“Google may be on its way out as the dominant player in search, according to one analyst — and could even ‘”disappear’ in as little as five to eight years if the competitive pressures that ultimately claimed other search giants start to take root,” Cadie Thompson reports for CNBC.
“In the wake of a surprisingly weak earnings report, Eric Jackson, Ironfire capital founder and managing member, said Google could easily find itself fending off the woes that eventually took hold at embattled Yahoo,” Thompson reports. “‘They could disappear in five to eight years and disappear in the sense that Yahoo used to be the king of search. Now, for all intents and purposes, Yahoo has disappeared,”‘ Jackson said Thursday on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street.”
Thompson reports, “The rise of mobile will lead consumers to want to search in new ways, which may open the door for others to enter the search space. The number one contender may just be Apple — one of Google’s fiercest competitors, he said… “‘I don’t think typing in a blue box is the ideal format for a mobile world. And I think the best opportunity out there to displace Google in this area is probably Apple’s Siri.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote earlier this week: “What you are seeing is a paradigm shift. Until mobile ad rates catch up and unless Google can figure out a way to monopolize it they way they did with the desktop (hint, they can’t, thanks to Apple), they are a declining one-trick pony. If they don’t come up with some new, meaningful revenue stream, they are in for a world of hurt. Android isn’t it – they make little or no money from it and the users are cheapskates, so the ad rates Google can command for Android suck. The desirable users – the ones with money to spend and the will to spend it – are on iOS and seeing Apple iAds.”
Google’s going to rue the day they got greedy by deciding to try to work against Apple instead of with them. – MacDailyNews Take, March 09, 2010
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Joe Architect” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Google results, filed by mistake, miss; shares dive – October 18, 2012
Why does Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer consider Apple’s Siri the perfect search engine? – October 19, 2012
Apple hires Amazon A9 exec Stasior to run Siri unit – October 15, 2012
With Siri and new alliances, Apple takes on Google search – June 21, 2012
Yes ! And Apple map will make google map disappear too !!
What Apple needs to top this off is a non-Google-based Maps for
OSX.
Don’t you think that is already in the works? My guess is one year after Apple’s mobile Maps app works as well as Google’s current mobile maps.
Ummm, that would be the next upgrade of MacOSX.
What they need is their own OS X search engine for non-mobile users. Google’s moat is very narrow and very shallow. They can easily be displaced.
I really want the google to crush the apple.
And, resident ignoramus, I really wish a dropped anvil to crush you, or at least render you unable to post!
Weird.
Couldn’t happen soon enough!
Experts and analysts said the same thing about Apple years ago and you believe them now?
No, Apple has never been the dominant player in any field in which they compete, for one thing. And Apple’s moat, OS X integrated with its own hardware, is miles wide and very deep. Google’s is effectively non-existent now. Anybody who wants to can create a search engine.
That’s it? That’s your “analysis”.
Yes, your premise is incorrect. Analysts could not say the same about Apple years ago because they were not a fading, but still dominant player in their field.
So you only believe what you want to hear.
Do you not think that a 20% drop in same Q profits is a sign of potential problems @ GOOG? There was a drop in revenue from both AdWords search ads as well as YouTube Ads. And this was WITH ad sales actually being UP. The average price paid by advertisers is dropping like a rock. Why? Because clickthroughs are also dropping like a rock. Ad fatigue has set in, and it is mostly Google’s fault, as they stacked the deck too heavily on their search results with their sponsored listings. Most people completely skip the first results on their search results because they have caught on that they are ads.
And mobile? Over 50% of local searches are now done via mobile devices. And it is expected that mobile searches (and this does not necessarily mean Google mobile searches) will outnumber desktop web searches in 2013. Advertisers are discovering that mobile clicks are worth FAR less than the old Web search clicks were – and guess what? Search has gone mobile, in case you hadn’t noticed. Advertisers are not going to pay what they used to pay for search ads on mobile. The economics just don’t work.
GOOG’s core business is at risk now, and their attempted moves to try to capitalize on mobile look as if they may actually backfire, with AAPL kicking them to the curb, and MS may possibly end up in 2nd place in mobile – and you know they are no friend of Google’s.
While I think the 5 year estimate is a bit too soon, I think that in 10 years Google will not be in the position they are in currently unless they can figure out a way to reinvent themselves.
From what I’ve seen, everything “new” that they try is all aimed at trying to make their now faltering business model continue to exist. They will need to truly change their business model to attempt to survive long term. Nothing they have done so far shows that they are willing to do so.
Apple was near bankruptcy after Steve Jobs left. I think losing it all is damn more significant than a simple reduction in profits. Google also dominates Yahoo and Bing. Siri will improve over time but it’s too early to tell if it will kill Google. Siri only functions with iOS. The vast majority of phones, tablets, and other devices on the plant are not compatible with iOS.
I couldn’t have said it better!
In your opinion, Google, in the face of disaster, irrelevance, and total failure will do nothing to avert the impending collapse and fade into history. Is that what you would do?
@MacFreek No, it is not what I would do. But it is not as simple as it sounds. Ad rates and clickthroughs have been declining for years now. I’m just not sure that Google believes that they are doing anything wrong based on their moves to date. We will see. We’ve all seen seemingly unstoppable companies fail before, haven’t we?
I certainly don’t know the future, but so far, they seem hellbent on trying to force their existing business model to work. A few more quarters will better tell the tale.
So, if you would not do nothing then it is reasonable that Google will do something and possibly extricate themselves from their diminishing revenue stream. Thanks for agreeing with me.
@MacFreek Well, I for one never thought that Google’s business model was a sustainable one. I was once long on GOOG, but sold all my shares quite some time ago (for a nice profit, admittedly).
We will see what happens. All I am saying is that so far, everything that they HAVE done to try to deal with their situation isn’t working, and their approach to mobile (alienating their potential biggest partners) is actually currently doing the opposite.
Do you currently know of some master plan that will “extricate themselves from their diminishing revenue stream”? It doesn’t seem that Google does. If you do, I’m sure that Larry has a very high paying job waiting for you in Mountain View. 🙂
Well, my master plan wouldn’t consider you.
Okay, so you’re not actually interested in having an intelligent discussion, you’re just trolling. Noted.
In that time Apple understood and change direction. First, they bought NeXT with Jobs inside and got focused. Later, they widen their business with the iPod, the iTunes Store, then the iPhone and later the iPad, becoming more than a “one trick pony”, mainly because they had the hardware and the software, the skills and guidance.
Google is screwed, MacFreek.
Their ad business, around which the entire company revolves, is collapsing. Android makes crap for profit. Motorola is a money pit.
Their search engine could be obliterated by a new upstart just as easily as they obliterated Yahoo when they themselves were a new upstart. This could happen at any moment. Hell, perhaps Mayer’s Yahoo will do this.
They’re heading full speed towards an iceberg and who is going to save them? They don’t have a Steve Jobs figure to return and get the company back on track.
What’s going to rescue Google? Wishful thinking?
This would be a bad thing?
In one way, yes since then Apple would be the last man standing and possible become a cumbersome giant like MicroSoft. I did say “like”, but Apple as for now has the spirit of Steve Jobs still flowing through the company and will have for many years from now, but all the people working today will eventually retire.
That, plus there are no schools that are teaching that “style” of management. So, unless Apple has a defined internal training program, they will eventually run out of “Apple” thinkers and will end up like other companies.
Apple University for example….
That ‘style’ of management isn’t something you pick up in a university, or training program. I think that’s the main problem we have, people get hired based on paper qualifications while the real world is where you can learn things that apply in the real world. A course can only show you so much, some basic principles at best, and then only if the people doing the teaching are any good. Most of them aren’t, and we are seeing the results.
A study by the American Psychological Association reveals the core of the problem, (especially Study 3 (Phase 2): It Takes One to Know One):
http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/contrib/unskilled.html
When those who appoint directors are not competent enough to know what is needed, they are unable to appoint through knowledge and rely instead on qualifications, which are insufficient to guarantee appropriateness.
Apple University indeed! 🙂
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/06/business/la-fi-apple-university-20111006
No doubt. I’m a Apple fan to the bone, BUT THERE NEEDS TO BE COMPETITION.
Apple has demonstrated, ad nauseam, that they compete against themselves. As example will suffice: Forrestal team that wanted to shrink OS X to fit into iPhone and other team inside (sorry, I do not remember the name) who wanted to take on Linux and grow from it. They compete and Forrestal won. The other guy left Apple, by the way.
Unlike microsoft, at least Apple cares about quality and not mediocrity. Id rather live in an Apple world rather than a microsoft one any day!
Isn’t it creepy people who willingly choose Microsott even after seeing its flat-footed, bull-in-a-china-shop, bald, tongue lashing CEO in action? Ballmer is about the most cliche example of a disgusting CEO as is possible with a singing voice only a mother could love.
Promises, promises.
Apple should just buy them.
Why waste the money, let them die on the vine.
Besides, Google are the best defence Apple has against any allegations of having a monopoly on mobile OS devices. Google gets the user numbers and both the EU and DoJ are happy with the level of competition, whilst Apple takes 80% of the industry’s profits.
Not that having a monopoly is an issue of course, but you do have to tread a lot more carefully when you have one, lest others complain you are leveraging your position to lock them out.
I have been posting this scenario for months as one of th,e reasons for first,Siri and second the importance of the new iPad Mini….once you strangle Googles ability to make ad revenue….it’s adios.
Hahaha… Funny. I have no idea why this kind of article has been circulating. You mean it will be Apple.
“Trolololol.”
replay ‘troll’, huh?
Waxing.
Waning.
Edward! What you doing up so late? Tomorrow we have to go visit Uncle Cho and leave early in the morning and you have still not brought the Kimchi in like I asked you to before dinner. Get to bed! Samsung and Google may pay you, but they not own you!
Um, I kinda sorta doubt that Google search is gonna die. There continues to be nothing comparable. MS Boink is a joke. I’ve done the side-by-side-by-side challenge between Google and Bingo and Yahoo. Google wins every time.
HOWEVER, I can see Google killing themselves off with their CRAP, that being just about everything else they make.
I can also see Siri kicking Google’s ass to the curb on mobile. I just don’t see a desktop alternative to Google search. Well, until Siri arrives for the desktop!!! IT’S GONNA ROCK! 😀
Supposedly a new and independent alternative is duckduckgo.com. I haven’t used it enough to compare its results against google and others but some say search results are far better than Google’s for many topics.
I have been using DDG successfully for the past six months or so. I am training my kids to avoid Google, too. That’s the best way to avoid a Google-dominated future.
Same here
Derek – Goog’s search patent runs out *I think* in 2015 or 2018… anyway, soon. I didn’t read the article, but I assume the author might mention that – there have been a bunch of articles before that went down this road.
Being the best does not insure survival. Lots of best in class products have failed for one reason or another. Lots of crap products products have prevailed.
I think the development engine that Steve created will prevail, and do it with BEST in class product.
I recently did a search for a wiring diagram for my furnace in my house. Using Google I got nothing but people wanting to sell me a new furnace. Using Yahoo I finally got a manual for my furnace in PDF format. Google is screwing up their search results by selling favorable placement in search results. I seldom use them anymore for this reason alone, much less that I hate giving data to these evil creeps.
I stopped using Google because I got tired of the first dozen “results” being other search engines, and having to skip to the second, or third, page to start getting something relevant.
I don’t see Siri taking Google down. Actually, I don’t see anything involving voice being a major player in this area anytime soon. I use Siri all the time. But, I have never seen any one else use it, despite being around iPhone users daily (hourly?). Unless there is a major paradyme shift in the direction of dictation and vocal commands, the battle for Siri will be uphill IMHO. But, I hope I am proven wrong.
I hardly see Google Dying anytime in the next ten years, they continue to diversify away from search and are developing new products all the time. I’m an apple fan but have to say there is room for both of them and google is anything but a one trick pony.
Okay I’ll bite. Where does Google make revenue to justify their huge PE ratio and share price other than Ad revenue generated through a search monopoly?
Would Google even be a 30 billion dollar company if they closed down their search engine and stopped collecting ad revenue?
They would go out of buisness within the year.
Don’t underestimate Yahoo in challenging Google. Yahoo was in the process of death throes until it managed to pull a rabbit out of the hat – it snatched Marissa Mayer from the death grip of Google. With Marissa at the helm Yahoo is on the path of rejuvenation. Marissa was a star at Google but was uncharitably sidelined due to the practice of nepotism in Googledoom. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Just watch… as Google crumbles.
The only problem with all of their new products they are developing (or, STEALING, in Android’s case) is that the business model always remains the same as their search engine business – to gather data so that advertisers can target their markets so Google can make money from charging for advertising.
This is the only reason Google does anything. Anything new they create, and any new service they provide is only to keep you in their systems so they can gather data and target ads. This is why your Google account works across everything, and why Gmail now automatically adds new accounts to Google+. Everything is all done for one goal, to gather data so advertisers can target you better. They also seem to be in a mode where they don’t know what to do next, so they just throw crap at the wall and see what sticks.
The real problem for Google is that ad rates are WAY down. People have become immune to AdWords advertising, and Google doesn’t appear to have thought long term about what would they would do once ad fatigue set in and searches went mobile.
I give them more than 5 years, but I’d think a Google as we know them today would be a huge stretch in 10.
Oh please!
I believe Google’s mobile products are nowhere near as good as apples, but they are nowhere near
Please ignore my last post. Apple is the king of hardware, but has a long way to go before they can knock Google off the pedestal as the best services provider (I do think Apple maps is a damn good start). It’s true that most of their revenue comes from ads, but it’s also true that most people do their web searches on Google. This means that they have a large audience to which they can advertise. Honestly, I’d love Google to stay in the game if for nothing else but offering competition. This will keep Apple on its toes. At least until Microsoft can get their stuff together.
If Windows8/RT/whatever is any indication, MSFT doesn’t have a clue about the future. Watch its desktop business falter in the next three years.
MSFT knows it, too. That’s why they have hedged their bet with mobile Office (coming soon to an iOS device near you).
Google may own desktop search, but it relies on Windows dominance of the environment (see above).
IPad and Mac computers are eating Windows share for lunch, and we are fast approaching the point where Windows (and all of its derivatives), will be the main course for dinner as well.
After all the stunts that Google have played in the past several years I have personally:
1. Switched to Yahoo for search on my phone and macs.
2. Used Ghostery to block analytics.
3. Will not use any Google products wherever possible.
Likewise I go out of my way not to buy Samsung products.
Now I don’t know if Google will be around in 5 years but if it keeps screwing over anyone who gets in its way then it deserves to crumble. Their basic precept is to take anything that they think should be theirs. That’s wrong and I am not going to give them my info to help them.
Google are a search co. They depend on people looking and sometimes clicking on their ads.
They foolishly didnt give Apple the same Maps that they had running on Android.
Now they have no Maps on iOS 6.
Because they are stupid, they have just thrown away a huge slice of revenue.
They are dependent on others.
Apple isn’t.
CNBC will disappear before Google does.
Never going to happen. The number of idiots that believe CNBC is informative will never go away.
I’m still waiting for the BIG news when Anal…yst will disappear. It’s like a bunch of false prophets running with their heads cut off…when are they finally going to keel over. How do they reproduce so much, and how can they be stopped. That’s what I’d like to know.
What torques my jaws about Google is the number of times I click on a search result only to find that I’m deposited into another search service, and more often than not it doesn’t even have my search item in its list. Or, I get a genuine hit but even that doesn’t have my search item. I think it’s time to try something else.
Siri is the future of search.
In 5 years time no one will be typing in a search field on a website at all
It’s all going to be voice search and as is the norm apple is there 1st.
To add to what you are saying, I think that searches will be more integrated into what we are doing at the time. If my movements are being tracked, and my buying habits are known, it may be that as I approach a certain location, the search tools may prompt me to look at, for example, snow tires for my car when in October, I happen to visit a local auto supply place. One app I use now, OmniFocus on my iPad, allows me to base tasks on location so that when I go to that location, I am prompted to perform certain tasks.
The search capabilities could include locations, my buying habits, what I have identified on a to do list, and probably a lot of other things such as biometrics (Minority Report). I realize that the systems we have can do all of these things now, but what I believe will happen is that they will get a lot better at it and there will be better integration (and hopefully voluntary). All of this course would require tools that are flexible and can work on multiple platforms. Google doesn’t seem to be nearly as successful at Apple in moving towards this. To my inexpert eye, Apple appears to be focussed whereas Google has a shotgun.
And what search engine will Siri use? Google or Wolfram Alpha? Let’s face it, Sir I is great but it is not a search engine. It is a new UI to a search engine.
Wolfram Alpha is not a search engine. It is a data base.
I stand corrected.
Who types these days? Voice search on RIM OS7 everyday without a glitch but of course relying on 4 search engine options but nonetheless no need to type.
Siri is old news and all Apple is doing is what Samsung is doing with S voice and if Mango 7.5 Windows Phone is any indication as to what Windows Phone 8 will offer, the voice activated space will be crowded. Nuance have been at it for at least a decade.
I’m not a great fan of Google, but I think this analyst is full of shit
Well Bob, I have to agree with you too. Google isn’t going anywhere. They’re too diversified with their search, Android, YouTube, etc.
Google is a company that doesn’t sit still. It constantly continues to improve its services.
Any company (including Apple) that doesn’t continue to innovate will wither away. Google has proven itself as a leader.
So really the author doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Google just puts out a bunch of crap to see what sticks, nearly everything in beta, most projects failing, no vision, just trial and error. They had innovations in search, everything else has been luck (which isn’t much), android is a disaster financially and they are billions in the hole with the purchase of Motorola. That copying, arrogant, unimaginative company can’t die soon enough.
Google is in Ad sales period.
They lose money on Android even though they sell Ads on a lot of Android devices. They have already lost $12 billion on Motorola. They will never make that money back. None of their other innovations enhance the bottom line.
Google is an Ad company. If they can’t get their Ads on Apple, Microsoft or most Android devices, in the future, they will die.
It will take years before processor, memory and algorithms are capable of implementing voice control as seemless and elegant as the computer portrayed on Star Trek NG. For now Siri and all others are inferior and cumbersome. Can’t wait for the day when you can query and use voice in a productive way. Like STNG.
BUT, they’re a LOT better than “Read 42 passages to me FIRST so I can build an idea of what your intonation sounds like before you can start using me PLUS don’t let anyone else use me or I’ll start misunderstanding you”.
Yes, where we are is not like STNG, but we’re not far away. The wide parsing of text, is there, all that needs to happen now is to build a contextual parser on that (If the user is in the NW, they did really mean Stillicum and not steel eyecup) and to begin to build “catchers” for all those times Siri says,”Let me search Google for you”.
The good thing about the latter is they have recorded EVERY time people have tried to use Siri and Siri failed. SO, they’ve got an idea RIGHT NOW of what are the next most important phrases they should have recognized.
“Productive” doesn’t have to mean “miracle queries”. Just the other day, I asked someone when the next home game for an NFL team was. They didn’t know so, on a lark, I just thought I’d throw Siri a bone. I was surprised that I got the right result! That was a productive search that saved me from having to click through an additional link to get to a page (all these guys make money from page views, so they don’t want you to get the results just from viewing a Google search results page).
Since i see “productive search” as something that gives me instant info without having to go to Google, I tried this query just to see if it would work in both Google and Siri.
“What’s the first home game in december for the atlanta falcons”
While Google gets it right for the NEXT home game (and displays the result without requiring a link to another page), the query above would have required another tap to show their ENTIRE schedule where Siri returned the information I was looking for.
It didn’t show JUST the first game, though, it showed all the December games. So, not exactly what I was looking for, but it was good information that didn’t require Google.
Bet you all $1000 apple will implement Siri across all its devices and macs in 2013.
That will totally kill google on the mac platforms.
This. I’ve been wondering why it is taking Apple so long to do so. Once this happens, people will feel totally comfortably just speaking their searches to their Macs and iOS devices, and typing searches into a browser will become a thing of the past. And since Apple will route searches elsewhere, Google will be I a world of hurt.
Even more so tha Apple, just imagine if MS got smart and integrated voice search that leveraged Bing and other non-Google sources into every version of Windows. That would definitely be game over for Google.
Google’s approach to an OS is flawed in their ChromeOS strategy (again, just them trying to sell a Google services browser as an OS so they can advertise to you) so if Apple and MS both implemented non-Google voice search across their platforms, then Google’s days would be numbered indeed.
Apple isn’t much better. They’re spoon-feeding the general population to extract as much money as possible. They are very well aware of the current search capabilities of current servers (think IBM’s Watson). Google is a highly outdated search utility; having to search and grope through Google’s search engine’s results is absurd!
Apple will agonizingly slowly introduce new features and capabilities of Siri, eventually (on Apple’s timetable) it will be more of an “Answer Machine” than a search engine. For example, “Siri, what are the top 3 websites featuring rural Gay life?”, and it will give you just the top 3 sites by popularity. None of this “found 186,997 results”, with the first dozen having paid Google for the privilege of being first, although they have nothing to do with the actual result.
But, there is nothing new about a few greedy people on a corporate board eventually mucking up their own product. We just have to see how long it takes Apple now that Steve is gone. Unless corporate America allows a startling new technology (i.e., optical or quantum computers) to emerge, Apple will continue their anemic release of annual hardware, and slowly move into the more profitable realm of data control and manipulation; what Google tried and failed to do. Ultimately, leading Apple’s directors to more power, control, and thus money.
Utter nonsense.
Google is the first word in search. They figured out how to monetize with ads. Then they decided to compete with Apple in mobile by stealing Apple’s ideas.The problem they had is they couldn’t steal Steve Jobs’ single-minded focus on great products and great customer service. Steve Jobs knew that if you focus on the customer experience, the money will take care of itself. As long as Apple maintains that focus, they can only be beaten by another company that isn’t focused on beating them, but instead on creating a better user experience.
Google is all about the Benjamins, just like M$.
We need NEWS / FACTS / REAL possibilities (in a short time), not cheap speculation… 5 years AHEAD? Now analyst = visionary.
Doesn’t Siri just translate your words to text and then goes and searches google in the background anyway? Without google Siri won’t know much.
Wrong. Apple has tons of information that is Google-free. Google is just the search provider Siri uses when it doesn’t have an answer to provide.
Correct. Also, if you change your default search provider, Siri will use the one you have chosen for it’s search provider. You can also have her search whatever provider you’d like on each search by asking – “Siri, search Bing for why Google sucks”.