Former Google Exec: Traditional Search Market Shrinking

An anonymous reader writes "Former Google executive Stafford Masie believes that traditional search is dying because users are choosing to query their friends and followers on services like Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. Here's the quote from the video: 'The pie of search query volumes in the world – that business is shrinking. Why? Because people are going and doing search queries – search query volumes are moving towards social containers. They're moving away from static pages being searched and they're moving more towards dynamic real-time stream content. Like Twitter. Like Tumblr. Like Facebook. Those things have a better result because the penetration, the personalization associated with it, and the constant freshness of the content. So I believe that Google's search volume – the business Google is in on the search side – that business is shrinking. And they've got to do something about it.'"

Oh really?

[bhagwad]

How many here have ever posted a question on social networks asking their friends which laptop/smartphone etc. to buy? I don't. I either start from Google or go directly to Amazon.

I think "social search" is massively hyped up.

Key Word: "FORMER" Google Exec

[coinreturn]

Utter nonsense. When I need an obscure part for a broken appliance, I will not be asking my facebook friends. I will always use Google (or other search engine). It is just too instantaneous to ignore.

Re:Oh really?

[ledow]

Social search? No thanks.

One person I know only buys what Which Magazine recommends. Everything he owns is "top" of Which's ratings. And they all have some pretty killer problems or cost the earth, and he gets nothing more done than someone who buys the cheapest things out of Tesco.

And just how many of my friends know what an indexable skiplist is, or the correct invocation of a particularl Windows API function, or a system for library cataloguing that integrates with AD, or the name of that guy in the film with that other guy? Precisely zero. If you've stopped tapping things into Google and are instead tapping them into Twitter or Facebook then, let's be honest, they probably weren't really worth asking in the first place. And anyone that answers will use Google to find the thing they read about that topic last week, etc.

Not only do I not believe it, I think that it could only be a good thing to stop Google having to deal with "Who saw Eastenders the other night? Did Jack find his long-last father?" when it could be dealing with my queries which need a mite more data and research.

F-A-D

[DogDude]

I don't know who this guy is or what his history with Google was, but he sounds just like every other talking head pundit/consultant that is blathering on about social media changing the world and such crap. It's a very popular fad whose time is just about up.

Buy?

[Colin Smith]

When I search I want information, not opinion.

I'm fairly sure the guy has a startup he's trying to peddle. Just wait for the IPO.

Having said that Google's search has noticeably deteriorated over the last couple of years. I often have to hit the Nth page now to find stuff I'm looking for.