The words “search engine” have become virtually synonymous with Google and maybe even Yahoo! and Microsoft. These Web leviathans have dominated the search engine scene and it is difficult to imagine it any other way. But is there a revolution that will usurp these three kings of their thrones?
In all reality, probably not any time in the foreseeable future. However, there are many who are looking to upstarts as the trailblazers in the innovation of the search engine realm.
There has been a surge in investments into search businesses. Last year about $263 million of U.S. venture capital was granted to 47 search engine groups, according to researcher Dow Jones VentureOne. This gush of capital flowing into the search engine world seems to indicate that there is a potentially big opportunity for change on the horizon.
Ron Conway, one of the earliest investors in Google, is betting heavily on this possibility. “Search is in its infancy today. It’s at 10% of its potential, maybe,” he said.
What will this search paradigm shift look like? The evolution of the television industry is a good example to use here. It used to be ruled by three big networks, but is not pervaded with countless cable channels, each of which specializes on specific topics that include sports to home decoration. Believers in this potential search engine shift contend that consumers are always looking for targeted information on the Web, which big search engines like Google cannot always offer.
This is where the recent increase in the popularity of more social search sites comes into play. Numerous startups are trying to take advantage of this idea of human preferences fused with complex computer algorithms in order to find more relevant results and information for the user. Instead of page ranks and link popularity, these fledgling search sites will look to use human preferences, responses, and knowledge in order to find the most helpful and targeted results.
A search world where a search engine would exist for every major subject is not exactly the most feasible notion, but it is at the very least an interesting one. As more startups push this idea of more targeted search services, count on the big fish swallowing them up. MSN, Yahoo!, and AOL have all acquired search-related startups in the past two months alone, and this trend will most likely continue.
Whatever the case may be, the search game will be more competitive and innovative in the coming months and years, and regardless of who is acquired, which startups fail, and which startups become big players, the everyday user will undoubtedly come out the winner.
Source:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_08/b3972095.htm?chan=tc
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