Over the past few months I’ve written (exhaustively) about the challenges that search engines face in trying to break the dominance that Google currently holds. MediaWeek have come up with one of the most comprehensive overviews of the runners and riders as well as the difficulties that lay ahead of them.
There are dozens of search engines out there, even social media sites like Twitter are getting in on the act. Yet nobody can get near to ousting Google from the top of the heap. Established names like Microsoft (Bing) and Yahoo have resolved to simply trying to beat one another. New upstarts such as Cuil and Wolfram Alpha have enjoyed initial success, but have failed to convert that into any kind of meaningful long-term joy.
Alternative search engines are out there. Each one has its own unique characteristics and can provide reasonably good results. However, Google still imposingly towers over all of them. Can it ever be toppled? Who knows. It certainly isn’t about to happen any time soon, as Google, both as a noun and verb, is far too engrained in the social fabric of modern society.
For those interested in search engines and the attempts (both hypothetical and real) to dethrone Google be sure to read MediaWeek’s ‘What will it take to topple Google?’
What do you think?