One very common phrase used in society lately has been "let me Google that." It is such terminology that Google Inc. could only hope continues in the future. With a huge part of the market already locked up, it presents quite a challenge for competitors to enter into the search engine spectrum. That doesn't, however prevent them from trying. In an article published in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, they highlight Blekko.com, a new company aimed at capitalizing on the flaws it sees in the search giant.
With a team composed of ex-Google and Yahoo engineers, they seem more than capable of putting a scare into Google, or at least possibly having them rethink various aspects of their search engine. You may be asking what exactly they hope to do to differentiate their site from the numerous engines that have failed in the past. One key problem they see with the results that Google yields is that they are often not of high quality and sources tend to be ambiguous. They hope that by allowing users to narrow searchers it will bring about more accurate results. According to CEO Rich Skrenta, this method will eliminate the acceleration of spam and give users more reliable and academic sources.
It is pretty unrealistic to think that they have a legitimate chance at actually overtaking Google, but that isn't their goal. Google already accounts for an overwhelming majority of internet searches, more than double that of Microsoft's recent Bing engine. Blekko hopes that their project will gain them the number three spot in the market, still a tall task to accomplish. Although the site just launched yesterday, it will be interesting to see if it gains as much recognition as they hope. Listed below is the link to the site where you can find an informational video explaining all of the features.
www.blekko.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704477904575586551374128996.html
This is very interesting to see a company actually announcing their desire to compete with Google. It's as if they are targeting Google, like they have a personal vendetta. Google is such a powerhouse as a company and as a search engine. Blekko will have to come up with some very interesting and unique marketing ideas in order to have a chance as a competitor. As you stated, the site just launched, so time will only tell if they gain the recognition necessary.
ReplyDeleteI agree that they don't have that much of a chance to overtake google and actually google as a word was added to the Oxford english dictionary in 2005 so they do created that link between their name and their product. Besides that they are going to need something really different to level up with Google, Google has successfully been taking control of the most used things on the web. So even though if they come up with something similar I bet most of the people would feel more comfortable using one platform to manage all their things such as email, videos and web searching.
ReplyDeleteClaudio