Computers in Libraries -- Search Engine Update

Let me preface this writeup by saying I'm a big Chris Sherman fan. We've known each other virtually for years, and it was a treat to meet him last year. And I always like to attend his sessions and hear his insights about what's going on in the big search engines.

Remember all this when I disagree with him later in this writeup. :->

Chris covered what he considered to be the big four in online searching: Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask Jeeves. (As he noted in his speech, Ask Jeeves lags far behind the top three, but has a very loyal set of users, and after Ask Jeeves nobody even comes close to the top search engines. He compared Ask Jeeves to Apple in the fact that it has a small market share but very loyal users.)

Chris covered what seem to be new trends in search engines, including local search. He also noted that the search engine wars are back (woo!) and encouraged listeners to keep an eye on the top four search engines.

I disagree with him -- well, I agree with him but I would add something. As Chris said, Google is an advertising company at this point. Some crazy percent of their revenue (94%?) comes from advertising.

And that's fine. It's hard for an enterprise to exist unless it makes money. But I would add along with Chris' suggestion to follow the big four to keep your radar open for other search engine companies -- the smaller companies and individuals who are either experimenting with ideas or want to try to promote their own ideas of search. Google as a company came out of nowhere. I am not convinced that the Internet search market is so mature that the next big search engine couldn't also come out of nowhere.

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