Beyond Search Evolution Underway
March 1, 2017
Today we are introducing changes to Beyond Search. We are approaching 10 years of daily publication and in that time enterprise search and content processing has undergone a significant change. Enterprise search is no longer exciting. In fact, a number of companies have pivoted to different services. Search has become for many a utility at best or a ho-hum solution. Web search has degraded to the lowest common denominator of generating revenue via ads. The handful of “objective” Web search systems walk a perilous cliff edge between paying their bills and providing an index to a subset of publicly accessible content. We will continue to cover important items in Beyond Search, but we are shifting our focus to products and services related to voice-centric information access.
The Beyond Alexa blog is in its formative stages. We have started to flow content into this new service. It will include Augmentext-type stories (for information follow the link), special articles, short videos on voice related topics, and inclusions (a fancy word for sponsored content or in my lingo, ads with information value). The idea is that Alexa has become an interesting product niche, but the impact of voice-related information access is now changing rapidly. Frankly it is more dynamic than the decades old keyword search business.
You can view the alpha version of Beyond Alexa at this link. As we ramp up the service, we will have other announcements about the service. We passed the 15,000 article milestone in Beyond Search last year. Since early 2008, we have tracked the keyword centric approach to finding and making sense of information. Our changing focus reflects the fact that I wrote about years ago in Searcher Magazine. Keyword search linked to a keyboard, if not dead, was headed for marginalization.
That’s why we want to explore “beyond” Alexa, Amazon’s odd little voice activated box which does a bang up job of providing the temperature and almost friction free impulse shopping. We think there’s more “beyond” Alexa. We want to explore the new world of ubiquitous and Teflon-slick information access.
Stephen E Arnold, March 1, 2017
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One Response to “Beyond Search Evolution Underway”
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