I believe that there is a fundamental difference in how search engines are structured vs social media. When data gets big, we need search engines to find what we’re looking for. Once the search results are shown by the search engine, we need to make sense out of it and see if we can use the information. On social media, things are a bit different. In social media, there is no information. There are only nodes that have knowledge and are sharing it with others in an interactive way. In this regard, Google will always be crippled by a core competency, i.e. information retrieval, that is less optimal than what social media can offer.

Knowledge vs information

Knowledge comes from human activity. Whether it’s reading or experimenting the person obtains knowledge from what it is doing. Information on the other hand is only an instance of that knowledge formalized in the form of a message. This message can be expressed in different languages (ex: English, mathematics, program, etc.) and transmitted to another person. There is only a small issue: not all knowledge can be expressed through language. Most parents experience this phenomenon every time they fail to convince their kids with something that comes from their life experience.

Since information is only an incomplete instance of knowledge, there are limits to the efficiency of transferring knowledge through language. Therefore, web pages will always miss something that human interaction will be able to fulfill through constant coming back and forth. This is where Google will be in trouble against Facebook or Twitter.