Companies Who Tried to Compete with Google & Failed Miserably

 

The Goliath that is Google has grown to almighty proportions. Some ambitious companies though have tried to topple them and have predictably failed. Here are 10 such fallen Davids.

1.  

Wolfram Alpha

Well, they didn't try to compete with Google in the overall search space but computational knowledge (which is a big part of what people search on Google). Google responded with their Google Squared application. From being a hot trend several months ago, Wolfram Alpha is slowly dying off.

 

Status: Still in existence

2.  

Cuil

Cuil was also being promoted as a "Google crusher" but in reality, it wasn't anywhere close to it. They boasted an index size of several billions pages...so what? We don't want quantity, we want quality.

 

Anyway, several days later, Google came up with a claim that they index around a trillion pages which basically crushed the Cuil claim and deprived people of the only reason they had of using it.

 

Status: Still in existence

3.  

Microsoft Live Search

Microsoft's sick old search engine that predated Bing, nobody really used Live Search. Its market share steadily declined till the launch of Bing, although we still don't know whether Bing's increasing market share is because of a temporary trend or because people have started to prefer Bing over Google. Bing is features in this list of people search engines by the way and seems really good for finding people.

 

Status: Dead

4.  

Wikia Search

Wikia was launched by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales in attempt to use human collaboration to create better search results. The idea failed miserably and after 2 years, Wales gave it up.

 

Status: Dead

5.  

AllTheWeb

AllTheWeb was all about conducting specialized searches and displaying real-time news (a feature that Google at that time was struggling with). But that was back in 2002. In 2010, AllTheWeb receives 10000 times less visitors than Google and all you see in its search results are sponsored ads at the top and ordinary results after that. Another big fail.

 

Status: Still in existence

6.  

Ask.com

Back in 2008, news spread that Ask.com is the 'upcoming Google killer'. The owners declared that Ask is 'more intuitive' than Google, in addition to other similar BS claims. However, just optimism and enthusiasm gets you nowhere on the internet and today, Ask.com has taken another (more realistic) route of being specifically a Q&A type of search engine.

 

Status: Still in existence

7.  

Powerset

Powerset was launched back in 2008 as a service that used Wikipedia and Freebase as search sources. Unfortunately, nothing changed much after that and its search capabilities remain very limited. One of the reasons behind its failure might have been its speedy acquisition by Microsoft soon after it was launched, which meant that perhaps Microsoft was more focused on developing LiveSearch and then Bing, than focus on 2 projects in the same time.

 

Status: Still in existence

8.  

MyLiveSearch

Nobody really knows what happened to them. There was a big buzz about MyLiveSearch back in 2007. Their promise was to search the entire web in real time and not build an index like Google. After the launch of the beta, the feedback wasn't so positive and from then on, it seems to have gotten stuck in an eternal "development stage". So I'll mark their status as dead.

 

Status: Dead

9.  

Yahoo Search

The mighty has officially fallen and is now powered by Bing search results. Yahoo, although still a huge company, also got pummeled by Google in the search engine arena.

 

Status: Dead

10.  

Yauba

Yauba tried to use one of Google's weaknesses, which is supposedly privacy. They launched as a 'privacy safe 'search engine, but to put it simply, their search results sucked. Yauba still exists but is barely surviving.

 

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I am Not the Best, but I am not like the Rest    

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                       Heart Break Kid
             ..::¨`•.¸...::** **::...¸.•´¨::..
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WEDDING PICS OF RAJNIKANTH DAUGHTER

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I am Not the Best, but I am not like the Rest    

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                     ˜*•. ˜*•.•*˜ .•*˜
     __..)/.._________..)/.._ _..)/..________..)/..__
      ¯¯""/(""¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯""/(""¯ ¯""/(""¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯""/(""¯
                (`*•.¸ (`*•.¸ ¸.•*´) ¸.•* )
             ..::¨`•.¸...::** **::...¸.•´¨::..
                       Heart Break Kid
             ..::¨`•.¸...::** **::...¸.•´¨::..
                .(¸.•* (¸.•*´ `*•.¸) *•.¸). 
     __..)/.._________..)/.._ _..)/..________..)/..__
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How some famous companies got their names...

Mercedes:  This was actually financier's daughter's name   Adobe:  This came from the name of the riverAdobe Creek that ran behind the house of founder John Warnock   Apple Computers: It was the favourite fruit of founder Steve Jobbs. He was three months late for filing a name for the business, and he threatened to call his company Apple Computers if the other colleagues didn't suggest a better name by 5 o'clock that day   CISCO:  It is not an acronym as popularly believed. It is short for San Francisco .   Compaq:  This name was formed by using COMp, for computer and PAQ to denote a small integral object   Corel:  The name was derived from the founder's name Dr. Michael Cowpland. It stands for COwpland Research Laboratory.   Google:  The name started as a joke boasting about the amount of information the search-engine would be able to search. It was originally named 'Googol',a word for the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. After founders - Stanford graduate students Sergey Brin and Larry Pagepresented their project to an angel investor; they received a cheque made out to 'Google'.   Hotmail:  Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. WhenSabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of names ending in 'mail' and finally settled for hotmail as it included the letters"html" - the programming language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective uppercasing   Hewlett Packard :  Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packardor Packard-Hewlett.   Intel:  Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore wanted to name their new company ' Moore Noyce' but that was already trademarked by a hotel chain so they had to settle for an acronym of INTegrated ELectronics.   Lotus (Notes) : Mitch Kapor got the name for his company from 'The Lotus Position' or'Padmasana' . Kapor used to be a teacher oftranscendental Meditation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.   Microsoft:  Coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that was devoted to MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally christened Micro-Soft, the '-' was removed later on.   Motorola: Founder Paul Galvin came up with this name when his company started manufacturing radios for cars. The popular radio company at the time was called Victrola.   Sony:  It originated from the Latin word 'sonus' meaning sound, and 'sonny' a slang used by Americans to refer to a bright youngster.   SUN:  Founded by 4 Stanford University buddies, SUN is the acronym forStanford University Network. Andreas Bechtolsheim built a microcomputer;Vinod Khosla recruited him and Scott McNealy to manufacture computers based on it, and Bill Joy to develop a UNIX-based OS for the computer.   Apache:  It got its name because its founders got started by applying patches to code written for NCSA's httpd daemon.. The result was 'A PAtCHy' server --thus, the name Apache Jakarta (project from Apache):A project constituted by SUN and Apache to create a web server handling servlets and JSPs. Jakarta was name of the conference room at SUN where most of the meetings between SUN and Apache took place.   C:  Dennis Ritchie improved on the B programming language and called it 'New B'.He later called it C. Earlier B was created by Ken Thompson as a revision of the Bon programming language (named after his wife Bonnie).   C++:  Bjarne Stroustrup called his new language 'C with Classes' and then 'newC'. Because of which the original C began to be called 'old C' which was considered insulting to the C community. At this time Rick Mascittisuggested the name C++ as a successor to C.   Java:  Originally called Oak by creator James Gosling, from the tree that stood outside his window, the programming team had to look for a substitute as there was no other language with the same name. Java was selected from a list of suggestions. It came from the name of the coffee that the programmers drank.   LG:  Combination of two popular Koreanbrands Lucky and Goldstar.   Linux:  Linus Torvalds originally used the Minix OS on his system which here placed by his OS. Hence the working name was Linux (Linus' Minix). He thought the name to be too egotistical and planned to name it Freax(free+ freak + x).His friend Ari Lemmke encouraged Linus to upload it to a network so it could be easily downloaded. Ari gave Linus a directory called linux on his FTP server, as he did not like the name Freax.(Linus' parents named him after two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling) .   Mozilla:  When Marc Andreesen, founder of Netscape, created a browser to replace Mosaic (also developed by him), it was named Mozilla (Mosaic-Killer, Godzilla) .The marketing guys didn't like the name however and it wasre-christenedNetscape Navigator.   Red Hat:  Company founder Marc Ewing was given the Cornell lacrosse team cap (with red and white stripes) while at college by his grandfather. He lost it and had to search for it desperately. The manual of the beta version of Red Hat Linux had an appeal to readers to return his Red Hat if found by anyone!   SAP:  "Systems, Applications, Products in Data Processing", formed by 4 ex-IBM employees who used to work in the 'Systems/Applicatio ns/Projects' group of IBM.   SCO (UNIX): From Santa Cruz Operation. The company's office was in Santa Cruz .   UNIX:  When Bell Labs pulled out of MULTICS (MULTiplexed Information and Computing System), which was originally a joint Bell/GE/MIT project, KenThompson and Dennis Ritchie of Bell Labs wrote a simpler version of the OS.They needed the OS to run the game Space War which was compiled underMULTICS. It was called UNICS - UNIplexed operating and Computing System by Brian Kernighan. It was later shortened to UNIX.   Xerox:  The inventor, Chestor Carlson, named his product trying to say `dry' (asit was dry copying, markedly different from the then prevailing wet copying). The Greek root `xer' means dry.   Yahoo!:  The word was invented by Jonathan Swiftand used in his book 'Gulliver's Travels' . It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance and action and is barely human. Yahoo! founders Jerry Yang andDavid Filo selected the name because they considered themselves yahoos.   3M: Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company started off by mining the material corundum used to make sandpaper.

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I am Not the Best, but I am not like the Rest    

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                     ˜*•. ˜*•.•*˜ .•*˜
     __..)/.._________..)/.._ _..)/..________..)/..__
      ¯¯""/(""¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯""/(""¯ ¯""/(""¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯""/(""¯
                (`*•.¸ (`*•.¸ ¸.•*´) ¸.•* )
             ..::¨`•.¸...::** **::...¸.•´¨::..
                       Heart Break Kid
             ..::¨`•.¸...::** **::...¸.•´¨::..
                .(¸.•* (¸.•*´ `*•.¸) *•.¸). 
     __..)/.._________..)/.._ _..)/..________..)/..__
      ¯¯""/(""¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯""/(""¯ ¯""/(""¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯""/(""¯
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cOmplicated mechanisms eXplained in simple animations ```

Complicated Mechanisms Explained in simple animations

Radial Engines

Radial engines are used in aircrafts having propeller connected to the shaft delivering power in order to produce thrust its basic mechanism is as follows

Steam engine Principle

Steam engine once used in locomotives was based on the reciprocating principle as shown below

Sewing Machine

Maltese Cross Mechanism

this type of mechanism is used in clocks to power the second hand movement.

Manual Transmission Mechanism

The mechanism also called as "stick shift" is used in cars to change gears mannually

Constant Velocity Joint

This mechanism is used in the front wheel drive cars

Torpedo-Boat destroyer System

This system is used to destroy fleet in naval military operations.

Rotary Engine

Also called as Wankel engine is a type of internal combustion engine has a unique design that converts pressure into rotating motion instead of reciprocating pistons

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I am Not the Best, but I am not like the Rest    

              *.*
                     ˜*•. ˜*•.•*˜ .•*˜
     __..)/.._________..)/.._ _..)/..________..)/..__
      ¯¯""/(""¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯""/(""¯ ¯""/(""¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯""/(""¯
                (`*•.¸ (`*•.¸ ¸.•*´) ¸.•* )
             ..::¨`•.¸...::** **::...¸.•´¨::..
                       Heart Break Kid
             ..::¨`•.¸...::** **::...¸.•´¨::..
                .(¸.•* (¸.•*´ `*•.¸) *•.¸). 
     __..)/.._________..)/.._ _..)/..________..)/..__
      ¯¯""/(""¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯""/(""¯ ¯""/(""¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯""/(""¯
                     ˜*•. ˜*•.•*˜ .•*˜
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