This article provides 4 predictions of where search is headed and how it will add to the user’s search experience.

  1. Corporate Search

Generally speaking it is easier for people to find information on the web than it is on their own corporate intranet. Finding the right documents and information quickly and without having to trawl through various directories and database is a must. We will continue to see companies battle it out in the corporate sector. Not surprisingly, Google, have an enterprise solution where a Google-designed server is simply plugged into the intranet and goes to work indexing documents. Two industry heavyweights, IBM and Yahoo! have teamed up to introduce OmniFind, a software-based enterprise search solution to compete in the corporate market.

  1. Location, Location, Location

With the rise of mobile phones, wireless hotspots and GPS, users will demand location-based search. Although we are in a globalised economy, people are yearning for that sense of local community. Look out for the major search engines to push “local search” (Eg. Yahoo! Local). Also watch out for mobile enabled search with the capacity of searching local businesses and even “finding a friend” in a crowd.

Sensis.com.au claims to enhance their search by integrating their Yellowpages, Whitepages, CitySearch and TradingPost assets to serve up local results. Businesses will be (and already have) begun to take a localized approach to advertising, rather than a “shot gun” approach characterized in the early days of online advertising.

  1. Business Linkages

Have you ever tried to find a business partner via the web? Currently, search engines allow you to find companies, but not the right person in that organization to contact. This is where search and social networking will merge. So in the future, we will see a lot more business linkages between key decision makers within companies. A great example is LinkedIn, where you can search through and get introduced to a range of professionals from around the world. It’s not one big marketplace, where anyone and connect to everyone. You still will need to use your online network to establish contacts, just like you would in the physical world, to facilitate business connections.

  1. Video and Podcast search

With the emergence of multiple forms of media out in the web, consumers will demand easier search of non-text based information. There are search engines that specialize in video and podcasts but they only search the “meta-data” (that is, information, tags and categories that accompany the media). Future research will focus on the search of the actual content of the media, by analyzing the media stream, extracting relevant information and keywords, index it and make it searchable. If this is achieved, this will help both the producers and consumers of content to connect to one another.

Final Thought

Humans have and always will need information. We will always place a premium on finding it. But let us not confuse information with knowledge, nor wisdom for that matter. Knowledge and wisdom will continue to remain the defining human advantage over machine. So be it.

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