Social networks are becoming increasingly popular…many of which are not indexed by search. Lot’s and lots of new activity happening on the web that either isn’t showing up or has lost context in Google.
| Alexa Global Internet Traffic Rankings | |
| 2005 | 2007 |
| yahoo.com | yahoo.com |
| msn.com | google.com |
| google.com | Live.com |
| ebay.com | youtube.com |
| amazon.com | msn.com |
| microsoft.com | myspace.com |
| myspace.com | facebook.com |
| google.co.uk | wikipedia.org |
| aol.com | hi5.com |
| go.com | orkut.com |
I had a conversation with a colleague regarding the emphasis of search.. in this instance it was regarding research of Enterprise 2.0 solutions, which had a strong requirement on “Search”. I admit finding things on my company’s intranet is tough and a better search function would be cool. But I wonder if we have already moved beyond that?
Not sure about the rest of you but the best stuff I find on the web comes to me. I do use Google a lot but I use it less and less. The relevant stuff comes in a Twitter or shows up on my Facebook home page or even is sent to me in email. Imagine that kind of functionality in the enterprise. I’d be able to see the latest governance document from Web Marketing, the latest conversation between Privacy, PR and Legal on transparency, or the most recommended video assets from my colleagues. All that stuff would be at my finger tips and little search needed.
So my question is, are we starting to see the decline and possibly obsolescence of search as we know it? By establishing better collaboration tools and linking that content with social networks I can tune into what is relevant to me much easier and it clears up a big part of what I would typically used search for.
The NYTimes has picked up on this per political stories, claiming that people are using traditional media less and less to get their info, but instead using social tools to get their news and pass it on. And for full disclosure I did not search for this post it was shared with me via a comment in company blog post.
Now I can’t say Search is going away…admittedly there is the occasional argument with my wife on how old celebrity actually is. And then Google on my iPhone comes to the rescue. Possibly that is overly stated, but I do believe the use of Search as we know it is declining.
So as I look at this chart and my own behavior I’m seeing an evolution toward a greater dependence on social tools and less dependency on Search. I postulate that either Search becomes less relevant or Search will change.
My bet is on the latter. There’s evidence Google is all over this. Open Social will give them hooks to content across multiple social networks. Google indeed may be that thread stitching together all content between you and your friends across the web.
I disagree. Search is NEVER going to go away. In fact, with all of these new networks and connections and ability to create new media (text, images, video, audio, etc.), search is going to become even MORE important. How else are you going to be able to find what you want in the huge pile of communication in front of you?
My social networks are very well developed. I live in them, more hours per day than not. But I still search dozens of times day. One of the most important features of my chosen email system (Gmail) is that I can search through all of my messages. This lets me not waste time on worrying about how to organize and story and archive all of my messages so I can find them later – powerful search makes it unnecessary. Same with desktop search – why file and organize when you can just search?
Hey Josh, thanks for finding my site and posting your comments. I’m honored to have your comment here. Also let me clarify what I mean by “Search”. I’m really referring to sites whose main function is to search the web for content, not search as a tool in applications and websites.
And even with Search sites I don’t think these will go away either. I think they will have to adapt to how content is now finding us. Sites like Google, Yahoo and MSN may become sets of tools for aggregation of content based on your affinity to the content, while Search as we know it, will be secondary.
A lot of supposition on my part. Time will tell.