Search websites diversify in scope and learn to coexist with Google
Although they're unlikely to unseat the world's dominant search engine, emerging players are chipping away at its empire
Globally, Google is the arbiter of the internet. Its 3.5 billion searches per day constitute just over 68 per cent of all searches. Its two biggest global challengers are Microsoft's Bing and Yahoo, the latter of which has a significant role in Hong Kong.
Can either compete with Google on a global scale? "No, and they shouldn't try to," says Chris Wallace, global search and social lead at media and marketing services firm Mindshare Worldwide, which has offices in Hong Kong. He thinks they should instead concentrate on their unique properties.
"Microsoft has Xbox, and this is its opportunity to integrate into the living room and be the search device of choice there, while Yahoo has content and, with acquisitions such as blog engine Tumblr and news aggregator Summly [which powers an excellent new app called Yahoo News Digest], has the opportunity to bring users to its platform and drive search there," Wallace says.
"The reason that Google is so popular is that it just works so well," says Will McInnes, chief marketing officer at media monitor Brandwatch, which is based in Germany, the US and Britain. He thinks that the brand is now fully embedded in our social consciousness - as seen in the now-official verb "to google".
"It's hard to see search engines like Yahoo or Bing becoming the new leader in the search arena," McInnes says. "Much like Microsoft's firm grip on operating systems with Windows a few decades ago, we've reached a saturation point in search within which it will now be very, very difficult to unseat Google - and may well require the drive of an Apple-like competitor to even begin to disrupt it."