Google Exec Suggests Instagram and TikTok Are Eating Into Google's Core Products, Search and Maps (techcrunch.com) 70
The TikTok threat to Google's business isn't just limited to YouTube, as it turns out. Core Google services, including Search and Maps, are also being impacted by a growing preference for social media and videos as the first stop on younger users' path to discovery, a Google exec acknowledged today, speaking at an industry event. From a report: Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan, who runs Google's Knowledge & Information organization, referenced the popular social apps in a broader conversation at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech conference about the future of Google's products and its use of AI. In a discussion about the evolution of search, he somewhat offhandedly noted that younger users were now often turning to apps like Instagram and TikTok instead of Google Search or Maps for discovery purposes.
"We keep learning, over and over again, that new internet users don't have the expectations and the mindset that we have become accustomed to." Raghavan said, adding, "the queries they ask are completely different." These users don't tend to type in keywords but rather look to discover content in new, more immersive ways, he said. "In our studies, something like almost 40% of young people, when they're looking for a place for lunch, they don't go to Google Maps or Search," he continued. "They go to TikTok or Instagram."
"We keep learning, over and over again, that new internet users don't have the expectations and the mindset that we have become accustomed to." Raghavan said, adding, "the queries they ask are completely different." These users don't tend to type in keywords but rather look to discover content in new, more immersive ways, he said. "In our studies, something like almost 40% of young people, when they're looking for a place for lunch, they don't go to Google Maps or Search," he continued. "They go to TikTok or Instagram."
Good (Score:5, Interesting)
Google’s search results have been piss poor for years. Wrapping quotes around a word doesn’t even guarantee it’s returned.
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This. Google used to be head and shoulders above everyone else, and made it really easy to find exactly what you were looking for. Nowadays, it's largely trash - as the parent poster noted, quotes don't count for much in search results, much less logical expressions.
Go back to making a superior product, Google.
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You're power users, you're supposed to know there's a "verbatim" option which recovers the old search behaviour.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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This is tiresomely typical slashdot arrogance. Stop assuming your preferences are universal and shared by everyone else in the world. Some of us actually prefer to travel light and value the thin, light, and efficient kit conducive to doing so; even if it means accepting some compromises that, say, make a laptop less than a full portable desktop replacement. That's a perfectly valid use case and preference and products which cater to it are not "crap" just because *you* prefer something different.
My own
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This is tiresomely typical slashdot arrogance. Stop assuming your preferences are universal and shared by everyone else in the world. Some of us actually prefer to travel light and value the thin, light, and efficient kit conducive to doing so;
I understand the appeal of traveling light, but the selection of adapters I have acquired seems to counteract any benefit by the devices becoming thinner and lighter. My previous phone was sold as a ruggedized phone, now I have a flagship phone. I never felt the need to use a case with my rugged phone, the flagship phone is in a case that makes it just as thick as the phone it replaced. The latest version of the rugged phone still has a headphone port. What is gained if the phone is losing features to
Plus (Score:2)
I'm old enough to remember when you just had to put + in front of a word instead of quotes. Google removed that option to use the + symbol for some GooglePlus nonsense (which is now defunct anyway).
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Maybe I'll give Bing a go when that happens. Google still finds the pages I'm after, but lately they are getting buried in crap and it's getting increasingly hard to filter for that.
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Google’s search results have been piss poor for years. Wrapping quotes around a word doesn’t even guarantee it’s returned.
So therefore the answer is to ask some Influencer with a TikTok video how to solve your technical problem?
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Do you want self-serving paid promotion from a TikTok zoomer or narrative-forming propaganda from Google?
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My heavens! (Score:2)
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I hope this is what they're doing, I'd hate to see Google turn Search and Maps into things more like Locked-Down App Tumblr and TL;DW YouTube.
Because Google search is now useless? (Score:5, Insightful)
"In our studies, something like almost 40% of young people, when they're looking for a place for lunch, they don't go to Google Maps or Search," he continued. "They go to TikTok or Instagram."
Well, gee, I wonder why. Has anyone ever tried to look for a place for lunch on Google Maps or Search? Search has been so badly SEOed, especially for restaurants, that it's basically impossible to use. Search for a restaurant by name and address on Search and you'll get multiple hits, all of which are various delivery services which take an additional cut from the restaurant. Sometimes you can even find the restaurants real website. The reviews are basically worthless, since either the restaurant will have paid up to have them "cleaned" or they won't so they're just all trolls.
Maps is more useful, at least, in that it gives you a giant list of places nearby. Which is a starting point. But are the places any good? Who knows! The reviews come from Search and have the same problem. Pick a restaurant on Maps and there's a good chance you'll get whoever Google is partnering with to do delivery for them, and not the actual restaurant.
It doesn't surprise me at all that kids would be using social media to find out what's ultimately a social question: what restaurants do people actually like the food at? I can see how Instagram and TikTok could provide a better answer than Google does.
I wouldn't say Instagram and TikTok are "stealing" users from Google, I'd say Google has allowed their services to degrade to the point where they just aren't as useful as Instagram or TikTok. Which, given that they're Instagram and TikTok, is just kind of pathetic.
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Example? Genuinely curious since I've always looked for hotels on maps and they've always shown up be they large chains, or small family run affairs with 4 rooms.
I've never seen a hotel not show up. Though I have seen a business get listed on the wrong side of the street before.
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Well, gee, I wonder why. Has anyone ever tried to look for a place for lunch on Google Maps or Search?
??? Yeah. I just click the restaurants button and it pops up a long list that are within walking distance from my location. What are you doing wrong?
Search for a restaurant by name and address on Search and you'll get multiple hits, all of which are various delivery services which take an additional cut from the restaurant.
No, the first search result in the returned list are delivery services, look on the right of the screen for the direct hit on the business itself, it usually has a button "website" directly under it. They are still there, where they have been for a good 5 years now.
But are the places any good? Who knows!
The review problem has existed since reviews have existed. If you eat based on some TikTok star o
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I don't use these other apps at all, but I would not trust reviews on tiktok any more than I would trust google reviews. Restaurant is a very subjective experience and most of
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How is this moderated "insightful"? I just searched for a number of restaurants in my small city and each one came up first in google search and maps.
How many of them are still in business? I used Google Maps and search to find somewhere for our anniversary dinner and all but one of the results had closed during the pandemic; and the remaining one had moved to a different address. To be fair to Google, TripAdvisor was no better.
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Why would I use Google to look for a place to eat? That's what Trip Advisor is for.
A simple solution (Score:5, Funny)
Here's an easy solution: Google should modify the Android OS to prevent devices from taking video in portrait orientation.
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Android OS
Android isn't an OS, silly. Linux is the OS. Android is the spyware stack built on top of it.
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Linux is not an OS. It's a kernel.
Linux is an OS. "Kernel" is a largely meaningless term invented by people who write application suites and want to pretend that makes them special.
Bash is an application.
ps is an application.
df is an application.
Linux is the OS which controls these applications' access to hardware, which is the job of an OS.
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No, actually it is not. You don't have a clue.
Right. So, on my Linux machine, what is controlling access to the hardware?
If you get your itineraries on TikTok (Score:2)
Something on the internet has changed beyond this Gen-Xer's comprehension.
Not that I comprehend most of it anymore anyway: it's all mostly awful... But then I'm also reminded that this is exactly what my grandmother used to say of the stuff I liked when I was a kid, so... Hmm, maybe I'll just quietly step outside now.
Re: If you get your itineraries on TikTok (Score:4, Funny)
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I loved FidoNet and USENET. Moreover I loved the community. That's gone now.
Websites never managed to enthrall, though they could be useful on occasion. Invariably only for a moment, before they got "upgraded" and needed a newer browser to view for, well, no discernable reason.
That's been with us from the beginning too. I remember getting blocked from some idiot mostly-text-anyway website for "not accepting cookies" in lynx, but when I safely stored them in /dev/null, all was well again. And that was back
Youtubes attempt to be TikTok (Score:5, Insightful)
Is literally destroying youtube as we knew it, at least from a desktop viewer (even premium subscribers) point of view.
The entire of youtube is now spammed and overflown with these vertical nightmare clips. They have several disadvantages next to using up only 25 percent of a big screen TV or monitor, they can't be fast forwarded or rewinded instantly, you have to click a special link to read or comment and they're totally detrimental to the entire youtube experience because there is no way in preferences to turn them off, switch to normal viewing or anything, they will show up in search results like weed.
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No such problem on my desktop YouTube feed. I clicked on the X at the top of the "Shorts" section and they went away.
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what do you mean? shorts still appear in your subscriptions and in your homepage? i cant find any way to stop them, can you elaborate?
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I currently don't see any shorts on my homepage. There was a special section on there a few days ago, but it had an option to turn it off (click on the X), so I did. The only reference to shorts from my homepage now is a link on left nav (top left - Home, Explore, Shorts, Subscriptions). I don't see any other setting for shorts in the YouTube settings either. I'm using Chrome on Windows 10, in the U.S.
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The entire of youtube is now spammed and overflown with these vertical nightmare clips.
If this is a problem for you then it's down to your preference of viewing / what content creators Google thinks you're interested in are providing. I have had precisely zero vertical videos on my Youtube feed. Ever. The exception being videos which collate user submissions (e.g. Failarmy) which are sometimes vertical.
Whoever is "influencing" you sucks at using a camera.
Hate shorts (Score:2)
because they're stupid (Score:2)
"...the first stop on younger users' path to discovery..."
This is the generation that broadly cannot read a simple map, make plans in advance, and who needs to consult their friend group to decide where to eat.
They're more or less stuck at 8 years old. Even in their 20s.
Re: because they're stupid (Score:2)
Re:because they're stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
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They're more or less stuck at 8 years old. Even in their 20s.
The outgoing cohort is to blame for this current state. Participation Trophies and all that.
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I'm not a tiktok user. I'm a gen x. I have consulted my friends group many times in my life about what restaurant is good. I don't see that doing the same thing via tiktok is a bad thing. It seems to me that your friends group is a lot more reliable source of information than likely-rigged anonymous online reviews.
Obvious solution, legislation to protect Google! (Score:2)
So younger users use inefficient search methods? (Score:3)
I'm not saying Google's search tools haven't been corrupted by all the "pay to prioritize our listing" nonsense going on. But when you want to find out how to get to a specific place, the right tool to use is a map, or at least a trusted source for specific directions. Tiktok or some other social media network is NOT optimal!
Even if you're just trying to discover new places to go for lunch, it's as much a geography/location issue as anything else. There are only so many restaurants within X number of miles of you, and you likely have some limits in mind as to how far you're willing to travel for lunch. So it's really inefficient to try to search through a bunch of videos of people talking about places they enjoyed eating at!
so i did this tiny experiment ... (Score:5, Interesting)
as a non tiktok user i was about to ask how exactly do you search for a restaurant on tiktok or instagram, then i just went to instagram and typed "pizza" into the search box, and i'm none the wiser: it showed me accounts of pizza lovers or pizzerias that are thousands of km away from my location. none of the few authentic napolitan trattoria in my city appeared.
so my theory would be that while people tend to resort to the tools they're most used to and are using most of the time for everything, i just don't see this being a functional search option in this case. so either i am missing something, or am just too old for this, or it's just bullshit. or all three?
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The article doesn't bother explaining, although that may be because they're just reporting what Google told them, and Google didn't bother explaining.
But my assumption would be that, first off, younger users have already used the apps enough that the apps have "learned" where they are and how to tailor ads for them, so that it's more capable of doing targeted searches. Secondly, and hopefully more importantly, they'll have existing networks of accounts that they follow, and I expect it's that second thing t
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So a younger user might post a short clip asking people "hey, what's good for lunch?" or something, and get replies back from other users. Literal social networking - asking a question, getting responses from within your social network. Not something you can do via Google Search.
that's a fresh and interesting perspective however i don't think this would qualify as "searching" in the sense of querying an algorithm that prospects an indexed trove of data, it's more akin to "just asking your friends in chat". maybe the specificity of the activity is what's odd in the article, and they are not referring to actual searches (which they don't provide description nor examples for) but to frequency of interaction with the platform in general. yeah, that at least would make sense, thank you.
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and you would be wrong.
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fair point, just to be sure i tried "pizza in barcelona" and was oddly greeted with a laconic blank page saying "no results". i swear you can actually get good pizza in barcelona! (except it's a bit hard to find!) :-D
The Solution, Coming Soon from Google (Score:1)
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Some good that Google does (Score:2)
Almost like my user data is more important than the content they host.
I search for Sushi but see Taco Bell on maps (Score:2)
Google Maps used to be pretty great. But now it's just full of crap that makes it hard to find what I'm looking for. I'm looking for sushi places nearby that are open and among the pins on the map, I see Taco Bell, Walgreens, the local Elementary school. WTF?
Taking away from Maps? (Score:1)