Mike, Although Google well and truly dominates the search space, Facebook and iPhone are not in the same class. Facebook's dominance is market and demographic-specific, being out-performed in some age brackets by MySpace and Bebo (pre-teens & teens); and countries, by a wide range of competing social networks.
The iPhone is definitely dominating the media, but Nokia is still the largest seller of mobile devices globally; and Blackberry is a very strong competitor in the smartphone market specifically. There are also cultural and geographic differences: iPhone has had a fairly luke-warm reception in Japan (if memory serves) for example. It's also worth pointing out that Google does not just dominate the search engine market. It is also, as a direct result, dominating the online advertising space, where five years ago the dominant market player would have been someone like DoubleClick. Which is not to argue the point, but reinforces your underlying point that market leaders change. Since we're talking about online/digital type markets, you might as well throw in Netscape capitulating to Internet Explorer, and the current rise of Firefox as another example of the changing landscape. In each of these cases the forces at work are very different. Google's success was tied to a very different approach to the problem of finding things on the Web. Where others were developing more and more complex models of directory-style indices and keyword search, Google came out with an offering that was stunning in its simplicity. And delivered results on a scale not matched by any of the competing services. Where Yahoo and MSN, altavista et al were curating collections in the tens of millions; Google's early offering delivered results drawn from a collection numbering in the billions of pages. It was faster; less complicated; easier to understand; and more likely to return a meaningful result. It was also easy for advertisers to understand and buy into. Competition for Google as a search engine could come from an unlikely source. It is possible that a social network like Twitter could erode Google's dominance as our primary source of 'finding things on the Web'. I already receive a large amount of my resources via Twitter; with a substantial collection being delivered via RSS feeds. More importantly: I trust those sources much more than I do results in a search engine. So as these services grow and extend their reach, the value of those networks as a source of information will also grow, with the value of each successive connection being much greater than simply +1. Facebook's success - and I'm not arguing it's success (let's not turn this into a discussion of whether or not it's making a profit, revenue, or is likely to survive) - as a social network came from several factors: it was targeted at college students (initially) rather than attempting to compete head-to-head with MySpace in the teenage market; it provided a platform for other businesses to develop applications to enhance the overall value of the service (arguable, but still a factor); and opened itself up to non-college participants in time for their early adapters to be graduating and moving out into the world. MySpace, on the other hand, hasn't really 'aged' with it's members, thereby providing the opportunity for Facebook to capitalise on that end of the market. The 'next Facebook' may already exist; or it might be just around the corner. Or it might be that Facebook evolves and strengthens it's market position. The first hurdle it needs to clear is to introduce a strong revenue model that allows it to survive and enhance itself. Time will tell whether or not they can do that successfully. The iPhone, for me at least, represents an interim step between the mobile phone as a purely communications device, and the truly personal "connect me to the world and keep me entertained" device that we'll see in 5-10 years time. The iPhone's days are numbered, although it represents a great leap forward towards that future device. It has some unique characteristics that make it appealing: the touch interface, with the gestural elements that make it much richer experientially than other offerings; the integration with iTunes, and the iPod capabilities of music, movies, TV & photos; and, perhaps most significantly, the introduction of the App Store - and all of the third-party applications - that open up a wealth of opportunities for both iPhone users and third-party developers to use the iPhone as a platform more so than a stand-alone device. The iPhone has helped to redefine what we expect from a 'mobile phone', but it's importance for me is the direction that it gives to other device manufacturers as to how they'll need to compete in the future. It may be that the iPhone killer won't come from Nokia, Motorola, HTC or Siemens, but from Apple themselves. And that's just fine by me. Regards Steve 2008/12/19 Mike Scarpiello <mscarpie...@gmail.com> > Google (search), Facebook, and the iPhone (smartphones) are overwhelmingly > dominating their spaces right now, making you wonder if anything will ever > eclipse them. > > But just a few years ago, Yahoo, MySpace, and the Razr were in the same > positions. > > So the question is when, and what products / companies do you think will > superseed these behemoths? > > Discuss! > -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal Consultant | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
