March 15, 2016 | less than a minute read

Google the Portal: losing the war they won in 1999?

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Tom Elgar

Co-founder

Get in touch

Tom Elgar

Co-founder

More of the same from Google in returning increasingly large amounts of information to the search results screen (see previous posts).

It is a pretty interesting development not least because it's so old school. Although it may well be enhanced by lots of clever tech, this all feels a bit Yahoo 1999 - a bit "we can curate the world".

Maybe it is a reaction to the declining value of traditional web 'search' as 'social discovery' rises that has led Google to make this move. Maybe they feel that over the next few years that they need to provide an instant response to a query rather than be a step in the journey - maybe they fear 'search' - with a set of web link results - is dead.

Certainly the mobile phone interface would tend to edge in this direction but it certainly doesn't feel like this can enhance the discovery of unusual or differing view points; when all the information is created by one of the world's largest corporations.

Earlier this year, Google launched a new tool to let presidential candidates publish posts about their views directly to Google search results, like this: [see below] Now, the company is extending the feature to the commercial realm and offering it to a select group of small businesses. Google is calling the Posts tool "an experimental new podium on Google" and says it plans to make it available to "other prominent figures and organizations." The new tool is not ad, as Google is not currently charging businesses for the privilege. Of course, that could change in the future.