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The race to improve search engines - and their business models

March 27, 2006 |

Search engines will evolve in ways that spare users from having to be more explicit - search will begin to distinguish between expressed needs and implicit needs. Implicit needs are things like recommendations based on your purchase history.

Consumers these days swim in an alphabet soup of digital devices—PCs and PDAs, DVRs and iPods, MP3 and DVD players. And each device delivers a host of programming that is not easily enjoyed on the others. Try reading a blog on your iPod or watching The Sopranos on your Blackberry.

This diversity means that market power will continue to reside with firms that can help consumers find and organize content for their preferred device—in other words, search engines, according to panelists at the 2006 Wharton Technology Conference.

“Soon search will be included with TV programming,” predicted Bradley Horowitz, head of technology development for Yahoo’s search and marketplace group. “The channels of today are artifacts of the analog age. In the future, you will have billions of TV channels. There will be a Quentin Tarantino channel, so you can watch what he is watching. You will also have a friends-and-neighbors channel.” In addition, “there will be voice response in phones, so you can ask your phone a question.”

Of course, all of that searchable content will come at a price. And chances are that it will be paid in much the same way that programming is funded today—via advertising. “Ads work with search because you are at a decision point when you search for something,” said Matthew Glotzbach, director of project management for Google’s enterprise group. “You are just a click or two away from a transaction.”

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