Eric Schmidt: “Our competitor is Bing”

http://www.liveside.net/bingblog/archive/2010/09/24/google-s-eric-schmidt-our-competitor-is-bing.aspx

by thomas • 16 years ago

60 58 16 years ago

On my first day of giving Bing a go (I used it for about two weeks to try to fairly assess) I ran into a problem: It can spellcheck words, but it cant get it right contextually.

Let me give you an example:

http://www.google.com/search?q=how+I+won+the+waer

http://www.bing.com/search?q=how+I+won+the+waer

I meant to type "how I won the war" and only Google picks up on this.

"waer" alone into google instant will bring up water (country), but with the context of my search phrase it gives me something far more accurate.

ianbishop• 16 years ago

Sounds like Bing uses just spell checking rather than n-grams on search queries as Google does.

kenjackson• 16 years ago

That's a pretty big whole for Bing to miss. Probably doesn't track as well since it requires a mistyped query -- most people doing comparisons of relevance compare correctly typed queries. But a big hole for real world usage... at least I'd think so.

wozer• 16 years ago

Interesting. If you use Bing from Germany (with German UI), it works correctly, i.e. suggests "How I won the war".

Which makes sense, as "water" is not a German word...

imurray• 16 years ago

I tried a bunch of search engines the other day when I couldn't find something specific. Bing was the least useful: it generalized "dice" to "die" and then gave me lots of hits about death. It should have been fairly obvious that the articles returned had nothing to do with dice.

fleitz• 16 years ago

It makes a lot of sense, android and phones are a complement to their business. Android is simply a way of reducing the cost for producing more phones. Facebook while large doesn't pose a serious threat to "organizing the worlds information" once Facebook sells their social graph information Google will simply purchase it and use it to further optimize search results. Neither Facebook, nor Apple are real competitors to Google's core operations. Google is a much more serious threat to Apple with Android than Apple is to Google with iPhone. Facebook and Apple ARE threats to mind share, but that pales in comparison to a threat to the bottom line.

Bing IS a threat also because Microsoft has a large stake in Facebook and could ostensibly find itself with preferential rights to Facebook's social graph. If Bing could integrate the graph into results first it could give them huge search advantages. Traffic from Bing also costs about half of what it does from Google.

TrevorJ2• 16 years ago

Seems pretty logical to me. As much diversity as Google has, they are still a search company. A lot of the tech they leverage in other areas seems to come from competencies they acquired while improving search.

I never understood why people think they are positioned against FB.. Google and FB don't solve very many of the same problems.

inerte3• 16 years ago

> I never understood why people think they are positioned against FB.. Google and FB don't solve very many of the same problems

They don't, but they share one common goal: Get money from advertisers, who are targeting people looking for some thing.

This "some thing" is obvious on Google, its users are in buying mode even before entering the query term.

Now, if (and that's a big if), FB can connect advertisers and buyers, it'll slow down Google, because people will have spent their money with FB advertisers.

Google and FB customers are their advertisers. They might do completely different things but their revenue source is similar.

I personally don't believe in this. Facebook doesn't share the same easiness of monetization as Google, and it has some huge issues of making its visitors enter buying mode.

But there you go... even if I disagree, that's why some people think of a FB vs. Google fight. Follow the money :)

TrevorJ2• 16 years ago

Ah, this is a very good point you bring up here. Had not thought in those terms, but you are very right. Advertisement, however tends to be very pan-platform if you will. Even more so these days, integrated, vertical marketing seems to be the name of the game. The big money will continue to make ad buys on all platforms that deliver eyeballs, not just one or the other.

cliffchang• 16 years ago

If you think of advertising as "traditional advertising" and "internet advertising", then FB and Google are certainly rivals. However, in pure marketing terms, they are actually very different.

Google search ads EXCEL in "Demand Fulfillment" - say you want need a plumber now since your toilet is overflowing. I don't think Facebook will ever beat Google here. Google sort of created this niche where they were better than any competitor that had ever existed.

Facebook, on the other hand, is better at demand generation. Consider advertisers who want to reach teenagers who would want to buy videogames - a new game is coming out, and they want you to know about it. Before, you'd have to find the TV shows that they would watch, or billboards that they would see, or queries that gaming-teens would search for, and advertise there. These are all competitive and difficult proxies for the audience you want to reach. Facebook is a much better place for that than Google.

In fact, you can imagine synergy between FB ads and Google ads. FB tells people, "you should listen to this band that you haven't heard of", and when you Google that band name, you see ads for places to buy tickets and albums.

InclinedPlane2• 16 years ago

People don't search facebook much. If anything, facebook is hostile to search, seemingly by design.

The secret of ad dollars is that not all visitors are equal. People who use google search are already looking for something, often something to buy, such users are the most susceptible to ads because the ads can actually be helpful. In contrast, ads inserted into the UI of a social networking site are far less valuable. In order for facebook to compete with google they'd have to reinvent themselves substantially.

awakeasleep• 16 years ago

I felt really annoyed by the interviewer. It seemed like along with information gathering, he was equally interested in creating controversy.

Did you notice how, instead of asking Schmidt questions, he posed contentious statements? "CERTAINLY Google must be scared of Facebook!" He did that with everything. Look how Mr Schmidt scrunches his face at about 2:00 when the interviewer tells him how he must be feeling.

jeromec• 16 years ago

Very good interview. I think it's smart that he is not underestimating Bing. Mr. Schmidt also has great comments clarifying Google's position on the net neutrality announcement with Verizon (about 12:00 mark).

lukevdp• 16 years ago

Agreed. I also found it a very informative video

Qz2• 16 years ago

It's funny, in my mind I always think Eric Schmidt looks like Egon from the Ghostbusters, and whenever I see his picture I always think to myself, 'Who is this guy?!'

dbrannan• 16 years ago

To me Bing sounds too much like "bling". Does anyone else have that silly word association stuck in their head?

1010011010• 16 years ago

I always think of Ned Ryerson from Groundhog Day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkW_ZkMtmlQ

emwa• 16 years ago

can somebody explain how being on facebook stops people from searching on google?

dchest• 16 years ago

I guess, the more time they spend on Facebook, the less time they spend googling?

jrockway8• 16 years ago

Two different activities. If I want a map from 123 Fake St. to 742 Evergreen Terrace, I am going to use Google Maps, not Facebook. If I want to know how many degrees Fahrenheit 100 Celcius is, I'm not going to ask Facebook, I'm going to ask Google.

If I want to look at drunken pictures of my friends, though, then I will definitely use Facebook. I use each tool for what it's good for, and I think most other people do the same because it comes naturally.

(I hate structured socialization, though, so I don't use Facebook. But I can accept that I'm abnormal in that respect.)

dotBen• 16 years ago

In MBA world there is this somewhat confused notion that if Facebook's search engine is powered by Bing then people who use Facebook a lot will naturally/organically start using their search (ie Bing) more.

The halo effect.

I don't think it really plays out because who searches in Facebook, and your browser search box is always present.

antpicnic• 16 years ago

Google needs Bing to be moderately successful to avoid an anti-trust lawsuit.

Bing is a win for Microsoft either way. If it gets about 30% market share, then Bing makes Microsoft money and forces Google to invest more in search. If even the largest software company after investing billions can't stop Google's growth in search, then Microsoft and others will claim that that Google is a monopoly. So it should be subject to anti-trust laws.

In the old days, when General Motors completely dominated the car industry, they made sure to keep their market share under 25%. They believed, probably correctly, that a higher share would bring anti-trust sanctions.

jrockway8• 16 years ago

Isn't anti-trust designed to prevent people from abusing their monopoly position? For example, Microsoft was the top OS vendor. They wanted to dominate the highly-lucrative Web Browser Vendor business. So, they forced everyone using their popular OS to use their web browser.

The government thought this was an abuse of the monopoly, but the charges didn't stick.

What Google's doing is nothing close to that, though. Nobody uses other search engines because they suck. The results are irrelevant and the ads are irrelevant. That's not anti-competitive action, that's competitive action -- they make a good product that people like. Seems legal to me.

ahi• 16 years ago

Google 'email'. Now gmail might have the top position organically, but if Google is a clear monopoly the DoJ might come a-knocking just to make sure.

walkon• 16 years ago

I agree with your main point, but not the Microsoft example of abuse: they forced everyone using their popular OS to use their web browser

They didn't force anybody. One of the first things I would do with a fresh install of Windows back in latter 90s was open IE to download Netscape. Having IE on there made it enabled me to easily learn about and get different browsers. I don't understand how that is so bad. Where was the antitrust on Winsock? What? Forced to use their TCP/IP stack?! Consumer-based OSes should have certain software by default.

Wasn't this more a bit of prescience on Microsoft's part? I mean, now we have Google developing a "browser" OS. Can't get much more coupled then that. What if that becomes the monopoly OS in 5-10 years?

asnyder7• 16 years ago

I don't know about you, but to me Google is already pretty scary. Google has the power to completely destroy your business. They have little to no human communication, thus not allowing for any real follow-up, they're like this god, or black box. You have to hope and pray your begging will correct things.

For example, lets assume you have a somewhat successful product, getting pretty good search results for your category, and one day your site throws some errors, or it goes down, or something of that nature, your site is now no longer showing for your category. They don't tell you anything, not even if you use their Webmaster tools, all you know is that according to their search query result performance that all of a sudden you stop showing up for any other term than your name. Previously you were showing up for many terms. After you correct these issues, which you can only really guess at, you submit a re-consideration request describing the issue, your solution, and why you think whatever thing you think is the problem should be corrected. Now you wait. Not for some response, but just an automated reply saying that your response has been dealt with, not whether they did anything, or if in fact you had an issue. This will come 2-3 weeks later, your business may already be dead. But if it's not, and magically you show up for Google results again, and webmaster tools shows you that your previous search terms have relevance, you will most definitely not be in your previous position. Time to get out there again, get fresh in-links, and re-build your business.

This is the current status quo. This is very very scary. Even Credit Cards have to tell you why you were rejected, not enough credit history or something like that, you can even get one free credit report in response that will explain things. Not Google. I would sleep much better at night knowing that there was some process that would tell you if there's a problem, and if possible what the reasons were, in general terms. Once you correct them you should be able to submit that you did, and hopefully that would address the situation in some reasonable amount of time.

It's crazy that most of us are ok with a search engine dominating 70% or so of search, without any ability to resolve conflicts, ask questions, or anything. We can only click buttons and hope that after enough times the great Google will listen.

aranazo• 16 years ago

Unfortunately Anti-trust action is often used to drag companies into the unholy Congressional Lobbying racket.That's the way it worked out with Microsoft. Google's lobbying budget seems to scale with it's size so maybe it will escape serious action.

eogas• 16 years ago

Facebook and Apple? Where'd they come up with that one?

aufreak32• 16 years ago

Isn't it likely that FB is making google more ad money without google having to lift a finger? On FB, a good chunk of links to "outside world" stuff pass around. Websites do fbconnect 'cos FB&twitter drive traffic to them. Google places contextual ads on these sites and in youtube videos without anybody needing to search for anything. Even youtube has "share on FB" button.

I don't think FB can keep their soc graph to themselves for much longer .. if as ES says people will just give the data to google ... just as they probably do for FB now. (You can tell FB to crawl your gmail contacts and link up.)

So by that argument I can buy ES's "FB is not our prime competitor" statement. Apple is somewhat obviously not a competitor since google can also push ads to iOS devices and pull data like location.

That leaves Bing .. which makes me scratch my head. The only reason I can think of for google considering Bing to be their main competitor is to avoid antitrust suits by not looking like a search monopoly.

Side note: FB's ads are pretty funny actually. I keep getting "Download Chrome, a fast browser" ads on my FB page despite the fact that I'm viewing the page in Chrome.

aufreak32• 16 years ago

To put it another way, when I hear "google is a search company", I take it to mean "google's business depends on searching the internet" instead of "people use google to search the internet" - the former being much wider in scope than the latter.

Arun2009• 16 years ago

I like how his cool confidence stands in contrast to Steve "I'm going to fucking kill Google" Ballmer's aggression. Notice how generous he is with compliments for Google's competitors.

rodh257• 16 years ago

Probably easier to do when you're on top. If he seemed anything but confident it would raise a fair few flags (media would be all over it too).

Eric Schmidt: “Our competitor is Bing”

Related Stories