For many people, Google is a search engine that no other search engine can replace. In fact, Google has made such a place for itself in our lives for years that most of us use the verb ‘Google’ when we are going to search for something we are curious about on the internet. However, it seems that David Socher, former chief scientist of Salesforce, one of the world’s leading customer relationship management platforms, aims to change that.
Throughout his career, Socher’s new search engine, You. com is trying to challenge Google, the primary address when it comes to search and research.
What does You offer different from Google?
The world is currently at a crossroads when it comes to search, according to Socher and co-founder Bryan McCann. Accordingly, Google currently dominates approximately 90% of the search market. Advertising and SEO principles of current search engines; It causes a lack of control over what people watch, read, research, eat and buy. Thus, humans become an object of artificial intelligence algorithms designed to monetize them.
The most obvious difference between Google and You is aesthetics and operation. Noting that almost all search engines look the same, Socher states that You has a similar design to kanban boards and social media platforms. Unlike Google, if you search for something on You, search results in the form of squares extending to the side will meet you, not the search results listed one after the other. “We actually had to think about a lot of iteration and design constraints and mobile,” says Socher of the search engine’s unusual design.
Searches on You are first shaped by preferred sources, then unbiased sources and finally negatively rated sources. In fact, personalized search is nothing new; Google has been doing this since 2004. However, You’s transparent manipulation is extremely new. Accordingly, You distinguishes between specialized searches and objective searches much more clearly. Socher states that You is the first for a search engine to give users this degree of control over their searches. In addition, You emphasizes the importance of privacy. Stating that your information will not be sold in any way, You also promises an extremely impressive incognito mode experience.
Can You sit on the throne of Google?
After all, is it possible for You to replace Google? So far, we have witnessed the collapse of many search engines such as Magellan, WebCrawler, Lycos, Infoseek, Inktomi. Search engines such as Yahoo and Bing may continue to operate successfully in their own right today, but we all know very well which search engine is used the most around the world.
The search engine industry today is much larger and more profitable than it was before. Google makes an incredible amount of money compared to the companies before it. Also, through deals with companies like Apple (Google pays Apple billions of dollars a year to keep it the default search engine for iOS), many of us use Google even if we don’t explicitly think we use it. Next to the $183 billion that Google’s parent company Alphabet made in 2020, mostly from ads, You’s $20 million looks pretty ridiculous. That amount of money also means that Google can hire the best in their field to innovate in search.
Socher is under no illusions about overthrowing Google; However, he thinks that Google’s focus on the advertising event, which many users complain about, may backfire at some point. Exactly at this point, the need for pure search conflicts with the advertising model to make money. For this reason, Socher underlines that naturally it is getting harder to find only relevant content on Google.
But You is just at the beginning of the road. The search engine, which has entered the new beta process, needs to diversify and improve what it offers to its users, especially a mobile-friendly interface. But of course, there is also something that you should never say never. Although it is not an easy thing to beat Google, it may be possible for You to gain a solid place among search engines, provided that it develops itself further.
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