Google: The next CBS?
Google: The Next CBS?
By Steve Larsen
Co-founder and CEO, Krugle, Inc.
The Old Big 3: ABC, NBC, and CBS
It wasn’t that long ago that the Big 3 television networks had the airwaves to themselves. Because it was all we had, all we knew, it became what we needed. But times changed. Cable created havoc with the network model; ABC, NBC and CBS have never recovered the dominance and control they once had. I think the same thing will happen in the search wars.
The New Big 3: Google, Yahoo!, and MSN
Horizontal search engines such as Google and Yahoo! crawl and index as much of the world’s knowledge and information as they can find. Vertical Search Engines (VSEs), a form of alternative search engine, focus on a specific area and go deeper in information retrieval and presentation. Despite the current size and breadth of coverage by general, horizontal search engines, much of what is new and exciting in search is happening in the world of specialized vertical search engines.
Sites such as www.travelzoo.com for travelers or www.Zillow.com for real estate or www.krugle.com for developers, deeply embrace three concepts that differentiate them from their horizontal counterparts:
*Deeper crawl/index: Finding and including high value, relevant information to their subject area that is typically missed by horizontal engines; PDF or graphic files, information in databases or behind firewalls, archive data or information in zip files. Perhaps equally important is what they don’t search. Vertical sites limit their content to their subject area, which means results have far greater relevancy. For instance, at www.krugle.com, “python” is never a reptile and always refers to the computer language and JAVA is never coffee..
*Unique Ranking schemes: Search quality ultimately comes down to getting the most accurate and relevant results. The most relevant results come when ranking heuristics rely on factors in the content and less on search-term-specific page rank or the number and quality of referring links as the basis for rankings. Vertical search engines typically understand the content before determining how to rank it.
*Display results in context: To better understand search results, it is often
necessary to display the results in something other than a list of URLs with a text description of where it will take you. See www.zillow.com or www.krugle.com as examples. Just understanding how to display code is a simple but illustrative aspect of this.
In the long run, will online media and search track what’s happened with television? Will you look back at Google, MSN and Yahoo! ten years from now and view them the same way you think of the broadcast networks (ABC, CBS and NBC) today? After all, by focusing on niche audiences and special interests, ESPN, CNN, BET, SciFi, DIY Network and other cable TV networks eclipsed broadcasting’s assets and revenue by the late 1980s. Will alternative vertical search engines take a substantial share from today’s big three – Google, Yahoo! and MSN? Do developers, doctors, lawyers, real estate agents or even sports fans need their own specialized search engines? Will advertisers direct significant spending to reach more narrowly targeted, vertically focused audiences?
These are interesting questions. What do you think? Please leave a comment!
Thanks, Steve!
Other Guest Authors are welcome: please email me at
Charles@ReadWriteWeb.com
July 30th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
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