Real-time Search War. But where’s the money?
Facebook’s? They built the rolodex of the web. They have the white pages. Sorry, Yahoo, you are toast there. TechCrunch reports that Yahoo wants to be the place people go for social search. That’s done. Facebook is it. Strength? They are the white pages. Weakness? Not much interaction with brands and businesses.
Google’s? That’s where you go to search for most things. Especially businesses. Looking for Sushi in Palo Alto? You go to Google. I also go there to find people’s emails, blogs, and Twitter accounts, but they don’t have that locked up. Facebook, for most people, does a better job of finding blogs, emails, and phone numbers. Strength? Mobile integration thanks to iPhone. Breadth of usage, thanks to all the dozens of things Google does, from Picasa to Google Maps. Business listing and location is best of breed, but… Weakness? Google doesn’t get social software. It just doesn’t know what to do to make a Twitter. They bought Dodgeball and Jaiku and then squandered those purchases. The founders aren’t really very social people and the culture there is very engineering focused, but not very human focused. Will they overcome that? My bet is no, but they will keep trying.
Twitter’s? They understand how to get people to participate in public, which makes search possible. Plus simplicity and openness of their APIs make brands and celebrities hot and bothered (they tell me that Facebook and Google are too complicated to use in comparison). Strength? Publicness and engagement of both developers and celebrities and brands. Weakness? They don’t have a good list of businesses like Google does and they don’t have a lot of hooks that keep users engaged like Facebook does. They don’t iterate fast enough to take advantage of new learning and they are — so far — squandering their lead in real time search (it has actually gotten worse over the past year instead of better). New APIs like retweeting and location have been announced, but not really baked into the service yet.
Yelp’s? In cities where Yelp is getting adoption, they’ve found the best business integration of all of these and businesses are now paying to “offer” their users things to get new customers into the door. This is where the real money is and over the next year you’ll see Facebook and Google figure this out. Strength? Best of breed business recommendations and best mobile experience for finding local businesses. Weakness? They don’t have the general engagement that Facebook and Twitter have. Also, Yelp is only strong in a few cities and is in the midst of a landgrab that could be stunted if Facebook or Google ship a local business service soon. [Scobleizer]
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