Network sites 'a threat to Google'
Updated on 26 May 2009
Google increasingly sees social networks such as Facebook as challengers to its search engine, a company official has said.
As people search out advice online for everyday, personal decisions, the standard list of links served up by Google is not seen as intimate or trustworthy, Google Group product manager Ken Tokusei said.
For decisions such as choosing a restaurant or a day care provider, social networking sites or known review sites have an advantage, he said.
Such sites offer information from friends or acquaintances, and Mr Tokusei said users tend to trust that information more. This puts Google's results at a disadvantage.
"We haven't gotten to the point where results are seen as if they come from someone you know," he said.
The search giant has begun to offer tools for users to rate results and delete unrelated links, but it still has work to do, he said.
As internet users get savvy and experienced, they also expect better-honed answers to queries. Sites such as WolframAlpha, launched earlier this month, comb the internet for data, and analyse it to provide specific answers to queries, rather than a list of sites.
Google does something similar for some searches, providing price quotes for "Sony stock" or an answer for 'Tunisia capital'. But it also provides the familiar list of sites to dig further, a strategy it is unlikely to change.
"It's a matter of determining what kind of information the user is looking for. But we will always serve some links to pages with our results," said Mr Tokusei.
Google has developed a host of expanding tools and services, from a mobile operating system to an online word processor, but it devotes 70% of its employees and resources to search.
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