Hundred Dollar SEO

photo by: baboon™

The withdrawal of Microsoft’s offer for Yahoo! will surely spark a quite a bit more content on what is the future of search. I can’t help wondering whatever happen to Search 2.0?

Way back in 2006 there seemed to be a serious play being made in alternative search engines. Almost 2 years later and still no real movement. Traditional search engines (Yahoo, Google, MSN) are firmly entrenched in the Web 1.0 top down informational structure. They, a company, tell you what is the best answer for your query. For some reason we accept this, we don’t seem to have backed any new search technologies. The mainstream web users are becoming continually more enamored with user-generated and personally tailored content. But, will that desire ever bleed into Search? I don’t think so.

I think many people are willing to accept Google, Yahoo, and Live is because they are easy and people don’t know any better. People are searching because they don’t already know the answer to their question. Most of the Search 2.0 concepts rely on user interaction or custom construction. It is hard to realistically run a vertical engine without major advertising to let people know in advance that they want your service. It is hard to get realistic user data without having many users.

There will probably always be the need for traditional information retrieval, because people don’t know what they are looking for. The likelihood of “a whole new search” is low, but it is needed, as the web using population grows there are going to be a larger number in the dissatisfied users base, to the point that a clear opportunity will arise. I expect that the winner will be someone who creates a scheme that uncouples user knowledge from socialization.

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