In July, The CEO of Google who oversees the company’s lucrative and dominant search engine has made a surprising admission. Younger users are redirecting questions that would have naturally gone to the iconic search box to Social NetworkPrabhakar Raghavan said at a Forbes Conference. Take the example of where to go for lunch: Google Research found that nearly 40% of 18-24 year olds would look to Instagram or TikTok, not Google Search or Maps, to answer that question.
Today, Google announced changes to its search and maps to include more images and videos in search results — including from TikTok. The updates are designed to define how Generation Z starts looking for lunch or anything else.
They are the latest example of one of the hottest recent trends in the tech industry, which has seen companies like Snap, Meta and Twitter complain aboutpraise, and sometime Copy Short video app. Even the Google search results page, one of the Internet’s most enduring designs, can’t resist The power of TikTok.
One of Google’s changes will bring a feature called Exploration to the Google mobile app. It displays search results in a continuous scroll of photo and video panes that more closely resemble a social media feed than a list of links. Explore will include videos on Instagram and TikTok as well as YouTube Shorts, the 60-second video app Google created in 2020. Google vice president Cathy Edwards describes it as aimed at helping people who are looking for inspiration, not facts or specific answers to a question.
“We know there’s a class of users that really like the results they see on TikTok, and I think part of that is because TikTok has lowered the barrier to content creation, so there’s some real content. The good is there,” Edwards said. “We’re looking at more ways to include that in our search results.”
Courtesy of Google
The Discover feature will initially be available on iPhone and will be limited to travel and travel related searches. Search for “Oaxaca, Mexico,” and suggested topics in the search results may include live music or Aztec ruins. Discover features will be available in English in the coming months.
Perhaps Google’s most obvious answer to the Gen Z lunch scenario in today’s update is a new feature for Google Maps called Neighborhood Vibe. It provides a quick look at what’s trending in a community, displaying landmarks and photos from business reviews on a local map. Google Maps vice president Christopher Phillips said young users have inspired a more intuitive approach that makes information faster and easier to digest for both young and old. Philips says the Neighborhood Vibe will use a combination of human decision-making and algorithms to determine what content to show in a certain area at any time. A Google spokesperson says Neighborhood Vibe doesn’t take into account location data that Google collects from users to determine when the business is busy.
Courtesy of Google
Google has also announced other updates to non-TikTok related search. These include a section on the results page dedicated to recommendations from forums and sites like Reddit, the ability to take photos of food to search for where to find food near you, and an augmented reality mode in Google Maps overlays listings like public transit stations and ATMs on phones that see the world live.
In the past, Google has faced new threats to its near-monopoly over search queries. Amazon started ingrained in Google shopping search traffic many years ago and is now the first most people in America Consider when setting out to buy something online. In 2018, concerns about the potential impact on Google’s business led to Morgan Stanley analyst recommends Google gives users free Home Mini smart speaker to help maintain its market dominance. This proposal may seem odd, but Google has shown a willingness to spend big to support its flagship service, paying Apple. billions of dollars a year to remain the default search engine on iPhone — a fee that complainants Action-matching class filed earlier this year saying the amount is due to be paid annually to avoid the search engine business.
In addition to competition from TikTok, Google search could also soon be reshaped by antitrust rules from the United States or the European Union. The EU fined the company millions of dollars for advertising its own shopping service in search results and increase its monitoring on platforms that are considered self-handling. The antitrust law being considered by some members of the US Congress would ban dominant digital platforms from prioritizing their own products. That bill faces a narrow aisle before power shifts to the new Congress in January, but if it becomes law, it could change the way Google products and services appear in search results and could limit how Google recommends export YouTube Shorts compared to Instagram and TikTok.
