mediajunk

Update 21 Jan 2005: Contrary to the Brin's remarks reported below, Google has just launched a video search feature. I guess he was lying... Speaking at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Google co-founder Sergey Brin explained why the search engine does not intend to offer users a video search feature. Brin cited problems with standards and compatibility in the video software industry, as well as a lack of content, as reasons why he remains uninterested in developing an AltaVista-style video search. As reported in the Always-On Network (the report is split into part one and part two), Brin made several other interesting points at the press conference about the future of the company. His statements focused on what Google wouldn’t be doing:

• Google Image Search will be improved, but will continue to be text-based (i.e. the company does not plan to introduce any recognition software).
• Google will not introduce any “speech search” feature or voice recognition software, as, despite recent interest from Wall Street, it does not believe there is a demand for such a service.
• Unlike Yahoo, Google has no plans to introduce any portal features, and is not concerned about creating a capacity to “lock in” visitors.

Also of note in the conference was Brin’s response to a question about how it regards its responsibility towards Mom ‘n’ Pop businesses: Q: The discussion that Google made companies' Web sites "exist" or not exist by listing them or not listing them—do you have an opinion on that? Brin: We do. We really think about what's the right thing for us to do. One kind of complaint that you were alluding to is the situation where somebody has the top results say for donuts or croissants. Then the next month, we change algorithm a little bit, and they drop out. Things sort of fluctuate, but we don't like [Web programmers] to manipulate our rankings. Probably a lot of you have had that experience where you do a search on Google, and some of your commercial interests have really shown up on top for one search that's not relevant. In other cases, there might be 20 different croissant sites that are all hopefully in the results, and it so happens that the one that used to be number 1 is now number 11, and they, of course, get very unhappy. I point out first of all that at the same time, there are 10 other sites that all got listed and bumped up, and as a result, are getting more traffic and are happier. They are not the ones screaming for change. Furthermore, the biggest issue is that we decided it's more important for us to generate the best possible results for our users rather than preserve the stability of the businesses that evolve the search results. I hope you agree with that.