Find help: Google :: Hot or Not? - Help.com

Goggle has defiantly abandoned the “don’t be evil” motto for the “Make lots of money for shareholders” motto. Which is not all bad, as a vast majority of all businesses are run this way. Further many would argue that the sole purpose of a corporation is to maximize profit, and that social wariness is not a concern of a corporation.

As far as search engines good, goggle does the job it was intended to do; its also simple and not flashy, which people tend to like.

As far as the corporation as a whole, goggle is positing it self to be the next juggernaut and it will most likely make that goal a reality.

But what if they don’t want the number one search result? I know that when I use goggle, I often don’t use the first result, sometimes I will drill two or three pages down, also depending on what it is I really want I can search many more pages then that. Simply going to Golf.com wont be enough if the information I want about golf is not on golf.com.

Further what happens if the best golf sight on the net is not golf.com? What happens if Golf.com just happened to be the first to think of making a golf website and so got the premium name? Or has the most money and can buy the premium name? And the sight that has the best information was stuck with something like “Playgolf.com” I wont ever find that page if it where not for a search engine, I would go to golf.com and miss out on all the better things at playgolf.com.

xbox wrote:
What have I missed? What do you feel I might be missing?

:) nmw

First you seem to be assuming what is “relevant” to me, and that assumption brings you to the conclusion that golf.com and/or golf.net will provided the most relevance to me. Now I concede you might be right on a statistical bases, perhaps statistically the most people get the most relevant information from golf.com. But people are not statistics, they are individuals and each has their own relevancies, even if those relevancies line up from time to time.

Time is money;

I just did a little experiment to solidify my own thoughts on the subject. I decided I wanted to know the origins of golf. In this case the ‘relevant’ information for me is how golf began and the history of golf.

According to your argument I should have been able to go to Golf.com and find this information. So I did go to golf.com; it was a great webpage, nice and clean and easy to navigate. If I wanted information on current golf events, equipment, and technique; it would be a very relevant sight. But that is not the information I wanted, I wanted the history of golf and after spending 5 minuets on Golf.com I still could not find it. If such information exists on that sight it’s to hard to find.

I then went to your next best alternative ‘Golf.net’. What I found there was nothing but advertisements for golf equipment sights. Not at all relevant to what I wanted.

So I decided to take it a step further and went to www.golfhistory.com and www.golf-history.com and .net. In some cases the page did not exist and in others once again where just maps to online golf stores.

So now I just spent 10 minuets looking for information and came up blank. I went to Google typed “Golf history” and in seconds found the information I wanted. It would seem that is the power of the search engine. Not that it effectively decides what is and what is not the most relevant information to the most amount of people, Golf.com provides that function as you state. What it does how ever is allow the user to customize what is most relevant to them, and more easily find those relevant sights in one covenant place.

Further you seem to be suggesting a method that decentralizes information rather then centralizes it. Even if in the future I could go to Golf.com and search for all relevant information on golf, and modelairplanes.com and find all the information on model airplanes*. That is still ‘two’ places I need to remember to go to, other wise I can just go to a search engine and find both golf and model airplane information.

* just an aside, I went to ‘modelairplanes.com’ and found a company that provides webpage solutions and not anything on model airplanes. model-airplanes.com doesn’t even exist.

As for the little guy, why should he have to participate at golf.com and golf.net? Why can’t he chose to be independent if he wants to, and why should I not be able to find an independent sight if I decided that golf.com and golf.net aren’t sights I want to use for a verity of reasons? Search engines provided this ability to be independent and associate independently. If we really want to get 1984ish I could make the argument that your method of finding relevant information is ultimately a way to control information, putting that control in to the hands of a select few who can control the premium sights though monitory influence. One could make this same argument against Google (and they should). But they would have to also negate the fact that anyone can easily compete with Google over the search engine service. Once Golf.com has the name, no one can compete with them for that name, it belongs to them until such time they decided to give it up.

If the writing is on the wall, and your method of finding information, truly is the future, you are in an excellent position. Don’t forget me when your controlling your section of the world, I can prove to be an excellent creator of truth. :)~

xbox wrote:
what do especially like about it (compared to other search engines?)

I use Google over other search engines for two reasons.

One it is not flashy and it is simple. I don’t have time for the nonsense that is on Yahoo’s homepage, it really starts to hurt my eyes. Yahoo finance is superior though, so I tend to use that more then Google finance.

Two, now that other search engines are copying Google’s method of simplicity (like ask.com), I would say that I stick with Google because I am familiar with it and so like the way it looks better. Poisoning is everything in advertising, Google was first in the mind so sights like Ask.com will have a hard time gaining market share.

Although now that Google is not only abandoning the “Do no evil” motto and is starting to do evil I am considering forcing my self to stop using it.

I think that just help prove my point, you used a search engine to find your information. You did not go directly to a website by tying in an appropriate domain name.

And further half the search results on the history.com don’t even work. The ones that do work often don’t match what History.com says they are.

Yea you need to watch out for Wikis and I only use them when I don’t realy care about the info I’m getting.

The second sight I got on a Google search was an About.com page. I don’t like about.com so I just skipped it.

Third was this page

http://www.tourcanada.com/golfhist.htm

Which seemed to have good information.

I don’t like about.com, because of the user interface; it’s sloppy and filled with ads. That’s why I skipped it, it may have superior information but it does not deliver that information in an affective manner (at lest for me) .

As for help.com or wikipedia.com, the idea that a community is responsible for giving good answers gives me pause; Help.com is not at all helpful to most people and is full of irrelevancies and ideal chitchat. Wikipedia is to easily manipulated with little over sight, while at the same time it presents itself as an authority. ‘Better’ regulatory functions must be implemented in these types of sights before they become a valuable source of information.

I have not implied that direct navigating ‘does not work extraordinarily well’ some or even most of the time. I am sure you know more about that then I do. I am refuting the idea that a search engine do not provide a valuable function and that direct navigating (at lest at this time) can fill that function. It can not.

A lot of your examples and comments revolve around the selling of goods and services. Direct navigating may work well for this function. But there is still a wealth of information that must be accessible that does not revolve around trade.

And as far as trade does go, competition is an important factor we can’t forget. If Amazon owns all the direct navigateable domains that have to do with books, how will I ever know I can get a better deal else where with out a search engine?

I don’t think your missing anything, I just don’t think that direct navigating can take over for search engines, at lest not at this time. The thing about innovation is that superior technology often does not become the adopted technology. The adopted technology is determined by a verity of variables. A few being, convenience of use, barriers to adoption, and the cost of switching.

The cost of switching in this case is the learning curve involved in using direct navigating. The changing of a mind set away from using a search engine toward using direct navigation. For example, I’m sure history.com popped up naturally in your mind when faced with my earlier question about the history of golf. It didn’t in mine; I searched a whole bunch of direct sights with the word golf and none proved to be adequate. I did not even think to focus on the secondary criteria of my search, ‘history’. The difference between you and I, is that your use to thinking like this and I am not; I am use to using search engines. Most people are use to using search engines and unless search engines some how get wiped off the face of the earth, people will simply not invest the time to learn this new way of doing things.

Barriers to adoption well be anything the search engines can do to prevent people from using direct navigation. Companies like Google have vast resources on their side and they will be able to through up road blocks.

Convenience of used I already touched on, the fact that a search engine can provide expected results even if they are mediocre can be worth more then direct navigating being superior most of the time, but inferior some of the time. That uncertainty lends it self to the public opting to just use a search engine, even if they get mediocre results.

The superiority of a technology is only one of many factors that lead to adoption and history shows that its not a very important deciding factor.

Then I have misunderstood your arguments, I thought you where advocating an all or nothing approach. Envisioning a world where search engines no longer exist and people directly navigate everywhere. I certainly do see the advantages of direct navigating and as you have pointed out companies would not have bothered with buying domains such as shoping.com unless they had a wealth of research that showed people do use them or will in next ten years. Companies don’t act on a whim.

By vast amount of resources on Google’s part I was referring to tangible assets, financial capital and connections. Google has acquired a lot of wealth and since they aren’t going anywhere any time soon, they will collect even more. With that wealth they have diversified from just providing a search engine and have begun to create a vast foot print on internet related resources outside of searching. They would not shrivel up if search engines become out of use, and they will use their resource to make sure that search engines do not go out of use. It’s a classic business case, players change, but the song remains the same.

Better or worse does not matter, It is the perception of what is better or worse that matters. I can not make a determination of what the future will hold, but as for right now Google is perceived to be better and so it might as well be. As more and more people start to use the internet to its full potential this perception might change. I don’t know.

Google has more then just youtube and AFAIK, they are buying up and building hardware resources like their going our of style. Google wants to become the next phone company, although “phone company” meaning a lot more then just voice. They want a peace of all the action and are moving to get it. They will be a formidable obstacle to any change in that notion.

It could be a case of “the bigger they come, the harder they fall” - AT&T eventually fell, but it did take longer then 10 years. But it’s up in the air for Google.

Often it is said that with the new medium there is a different time span for business. I’m sure you have heard of the concept of “internet years” like “dog years.” Under such auspices ten years might be enough for the rise and fall of Google, but I tend not to believe such a concept. I think “internet years” is just a buzz word people use to feel superior, and that when it comes down to it, old rules still apply.

Tell me something, with direct navigating how does someone look up information on a phrase or a concept like “internet years”?

While looking around for this thread, I came accorse this and thought it was cute.

http://epic.makingithappen.co.uk/

Do you see how you are contradicting yourself? As it is right now — going to a “one-stop shop” for information creates a monopoly for information. So what you are saying about Amazon and books is not true today about Amazon or Barnes&Noble or Ebay or IAC — but it is true about Google. Scroll down on http://www.google.com/language_tools and look at how many domains Google has — they “own” the concept Google in countries where nobody uses the Internet (they simply want to own their own brand — and to some degree, there is an argument for that [but it’s certainly not something a “little guy” could do]). Keywords such as “hotels” and “books” are wideley distributed. There is only one exception to this that I know of: “live” — which is indeed a stupendous name for search (especially if they actually deliver “live” results, compared to the ancient pages often dug out by Google) — however: note that there are a couple “live” domains in “other hands” (I myself own “live” in two leading markets ;).

That would be true, and a contradiction only if Google was a monopoly. It might be in the future, but it not a monopoly now. There are plenty of competing search engines, and creating a search engine is easy as far as location goes. But there is only one Book.com (or ok like five other dot extensions) but once those locations are used up there are no more. Now, you stated that you don’t want to do away with search engines, so then it all becomes a mute point.

And indeed: you do not need to remember anything: It is plain natural language (the same stuff you might type into the search box on Google.COM). Now you can’t seriously tell me that you have difficulty remembering that “help” means help or that “hotels” means hotels, etc. — can you? Why would it be easier to remember a word to type it into the Google search box than it would be easier to remember a word to type it into the location bar? It isn’t! In one case, you’re getting a page where the word occurs frequently on the page and/or there are many links pointing to the page (this is, BTW, probably why the BBC ranks so highly on the Google.CO.UK search for “golf” mentioned above) and/or the search engine will return a website that is named by that word. Going to the website directly simply removes the extra step.

You do have to remember or deduce an actual domain name. Domain names are specific, and you have to type it write or you wont get anywhere. Putting keywords into a search engine is more convenient, it will search for those words in any order or any set up. Now the level of convenience might be very close between the two methods, but there is still a disparity. The masses have always gravitated toward the more convenient technology even if it is the less superior technology.

The question about centralization vs. decentralization is actually an intriguing one — and it is one that is actually more/less a matter of technology. Broadcasting (whether radio or tv or whatever doesn’t really matter — the basic idea of broadcasting) is quintessentially a matter of centralized information (and dictators such as Adolf Hitler use/used this to strengthen their own position). In contrast, the Internet is technologically inherently decentralized — so the fact that one company might “command” such inordinate attention is somewhat of an anomaly (people often refer to the Internet as a medium for narrowcasting rather than as a medium for broadcasting). To draw a comparison: in the early days of the printing press, the Bible was what was printed and exchanged most of all — but that soon changed: newspapers and other books became more popular, and today hardly anyone would consult the Bible for many issues (such as, for example, in a “learning setting” such as you might find in a school classroom). Centuries ago (when the printing press was first invented) that was quite different: the Bible was the source of all knowledge.
It is naive to think that Google will always be “the source of all knowledge”.

I would agree completely, but there are two different issues here. One about search engines vs direct navigating and one about google vs direct navigating.

Search engines in general; I still would not believe are going to go anywhere, just like the printing press still exists and still will exist for a long time to come. Printing machines will exist until the new medium completely takes over. One day even the internet will be taken over by something new, and it is at that time the search engines will no longer be used. This is not to say that direct navigating wont take off, it probably will, but I still don’t see how it can take over completely for a search engine, it simply does not fulfill all the functions that a search engine does. Frankly, direct navigating is nothing new, you could have directly navigated since the first day of the internets public birth. Search Engines came about because of how inconvenient it was to directly navigate; now you make a compelling argument that direct navigating has/is going to become much easier, but I don’t see it taking over to the point of Search Engines going away.

Now for Google; You are right to say that it is nave to believe Google will always be the source of all knowledge. Of course something, whether it be direct navigating, another search engine, or government intervention, will topple the giant. Such has been the case of every giant in history. The question is when? Some of the Giants that came before Google took a very long time before they were toppled; even the bible is still considered the source of all knowledge by some people today. I think the idea that Google will be toppled with in the next decade to be a departure from historical president. It could happen, but I doubt it.

Now I don’t make this argument because its what I want to see happen, I don’t think it is wise to let Google become the source of all information, if direct navigating can end that possible future before it begins, then I’m all for direct navigating. But based on what I know about business and the history of business, Google has a lot on its side. More ominously; if we look at AT&T it was not toppled by the competition of something better, it was toppled by government intervention. Google does not have that problem, it can be nationless and not subject to rules that are set up to protect against monopolies. Just looking at Microsoft we can see how much those rules have been weakened, and Google is a lot less dependent on a nation then Microsoft is.

Call me a pessimistic sifi enthusiast, but I can easily see a company like Google upsetting this idea that the internet is some savoir to control through the proliferation of information. There is just to much that could go wrong; You have the whole “two-tier” internet issue if hardware is out pace the growth of the internet. Where this to happen the little guy losses out and the owners of the hardware get to decided what information is allowed to flow. Google is buying that hardware.

xbox wrote:
After a talk given be Vint Cerf (a VP at Google, for “Internet Evangelism” ;) about a year and a half ago, in which he referred to direct navigation as “domain name guessing” — and he maintained that domain name guessing is not used /since people use “search”) — I kind of agreed with him: I described how my mother uses the Internet. When I ask her to search for something on the Internet, she pressed the “blue e” and then types her search into the search box. This is not what Mr. Cerf wanted to hear. What Mr. Cerf meant is that people do not use direct navigation — except when they type in “google.com”!! LOL!!! Yes, I only use direct navigation when I am directly navigating — otherwise I don’t use it! ;D

So everyone is free to directly navigate to google.com or to golf.com or to cars.com or to hotels.com or to help.com or to whatever they want (and actually there are I think around 300 TLDs [”extensions”], not just 5) — and then they will search.

I totally agree!!

:D nmw

I have to disagree, while your mother, who I assume doesn’t really know how to use a computer by the way you described the whole blue e thing, might just type something in the url bar of her browser. Most people who use computers are already conditioned to seek out search engines on the internet and already know of the few big ones to use. If they don’t know if any search engines, the first freeware they download will place a tool bar on their browser. People like your mother, who are not computer illiterate are on the decline and those joining the ranks of the computer literate are conditioned to use Google or Yahoo. They are not conditioned to directly navigate. Until you brought it up in this question, it wasn’t even a thought in my mind.

People are free to do what every they want and regular life shows they often chose to do what they are habitually predisposed to do. It take more then a suggestion of superiority to make them brake their habits.

I have to admit I don’t think I know anyone who uses direct navigating more then they use a search engine, when they desire to find information and they don’t already know the Domain they want to do to.

Ah yes, I had been thinking about that through out our conversation. MSN-1 Google-0

They are ‘able’ to do what ever they want, the question is what ‘will’ they do.

who said humans had advanced intelligence? Or more to the point, evolved past basic “stimulus-response” reaction for most of the things they do? :)~

xbox wrote:
It is very important. You know as well as I do that many people have important issues — such as being able to put food on the table. Now da- feels that Google is not in a monopoly position. There are, however, many people who have been watching this industry — probably for longer than da- has been alive — and they quite often come to quite different conclusions. Here is one example:

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/20…

You are correct, I do not think Google is in a monopoly position. They may be in the future and they are certainly working to that end, but have not reached it yet.

It’s not that Google learned this behavior from Microsoft. It may just be an inevitable part of having an IT monopoly.

But a point from the article that should be expanded. The actions of Microsoft and the actions Google is starting to take are not “an inevitable part of having an IT monopoly”. They are an inevitable part of any company that reaches their size and scope. It’s a classic business lifecycle, even Wal-Mart suffers from the inherent problems mentioned in this article and they aren’t in the IT field. Wal-Mart however, like Google and Microsoft own a large share of their market and are subject to the hubris that come along with that.

I value da-’s opinion, because I sense that it is heartfelt and honest. However, I actually did come to help.com with the notion that there might be a community of people seeking to help each other here. And that is also why I stayed.

And it is also why I started this discussion — in order to draw attention to the fact that in this case direct navigation actually worked — indeed IMHO it worked very well!