got anything (
Google is in the business of selling advertising space to businesses based upon the indexation of the Internet. That sales process, they have to maximize by indexing and giving supporting services for free.
Twitter is into messaging and is in no business, like Google was in the years 1997 to 2000.
YouTube was also in no business, having their main service in content distribution.
There are big differences between: indexation, real-time messaging and content distribution.
A large company like Google can't change business even how hard they try.
This change of business has been accomplished by only a few outstanding companies like IBM, Apple, Samsung, Philips, GE, Microsoft, Nokia in order to name a few.
Google has yet to prove they can change into a new business (they have turned Youtube into a advertising display as that was the most similar to their business)
I was talking to my friends at WebMynd about this yesterday, and they've created a FFx plug-in that allows you to search on google and see real-time social-web results from OneRiot, Twitter and others, directly on the Google page. There's nothing like empirical evidence to support an argument :) Check it out: http://www.webmynd.com/html/oneriot.html
Yes you are right that Google can buy Twitter and many more small companies but the matter is that search is relatively new and there can be so many offspring of search even making it real time. Who knows where Google's technology will go in the next 5 years and beyond. It is premature to say this now, if the internet is the future (and I believe it is) then Google will certainly have a life line to hold on to and ask for Microsoft and IBM. They did their part but the future is not with them (*_*)....
@Falafulu Fisi It's pretty arrogant to assume I don't understand how PageRank works, or what Google's matrix does. In your arrogance you reduce me to a loser or a troll, which isn't a very nice thing to do. I appreciate nice in other people and I'm sure you do too.
I'll repeat what I've said: Twitter is a very easy computational problem. Google specializes in very hard computational problems. That's why Google has an extremely big computer park and Twitter's park is tiny in comparison.
Google can't beat Twitter because what's novel about Twitter is it's existence as a service. Google can't be undone because what's novel about Google isn't it's existence as a service, but it's existence as a provider. Big difference.
To undo Twitter Google has to undo the Twitter service, which means lure people away from Twitter towards whatever Google offers instead. This won't happen. Twitter is so simple that it's very hard to compete with. On top of that, the benefit offered by the Twitter service to any individual who finds Twitter useful is that everybody else is using twitter too.
To undo Google somebody has to step in, reverse-engineer their algorithms, buy a lot of bandwidth and a lot of servers in a lot of server rooms, make it all work together, spider the Internet and then launch. By the time that's all done billions of dollars would have been spent, for what? To offer an alternative provider?
You can always offer an alternative provider if the value is in the provider. But when the value is in the service - and that service is owned for all practical purposes by one company - and you want to own that service you have two choices:
1) take over the provider, and continue the service as before (buy Twitter).
2) or offer you own provider and lure people away from the existing service to your new service.
Option 2) is much, much harder to achieve. If you look at Google vs Twitter in this context Google has missed the real-time web.
Think of it like this: does it matter to you who is using Google search, or gmail, or google reader, or google books besides you? If the answer is no Google matters as a provider, and much less as a service. You don't find twitter useful, so you're not the right person to ask this question, but it's an important one: does it matter who else is using Twitter? If the answer is yes Twitter matters as a service, and much less as a provider.
That is the genius of Twitter. But why? Because if you want to run 'the real-time web' services are much more important than providers. A service is an interaction between a consumer and a provider according to a contract. If the contract says you'll connect with other people everybody gains from using the same service, and not necessarily the same provider. Because providers don't care about the consumers, they care about delivering the service. This is what Google does. Twitter cares about the consumers. To offer the service it has to have a provider, but that's not what's important about twitter. Instead, they connect people in the simplest possible way, and let people benefit from using their service.
That's why it doesn't matter how hard the problems are that Google is solving. As long as they only provide value as a provider, and not as a service, their providers will matter less and less. But why? Because providers - unlike services - are static. They move very slowly because they're not focused on consumers. As consumers move ahead - which invariably happens over time - these static providers have a hard time staying relevant, because providers are only relevant when they're being used. When you've put all your money in building providers - and much less in services - consumers moving ahead is a scary thing.
A service on the other hand only exists when an interaction happens. When an persons posts on twitter or reads messages on twitter the twitter service exists. When their are no interactions between consumers and the provider the service does not exist. This concept of a service as an interaction has no meaning for Google, because their providers always exist in their minds. But for Twitter it's different. Twitter doesn't thrive when it's provider is being used. Twitter thrives when it's service is being used in a way that's meaningful for the people that use them.
'The real-time web' is such a use. Twitter's value comes from the meaning people assign to its services, which are the interactions they have with other people through Twitter. Google's value comes from the functioning of its search engine, and the quality of its results. It matters to Google how many people use their providers, but not how much value they assign to the interactions they're having. Google want's people to come back - that's why it has to be dominant. Twitter wants people to assign meaning to the interactions people have - that's why it has to be a service.
Steven
Apologies for the blatant plug, but I wrote a response to this post on my blog.
Steven said...
I don't understand how PageRank works, or what Google's matrix does.
First, you posited a question to my very first message on this thread (more like a challenge if you read your post carefully) and I replied back after that, then you came back and cry-baby saying that I am arrogant. Who was arrogant in the first place?
Hearing about PageRank from internet chats, blogs, social-networks and articles, etc, is not the same thing as understanding PageRank. Can you see the difference here? Majority of internet users have heard about PageRank (yourself is one of those), but do they know what the principles & assumptions behind its derivation? Nope.
Steven said...
To undo Twitter Google has to undo the Twitter service, which means lure people away from Twitter towards whatever Google offers instead.
Why would Google want to undo Twitter, if Google sees not much of a benefit in implementing a similar service to that of twitter? If Google develops a similar service, how are they're going to make money out of that? Nothing at all. So, Google probably has no interest in doing that.
Steven said...
If you look at Google vs Twitter in this context Google has missed the real-time web
What is your definition of real-time web? A web-master who uploads new pages into his/her server and then those new pages are not going to be available to the public after 2 hours or so? Or perhaps one that the new materials available instantly? May be a real-time web is when a search archiver such as Google's crawler would come every few hours or so and indexed new pages in a web-site? Or a twitter gossip service that is real-time? Look at the following from your Twitter page:
@johnkeithhart from the perspective of selling level 0 is indeed the hardest because your offer the lousiest deal
Is that twitter message useful? And for what purpose?
Steven said...
To undo Google somebody has to step in, reverse-engineer their algorithms, buy a lot of bandwidth and a lot of servers in a lot of server rooms, make it all work together, spider the Internet and then launch.
That is exactly, why I think that you don't know what PageRank is, except perhaps it is something you read on the internet, so there is no need to reverse-engineer. It would be hard to undo Google for the major reason of branding (and no doubt there are some other minor reasons as well). PageRank algorithm is publicly available in the computing literatures (ie, peer reviewed journals). Page & Brin published their PageRank paper in 1998 in the Seventh International World-Wide Web Conference proceedings. If you want to read their original paper, then here it is (in PDF):
The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hyper-textual Web Search Engine
Google has evolved the PageRank since 1998, which they don't publish those improvement (which is understandable from a commercial advantage point of view), but other researchers had carried on improving the PageRank algorithm, by publishing superior versions of the algorithm in various computing journals over the years. One of those journals is Internet Mathematics, where various versions of PageRank (more robust than the original) have appeared. Even Microsoft, came up with its own superior variant of PageRank in 2004, which they published it in the computing literatures. Their algorithm is called BLLA (Block-Level-Link-Analysis), but still Microsoft hasn't unseated Google yet with that superior BLLA algorithm. I believe that Microsoft is using an advanced version of BLLA in LiveSearch in which they didn't publish and again, this is understandable from a commercial competitive advantage point of view.
Steven said...
Think of it like this: does it matter to you who is using Google search, or gmail, or google reader, or google books besides you?
No, it doesn't matter to me who is using Google, but Google and similar services (Microsoft and others) is one of those productive tools of today, that we almost can't live without in the world of the web. Can you live without twitter? Definitely. Useless & time-wasting services such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, if they are to disappear today, the world would still go on without a hitch. If Google (and other web search services) are to be disappeared today, you would notice that it affected many people, services, researchers from around the world because we're so dependent on those services today. Without them, we would be blind to the web and this is a fact.
Steven said...
That is the genius of Twitter. But why? Because if you want to run 'the real-time web' services are much more important than providers.
Get this, there is no genius in Twitter at all. Goggle, IBM and Microsoft have a platoon of genius researchers and that's fact. Twitter don't invent their own algorithms, they probably use published algorithms already available in the computing literatures, however Google, IBM, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc, do invent their own proprietary algorithms developed by their geniuses and this is fact. Sometimes they published their proprietary stuff in publicly available journals and sometimes they don't.
Steven said...
A service is an interaction between a consumer and a provider according to a contract. If the contract says you'll connect with other people everybody gains from using the same service, and not necessarily the same provider. Because providers don't care about the consumers, they care about delivering the service. This is what Google does. Twitter cares about the consumers. To offer the service it has to have a provider, but that's not what's important about twitter. Instead, they connect people in the simplest possible way, and let people benefit from using their service.
That's why it doesn't matter how hard the problems are that Google is solving. As long as they only provide value as a provider, and not as a service, their providers will matter less and less. But why? Because providers - unlike services - are static. They move very slowly because they're not focused on consumers. As consumers move ahead - which invariably happens over time - these static providers have a hard time staying relevant, because providers are only relevant when they're being used. When you've put all your money in building providers - and much less in services - consumers moving ahead is a scary thing.
Blah, blah, blah, ... You said an awful lot, but all non-sense and irrelevant.
Just in case you don't know how search is done (either link-search, ie, web search or content-search, ie, textual), the Twitter service must be using a type of content-search in their services and this is a fact. I might not know what search algorithm they're using, but there is no escaping this fact, that they do use some content search algorithm, which there are many variants exist today in the computing literatures. One of those popular ones today is the LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing), and you might be surprised, that LSI also uses matrix (word-document frequency matrix) as its data-input. Matrix computation is universal in search, whether websearch (PageRank and its variants) or document-content search (LSI and its variants).
Twitter is only good for the exaggerated self-important people, who think that is cool to post a message such as:
@johnkeithhart from the perspective of selling level 0 is indeed the hardest because your offer the lousiest deal
It is useless, and time-wasting to know about. Perhaps twitter is more important to journalists and the likes, but other than that, it is largely useless.
This is a very interresting conversation, thanks Falafulu Fisi.
The most vital point touched on here is indeed that the game-changing elements of an industry do not come from fierce one on one competition.
However, one thing that will give any firm a long time horizon of industry dominance is remaining creative while getting the best people money can buy. While even the mighty Google has had to restrict its hiring significantly, it's still attracting the cream of the crop; from undergrad to PhD. to flat-out exceptional people.
The real-time element is still in its infancy for a multitude of reasons. But only so much of the population even wants* to be constantly connected so we'll see how this portion of the digital lifestyle develops.