In an interview last week I asked a potential candidate, “Who poses the biggest threat to Google’s search dominance?”
He thought Apple had the best chance to disrupt Google, given its large cash reserves and equally impressive brand equity. With its recent push into the mobile space with the iPhone, iPad, and Quattro Wireless acquisition, it certainly appears that Apple will challenge Google in that realm.
But I think there is another player that is far more likely to challenge Google for search prominence, both online and on mobile devices: Facebook. Search Engine Watch reports that Facebook’s searches have more than doubled year over year to 647 million. With 400 million registered users, Facebook has the market penetration necessary to continue to grow in search share.
The real reason I feel strongly that Facebook could seriously challenge Google, however, is because it is poised to offer a fundamentally different search experience by leveraging social graphs and other personal information. Many companies have tried to build “Google-killers” but have failed because the products tried to emulate Google’s methodology, rather than supplant it. Facebook could offer a level of relevancy and personalization based on its terabytes of personal data that would make its offering more compelling than Google.
Now, anyone who has performed a search on Facebook knows the quality of the results is nowhere near as accurate or comprehensive as Google’s currently. But as Facebook expands its Facebook Connect log-in system and enhances the “social Web” features it launched at the F8 conference, I expect its search results to improve dramatically.
Financial reasons could also lead Facebook eventually to challenge Google. Search marketing has proved to be the most profitable form of online advertising, and Facebook is actively searching for ways to grow its top line revenue. The display advertising inventory that Facebook has receives incredibly low click-through rates, and it has yet to demonstrate that payments can be a big business. If Facebook can capitalize on the 6 hours US residents spend on the site each month by capturing their search behavior, it could begin to grow rapidly.
In March, Google Chief Scientist Peter Norvig said “We don’t have better algorithms than anyone else. We just have more data.” Facebook will have to commit a large amount of internal resources to improve its search functionality to compete with Google, but its data is fundamentally different, and potentially more useful for delivering relevant search results.
