PCMag.com published a great article (from one perspective) about putting too much weight on social media, and the unfounded fears that go along with it as they relate to traditional search.
There is a buzz in the news about Larry Page’s threat to his employees that they will lose 25 percent of their bonuses if they do not get their act together regarding social media. I’ll avoid commenting on the concept of threatening employees as a management tool and let Larry find out for himself that it’s not a good idea. Instead, let me cut straight to the crux of all this.
Google is scared to death that Facebook will somehow eat its lunch. And the main fear is that a social media-based search can eventually usurp a conventional search engine. That’s what this is all about.
We’ve been hearing about social media-enhanced search everywhere. The premise is that you’ll be able to use your friends as some sort of search resource that would be many times better than the “slapdash” results you get from Google.
This is just bullcrap.
First of all, as a mental exercise, let’s just take Google and all search engines and destroy them. Now ask your friends to find something for you and see how far you get.
I suppose they could get some results by combing through various directories, but the bulk of navigation within the confines of the Web is done through search engines with their crawlers and bots. I don’t see anything changing that. Let’s be serious.