Aug
Shortly after committing to write regular in-depth articles I’ve had to shift gears to take on a very important software development project. This project, which I can’t discuss right now, has been consuming me. So, for now, my blogging here will be limited and articles will mostly be of the “check this out” variety.
Check out “Rivals Strive to Topple Google in Quest for the ‘perfect Search’.” The article, not about federated search but certainly relevant to the industry, speaks to the Yahoo!/Microsoft marriage and to other threats to Google’s stranglehold on search. It reminisces on how far the search industry has some since Google’s inception in 1998. It philosophizes about how search has affected all of us, for better and worse. It ponders the future of search.
I particularly appreciated the wisdom in this paragraph about public search as the great equalizer:
But the real power of the internet and search has been to break down gate-keepers. Putting all the information in the world into a form where it can be accessed and searched by anyone has destroyed industries. Just ask journalists, who suddenly find that anyone can listen to a press conference, scan a court case or email a president. Or the music industry, which found the internet had allowed bands to get their music out to the world virtually free. Or publishing. The growth of Amazon and the Kindle electronic book reader is poised to allow anyone to write and sell a book online. It is a democratizing of power to the individual, fueled by the simple fact of allowing people to search for whatever they want without a middle man.
I highly recommend this article to anyone who’s curious about the future of search.
