A slightly better question would be: when have I not found what I was looking for in a Google search? Or even, when was the thing I was looking for not the first search result?
If you use satisfaction as the test, you may be letting the present state of things influence your thinking too much. E.g. I bet a lot of people were satisfied with pre-Google search engines, and just took their limitations for granted.
To make a go of that kind of thing in a startup though, you'd have to make sure that it's something Google won't or can't execute on, something I'm not sure I would bet on.
Part of the idea of 'disruptive technologies' is that they aren't incremental improvements that the current leaders will just copy, but big changes that get ignored by the current leaders.
I certainly agree with that. The way to displace Google is to work on something they despise as inconsequential, the way the "portals" in the late 90s did search.
There are lots of things they despise as inconsequential: stupid consumerish stuff like celebrity gossip, cool design, things that aren't technically demanding, etc...
Sounds like you're suggesting tackling verticals that Google is ignoring.
The celebrity gossip industry is huge as anyone living in LA or who has bought a Star/People/Enquirer can attest. I think that might fall under the category of news, however.
I think that there might be a strength in ranking sites that have great design as opposed to crappy design. All things being equal, I'd rather read an article on a well designed page rather than on a page whose design is non-existent.
I have often searched google looking for recent articles, but the most highly ranked are always first which are often really old and outdated ... maybe there is something in the advanced search to tweak the ordering, I am not sure ...
The fact that a user couldn't figure that out indicates a potential improvement: detecting whether a given search is time-sensitive and automatically choosing the correct search ordering.
If you use satisfaction as the test, you may be letting the present state of things influence your thinking too much. E.g. I bet a lot of people were satisfied with pre-Google search engines, and just took their limitations for granted.