A Vertical Search Engine Narrows to a Niche
September 4, 2008
Focus. Right before I was cut from one of the sports teams I tried to join I would hear, “Focus.” I think taking a book to football, wrestling, basketball, and wrestling practice was not something coaches expected or encouraged. Now SearchMedica, a search engine for medical professionals, is taking my coach’s screams of “Focus” to heart. The company announced on September 3, 2008, a practice management category. The news release on Yahoo said:
The new category connects medical professionals with the best practice management resources available on the Web, including the financial, legal and administrative resources needed to effectively manage a medical practice.
To me the Practice Management focus is a collection of content about the business of running a health practice. In 1981, ABI/INFORM had a category tag for this segment of business information. Now, the past has been rediscovered. The principal difference is that access to this vertical search engine is free to the user. ABI/INFORM and other commercial databases charge money, often big money to access their content.
If you want to know more about SearchMedica, navigate to www.searchmedica.com. The company could encourage a host of copy cats. Some would tackle the health field, but others would focus on categories of information for specific user communities. If SearchMedica continues to grow, it and other companies with fresh business models will sign the death sentence for certain commercial database companies.
The fate of traditional newspapers is becoming increasingly clear each day. Super star journalists are starting Web logs and organizing conferences. Editors are slashing their staff. Senior management teams are reorganizing to find economies such as smaller trim sizes, fewer editions, and less money for local and original reporting. My though is that companies like SearchMedica, if they get traction, will push commercial databases companies down the same ignominious slope. Maybe one of the financial sharpies at Dialog Information Services, Derwent, or Lexis Nexis will offer convincing data that success is in their hands, not the claws of Google or upstarts like SearchMedica. Chime in, please. I’m tired of Chrome.
Stephen Arnold, September 4, 2008
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