Google it! This has become the go-to expression for almost everyone who suggests looking for something online. As a result, Google has become synonymous with an online search. However, things may change in the next few years with the rise of alternatives to the search giant.

Interestingly, these alternatives are not search engines like Google. Instead, they allow effective web search or gathering information from online sources without focusing on search keywords and clicking links.

News API

News API may sound unfamiliar to many, but it is one of the effective ways to aggregate information for specific topics or categories from a wide range of sources online. It makes integrating content into proprietary applications easy without performing manual data scraping. It is used in various industries, including business intelligence, marketing and sales, media and publishing, e-commerce, and finance. Different organizations gain insights from news API to make informed decisions and update strategies with the latest industry developments. News APIs are also useful in adverse media screening to address unfavorable information online that can affect brand image or reputation.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT is said to be the tool that can help Microsoft’s Bing compete against Google. Whether this is true or not, what is clear is that this AI bot has been gaining a lot of traction. It has the record of the fastest adoption for an app. It reached over a hundred million users in two months. All the hype about ChatGPT seems to be justified because of its advanced capabilities. It can respond to natural language questions and deliver concise responses that usually meet user expectations. It lays out responses to queries in a way comparable to getting answers after asking a knowledgeable person.

ChatGPT is not a simple chatbot like those on e-commerce websites. It is not limited to answering questions. It can produce well-written emails, business correspondence, project proposals, and marketing copies. It can also write articles, poems, stories, movie scripts, and other literary works. With these capabilities, it is good at collecting information and can present the information in various formats.

Social media

Social media is not passé. Some may argue that social media's threat to Google's dominance is already an old and failed story, but the truth is social media continues to challenge the conventions established by people's unchallenged reliance on search engines, Google in particular. This should not come as a surprise since social media has hundreds of millions of active users most of the time, making them good avenues for asking questions and opinions.

In 2022, Google Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan admitted that Tiktok was snatching a part of Google's search market share. Younger internet users prefer social media for most of their online activities, including searching for web information. Social media may not be the most reliable source of information, but it is the most engaging.

It would be a stretch to say that Google will be overwhelmed by the competition soon. However, it is facing formidable challenges. This may not bode well for Google, but it is good for internet users.