Google vs. Become.com and Why the Google Killer will be a Swarm of Verticals
A third-party researcher, who Become funded, found that for shopping purposes users preferred Become at a rate of 55.5% and Google at 44.5%.

Search Results Relevance Study: Google vs. Become.com (pdf)

Some people think this is not a big story (a number of reporters have declined to write about it). I do think it's a big story, especially for the search startup space.

I see this report as an important mile marker for an impending (next 3-5 years) Google slide. (Which may even become an avenlanche if that YouTube purchase goes through... ;)

There are two key scoffing points. Let me quickly pwn those for you.

Scoffer point #1 is that a ten percent ratio is not that big of a deal given that Become is a shopping comparison vertical engine and Google's a "broadcast" search engine.

Let's take a quick glance at number of employees:

Become.com: 40
Google.com: 8,000 (according to Bryant)

Even if you narrow that down to the number of people at Google directly involved in the Google Base/Froogle project I suspect you'd far surpass the 40 people at Become. And if you measured the Google resources available for leveraging...

I say that anyone who has ground on Google for just about any kind of info retrieval service, no matter how targeted, is doing their job well.

Scoffer point 2: How could Become possibly compete with Google?
Ok folks, this survey wasn't about how Become CAN compete with Google, it's about how they're BEATING Google in a satisfaction survey.

This was not a survey that showed that Become's taking search share, just that users prefer it when they're conducting shopping searches.

And, well, word spreads. That's how Google got big in the first place, remember? Because it was a better search engine and we told people about it.

Does this mean that Become's a Google killer or that they will begin to take search share? Not likely. Still... let me quote some of the survey respondents for you:

"It gave me just what I wanted without all the wrong stuff you get on Google."

"As much as I like Google, I think Become.com is better organized and easier to navigate."

"Become is a much easier and more useful search engine than Google. I intend to save it to my favorites and use it in the future first rather than Google."

"Best all around for shopping. Wish I would have known about this site sooner - it would have saved me a lot of time."

I DO believe Become could have funded a more compelling survey if they'd included some of their competitors in the mix to see how they stacked up. Then we could have had a more interesting conversation and more support for my next point.

The Google Killer is a Vertical Swarm
I don't think Become's a Google killer. And when we talk about Google killers I don't think we're talking about a single source - we're talking about an aggregate of sites that do specific tabs of "Google" better.

This will not be an overnight thing, but rather a year-by-year thing in which we will watch Google's search share erode to more targeted specialty engines.

Cable didn't kill broadcast, but it certainly hit it hard, so perhaps "killer" isn't really a precise term. Google Hard-Hitter just doesn't have the same ring though.

Anyways, this Become survey, biased and imprecise though it may arguably be in its methodology, we see some early data that should come as inspiration to the legion of search start ups out there.

And though Google's sphincter has cut off the blood supply to the brains of our industry's media, keep working hard. Beat Google at YOUR game, not Google's. Just like Become did.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |