Search Engine Inanities 8/28

Webcomics? You want the next post.

If this video series isn't Robert Scoble's Waterloo, it's certainly an error that will cost him dearly.

"Mahalo, TechMeme, and Facebook are going to kick Google's butt in four years."

You can stare at that sentence as long as you want, and I promise it won't make any more sense than it does now. Techmeme is a tech blog, an underdog competitor to Gizmodo and Engadget, all of which serve a niche audience. Facebook, as a social network, is kicking the Google-owned Orkut's ass everywhere except Brazil, but Google's got a much bigger ass than Orkut, baby. Only Mahalo even pretends to be competing with Google, and its "human-powered search" has so many flaws I don't even know where to begin--

Oh, that's a lie: let's begin with "webcomics." No results at all except, um, Google's. Now let's move on to "comics." First search turns up no page for comics, but pages for Dark Horse, DC, Marvel and, rounding out the four... Sin City. Second search, conducted ten minutes later, turned up no results at all. If this is what's going to replace Google, I weep for our future. (And please don't tell me it's just a beta. If you call yourself a search engine and cannot deliver on "comics," it's time to give up and go home.)

For more informed Scoble refutations, I leave you in the hands of Danny Sullivan and Valleywag.