Must Google die?

Earlier in the week I ran into an interesting and intriguing article, titled "Why Google Must Die" from from John C. Dvorak. The least I can say is that the article made noise in the blogosphere and on the internet in general. Several sites included detailed discussions about why John was wrong (Sphinn, Newsvine, NamePros to name a few). Some even go to point out this is Google bashing.

Frankly, I have personally experienced the symptoms John describes. I have been on the phone with a colleague, thinking I could use Google rather than dictate or send him a long and complex address. By a matter of fact, while researching for this post, I ran into a number of articles that had nothing to do with the subject. And let's be honest, Google is out there to make money, as much as possible. So, I am only half surprised they push forward the sites that make them most money. What irritates me is that they do not recognize this fact.

Well, maybe this is an overstatement. Interestingly enough, I received yesterday an e-mail from Forbes drawing me to an article titled "The Verdict of Google SearchWiki". On its own blog, Google presents this new facility as a way to "customize search by re-ranking, deleting, adding, and commenting on search results. With just a single click you can move the results you like to the top or add a new site. You can also write notes attached to a particular site and remove results that you don't feel belong." I have not had the opportunity to use it, as it is not yet rolled out in our part of the world. Now, is this the solution that John is looking for?

Frankly I do not believe, as the SearchWiki is, according to Google, strictly private. They don't say what they are doing with your changes, as I am sure they are tracking them and use them to their advantage.

However, if we take the web 2.0 promise seriously, and if we believe Tim O'Reilly's definition that the user adds the content, we may want to seriously think at helping WikiaSearch out. They rely on trusted user feedback from the community to improve their search results. And if we refer to the Wikipedia example, they may turn out to be quite successful in the long run. Will that make Google obsolete?