Computers vs Humans: Who will win the Search War?
Categories: Search StrategyPosted on August 26th, 2007Colleague Robert Scoble (who doesn’t want to be on Techmeme) suggests that human type systems (like the social graph) will be better at finding and delivering relevant information. It’s suggested that Google is already dead, but doesn’t realize it.
MacroSearch engines are too slow to adopt to MicroSearch engines that are looking at small groups of poeple, their network, and how the share information.
Watch his video and let me know what you think –I really believe he’s onto something again.
(Update: On a related vein, we should also be paying attention to the growing discussion about LifeStreams, a way of aggregating personal information. Done correctly, this could aid the social graph in finally organizing our personal and network data)
11 Responses to “Computers vs Humans: Who will win the Search War?”
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About
Jeremiah Owyang
Silicon Valley
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Keeping Scoble out of tech meme is a little like keeping Marc Cuban of the Sport section of the Dallas Morning News. Not surprisingly it made Techmeme.
Mahalo can’t be the next google unless that offer collaborative services like google. Second, I do 75% of my searches in advanced search mode, and I don’t think Mahalo has the depth. Third, searches are about information. Google has google books, which means it subsumes Mahalos search by a long shot.
Alternatively, announcements from Scoble, Tech meme, and you probably would indicate that folks will be giving Mahalo another look.
On a side note…your white paper was awesome!! Planning on weighing in on Cuban’s “web 2.0 sucks post?”
Posted by Nathan Ketsdever on August 27th, 2007 at 2:00 am
Good feedback Nathan.
Cuban’s post on ‘the internet is boring and dead’ has already been retorted by many responses (as I knew it would) I’ve nothing to add that hasn’t already been said. Generally, I don’t respond to bloggers that say things are ‘dead’ –it’s link bait.
Posted by jeremiah_owyang on August 27th, 2007 at 4:47 am
I disagree with a lot of things he says. For some similar thoughts to mine check out the seomoz blog
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/
Posted by Glen Allsopp on August 27th, 2007 at 5:19 am
This post actually demonstrates the failings of Techmeme perfectly.
You didn’t offer any additional content of value, yet you appear on Techmeme by default as do a number of other people who more or less just posted the video.
You can also just end up on the same stream just by mentioning Facebook in a title.
Robert made a big thing about SEO titles etc, but Techmeme if anything is worse.
In Google, this post probably wouldn’t appear, because it doesn’t contain any content.
Posted by Andy Beard on August 27th, 2007 at 7:21 am
[...] from the SEO community on Roberts arguments and detailed analysis Jeremiah on his Web Strategy its suggested that Google is dead. Go [...]
Posted by Robert Scoble argues that Mahalo, Techmeme and Facebook are going to beat Google in four years on August 27th, 2007 at 7:29 am
Andy Beard
Techmeme doesn’t scan content, it just watches the threads in the linking “fabric”.
I do notice if I have a series of links, then it won’t show on techmeme.
EVERY system can be gamed –although that was not my intention.
Posted by jeremiah_owyang on August 27th, 2007 at 8:22 am
Andy, by the way, I added a bit of content to the post before I saw your comment.
Posted by jeremiah_owyang on August 27th, 2007 at 8:22 am
Scoble is right, it can be done. I’m not so sure about Mahalo doing it, but Yahoo certainly could:
http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2007/08/27/social-graph-search-engines-part-3/
Posted by Bob Warfield on August 27th, 2007 at 8:50 am
The headline of this posts ignores the fact that computers are using social gestures to determine relevancy.
Posted by Ed Kohler on August 27th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
[...] 2)Scoble explainswhy human search via Mahalo will take down more computer based algorithms like Google. [...]
Posted by Blogging & New Media around the web… « Compassion in Politics on August 27th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Ed, you’re right, I was being somewhat unusually sensationalist.
Posted by jeremiah_owyang on August 27th, 2007 at 4:45 pm