CIL Blog -- Chris Sherman Keynote

I always try to get to the sessions early at CiL, so I can get a good seat. Well, I mean a seat near the stage and screen that I can hear; I don't mean a seat that's comfortable. I don't know what it is about those chairs but if I sit for more than 15 minutes I feel like I'm getting a railroad spike in the spine. Things that work at least somewhat: shifting around a lot, standing up whenever possible, and as a last resort sitting on your bookbag.

Tom Hogan launched the CiL festivities with a few words, both about the number of attendees (over 2,350 not including people who sign up at the conference) and the range (from 49 states (missing Mississippi) and 17 countries.) It felt full -- most of the sessions I've been to so far were jam-packed.

Then it was time for the keynote by Chris Sherman. Chris has just flown back from China and boy are his arms tired. Actually his keynote session was an overview of what's going on in the search engine world. One phrase that he used that really stuck with me is that it feels like 1995. He's got that right. There was a time in 2002-2003 where things were really dragging; there was no funding money around and it seemed like companies were sticking with the safe stuff. Now there's funding money around, advertising revenues are shooting up, and there are lots and lots of search companies doing lots and lots of interesting things. It's a good time to be doing ResearchBuzz.

However, Chris spent the majority of his keynote talking about what was going on with the majors -- Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask. (If I remember correctly last year at his keynote Google, Yahoo, and MSN were considered majors and Ask was kinda "eeeeeh." Now Ask is definitely a major.) There was plenty to talk about just with those four, and Chris only had 45 minutes. However I was a little sad that other search engines didn't also get some time in the spotlight. Vivisimo, Gigablast, Clusty, Exalead (EXALEAD! Cripes. if I had a dime for every time I've heard the name "Exalead" at this conference, I could take a limo home) -- these are all good search engines, and they're getting overshadowed by the majors.

(I sat down with Paula Hane and Chris after his keynote for a little while, and Chris said he felt there wasn't room for another major search engine -- that they were locked in. I'm not sure I agree with that, but I absolutely agree with one of his next assertions, that vertical search engines are a major market in which there is a lot of activity and a lot of innovation.)

The other major part of Chris' keynote was his discussion of going to China to do a search engine conference. According to Chris, there are 110 million Internet users in China, which is second only to the US. Also according to Chris, the number of Internet users in China were expected to overcome the number of users in the US in the next 18-24 months. Wow! Chris mentioned that the Chinese government was being far more permissive about the Internet than the western world might expect. Furthermore, he asked many Chinese whether they would prefer to have censored versions of Yahoo, Google, etc. -- or not to have them at all. The answer, overwhelmingly, was not to have censored versions at all. And apparently many Chinese know how to use proxies to get to uncensored versions of the search engines anyway.

Compared to last year, Chris' overview seemed both much more narrow -- emphasis placed on The Big Four, not really other search engines mentioned. On the other hand it seemed much broader -- 110 MILLION people, going to be the largest Internet audience in the world with a couple of years, MAN there's a lot going on in China. What's next in 2007, Chris? A whole keynote about vertical search engines? Or maybe instead of verts it'll be "Asia on the Internet"? Whatever it is it'll be worth listening to.

Posted to Internet-Technology