Re: AltaVista Testing Paid Search Results

From: David Yancey <dyancey_at_intergen.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 16:13:34 -0500 (CDT)

Well, George, it looks like you're right: I was too hasty in
bidding "hasta la vista" to "Alta Vista". This thread
apparently has a life of its own, a seeming determination to
get us to some useful result, which is more than I can say
for certain search engines!

Matt da Silva wants more specifics as to what I meant by
new, alternative search tools and services. I'm tempted to
spend about three hours crossing half of Tokyo to split a
few rounds with Matt and rant about one of my favorite
topics, but it will be faster to summarize at least a
partial answer here:

1. The builders and sponsors of search utilities will
gradually understand better that searching has different
market segments, and that each has specific and perhaps
unique needs not characteristic of all the others. Forgive
me for sounding like "Marketing 101" here, but consider: if
the search tool builders *really* understood this, their
offerings and websites would reflect it.

2. No single engine or combo of engine and human skills can
realistically be expected to effectively address all the
different segment requirements. I tend to harp on the
wasted online time factor, because I'm most concerned with
saving biz and professional persons' time and enhancing
their productivity, but other "segments" have other
priorities. But the range of needs is much broader, from
pro researchers who need, in effect, a new, web-oriented
query language, to harassed parents who would be happy, or,
as Matt rightfully emphasizes, *confident* in being simply
*told* what were OK or fun or educational or money-saving
sites.

3. It is therefore natural for many types of search tools
to be developed, and it is silly to expect that any one will
ever be "it" in terms of being all things to all surfers.
This diversity and endless evolution is, actually, a good
thing, because it keeps us on our toes, because it can more
rapidly include and reflect the needs of emerging new web
micro-communities, and also because it provides an endless
opportunity for new startups and IPOs <g>.

4. From an economic point of view, this is also good,
because, as the A-V thread has shown several times, each of
the different "search market segments" has its own concept
of paying for the service: - some will want it free, that
is, ad-supported or subsidized as in the goto.com model some
other way - some will pay up front, by buying a software
tool, say, or subscribing to a service, and - some, the
really busy biz and professional folks, will be quite
willing to part with real money, especially if the
tool/service saves them *real* real time, generates
immediately useful results, and is NOT something they need
to first become expert in to use!

Regardless of what new techniques are tried, going back to
something Danny Sullivan and I were saying earlier, we need
to keep reminding ourselves that simplistic reliance on
keywords and recurring words in Meta tags etc is not going
to be fruitful over the long term. The proliferation of
pages and the sheer volume of sites makes keyword-searching
less and less useful. Not to mention the seemingly
never-mentioned fact that a global reliance on *English*
keywords in the dominant engines does not begin to address
the needs of the fast growing non-North American/UK/A/NZ
online communities and markets.

I realize I am not specifying precisely what such an
assorted bunch of tools will look like. All I am willing to
predict now is that they'll range from the almost absurdly
simple kinds of precisely focused directories to the smarter
use of qualified humans working in tandem with much savvier
"bots", to really complex methods, such as a wholly new
approach to using multi-layered "intelligent keyword
structures" in a "personalized" engine.

I am certain many groups are working on their particular
next step in the evolution of search tools, and wish all
well, because better tools and services are sorely needed.
For our part, we have built a super simple,
consumer-oriented example of the first type, and have it in
limited beta right now. When it's ready, we'll make sure
this list knows about it, for sure! Now we're tackling the
second variety, developing a for-fee biz/pro concept that we
hope to beta in late summer. And we are, admittedly slowly,
working out the database logic for a weird new sort of
"directed bot", about which I will say nada, except to Matt,
if he wants to come way the hell out here to our office next
to Tokyo. And if he buys the beer!

David Yancey - Managing Director, Intergen Associates
Internet Business Planning, Development & Management

"If you want an Internet presence, create a website; if you
want an Internet *business*, create an Internet Business Plan."
mailto:dyancey_at_intergen.co.uk
or call our office in Japan at 81-42-943-2637

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Received on Mon May 17 1999 - 17:16:24 CDT