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Search for Tomorrow: Specialized
Web Search Engines Point to Content's Profits |
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23 August 2004 |
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When
The New York Times op/ed section carries a piece
focusing on the dominance of major search engines, you know
that the time has come for a reality check. While major
search engines indeed have changed the face of what's
considered valuable content, search technology as a whole
is empowering many more suppliers to bring the power of
search to far more focused needs and interests in ways that
highlight content that the majors leave behind. From
enterprise search engines reaching out for Web content to
innovative industry suppliers like the Thomas Industrial
Network, content's voice is growing through a wide variety
of search suppliers that promise greater profits supplying
audiences with very specific needs and interests. |
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You know
that the impact of search engines is getting to be more than an
analyst's rant when
an op/ed piece appears in The New York Times contemplates
the dominance of major search engines and their impact on
content. In the Times column fellows Matthew Hindman and
Kenneth Neil Cukier of the National Center for Digital
Government at the Kennedy School at Harvard argue that the
dominance of major Web search engines such as Yahoo! and Google
is creating a concentration of content selection that may
threaten the value of any content that fails to pass muster
with their relevance algorithms. Visibility has its value, and
as more and more people resort to a handful of search engines
for both open Web searches and searches of today's news items
the editorial selections of these outlets do become
increasingly important, no doubt.
But is the importance of major search
engines a crippling factor for content that slips underneath
their limelight? Not yet, if one asks the companies that are
heavily involved in providing search solutions and directories
that focus on specific market niches. The major search engines
do exert great influence on what is considered valuable content
these days, but when one gets down to the level of how people
actually perform their jobs and manage specific tasks search
technologies that help people to succeed in specific niches are
succeeding in ways at least as important as those pointed out
by the majors. Interestingly enough today was the launch of
ThomasNet.com, a Web site that incorporates an online
directory of companies providing industrial equipment and
components with a search engine that focuses in on those sites
covered in the Thomas repertoire - an industrial Web, if you
will. Today also marks the
debut of EMC Documentum's Enterprise Content Integration (ECI)
Services, which allows single query discovery, access and
assimilation of structured and unstructured content from
internal and external sources for enterprise search
installations, allowing institutions to create their own unique
Webs from a variety of content sources in a single search
fabric.
These more targeted search capabilities
that take a look at the world of online content from very
tailored perspectives are in effect creating their own Webs of
content, with results and editorial control far more targeted
towards specific audiences. While open Web search has its place
for people needing ad hoc answers to today's out-of-the-blue
questions and interests, tailored search is the key to serving
the needs of very specific audiences' needs. Each of these
niches may be relatively small - an EMC/Documentum installation
can be as small as a department within a major enterprise - but
on a pound-for-pound basis they provide very high value. Where
does this point the world of content in general? Here are a few
quick thoughts as to where specialized search and directories
are leading high-value content:
- Reinventing local and special
interest portals. Major players such as Yahoo! have been
making inroads with localized content and special interest
search portals that do an increasingly efficient job of
mining the best of specific content niches. But many of these
efforts lack editorial flair and content expertise that offer
much of a real expert focus on the content subject matter.
Combining leading-edge search technologies with real
editorial insight from both professional and community-based
experts that focus on the best of all Web sources for
specific topics is likely to be a key component of highly
profitable professional and consumer-oriented portals from
some time to come that will counterbalance major Web search
engines general strengths.
About.com
tried this strategy in a general wrapper and found moderate
success, but better profit margins will go to those who
embrace a specific area of expertise with search technology
and leverage it with a voice that is recognized as truly
authoritative.
- Reinventing the news.
Google News and like-focused news search portals have
demonstrated that search technology can put together online
news in a journal-like fashion pretty effectively; what if
the same concept was taken on by news teams specializing in
far more specific geographic or topic areas of news content?
Already institutions do this with their own internal
competitive intelligence portals, bypassing established sites
and services to collect their own definitive content from
internal and external sources; could the next major news
outlet be based on search technology that brings a particular
focus and attitude to news that comes from a multitude of
online editorial sources via search technologies? Perhaps
tomorrow's front page in the local Web gazette will be a far
more diverse collection of search-harvested content than most
of today's paper-based papers can imagine.
- Reinventing specialized research.
Research services such as LexisNexis are becoming experts on
packaging their services far more effectively for specific
audiences and needs, thus sidestepping the inherent
weaknesses of a broad but exclusive content set and focusing
their strengths on the needs of specific markets. When these
capabilities are placed against the likes of an EMC/Documentum
that can tailor content front ends far more closely to the
needs of specific organizations in specific markets, these
opportunities are likely to decrease over time. Instead of
focusing on monetizing specific content collections research
database providers may find themselves over time transforming
themselves into - or being purchased by - search engine
companies that specialize in the needs of institutional
clients in the markets that they service best.
The strength of today's leading search
engines creates a fertile ground for inventive suppliers to
leverage search technologies in a greater preponderance of
content services than ever before. The recent surge in search
technology investments underlines this probability, though it
will be content-oriented companies focusing in specific markets
that are likely to succeed in this second wave of search and
not pure technologists. This may leave many content suppliers
focused on how to create an editorial voice in the midst of
this search-driven content environment. For others like Thomas,
their voice is already here and singing a strong tune for
specific content markets.
-
John Blossom
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