• by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, November 7, 2011

Eric Schmidt doesn’t think that Google has a monopoly on search.

Isn’t that cute?

In a written statement responding to a late September Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, the Executive Chairman of Google reminds legislators “history shows that popular technology if often supplanted by entirely new models.” Citing the rise of Facebook as a massive new source for directing eyeballs to major media and the success of vendors like Travelocity, Expedia and Amazon to acquire traffic without Google, he tries to position Google somehow as an equal player on the Internet.

Adorable, really.

But then he brings Siri into it. Schmidt argues that the new voice-activated assistant in the iPhone 4S is trying to be a Google killer” “Even in the few weeks since the hearing, Apple has launched an entirely new approach to search technology with Siri, its voice-activated search and task-completion service.” He then goes on to quote TechCrunch columnist MG Siegler’s recent piece suggesting that while in the short term Siri may actually increase the number of Google searches, in the long term it threatens to change the game. Unlike Google’s longstanding voice search, “Siri does point to something totally new,” and not just another layer on top of search, Sielger writes.

This is a humanizing of the technology that could be Apple’s entry into its own search service. “With it, Apple wants to change the information search and creation paradigm. It’s an evolution powered by mobile and a new, more powerful input: voice.” 

Well, the pieces are already falling together, but people’s use of the technology may need to catch up.  I am still working on getting Siri into my everyday routine, and it has not crept much into Web searches yet. Its initial convenience is as a keyboard shortcut for sending text messages, setting my alarm and making reminders. When I do use it to search for answers, the results suggest that for the short term the threat to Google is more indirect.

Of course, even the Google responses it renders are absent any advertising, so Google is getting no monetization here.

This amenable layer for search often gives me results for non-Google engine like early partners Yelp and Wolfram Alpha. One of the things a voice layer can do well in search is decide which vertical search engine is best able to render a complete answer. In other words, Siri is a gateway that could raise the prospects for a number of smaller and more precise vertical engines that most ordinary users wouldn’t think to use. And by fragmenting searches away from Google’s generalized engine, it then puts Apple in a position to create a confederacy of smaller engines that are beholden to Apple’s (or Siri’s) largesse.

Of course, Siri’s blindness to advertising on Google results applies to all other partners as well. Apple is going to need to find a way to help its search partners make worthwhile any grand confederacy that stands against Google.

Why try to kill Google when you can nibble at it?

Of course one way to find out is to ask Siri herself. “Siri, do you want to kill Google?”

Her response: “I try to be satisfied with what I have.”

Sounds like a non-denial denial to me.