Since Google released its ‘Search, Plus Your World’ update earlier this month the mudslinging has intensified. Twitter is now openly criticising Google for blocking Tweets from its search results, while Google doesn’t see what all the fuss is about.
Twitter, Facebook and MySpace are so incensed that they’ve clubbed together to create a browser tool that shows what results you’d get without Google’s update (only currently available in the US).
There are even grumbles of sending in the regulators to force Google to play nice. But rather than get the lawyers involved, bda is prepared to step in and adjudicate between the warring parties:
It’s my search engine and I’ll do with it what I want to
Google is a business, with the same goals as any other. It has every right to decide what results it wants to display. If it wants to promote its own social network (which now has 90 million users), that’s its own business. Literally.
Google tried to reach an agreement with Facebook and Twitter last year, but their hyper-valuations of what their content is worth made any deal impossible. Without sufficient access, how can Google integrate their content into its search results?
People want to see relevant results from family, friends and people whose opinions they value. Google is doing its best to offer them these personalised results with the data it has.
Whatever happened to ‘Don’t Be Evil’?
Google was established with the ethos ‘focus on the user’. With the new update it has betrayed this ideal. Instead, it is chasing profit first and putting the user second.
Twitter is arguably the number one source of real time information. When news breaks it doesn’t spread any faster than on Twitter. Preventing Tweets from appearing in the search results is simply not in the interest of info hungry web surfers.
Yes, there were negotiations about including Tweets. But Google wasn’t prepared to pay a fair price. Microsoft, on the other hand, was only too happy to reach an agreement with both Twitter and Facebook. It understands the importance of offering a personalised search service that is ‘focused on the user’, rather than pushing its own agenda.
So, on which side of the fence do you stand?
Ultimately, all this PR grandstanding is irrelevant. Whether Google has made a mistake – in blocking Tweets and Facebook pages (as the browser tool suggests) from its search results – will be decided by its users. If people find the new search results irrelevant and unhelpful they will vote with their mice and switch to a rival search engine.
_______________________________________________
bda (Buckingham Design Associates) blog – real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. Award winners bda delivers an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region
