Bet 148

Duration 3 years (02004-02006)

“By 2006 a single-answer technology other than Google will emerge as the favored answering service and will remain in power for at least two years” Detailed Terms »

PREDICTOR
John S Flowers

CHALLENGER
TBA

Flowers's Argument

Google, while interesting, is not solving the customer problem of finding a single answer to an often complex problem. There exists an enormous need to solve a question with a simple, complete, multi-tiered answer and not a list of results as provided by every search technology of today. And, because people don't think in search terms, the need for this technology to answer human-phrased, rather than boolean-phrased questions is apparent.

Because this is the case, new solutions will emerge on or before the Google IPO that will replace Google (and other search engine) offerings of too much information with much more targeted, more user-centric answers as derived from categories of information rather than the bucket of information found by indexing and searching the web, as we do today.

Flowers was challenged to a bet!

John S Flowers is negotiating the terms of a bet about this prediction. It will soon be added to Bets on the Record.


Detailed Terms

While the Google IPO happened earlier than expected, thus obviating the "on or before the Google IPO" part of the bet, the bet remains intact and the timeframe is still valid.



We take "single-answer technology" to be synonymous with "search engine" and the criteria for "favoured service" to be the site with the most inbound links.