The Future of Web Search

InsightStoryManas Garg

manasgarg@insightstory.net

Where Things Stand Today?

InsightStory

Google Search is like Mainframes

• Powerful– Very good at what it does

• One-size-fits-all– Monolith– Not a commodity item

which can fit anywhere

• Closed– Available for use but any

innovation on top of it is tough

MainframeGoogle

Search

Wintel???

InsightStory

Maturity leads to Pervasiveness!

• Pervasiveness is the yardstick to measure the maturity of a technology– Covers from smallest to the

biggest use case– Provides a platform for

further innovation

• Transitions from the past– Mainframes to PCs– Windows running only on

PCs to OSes running on various devices

– Self owned datacenters to Computing Clouds

How Will Search Evolve?

InsightStory

Three Dimensions of Evolution

• Personal Computerization– Search will be a commodity

fitting as needed in various use cases

• Platformization– Search technology will be

used more as APIs exploited by various apps

• Think out of the “search box”– New ways of searching and

using search results

Personal Computerization!

InsightStory

The Rise of World Wide Webs

• It is the Google Search that made BIG World Wide Web so useful

• Now, the BIG Web is getting divided into numerous small Webs

• Each of these small Webs will need “google” quality search to stay useful– And that’s where personal-

computerization of Web Search will happen

Platformization!

InsightStory

Telling Time Vs Building Clock

• Breakup Search in “Search Platform” and “Search Applications”– Opportunity for everyone to

play with “their ideas”– Yahoo BOSS is just a

beginning giving control over presentation

– Control at crawling, indexing and ranking

• Lower barrier to entry for thousands of people to improve Search Experience

Think out of the Search Box!

InsightStory

Open the Flood Gates

• Shift in the focus to create a better “Search Experience”– Creating different views for

search results– Creating different workflows

for browsing search results– Making search more

relevant to the context

• Search as a platform will have more users than search as a box

Conclusion?

InsightStory

Web Search: Waterfall to River

• Waterfall is fun and exciting

• River is useful and pervasive– A complete ecosystem

develops around a river– A platform for civilizations

to prosper

• Where will you put web search today?– And where will it be

tomorrow?

Questions/Commentsmanasgarg@insighstory.n

et