| This also means that search is now commoditized. Google's value doesn't come so much from search any more (it's good at it, though there are now grumblings from the Googluminati), but from its advertising network (and the concomitant connections and contracts associated with it), and the value-added services built on top of Google's underlying search technology, to the extent that those leverage Google's base tools and/or expertise. The chinks in Google's armor are starting to show though: - Cheap and/or federated search is now available.
- OpenStreetMap is providing mapping data (and APIs) to rival Google Maps.
- There's a lot of grumbling going on over privacy especially in the social and mobile spaces. Neither has quite fully coalesced, but if you look at the volatility in both spaces (consider what the largest social network and most popular smartphones were 5 years ago vs. today), things could again change quickly.
- Most tellingly, trust in Google to "not be evil" is eroding, rapidly in some quarters. Google is valuable -- because it dominates advertising, and has the users to monetize that. Chip away at the user base and it could find its hegemony starting to fail. The fact that it's very, very cheap to replicate Google's underlying tech helps with this. DuckDuckGo is essentially a one-man shop. Yes, it has a very small fraction of Google's traffic, but it compares favorably with everyone else who's tackling Google, including Micorosft's Bing, with ... more than one man equivalent last I checked. |