I
would like search to be intelligent assistant who is always with you. Today,
only privileged can afford an assistant. What if the whole world can have a
personal assistant which knows you and gives information you need.
Amit
Singhal has built Google’s search engine for the last 15 years but now he is in
the middle of dealing new challenges as the internet giant faces threat from
niche mobile-based search applications. The IIT Roorkee alumni, in a
conversation with BusinessLine, talks about how Google is facing these
challenges and the future of search. Edited excerpts:
You
were among the first to call out the shift from desktop to mobile. How has this
panned out for Google so far?
It
was obvious to us that mobile will be the device that will always be with
users. It’s a one hand single thumb device but people need more answers like
nearest restaurants or malls and they need it on the go. So, we invested in
Knowledge Graph, which has been a key shift from traditional search engine to
modern search where you can ask anything and Google will provide the answer to
the degree we can. We also invested in speech recognition and we are pushing
scientific boundaries on that front. We have invested in languages so that the
input is easier. The culmination of all that is what we have today which looks
nothing like what it was in the desktop.
How
do you see the threat from the app ecosystem, which is now providing very niche
search capabilities?
Pages
in web browser or in an app are covered by the same database. The difference is
the rendering code...in one case, it’s coming on the fly and on the other, it’s
preloaded. At the end of the day, the information is coming from a common
database. So, we built ‘app indexing’ . It has been tremendously successful
because, when people look for something on Google and if that information
resides in an App and it’s indexed on Google search, we can today open that
page in your app. App indexing is becoming default in Android and even in iOS.
Studies suggest that very small number of apps reside on a mobile phone, mostly
related to communications and entertainment. But, when it comes to information
like learning about some disease, while there is lots of choice, Google search
is still very useful.
So,
what are the big challenges that worry you the most?
There
are ecosystem challenges. India has about 350 million internet users which will
go up to 500 million in 2 years, of which 300 million will be on mobile. But
our aspiration is to have 800 million or a billion to be online. That’s why we
are excited about the Digital India programme. Everyone should have access to
information. For example, we launched health panel in the US and we want to
bring that in India so that everyone has access to health-related information.
The other challenge is the lack of good regional content. I would love to see
much more good content. When these ecosystem issues are solved, people will
lead a better life because they will have better information related to their
government, things like education and healthcare.
What
is the future of search?
I
would like search to be intelligent assistant who is always with you. Today,
only the privileged can afford an assistant. What if the whole world can have a
personal assistant which knows you and gives information that you need.
Regulators
in many countries, including in India, have raised concerns over how Google
runs search. How does that impact the way you think?
I
have devoted my 25 years to building the best search system. Our job is to
serve every user, to give people answers they need. That’s how the entire team
thinks. We build for our users. I understand we are big and with our size,
comes scrutiny and we welcome that. But, we have been doing everything right
for users; so, nothing changes in my thinking.
But
the issue is about trust. How can users trust Google when regulators accuse you
of being anti-competitive?
You
are right. Our users’ trust is the biggest earning. FTC in the US has looked at
these issues. There is a clear division between the church and state, that is,
between our monetised part of the page and organic part of the webpage.
Everything we monetise is clearly marked. Our biggest advertisers cannot do
anything to earn better ranking on search. We have actually taken action on ourselves
when some part of the company did something that was not allowed by the search
guidelines. At the end of the day, all I can do is to operate with utmost
humility and rigour.
What
do you have to say to the specific comments made by the Indian competition
authority?
We
are looking at what the CCI report says; so, don’t have any specific comments.
If
every country brings its own laws, is there a danger that the user experience
may change in each country?
We
have to abide by the country’s law in the country that we are in. One could
debate whether these laws are in favour of the citizen but we will abide by it.
At
some point, the citizens have to figure out if the laws being passed by their
government are crossing a line that they don’t want. Generally, we believe in
free information, we generally do not like governments putting barriers between
good information and people. But ,we understand cultural sensitivities and we
have to respect that.
Source | Business Line | 16 October 2015
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