Interesting article over at ZD Net 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?
3 comments:
I often search for something in Google, knowing that in the top one or two results will be Wikipedia, fully intending on going to Wikipedia to find the answer. It's just quicker to use my Google toolbar to search. Maybe I need to install a Wikipedia toolbar.
An excellent idea.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6401
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