Search Engine News: In Chrome, Google Reflects Core Search Business
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Written By Noah Mallin | September 2, 2008 | Share This
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Google sure knows how to make a splash. In between a major hurricane, a holiday weekend, the start of a political convention, and a controversial VP nominee announcement the Googleverse let slip via a comic book(!) that Chrome, their much rumored Internet browser, would be available for download today. Look for the leaked comic book to be the new hot marketing and PR tool this year.
This is being played out in the press and to some extent by Google itself as a shot across Microsoft’s bow but I think that the reality from a search perspective is a bit more complex. Google’s internally generated success and profits pretty much begins and ends with search and products directly connected to the search business. Gmail has been an exception to this but compared to Hotmail and Yahoo mail it’s still just another competitor jostling for space, while Google’s search engine dominates the market.
Google may not need to take on Microsoft, the browser leader, to get what they want from Chrome. Google has aced search by collecting data and using it to derive algorithms better than anyone else. Chrome gives them another rich source of data beyond search – what sites do people bookmark? Where do they go by typing in a URL rather than searching? What kinds of search queries are being performed within a destination page’s search box? All of this information, once gathered, can be channeled back into further tweaking the search engine algorithms.
Chrome’s “Omnibox” – which is unrelated to crappy 80s Dodge hatchbacks or glossy Guccione Science magazines – is a case in point. It’s Google’s name for the box you can use to enter URL’s in most browsers. Google combines this with search and an auto-complete suggestion mode which “learns” where you want to go most often, similar to what was rolled out for their search engine recently.
Ominibox also notices if the sites you go to (Amazon.com was the example du jour from the Googineers) have internal search boxes and incorporates their internal search into the Omnibox as an option. Essentially Google could be getting insight into search activity that typically occurs away from their search engine, capturing yet another rich stream of data.
Nick Carr makes the point (echoed by the Googleployees at the launch) that Chrome is set up specifically to present web based apps. This is undoubtedly true but the underlying value for Google is to get people to use say, Google Docs (or any web based app) and gain insight into application based behavior as well. What types of applications do certain users gravitate towards, how do these relate to how they use other websites or search?
The end result is a staggeringly expanded data stream that can be fed into search or monetized in other ways to marketers and advertisers. Google is also savvy enough to be aware of the ever-growing privacy concerns that are out there. Like Internet Explorer 8 Chrome includes their version of a Privacy mode – called Incognito.
Incognito is indeed under cover to, say, the wife and kids if you don’t want them to see you perusing oh, geishagirls.com (not that I do!). Google still has this info and will use it – as MediaPost’s Wendy Davis points out , ”The browser’s privacy policy says it will “process” information received from Chrome users but — in a crucial omission — doesn’t say whether it will retain the data or for how long: “Information that Google receives when you use Google Chrome is processed in order to operate and improve Google Chrome and other Google services,“
More to the point, Google makes their Incognito button easy to use but they also make it clear that many of the best features of Chrome are negated by using Incognito all the time. As people see the usefulness of sharing their data they will be more disposed to do so across different platforms (search, applications, browsers).
So at the end of the day asking whether Chrome is a run at Microsoft’s core business is missing the point. Even getting a market share close to Firefox’s nearly 20% or so is enough to achieve Google’s real aim- more data.
Topics: Google, Microsoft, Search: Innovations, Search: News, Web Analytics |