Search and Pinpointing the Obvious: Where Is My Nose?
March 28, 2011
After decades of ignoring enterprise, Web search, desktop search, and any other type of search, revelation. In “O’Brien: Search Undergoing Biggest Disruption Since the Dawn of Google,” I learned the obvious. One example of finding one’s nose is clear in this snippet:
During a recent conversation, Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners listed search as one of four technologies ripe for disruption in the next decade. “We’re seeing the peaking and declining of indexed search,” he said. Indexed search is the way most of us think about search. We sit down at a computer, type some key words into a box, and are presented with a series of links to other websites. Google did a vastly superior job of organizing this information on the Web.
In the materials I have made available on ArnoldIT.com, I have explained several facets of nose finding as it relates to the different flavors of search:
First, search has no single definition. As a result, no one, including those who have just located his or her nose, defines specially a particular type of search and retrieval. No surprise then that few agree on what findability means.
Second, one of the realities of search is that an individual user is generally indifferent to technology, interface,, ads, and nose finders say. The focus is on solving a problem; for example, getting information the user wants.
Third, search—regardless of technology or need—is one of those tough technical fields where teenagers find new ways to solve very tough problems. Once one new vendor revolutionizes search, the stage is set for another wave of innovation. So, “Hello, Facebook.”
Bottom line: search is doomed to be permanently disruptive. We are not talking Facebook, we are talking Hegel.
Stephen E Arnold, March 27, 2010
Freebie
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
