Search is ripe for Innovation

In the recent financial analyst meeting Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer talked about something closer to my heart “Innovation”. In the past I have posted few blogs on Innovation, the Microsoft style. But this one is different from all of them because, the possibilities Steve highlighted sounded like a sci-fi movie.

 

“Search is ripe for innovation. It has not been the most innovative category in the world. I mean, think back, what did search look like five years ago, 10 blue links on the left, some ads on the right, and maybe some ads on the top. What does it look like now, 10 blue links on the left, some ads on the right, and maybe something on the top. It is ripe for innovation. If you say to yourself, five years from now, 10 years from now will search be as humdrum, hard, 50 percent of searches don't actually lead to an answer to somebody's problem, is this an area that's ripe for innovation, in user experience, natural language, semantic understanding, consumer experience? The business model hasn't been touched”

here is what I would say...

Search is really ripe for innovation: Over the years, though the noise has been growing, I have NOT seen any breakthrough innovations in search as an end user.

50% Searches do not lead to an answer to a problem: This is true as the search engines do the ranking but do not take care of the context which could be different for each user.

Whatever, few more things that made sense to me as a technology tracker.

Search User Experience to Query needs innovation: There is hardly any change in the way we search for information has changed other than few fancy Browser Add In’s. When will search engines understand my 8 year old son’s query? When do they understand natural language queries?

Searching for information needs innovation: Today we have to go to multiple places to search for what one needs – For Text, for Pictures, for videos, for news, for location and so on. When will users be able to see all the results in a contextual sense in one single interface?

Search Result Viewing needs innovation: It is this simple list at all times when it comes to seeing search results. When will we be able to see search results in a faceted browsing experience?

Searching itself needs innovation: Today, searching means searching for text based information. As the web has grown from simple text based documents to pictures and now to videos, when do we get to see searching on the photos and videos? Then move on to friends, locations, directions, places of interest etc?

Search Advertising needs innovation: Did you ever get what you wanted in the advertising relevance? Since there is no scope for search context, today’s technology never will be able deliver what we need.

Search History needs innovation: Search is about looking for some information. But what happens once we get the information we need? Do you know what you have searched for in the past? Where do you park all your search results? Bookmark? That’s an old way of doing things. When do we have a seamless way of marking all the answers to our search queries so that I do not have to search from the scratch all over again?

Search needs innovation to integrate to your other information sources: When do we see search picking up context from location, time, day, calendar, mood etc? Enough interesting scenarios emerge when you put all of them together…

Devices integration with search needs innovation: As we move from desktop computing to mobile computing, with mobile computing power increasing each month, with mobile computers getting 3G bandwidth, with mobile computing getting global positioning system chips integrated, with mobile computing devices having built-in wireless network adaptors,  where do you see search going?

Searching by talking and listening for results, search engine knowing your exact position and connecting your next appointment to give you driving directions? Search engine  knowing that its lunch time and showing restaurants nearby for the meeting? Search suggesting a particular restaurant and menu based on your taste buds and the occasion and the person you are going to meet?

Search needs business model innovation: one of the points that Steve mentions is that paying back some revenue generated to the end users. That’s an innovative piece on the business model.

Search needs Content Rating Innovation: we have almost many of the web sites and their content rated. But when do we see search results taking into consideration that my 8 year old son is using the search and show only rated content for him?

Search needs innovation on content authenticity: Search just throws out results from the index. It is the responsibility of the user to validate that the content from authentic source. When do we get to see authenticity ratings for the content result that we get?

Today every search player has some pieces of Jigsaw puzzle. Only time will tell when we get to see the full picture…

Search is indeed ripe for Innovation...