three buckets in defense of google's dominance.

in the world of search technology, the topic of google's dominance - and the future of that dominance - is often a topic of heated discussions. those arguments in defense of the top dog, can usually be dropped into one of three buckets:

• "they're good enough" - they're not perfect, but people usually find everything they need
  
• "they're too big" - google is has too much market share, and it's brand is too entrenched to be overcome
  
• "they've already thought of it" - google has thousands of employees, working on a number of technologies. there's nothing in search that they don't have hidden in their "labs"

i've heard these arguments from a number of folks, including current employees, former employees, competitior employees, VCs, lay people, journalists and many more.

now there's nothing wrong with these arguments. there's a degree of validity to all of them.

when you are king, there's always someone eyeing the thrown. in markets where barriers to entry are low enough, technology impacts ability and a user experience comes into play, resting on your laurels is ill advised. the thrown is never safe. if you don't believe me, just ask: GM (or toyota), yahoo (or google), dell (or HP), motorola (or nokia) or smart phone manufacturers (or apple).

that said, i invite you first to read saul hansell's article titled google and the real search for meaning on the web. you won't find any mind blowing revelations when reading his defense of Google, but he makes sensible assertions.

afterwards, read riza berkan's (CEO of hakia) post on the company's blog titled if google had semantic technology. he provides some "see for yourself" examples which make this a fun post to read.

after reading both sides, what do you think?...

- as always, i like to disclose when i'm writing about any company in which I'm involved or invested. hakia is a portfolio company of my employer, and i sit on the board of directors. but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm biased.