indie_preneur

Does KGB really give a better result than Google?

2.10.2010

By indie_preneur

That’s just what I intend to find out. I just saw an ad on TV claiming SMS service KGB gives you an “answer,” and not a list of results. That’s great, but is it just marketing? Can an SMS-result really be better targeted for me than the almighty Google?

Let’s say our lovely dachshund decides it’s too cold out, and the carpet will do just fine for her (jk Bean, I know you would never…). Obviously, I’d be in need of a local Arlington carpet cleaner, and sooner rather than later.

So I open up Firefox and in the Google search bar type in ’Arlington Va carpet cleaner,‘ then hit enter, and await the results. After a brief second or two, I get the following results:

Not too bad—they look good enough for me.

Now let’s try KBG. I fire up my handy iPhone, create a new SMS to ’542-542“, enter the same query in, and hit send. After sending, I receive an immediate response (although this is because I haven’t used this service before). The result come back about a minute later. And, voila—it’s the same first result as showed in Google.

So far, I’d take the Google results over KGB–no charges plus more options if the first is A, closed or B, not what I’m looking for.

However, the first real difference for me is in WHEN I’m searching:

1. If I’m at home, or anywhere on wifi, then I’d always go with Google–especially with no charges.
2. If I’m out running errands, and I can get on 3G, then I’d still go with Google.
3. If I’m out running errands and low on battery, or 3G is not available, I’d KGB it.
4. If I did not own a smart phone, then KGB would definitely make more sense.

And, the second main difference, and more important, is in WHAT I’m searching for.

I think the real area where KGB would, and is meant to, have more value over Google is when you are asking a very specific question, rather than just a search query. They employ real people, ‘agents’, to do the searching for the asker. This is why I would think that a specific questions KGB answer would be much more targeted than what Google might come back with.

What about you, do you prefer one over the other? Do you find one gives you vastly better answers than the other?

Tags: google, kgb, local search

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 at 11:22 am and is filed under marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.