xan
02-14-2005, 05:09 PM
Hi all,
I want to put forward to you the question of what happens to SEO next, and how it will adapt to the possible future of search.
I only consider 2 changes: search customization and result visualization.
Online search engines have worked suprisingly well for quite some time. As time goes on though, they are facing more and more problems, the most pressing being a scaling problem. Prescision and recall are actually quite good but user satisfaction is low.
A solution concerning scaling being toyed with is to distribute the search and to move as much of it as possible to the user's own machine, allowing more customization. This sounds like the grid computing, a P2P environment. This does resolve information overload to some extent, and enables users to collect just the information they require using customized search engines which run all over the internet looking for the correct information.
Search engines are already making their very first steps in customization using semantics-based customization.
"Instead of users investing significant effort to find the right information, the right information should find the users."
Thomas Moran and Paul Dourish, eds., Context-Aware Computing special issue of Human Computer Interaction, vol. 16, nos. 2-4, 2001.
AeroText is often used to look at customization:
AeroText (lockheed martin) (http://www.lockheedmartin.com/wms/findPage.do?dsp=fec&ci=11255&rsbci=0&fti=126&ti=0&sc=400)
Personalized information retrieval is also being looked into.
Craig Silverstein who works for Google as a director said:
"It's clear that a list of links, though very useful, doesn't match the way people give information to each other ... How can the computer become more like your friend when answering your questions?". This would agree with the general concensus which is that giving direct answers to questions, extracting data from online sources rather than giving links to web pages is what we need to look into.
We already use feeds to view just the information which interests us which means we don't even need to go through a search engine to get it.
This is hypothetical but still being looked into and its sensible to expect search to change in the next 10 years.
I just want to hear your views.
Thanks.
{quick edit}
Incidentally, Ross Mayfield wrote an article about this issue a couple of days ago. He says:
"The criticisms of personalization as an instrument of control are not new. Yahoo! is actually taking personalization into new directions by emphasizing user programmability. And a branded aggregator is based on open standards, which is a big leap into a second web."
"The basic problem with Personalization is that tailoring information to you limits social discovery. Users contribute value to the database only for them and the service provider, not for each other. People design algorithms outside social context, and error arises in profiling, categorization and filtering. Narrowcasting creates micro-silos as it limits a user's view from more diverse and otherwise peripheral information compared to modes of browsing and searching."
Many 2 Many (http://www.corante.com/many/archives/2005/02/12/from_personalization_to_socialization.php)
I want to put forward to you the question of what happens to SEO next, and how it will adapt to the possible future of search.
I only consider 2 changes: search customization and result visualization.
Online search engines have worked suprisingly well for quite some time. As time goes on though, they are facing more and more problems, the most pressing being a scaling problem. Prescision and recall are actually quite good but user satisfaction is low.
A solution concerning scaling being toyed with is to distribute the search and to move as much of it as possible to the user's own machine, allowing more customization. This sounds like the grid computing, a P2P environment. This does resolve information overload to some extent, and enables users to collect just the information they require using customized search engines which run all over the internet looking for the correct information.
Search engines are already making their very first steps in customization using semantics-based customization.
"Instead of users investing significant effort to find the right information, the right information should find the users."
Thomas Moran and Paul Dourish, eds., Context-Aware Computing special issue of Human Computer Interaction, vol. 16, nos. 2-4, 2001.
AeroText is often used to look at customization:
AeroText (lockheed martin) (http://www.lockheedmartin.com/wms/findPage.do?dsp=fec&ci=11255&rsbci=0&fti=126&ti=0&sc=400)
Personalized information retrieval is also being looked into.
Craig Silverstein who works for Google as a director said:
"It's clear that a list of links, though very useful, doesn't match the way people give information to each other ... How can the computer become more like your friend when answering your questions?". This would agree with the general concensus which is that giving direct answers to questions, extracting data from online sources rather than giving links to web pages is what we need to look into.
We already use feeds to view just the information which interests us which means we don't even need to go through a search engine to get it.
This is hypothetical but still being looked into and its sensible to expect search to change in the next 10 years.
I just want to hear your views.
Thanks.
{quick edit}
Incidentally, Ross Mayfield wrote an article about this issue a couple of days ago. He says:
"The criticisms of personalization as an instrument of control are not new. Yahoo! is actually taking personalization into new directions by emphasizing user programmability. And a branded aggregator is based on open standards, which is a big leap into a second web."
"The basic problem with Personalization is that tailoring information to you limits social discovery. Users contribute value to the database only for them and the service provider, not for each other. People design algorithms outside social context, and error arises in profiling, categorization and filtering. Narrowcasting creates micro-silos as it limits a user's view from more diverse and otherwise peripheral information compared to modes of browsing and searching."
Many 2 Many (http://www.corante.com/many/archives/2005/02/12/from_personalization_to_socialization.php)