Search Infancy
Posted on May 5th, 2005 in Technology | 12 Comments »
Search has really just started. We’re not even close to where we could be for two important reasons.
The first reason is obvious. Search sucks. No matter how good Google might be, for example, it isn’t eerily accurate yet. It is good, no doubt. But, it doesn’t always work. Search engines still have a hard time grappling with the fact that users are searching for a way to make mom happy versus mothers day present. If only pesky users would act more like machines!
A related problem with Search is that users are so different. There are regularities but users are finicky little animals. Rascals! Therefore, search engines will always have difficultly. Stated differently, users aren’t machines, machines aren’t users.
The second reason is far less obvious. This is where you should pay attention. No one — and I mean NO ONE — has a good handle on what “information” really is.
Here are a couple of mindbombs regarding Search. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to search through all of your cell phone conversations? Wouldn’t it be nice to search through your medical history, and the medical history of your relatives (if they allow it)? Wouldn’t it be nice if Search anticipated my questions and provided guidance before I asked them?
But it doesn’t stop there. Search is only about 10% of the real equation. If you are looking for a present for mom on Mother’s Day, you have motives, emotions, and desires. You’re looking to solve a problem, not just get an answer or purchase a product.
The key to this way of thinking is to examine humans in relation to information. Humans consume, alter, update, and delete information. They filter. They notice patterns. They make decisions.
Search is so wickedly far behind it isn’t even remotely funny. We’re cavemen writing on the wall. When future generations look back at us now, they will not understand how we could possibly function in our current environment.
I’m happy to say that Search is mostly useless. It is the wrong answer to the wrong problem. I’m happy in that I know that I am an ignorant monkey. This is unlike most folks who incorrectly think Search is really useful. It ain’t, folks, and you shouldn’t buy the hype.
Related: Visiting The Ghost
12 Responses
Searching the internet is not exactly a replacement for thought itself.
Though already I have seen some humans DEVOlve to that point.
Cheers, Max
The Answers.com logo needs to be clickable. I don’t like hunting for the Home link! ;-)
[...] Here’s what I think. It probably makes sense to show, say, 25-30 results on one page and one page only. Then provide users with all sorts of tools to help them refine or re-try their search. Almost everyone knows that users rarely move past the first search results page. I’ve said it before: Search is still crude and stupid. [...]
[...] Search is still crude and stupid [...]
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thank’s
Searching the internet is not exactly a replacement for thought itself.
Though already I have seen some humans DEVOlve to that point.
power leveling guide…
Here we again confront the poet’s familiar obsessions— language, governance, war, politics, the contemporary and classical worlds, and the nature of poetry itself. John Hollander writes of Hill’s poems that they immerse themselves “in the matters …