This is basically Samsung asking Google to pay up. Google needs to pay Apple / iOS for Default Search Engine, and paying Samsung for staying on Android with Google Search.
Basically Google is being squeezed left and right. So the only way to increase revenue or profits to satisfy the money they spend on Apple and Samsung? More Ads on Youtube and Google Search. The more Ads they serve, the worse UX they have. All while completely fail to compete against AWS or Azure.
I always thought that Google made a big blunder by not encroaching upon Microsoft's turf more aggressively. They should have tried to make a better desktop OS (just buy Canonical or something) and then eat into Microsoft Office market share by releasing Google Office for Desktop. Wait for an opportunity to emerge and then pounce.
This is precisely what Microsoft did to Google. They had Bing running in the background for years losing truckloads of money. Now that AI has upset the applecart, they can use Bing to choke off Google's airsupply.
One of the reasons for Google getting so good early on was that they had oodles of usage data to test and improve their search functionality forming a positive feedback loop. Now, with deals such as this, Microsoft will have more data to tune their engine while Google is left on the sidelines.
Let's just hope that the AI driven search revolution does not produce a monopoly.
Maybe an unpopular opinion but it feels like Google is near useless anymore. Between results containing outdated or broken links to empty discussions, and ads being their main priority as well as "fuzzy search results" where you can search for one thing and get something completely unrelated because Google decided you also meant to search for something else that is possibly contextually adjacent, I can't really get good results from it anymore.
I mean, I can still get answers for simple questions but when it comes to anything unique or complex I usually just get frustrated and go to duckduckgo or something else. ChatGPT now adays mostly.
Sure ChatGPT can hallucinate but Google's results rely on some random person somewhere to have properly answered something. The reality of that is so many of the "answers" I find are discussions on forums between a bunch of random people who have no real credentials or factual answers but instead just opinions based on something else they read on Google. People google something, read the google blurb about it at the top of the results, then go answer other people's questions.
I honestly think Google is losing favor at this point. I've even been considering moving away from Android because the OS just feels like the Walmart iOS now adays. It features the same problems but in a way that nothing is polished versus iOS.
Google needs to stop just following everyone else. Everything now adays feels like the ol Google+ move. "Ah, successful product someone else made, let's remake it and name it google something!"
> Sure ChatGPT can hallucinate but Google's results rely on some random person somewhere to have properly answered something.
i don't know about your experience with chatgpt, but to me it's been untrustworthy. so much so that every answer i get needs to be double checked against google and that "random person".
I find that forums are often some of the most useful results. The posts are typically written by genuine people, many of whom are passionate about the subject matter.
Reliability can be an issue, but the medium at least provides a number of context clues to help. Seeing how individuals write and interact is helpful when judging how much weight to give to their words.
Converting those forum posts into a generic and overly confident interface strips away useful information.
That's exactly what I think. I personally also find him very uninspiring, it looks like he's basically just 'maintaining' the company on auto-pilot mode. No out of the world new ideas, and now the company is losing on the very field they were seemingly far-far ahead than the rest of the world.
Sundar is a McKinsey consultant who is very pleasant and agreeable and can keep a boat steady while maximizing shareholder return. Unfortunately there isn’t much innovation happening .
Google needs a Larry Page or Musk like character back at the helm.
Not sure. The real question is what the Google founders and board want and expect. Sundar is just looking after things for them. The reason he got the job is that he was never going to do more than that. But you might legitimately ask at this point if that's enough. And he's been there long enough that he could be replaced without anyone losing too much face. Surround it with some corporate euphemisms and get some fresh blood in and move on. I would not be surprised if they are already looking around.
It worked for Microsoft obviously. This is quite a coup for Satya Nadella. And he got that one on merit. MS has no stake in Android (they declined to get into that after killing Windows Phone). Also, he hit the ground running after Steve Ballmer was retired. Not that hard of course after Ballmer but he did a few decisive things early on that all seem to have mostly worked out. The Linkedin acquisition; fixing .Net, re-establishing MS as a bonafide OSS player with the Github acquisition and VS-Code. And then making a smart investment in OpenAI which they are now riding to success. All great moves.
I'd say, Google is in the same boat right now. Lots of obvious potential, an extended period of a bit rudderless performance, missed boats, and no clear direction or vision. Fix that and it could go somewhere else again. Doing more of the same isn't going to be anywhere near good enough. They seem to be stuck playing a game of whack-a-mole in terms of strategy and ever responding to what others are doing and never quite catching up with that instead of initiating things themselves and leading.
Especially compared to Nadella, who shows that someone not from the the founders’ circle, a corporate ladder climber, can lead an IT company with great vision too.
It's werid to me that no one has made the self-evident comparison: Sundar is like Steve Ballmer was for Microsoft.
Coming in right after the founders and trying to raise the moats of the exisiting products instead of creating new moats. Google Stadia is a similar failure to Ballmer's late Windows Live initiatives.
If gods of chaos decide give a future where google completely gets broken up a chance, I'd be massively pissed if someone doesn't detach google reader and bring it online just to make a point.
Maybe finally the board will wake up and find a replacement for Sundar this year. I thought Googlers were internally very unhappy about Sundar for a long time now.
The same job as every public company CEO: Keep their job by prioritizing the stock price, board happiness and keeping activist shareholders from causing problems
Sundar is a caretaker who got credited for simple inertia: The momentum in place before he took the reigns were predestined to grow earnings for years, but suddenly Pichai gets to pretend it's all him.
1) "It will reportedly be known as Project ‘Magi’ and is said to provide a far more personalized experience than the company’s current service."
That is super creepy. Google knows a lot about you, and now it is using that knowledge to really put you in a filter bubble. Imagine this plus engagement metrics.
2) So much for that monopoly a lot of people thought Google had. Turns out they're still as exposed to market pressure as they ever were.
Microsoft is a shark and they smell blood in the water right now. While I hate their products, I have to admire their decision making. For example, I think they see the threat that SteamDeck poses (Linux gaming becoming feasible) and are already working to head it off at the pass: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/04/handheld-mode-for-wi...
I'm not sure that's a great example of quick-pivot defensive decision-making on Microsoft's part. It was just a leaked slide deck of a hackathon project done by a few employees. If the project actually gets greenlit and shipped, that's another thing.
I've been using Bing for a few weeks now it is not all the way there yet but so far the experience is more gratifying than Google. The results seem to be better and there is less ads on top the search results. Their AI integration is also well accomplished. No complains there...
It's probably the only source at all, as every number in the sammobile article is also in the NYT, like the 160+ people working on Magi.
As the sammobile article doesn't appear to do anything but regurgitate what is in the NYT article without any apparent validation on their side, the link should be changed to the NYT IMO, whose article seems at least based on actual internal messages from Google. I understand that the title isn't as attention grabbing though ("Google Devising Radical Search Changes to Beat Back A.I. Rivals").
I don't know how Bing is any better. I tried Bing today and the results are awful! The search results page is very bloated and there's too much going on everywhere. Too much irrelevant information. What surprises me is that they managed to make content look like ads, irrelevant and noisy.
Comparing the screens to Brave Search, I'm surprised how good Brave Search is. Not only are the results much better, but the UI is super-clean! There's only digestible information and no bloat.
Yah, it is really hard to imagine Bing cleaning itself up. No way users don't backlash on Samsung the moment they notice the gunky search results.
And holy smokes, Teams, it's falling apart every new release. Once users have enough of that experience they're really going to wonder why they dove in head first.
This may be a Myspace moment for Google. The competition is now better.
There's another huge issue. Google is an ad business. That meshes well with search, and not so well with question answering system on mobile. What's ChatGPT supposed to say? "But first, this word from our sponsor?".
A big change in the ecosystem is coming. These next generation systems are being set up as walled gardens. Bing FAQ: "You’ll need to use the Microsoft Edge browser and sign in with your Microsoft account to access all the capabilities of the new Bing." Google is talking about limiting the number of users of their chat system, which implies they are tying usage to login.
This is a huge change to the business model. It's going to be about owning the customer relationship, not serving ads.
Actually if you have been really looking at Google's management, just the opposite has happened.
Eric Schmidt, who is an exceptionally rare talent understanding engineering, business and politics at the same time was changed to a person who just want to show more ads (the product that makes money) with 0 engineering background.
This sounds similar to Walmart saying they'll stop taking Visa. Samsung would be dumb not to at least threaten moving away from Google, even if they had no intention to change. It's a negotiating tactic, one that has more teeth in recent months because Google's competitors are finally showing a real challenge.
A gentle reminder that there is no proof of the “Google in shock“ assertion. The fact that an anonymous source maybe claimed it to someone at the New York Times has essentially zero credibility.
Until an attributed source at Google says something like “we were shocked“ or “we were gobsmacked, etc.“ that’s all just third-hand information reported fourth-hand.
From my use of Bard, I think it’s main issue is poor alignment due to lack of RLHF dataset. Open AI has been curating its data set for years as it aggressively pushed to productization. Google never cared about getting its models into the hands of the public so is having to scramble. I think Google will catch up eventually, but not before doing major damage to its market share and partnerships.
Some interesting dynamics at play here if true. Google basically maintains Android to get people to use Google services on it, so Samsung switching to Bing would eliminate Google's incentive to develop Android. Samsung is also by FAR the largest Android OEM and holds almost as much power over the platform as Google just from the sheer amount of Android devices that they ship.
Samsung has done this before, and Google has multiple times made various offers and incentives intended to "encourage" Samsung not to. Because a huge portion of the Android monopoly will leave Google Search when this happens. Stuff like OEMs getting a cut of Play Store revenue are mechanics done to avoid this.
There's a pretty good chance Samsung is just negotiating for better terms, kinda like carriage disputes for TV networks.
Up until ChatGPT, Bing was meaningless to me; Google Search served all my needs. I never had a reason to look over to Bing. The only contact I had with it was when something embedded their maps.
But now, with the AI integration, even when I tried it and left disappointed, Bing is starting to sound interesting.
Then there's how they are starting to integrate AI into their other products and putting a lot of good effort in visual design. Their products look modern and polished, while Google is "still the same old" with their Material Design.
I know they are the most capable engineers and that behind the scenes they are building the best quality soft- and hardware, but if they don't start to focus on the user again they will no longer be the titan they used to be.
[+] [-] ksec|2 years ago|reply
Basically Google is being squeezed left and right. So the only way to increase revenue or profits to satisfy the money they spend on Apple and Samsung? More Ads on Youtube and Google Search. The more Ads they serve, the worse UX they have. All while completely fail to compete against AWS or Azure.
[+] [-] simula67|2 years ago|reply
This is precisely what Microsoft did to Google. They had Bing running in the background for years losing truckloads of money. Now that AI has upset the applecart, they can use Bing to choke off Google's airsupply.
One of the reasons for Google getting so good early on was that they had oodles of usage data to test and improve their search functionality forming a positive feedback loop. Now, with deals such as this, Microsoft will have more data to tune their engine while Google is left on the sidelines.
Let's just hope that the AI driven search revolution does not produce a monopoly.
[+] [-] chankstein38|2 years ago|reply
I mean, I can still get answers for simple questions but when it comes to anything unique or complex I usually just get frustrated and go to duckduckgo or something else. ChatGPT now adays mostly.
Sure ChatGPT can hallucinate but Google's results rely on some random person somewhere to have properly answered something. The reality of that is so many of the "answers" I find are discussions on forums between a bunch of random people who have no real credentials or factual answers but instead just opinions based on something else they read on Google. People google something, read the google blurb about it at the top of the results, then go answer other people's questions.
I honestly think Google is losing favor at this point. I've even been considering moving away from Android because the OS just feels like the Walmart iOS now adays. It features the same problems but in a way that nothing is polished versus iOS.
Google needs to stop just following everyone else. Everything now adays feels like the ol Google+ move. "Ah, successful product someone else made, let's remake it and name it google something!"
[+] [-] kmlx|2 years ago|reply
i don't know about your experience with chatgpt, but to me it's been untrustworthy. so much so that every answer i get needs to be double checked against google and that "random person".
[+] [-] kristopolous|2 years ago|reply
It's really become an impossibly frustrating tool. They've sucked for years and this was bound to happen.
[+] [-] rurp|2 years ago|reply
Reliability can be an issue, but the medium at least provides a number of context clues to help. Seeing how individuals write and interact is helpful when judging how much weight to give to their words.
Converting those forum posts into a generic and overly confident interface strips away useful information.
[+] [-] ur-whale|2 years ago|reply
For the non-ML crowd out there, in the AI world:
[+] [-] tapoxi|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] piyush_soni|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nus07|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jillesvangurp|2 years ago|reply
It worked for Microsoft obviously. This is quite a coup for Satya Nadella. And he got that one on merit. MS has no stake in Android (they declined to get into that after killing Windows Phone). Also, he hit the ground running after Steve Ballmer was retired. Not that hard of course after Ballmer but he did a few decisive things early on that all seem to have mostly worked out. The Linkedin acquisition; fixing .Net, re-establishing MS as a bonafide OSS player with the Github acquisition and VS-Code. And then making a smart investment in OpenAI which they are now riding to success. All great moves.
I'd say, Google is in the same boat right now. Lots of obvious potential, an extended period of a bit rudderless performance, missed boats, and no clear direction or vision. Fix that and it could go somewhere else again. Doing more of the same isn't going to be anywhere near good enough. They seem to be stuck playing a game of whack-a-mole in terms of strategy and ever responding to what others are doing and never quite catching up with that instead of initiating things themselves and leading.
[+] [-] ksec|2 years ago|reply
I would argue for 95% of Google's existence they have been pretty much aimless.
[+] [-] Palpatineli|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philistine|2 years ago|reply
Coming in right after the founders and trying to raise the moats of the exisiting products instead of creating new moats. Google Stadia is a similar failure to Ballmer's late Windows Live initiatives.
[+] [-] egeozcan|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vxNsr|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kramerger|2 years ago|reply
Samsung and other OEMs get a lot of crap for how they handle android. But they are really the ones driving innovation here.
[+] [-] kccqzy|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m3kw9|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m00dy|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AndrewKemendo|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bushbaba|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joseph_grobbles|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] roenxi|2 years ago|reply
That is super creepy. Google knows a lot about you, and now it is using that knowledge to really put you in a filter bubble. Imagine this plus engagement metrics.
2) So much for that monopoly a lot of people thought Google had. Turns out they're still as exposed to market pressure as they ever were.
[+] [-] lightbendover|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AlexandrB|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hbn|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] htag|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pelagicAustral|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Rels|2 years ago|reply
The only source linked in the article: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/16/technology/google-search-...
It's probably the only source at all, as every number in the sammobile article is also in the NYT, like the 160+ people working on Magi.
As the sammobile article doesn't appear to do anything but regurgitate what is in the NYT article without any apparent validation on their side, the link should be changed to the NYT IMO, whose article seems at least based on actual internal messages from Google. I understand that the title isn't as attention grabbing though ("Google Devising Radical Search Changes to Beat Back A.I. Rivals").
[+] [-] NayamAmarshe|2 years ago|reply
Comparing the screens to Brave Search, I'm surprised how good Brave Search is. Not only are the results much better, but the UI is super-clean! There's only digestible information and no bloat.
[+] [-] imperialdrive|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nomel|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Animats|2 years ago|reply
There's another huge issue. Google is an ad business. That meshes well with search, and not so well with question answering system on mobile. What's ChatGPT supposed to say? "But first, this word from our sponsor?".
A big change in the ecosystem is coming. These next generation systems are being set up as walled gardens. Bing FAQ: "You’ll need to use the Microsoft Edge browser and sign in with your Microsoft account to access all the capabilities of the new Bing." Google is talking about limiting the number of users of their chat system, which implies they are tying usage to login.
This is a huge change to the business model. It's going to be about owning the customer relationship, not serving ads.
[+] [-] bfrog|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xiphias2|2 years ago|reply
Eric Schmidt, who is an exceptionally rare talent understanding engineering, business and politics at the same time was changed to a person who just want to show more ads (the product that makes money) with 0 engineering background.
[+] [-] 0xDEF|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jimmar|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomcam|2 years ago|reply
Until an attributed source at Google says something like “we were shocked“ or “we were gobsmacked, etc.“ that’s all just third-hand information reported fourth-hand.
[+] [-] dougmwne|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eoooooooo|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amelius|2 years ago|reply
They still have quite some apps on Android that they can use to extract data from users and send ads, e.g. youtube, gmail, maps, etc.
[+] [-] Hippocrates|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ocdtrekkie|2 years ago|reply
There's a pretty good chance Samsung is just negotiating for better terms, kinda like carriage disputes for TV networks.
[+] [-] tazjin|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rippercushions|2 years ago|reply
https://9to5mac.com/2021/08/25/analysts-google-to-pay-apple-...
[+] [-] freediver|2 years ago|reply
Btw Magi was already a search engine - magi.com and it seems it is suspending services now, wonder if domain is being bought by Google?
[+] [-] nstart|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hardware2win|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qwertox|2 years ago|reply
But now, with the AI integration, even when I tried it and left disappointed, Bing is starting to sound interesting.
Then there's how they are starting to integrate AI into their other products and putting a lot of good effort in visual design. Their products look modern and polished, while Google is "still the same old" with their Material Design.
I know they are the most capable engineers and that behind the scenes they are building the best quality soft- and hardware, but if they don't start to focus on the user again they will no longer be the titan they used to be.