Google’s pace of innovation has been effectively matched by their growing dominance, not just with the Internet, but increasingly with all things technology, and with plans to go beyond, into other lucrative industries.
Here’s a picture of just how dominant there are in the search engine space: Over 65% of all searches are done on Google-related properties including Google.com, according to comScore.
Seeing this from the lens of the buzz in the blogosphere, yet again, we see Google clearly dominating the buzz compared to other popular tech companies.
In face of these realities, I found it quite intriguing when Doug Arthur, the visionary founder of the INTERalliance organization asked me to speak at their inaugural TechOlympics Expo (400 top high school students from 39 schools in Greater Cincinnati region competed and participated in this last weekend), about “More to life than Google“!
With the help of some industry observers including Charles Knight, I assembled a list of 14 innovative services that I really like. In assembling this list, I deliberately left out the other well-known players like Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Ask, which surely are innovating in their own way. I decided to focus the attention on innovations from small organizations that don’t get as much visibility or publicity, and wanted to see what these smart, young people thought of them.
Admittedly, going in, I was a bit skeptical that they would care about anything beyond Google, Facebook, Wikipedia and maybe a couple of other tools! Boy, was I wrong!
Not only did the students in attendance eagerly respond to the various services I presented, but they also shared with me some others that I was not aware of. What was interesting was how so many of them wanted to get a copy of my presentation to follow up and check out some of the cool services I had highlighted. I was surely not ready for this response and I think it bodes well for entrepreneurs out there who are innovating in their chosen areas. I am not suggesting, for a moment, that all of a sudden, an entrepeneur’s challenge in getting the word out, has vanished. No! What I AM suggesting is that it is heartening that the younger generation is so open minded to absorb innovation. They seem to want newer, better, faster, cooler things and they are not afraid to try it out and give it a fair shake.
Maybe you are wondering what the revelation in this is – especially as my realization seems kind of obvious.
Maybe! But then maybe not, when you consider that what I was sharing was a set of 14 search engine tools that do a fabulous job for different needs! Tools that exist right in the space where Google is the dominant player without any doubt! And yet, here were a bunch of really smart young people, ready to lap up new, innovative, cool services even in this space!
Here is my complete presentation on More to Life than Google.
For your convenience, here are 14 search engine services I like, which show that search engine innovation is quite alive outside Google.
- Cosmetic Safety: Skin Deep
- Finding Facts: Freebase
- Health: Mednar
- Images: Cooliris
- Jobs: Indeed
- Mobile: ChaCha
- News: iCurrent
- People: Pipl
- Real Estate: Zillow
- Reviews: Yelp
- Shopping: Milo
- Travel: UpTake
- Video: Clicker
- Web: Zakta
Admittedly, I’ve been partial to the search engine innovation listed last, our own Zakta 
Barring this glaring bit of self-promotion, truly, the other services listed here are worth a closer look. Please visit them and spread the word about them if you like them!
As always, I look forward to your feedback on this.
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