Trends Report
by Jay Weintraub 

Search as an industry is always in the news. And these past few week's have been no exception. Rather than earnings or user base statistics, the most recent news has focused on feature developments and operational strategy. For this week’s Trends we provide a summary of some of the search engine activity with an emphasis on the release of new tools and features.

        While certainly not recent news, much of the current activity appears as though it can be traced back to the browser toolbar. Google was the first major engine to offer its users a browser toolbar, an add-on for Internet Explorer which takes up real estate just above the page being seen. Their toolbar offers users the ability to search within the page they are visiting as well as initiate a web search query without having to first go to the engine’s page.  Google also offers a default pop-up blocking tool along with other customizable features.

It did not take long before the other companies began offering toolbars of their own. Yahoo for example offers one with many of Google’s features with the addition of powerful anti-spyware protection. Both Google and Yahoo continue to improve upon their toolbars. Yahoo just released a version of its toolbar for the Firefox browser – a move Google will no doubt replicate in short order especially considering their recent hiring of a key Firefox developer. Google, being no slouch, just unveiled Version 3 of theirs which assists in spell checking and hyperlinks certain text such as an address upon which a click will display a map. In addition to Google and Yahoo, MSN and AOL for example have done a commendable job justifying the real estate the toolbar takes by making them truly value-adding utilities, and users seem to agree making toolbars among the most widely used search-based tools.

            The toolbar represents just one way for the major search sites to expand their reach and the role they play in users’ lives. Another such way involves an off the browser utility that has begun the process towards mainstream adoption, i.e. desktop search. Leading the way, Google again was the first to offer a desktop search application. Rather than simply searching the web, this tool which users downloaded makes it possible to extend the search experience to a wide range of information including web pages previously viewed, Outlook/Outlook Express emails, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, plain text, and chat logs. It is a powerful yet simple tool that also integrates into normal Google search such that desktop search results are offered to those on Google but have the application installed. MSN, Ask Jeeves, and Yahoo followed Google’s lead and now offer a desktop search utility of their own.

            Besides applications to extend their reach, search engine sites improve their product offering by making available information not directly related to content on a web page. One such example is Google Maps. In the most basic sense, Google Maps operates in the same market space such as Mapquest. In typical Google fashion though, they make more intuitive many of the mapping functions and enhance the visual display and map interface. Mapping is certainly not new as both MSN and Yahoo offer such services. Google knows the power of aesthetics and will no doubt integrate its services creatively.

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Another initiative that involves the expansion of information available is Google’s product that indexes television programs so that users can search for images and text from programs across a number of different television networks. This follows at the heels of one of their most ambitious undertakings, the digitization of thousands of out of print books. The Google Library project will cost upwards of $150 million with Google footing the bill to have employees on site at the Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, University of Michigan, and New York Public Library scanning each page of each book by hand. As University of California-Berkeley professor John Battelle, who runs the influential Searchblog, says, "The idea that the world's knowledge, as held through books and libraries, is opening up to all via a Web browser cannot be understated." The Google Library project, while not sexy for the masses, impacts the world in ways that will probably not become evident for many years.

            Google is not alone in its quest to attract users by offering searchable access to information not commonly found on web pages. Yahoo may not have undertaken any search expansion activities that quite parallel the Google Library project, but it has still kept pace and in some instances taken the lead in searchable information and tools.  Similar to Google Video, Yahoo this past week released a video search tool of its own. Yahoo Video Search has a component much in synch with its push to be an entertainment giant by making it easier to find trailers, movies, and other digital content in a format much like Google image search. Among the features available in the near future will be the ability to search every word spoken during television news broadcasts from the BBC, Sky News, and Bloomberg thanks to a partnership struck between Yahoo and TVEyes. Searches will examine closed captioning associated with the broadcast and allow surfers to then view the full-motion video of the search terms.

Besides video, Yahoo also released an innovative contextual search tool dubbed YQ that offers features not yet copied by the other engines.  YQ allows surfers to perform a search of related content without having to leave the page being visited. If a user wants more information about topics similar to what they already have found, the tool performs a search using the existing content rather than the surfer having to come up with the keywords on their own.  Something to note - this same technology would also allow Yahoo to roll out a Google AdSense like product as it could take a page and automatically distill relevant keywords. Conversely it implies Google could release a similar product to YQ without significant effort.

All told, the search world is not an easy business to be in. Now more than ever the major engines directly target each other for their share of the billion plus dollar search industry. Each engine continues to offer new services that the other engines copy and attempt to improve upon. For the surfer this means an increasing array of free products and tools, but for those at the companies, it means an ultimately less desirable market in which to operate. We will see more enhancements, but a fundamental shift is bound to happen as those in the space will only invite a shift in operations by continuing to commoditize search.

Jay Weintraub