Email or Search: Which Wins the Gold
August 18, 2008
My son (Erik Arnold) runs a nifty services firm called Adhere Solutions. He’s hooked up with Google, and he views the world through Googley eyes. I (Stephen Arnold) run the addled goose outfit ArnoldIT. Google does not know I exist, and if Googzilla did, the Mountain View giant would make a duvet from my tail feathers.
The setting. We’re sitting in a cafeteria. The subject turns to which is the killer application for today’s 20 something. Is it email (the Brett Favre of online) or is it search (the Michael Phelps of cloud services). My son and I play this argument MP3 file frequently, and our wives have set down specific rules for these talks. First, we have to be by ourselves. Two, we have to knock off the debate after 30 minutes or so. Erik and I can extend analytic discussions of digital theory over years, and we have marching orders to knock that off.
Here’s the argument. Erik asserts that search is the new killer app. I agree, but I tell him I want to make a case for email as long as I can extend it to SMS and newer services under the category Twitterish. He agrees.
My Argument: Messaging
Messaging is communications. Search is finding and discovering. Therefore, the need to communicate is higher on the digital needs scale than simple finding. With services that allow me to call, text, create mini blogs, and broadcast brief Tweets, I am outputting and receiving messages that are known to be:
- Important. I don’t text a client to tell her what I had for lunch is the wonderful cafeteria. Grilled cheese as it turns out. Important to me, but to no one else. I send important messages that have an instrumentality.
- Timely. I control the time delivery, matching urgency with medium. I sent a fax last week. What a hassle, but the message warranted a fungible copy, not urgent delivery. I want to dial in the “time” function, not leave it to chance or to some other authority.
- Content rich. I write baloney, but I wouldn’t write baloney unless it was important to me and to the recipient of one of my messages, articles, or 350 page studies.
In conclusion, messaging–particularly electronically implemented messaging–is the killer app. Search is useful, just not one to one, one to many, many to one, or many to many communications. By definition, search is not timely, of uncertain importance, and often not content rich due to format, editorial policy or the vapidity of the data.
My Son’s Argument
Messaging is not necessarily digital. Though crucial, when we talk about an online killer app, it’s not email. The killer app must deliver a function that we can’t duplicate in the analogue world. For that reason search is the killer application for the 21st century. Here’s why:
- The first step in work. A professional, truck driver, or nurse can’t perform work unless information can be accessed electronically. Finding, accessing, and analyzing digital information is the pre requisite to performing most tasks today. Without search, little work can be done in some first world organizations.
- Reliability. Email, even Twitter type messages and voice calls, often don’t reach the recipient. An email may never arrive. Communications don’t work very well in some setting. As a result, the professional who can’t connect must have a way to obtain sufficient information to perform a task or a work function. Search is that reliable function.
- Anywhere, anytime information. The notion of cloud based search and information access eliminates some of the problems posed by time zones, telework, and the gypsy-like work style of many people today. Pervasive, ubiquitous search and information access are available as long as one has an Internet connection.
In conclusion, search is the killer app because it meets the test of a new, digital service. Work cannot take place unless one can locate the phone number, email address, or information needed to perform a job. Search takes many forms and can complement many other functions, including email. Therefore, search, by definition, is an umbrella service.
Source: http://www.butthan.net/images/dryuree_photo_gallery_files/32_COPY.JPG
The Winner
I ate my grilled cheese. Erik ate his trail mix. We had five minutes left in our self imposed deadline for this type of Arnold extreme cage fighting. If you have been around us when we are doing AECF battles, you know what happens next. We merged our arguments.
Here’s the Erik and Stephen Arnold “official” position on the smackdown between Email and search.
First, search is the killer app. It is an umbrella function that embraces email. If you can’t locate an email address, you can’t email. Therefore, search–whether browsing an address book or paging through an inbox–doesn’t work unless you find the address, the content, or some other item of information warranting communication.
Second, search takes many forms. Search involves Endeca-style point-and-click interfaces, Vivisimo folders with cluster of results, Dialog style command line Boolean queries, and Sergey Brin’s invention for conducting a voice search via a mobile phone. This list does not exhaust the many varieties of search. Once a form is identified, it becomes obvious that search is a meta function, not a sub task.
Third, most professionals can’t do work without access to digital information.
Are we correct? In a 30-minute Socratic dialogue, I doubt it. He may chose to disagree, but we do know that if you can’t find what you’re looking for, your goose is cooked. (My logo, not Adhere’s). With whom do you agree? With whom do you disagree? Let me know via the comments section to this Web log.
Stephen Arnold, August 18, 2008
Comments
3 Responses to “Email or Search: Which Wins the Gold”
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
[…] or Search: Which wins the gold http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/2008/08/18/email-or-search-which-wins-the-gold/ Share and […]
One hole in the argument: search can be done, ableit not as efficiently, in the analog world. The greatest “search engine” prior to Angie’s list or Craig’s List–the Yellow Pages. And let’s not forget indexes and TOC’s. Methodology does not dismiss capability.
People can work without access digital information–the task of a welder is to weld, the task of the truck driver is to drive. Using digital content to manage the tasks does not undermine the task, it just increases efficiency.
The truce is well conceived. Search engines make messaging easier and search does take all forms but without usable content what’s the point?
Answer Maven,
I agree. But what happens when 80 percent of the people cannot read and if they do read, prefer illustrated novels, systems that tell people what is needed, and offer eye candy, not content? Answer: entropy.
Stephen Arnold, August 20, 2008