My take on the Yahoo! Microsoft deal…
The Yahoo! Microsoft deal will be great for sharing technology, cutting cost etc but trying to out-muscle Google is a strategy that will be costly, time consuming and difficult. Google do general search too well and are better established and have better tools and websites than Yahoo! and Microsoft.
“Still while the big companies fight it out for overall market share, there will be a number of opportunities for others to capitalise on. The main growth in search over the next few years will be in niche search markets.“
Why?
- Cultural/Geographic/Language differences (Yandex.com is most used search engine in Ukraine and Russia. Baidu is most used search engine in China)
- Diversity of media and searchable content (Mp3s, Videos, TV, Radio, App store, Ebooks, Jobs, Property, Cars)
- Diversity of platforms (IPhone, PDA, Blackberry)
- Huge amounts of new content online everyday
- Average searcher is using more advanced search techniques (possibly because finding good content is difficult)
- Niche websites depend on brilliant content so users would be more likely to find good content on a vertical search engine
As the Internet and media available on it, grows, how can a search engine possibly display all the needs and wants of a user on one page? The best solution is to have different search engines for different verticals, platforms and geographic regions.
Google, Yahoo! and Bing are all great for a general purpose search, but when you want specific information on a subject, vertical search is the answer. Google has a few specific verticals, Google Images, Google News, Google Finance. But the ideal way for vertical search to work is to get the search engine designed to suit the vertical not vice versa.
I am convinced this will be an area of growth over the next few years. While some search engines will come into new verticals, other solutions could employ more creative search techniques.
These are just my own views, any suggestions or ideas just add a comment!