Friday, January 04, 2008

'Discovery' Sites Provide Search Alternative

The number of searches is starting to shrink, and maybe it's because "smart" users are replacing search with aggregation and social networking sites. According to comScore, searches were down by 5 percent between October and November, a startling reversal. Rather than trusting their information requests to Google or Yahoo and getting generic results, users are looking to their networks by browsing Twitter or browsing aggregation sites for filtered information, according to Revenue magazine's Alexandra Wharton. (Full disclosure -- I also write for Revenue on a regular basis.) Rather than searching for timely information, aggregation sites and RSS readers are my favorite early morning pastime. I still search news as part of the reporting process, but RSS feeds and hitting my favorite sites gives me a survey of the key issues of the day and is faster than filtering through search results of "untrusted" sites hoping that I find something useful. Reducing one's dependency on search is a natural progression as users get more educated, and this has an impact for marketers. While keywords for specific search terms can be worth their cost, you generally are talking to a less sophisticated audience than the folks who read niche sites such as Slashdot or EcoGeek, as two examples. This justifies the higher CPMs charged by aggregation sites and should pave the way for new search services that specify the sites queried. Google's free custom search engine, which lets you specify a collection of sites, is a vastly under-utilized resource that should unify like-minded sites. Why search the world at large if you know that between your social sites and news feeds, you'll come up with a quality answer? Look for site-specific search to become an important feature in the next year.

Posted By John Gartner at 08:49 AM
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