There’s an interesting article over at ZDNet UK. The idea is that people don’t need to go to a search engine to find what they need. If they want a review of a product, they will go to Amazon or CNET. If they want to find out about a place or person, they will head straight to Wikipedia. If they want something funny or interesting, they’ll got to YouTube or Digg.
I find myself doing this. Instead of going to Google (that will return 6 million pages), I will often head straight to Wikipedia. I’m not saying I don’t use Google, but I am finding that I use it less. If I’m looking for a review of a product, Google is simply unusable. Instead, I’ll go to any number of sites that I have found useful (and bookmarked), to find that information.
And this doesn’t even bring into account the possibility that the new iPhone brings into play: finding information based on where you are. While I don’t see search engines going away, I do see them losing power. The question remains, what fills the void?
Note: This article cross-posted at Chickens Don’t Have Armpits.
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Search still is handy for fairly specific information still not available via this new crop of “social” sites. But it is true that, at this point, I use Google more as the new yellow pages or movie listing service than as traditional online search.
I think what is happening is that people are just going online more for everything. As a percentage of usage, Google may be lower thanks to Wikipedia, Amazon, etc, but as for absolute usage it is probably higher.
That still speaks to a Google losing relevance though. When I want X, Y, or Z I’m not going there (although I’m going to Live Search instead of Google anyway
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The problem with SEs are becoming more and more obvious to end users. As people opt for a richer online experience, it seems traditional SEs are just failing to make that a reality.It was the same issue discuss on this provocative blog: Google devolution effect(http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=644&doc_id=154069&F_src=flftwo). I don’t see them extincting in the long run but their relevance will be seriously diminish and as you correctly pointed out, are the alternatives good enough to fill the void??