July 13, 2005
Want a glimpse into the search future? Google Labs and Yahoo Next
Want to see what's new on the (commercial) search horizon? Try the not-quite-ready-for-prime-time search offerings of the major engines, like Google Labs and Yahoo Next.
One tip: If you're like me and you want to try to get a glimpse of trends, try to look for similarities between the offerings of these two hot competitors. Right now I'm seeing pointers to a differentiation of two types of Internet -- one for "serious" research-oriented questions (although I'm curious to see how either of these behemoths defines "research") and another for shopping.
We already see some of that differentiation with Google Scholar, Google Print, Yahoo Mindset and Yahoo Subscriptions. Each of these alleged "testbeds" offer searchers access to more highly differentiated content than would be available in straight-up Google or Yahoo.
Why separate research and shopping, and what will this do for engine revenues? These new spinoffs offer a great untapped market for paid consumer-level content, as well as context-sensitive ads. The big engines are clearly betting that serious searchers are ready to pay, if only to satisfy their need for quality information that they can't find in a sea of search engine spam.
By separating research (i.e. pay-per-view, with a few free tidbits thrown in, like content from .edu sites) from shopping (i.e. everything else), the search engines can return to more traditional relevancy algorithms. Remember relevancy conditions like link analysis, proximity of terms, frequency of term occurance, and currency of information? In an shopping-free engine, those conditions can be re-introduced, leaving the optimizers to focus their beat-the-engine techniques on the shopping side of search.
June 16, 2005
Premium Consumer Content is Back -- Brought to You By The Search Engines
Although several premium-content providers have tried and failed over the years (think about Northern Light), the second wave of consumer-level paid content seems to have arrived. What's more, this one may be a winner, if only because the companies already are already heavily trafficked destination sites for free content. Google Scholar and Google Print kicked it off late last year with behind-the-password indexes to full text content from journal and book publishers. Now Yahoo! has entered the fray in its own unique way -- this time with Yahoo! Subscriptions. It's simple, consumer-friendly (enables searching of Consumer Reports, Wall Street Journal and other popular publications) to differentiate it (at least for now) from Google's more scholastic ambitions. For the publishers, what could be better than a guarantee that popular search engines will point directly to their paid content, rather than requiring it to compete with all the other content in the free index?
February 16, 2005
"Ready to Know" Consumers Want Instant Information
A Search Portfolio staff member turned me on to a wonderful trend-spotting web site, Trendwatching.com. In the January 2005 newsletter, Trendwatching.com gave voice to "ready-to-know" -- a trend that will undoubtedly affect everyone serving the information needs of consumers. From the newsletter:
"Ready-to-know" refers to "demanding consumers [who] are in a constant 'Ready To Go, READY-TO-KNOW' state of mind, expecting any information deemed relevant to be available instantly, at their own terms. The latter is crucial: we're talking pull here, not push. Expect to see more click-and-know, more point-and-know, more text-and-know, more touch-and-know and more snap-and-know than ever before."
You can read the entire newsletter at http://www.trendwatching.com -- the READY-TO-KNOW trend has its own little page at http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/READY-TO-KNOW.htm
January 04, 2005
An Internet Analyst's Top Trends for 2005
I follow Safa Rashtchy's analysis of Internet business and company trends through his newsletter, the Silk Road Weekly. I like the way Rashtchy gives serious searchers a very different perspective on the search industry, one based on very thorough business research and discussions with the principals of the major search properties. I pay close attention to his ideas.
In 2005, Rashtchy predicts that the web will move ".... more toward content consumption... Consumer spending on the web will increase significantly, upward of 30% possibly... Desktop search will become a common application in the offices but it is difficult to say who will have the largest market share, although Google and MSN have the best chances. ... Overall, we expect Yahoo will move more toward content aggregation and even content creation, while MSN will position itself to be more of an application for higher end users, and Google will focus on search, speed, and delivery."
The full text of Rashtchy's comments is available at http://www.piperjaffray.com/popup.aspx?id=917