Where is the future of the search engine?

I have written a "future of social networks" and are ready to yy the future of search today. (Note: Many of the links given in this article require special methods to be accessible, please resolve yourself)

I think there are two trends in the search for the future: personalization, socialization.

From the day Google was born, Google's search has not changed in nature, it is still: a big search box, you knock in a few words, Google gives some relevant pages.

Now the question is:

1. Why do everyone search for the same results? What different people expect from the same keyword?

2. Web2.0 has already gone deep into the internet, and Facebook-led social networking has set off a new wave of change, but why hasn't the search changed a bit? Why isn't there an integration of social elements? Why today's search results are still centered on cold algorithms rather than user-centric.

A few days ago, there were so many complaints about the "spam" in Google's search results that Google recently responded: Hide sites you don't want to see. The Google official blog also points out: from Searchwikii to stars in search, to location Settings,google has done a lot to make search results more personalized.

Searchwiki allows users to reorder search results, to increase the deletion of search results, and to add comments. It has both search and wiki features, so it's called Searchwiki. Searchwiki is launched at the end of 08, the effect is not good, not many people.

"Add star to search results" This service was launched in March 10, you can give you the search results of the favorite items add star, when you search the entry again, this item will be special display. At the same time, Asterisking's entries will be synchronized to your Google Bookmarket. This service is not much of a response.

The "Set your location" service allows Google to provide you with the best search results you can find in your location, such as: When you search for pizza, Google gives you a map of the pizza store near you. This service is still useful and does not require too much user action.

In fact, Google has already introduced personalized factors into the search, but it silently running in the "backstage", ordinary users will not be aware of. Google will provide "personalized" search results based on your search history (which, of course, involves privacy issues, and you can refuse to Google to collect your search history). But according to my experience of use, the effect is not obvious.

Now let's talk about the "socialization" of search.

Obviously Google is very concerned about the "social search" issue, in October 2009 Google proposed Google social search, and then further pointed out that Google to make search more social.

This page tells you how much Google knows about you in terms of social.

Google relies heavily on the following three areas for social search:

1. Google Contacts, Google Reader, Buzz, Google profile, and Gamil who have direct contact with you.

2. Network services that are tied to your Google account and Google profile. For example, if you add your Twitter account to Google profile, Google knows your friends and information on Twitter. Flickr,friendfeed and other network services like this

3. Through the "indirect link" above, article two. "Indirect contact" is "contact", or "friend of friends."

Clearly, in terms of socialization, Facebook is far ahead of Google, and in addition to what users have posted on Facebook, Facebook uses like buttons and connect connections to collect huge amounts of user information. If Facebook does search a few years later, the threat to Google is not small.

Although Google does not have a social platform like Facebook, Google's many products also have a number of social genes, such as the aforementioned Gmail, Buzz, Greader, Google profile, and so on.

From this point of view you can understand why the search for Google to do so much with the search does not matter, such as Google Reader by share and star in a very high number of articles should be higher rank, your Gmail contacts like the things you might like to ...... Further, we can understand why Tencent and Baidu have done everything.

Google's two recent moves have also confirmed my view that Google offers to import bookmarks from delicious to Google Bookmarks,google upgrade Google profile.

Some time ago delicious to sell the news, my first reaction is that Google should buy the delicious, because the user's bookmark is a very valuable resource, simply: in the delicious on the number of articles should be more than the higher ranking.

Google profile upgrades are also important, which means that Google attaches more importance to the "user" factor.

Some time ago There is a hot discussion of the article "Search has died, recommended superior." In fact, the search is certainly not dead, the recommendation of course more and more important. From Amazon to Netflix, the power of recommendation is beyond doubt. For Google, you can consider buying StumbleUpon.

It's been talking about Google, and it's about companies that want to challenge Google.

While Google seems too powerful to be shaken, there are companies and crazy people who dare to challenge it, and Blekko is one of them that improves search quality by using Slashtag and manual intervention, and Blekko can provide more accurate results for search in some areas of expertise.

But Blekko is unlikely to beat Google because it is not designed for "ordinary users." Ordinary users do not use a lot of slashtag, ordinary users will not create a malicious list, they need just a big search box, typing and get what they want. From this point of view Blekko inevitable failure, like Google Searchwiki, and Google Wave.

Another recently very hot web site is Greplin, a member of Y Combinator, founded by 19-Year-old Israeli high school students, which is a "personal search engine" used to search your online data and information. Optimistic about Greplin, it solves a problem that needs to be solved but has not been solved, it does not have a direct competition relationship with Google, Greplin now do things Google can not do, Facebook can not do, only a third party small companies to do.

The number of information on the Internet is growing exponentially, under the siege of a mass of information, how to efficiently search for the valuable information you need is becoming more and more important, the search will certainly further develop, we wait and see.