Waiting For One (Search) Giant To Topple Another

On Monday, the Internet was aflutter with comparisons between the search engine Titan and "computational knowledge engine" Wolfram Alpha. Next up was Yahoo's announcement of improvements to its own search technology, hoping to regain some of the glory it once held. And now the next storm is brewing as leaked information indicates that Microsoft's latest attempt, currently being called Kumo, is about to be unleashed.

With the huge lead in market share that Google has over its competitors, it is extremely unlikely that it will lose its top spot anytime soon. (As I previously wrote, Wolfram Alpha isn't even competing for the same market). Still, it's interesting that Google is becoming the champion everyone seems to be rooting against.

There's no denying that Google is the standard that all other search engines are now compared to. And the reason it has reached that position is because it is just plain better than the others at what it does. But as history has shown again and again, everyone just seems to love the underdog. No one really hates Google (Well, maybe a few people do). They just want to see the new guy succeed.

What is fascinating though is that the latest new guy (again) is Microsoft. So now we have a company many love to bash for its monopolistic tendencies pitted against another that seems to be headed in the same direction. People on the Web are so caught up in the whirlwind of rumors and announcements that they don't realize this is turning into the equivalent of a professional wrestling matchup.

While Google will probably be taken down a few notches sooner or later, it is most likely going to be in one of the areas where it hasn't been able to grasp a foothold -- not its searching capabilities. For now though, Microsoft probably should bask a little in the glory that for the first time in recent memory, a large portion of Internet surfers are actually rooting for it.