The Future of Search Options

[bragadocchio]

Time magazine takes a look at the future of search engines, and while some of the usual suspects like Google and Yahoo! are mentioned, the article points out some other interesting resources. Unfortunately, it doesn't link to any of them. So, I have.

Here's the article:

On the Frontier of Search

Here are some of the different types of searches that it mentions:

Audio and Video search: Singingfish

Futuristic image search - which can recognize people's faces: Viisage

Mobile search: 4info

Take a picture with your mobile phone, and find out more about the object in your photo: Mobot

Answer searches: KnowItAll and Nervana

Audio search: Blinkx.TV

Spoken word search: Nexidia

Personalized search: Findory

[DCrx]

Interesting. I just did a post on alternative intellectual property search on my site.

Previously I did something on MeaningMaster contextual search. MeaningMaster would be one of the first information-based tools, understanding the underlying concepts, not just the keyword match.

[MarkHutch]

Just like television, in the future search will get more specialized. Growing up we had three TV networks. Now I have hundreds on my cable system. I can even see a search engine in the future that will point you to a specialized search engine for your needs. Maybe that search engine will be the next Google!

[projectphp]

It is all marketing now. If small verticles can convince people they are more useful than general search engines, they will get somewhere. If not, they get nowhere.

I reckon people are like me: lazy. I don't really want the best answer, I just want the fewest places to use to get a pretty good answer. If I needed 30 search engines to find things, I wouldn't remember them all nnor be bothered. One is enough, and two and three pushing the limits of what my brain can deal with.

IMHO, interlinking niche searches, like how Yahoo and Google integrate results, is better than a niche search location, as it cuts down on the number of plcaes one needs to go, the true convenience of an SE.

That said, just like how major department stores have every product type, but not the very best range of any one thing, if verticles can prove they are better in areas that matter to specific groups (image search for web developers, hotel search for travellers etc), they can capture that niche market. They won't ever have a massive share, but they will have a very valuable share that may be more profitable.

And that already happens. Job search engines, travel and hotel search engines and shopping and auction search engines are all existing, niche verticals that do extremely well.

Thing is, there isn't a need for additional crawler based SEs anymore, and the growth in verticals will be much more practical, i.e. places where you can actually buy something, rather than lists of plcaes where you can search and buy something. There are so many markets that remain untapped online, and the obsession with finding JAGSE (just another general search engine) is a closed book.

[bwelford]

I agree with you, projectphp, that we have enough general-purpose search engines and that very specific vertical search engines may find their niches. However as another thread here points out, it's easy to be Dissatisfied with Google results.

I don't think the major search engines have thought enough about what the customer really wants and how they can best achieve it using any of the majors. That 'Dissatisfied' thread shows one puny attempt to get some interaction going with the customer. The Teoma engine attempts more in showing clusters as a way of getting into the data in a more meaningful way. That's about it.

I think it's interesting that they're called search engines. To use one of those is like travelling by locomotive. Of course we don't do that, we travel by train. ... and what a satisfying experience that can be. Unless the major engines can turn themselves into trains, I see the verticals grabbing a bigger and bigger share of the 'search for information' market.

[bragadocchio]

I just did a post on alternative intellectual property search on my site.

Those were interesting. Of course, I performed a search for "search engine" in the first of those in keeping with this thread. Interesting description of France telecom there.

The news.com article you pointed to at it defines the niche audience that it was developed for very well. I think that is something to keep in mind - that some of these searches aren't just focusing on smaller niches withing the scope of which they are searching, but also they are possibly aimed at s amller audiences than a general all purpose search engine.

I think MarkHutch (welcome to the forums, Mark) may be right about a search engine that either points you to another, or somehow intergrates searches from a number of other search engines.

AS for the use of the term "dissatisfied" in Google results, I think that it was a really bad idea.I imagine people associating the word "dissatisfied" with their search results - and that's not an association that I think they want people to draw.

But maybe these specialized searches are a little like using the right tool for the job when you have a very specific type of search to perform, and you just aren't satisfied with the results from a Google or Yahoo!

[Ruud]

Search will ultimately be as good as having 1,000 human experts who know your tastes scanning billions of documents within a split second

See, that worries me. "Personalized" search.

I'm somewhat aware of my tastes but am always pleasantly surprised when I discover a new one. If my search results are "personalized", how do I discover new ones?

My family and friends know me intimately, and I can assure you that based on certain gifts or "really, you should read this, you'll like it!" recommendations, not even they know my tastes the way I do (heck, at times not even I do!).

Whenever I get presented a Google SERP and I notice I'm signed into some Google account, I sign out to get the "normal" SERP. No human "expert" and certainly no automated one is able to accurately know what I want to see when. Also; I don't want to be limited.

That's from a personal standpoint.

From an SEO standpoint I have to wonder what the future of SEO looks like in a world of "personalized" search. Being in the top results on page 1 for "personalized profile 98127" and "personalized profile 178782" will be very hard. So will it be more SEM than SEO?

Do we have to divide the "market" into "consumer types", with certain expected "personalized" profiles, so we can be #1 to them?

[travis]

Here is one I found trawling my sites lately.

An individual people search.

http://www.zoominfo.com/

Given the volume of trawling it is doing, it may certainly be useful to recruiters down the track.