What is Search 3.0 anyway?
This is the first in a series of posts that I would like to do about Search 3.0.
I have heard a variety of ways to frame that concept, and here is just one of them:
Search 1.0 is Linear. Strictly up and down. Just like these Google results, you can only go up and down, even if you have 100 results that you want to browse. (KoolTorch.com could show you all 100 in a single glance!)
Then there’s Search 2.0 which is two-dimensional. Now you can move up, down, left, and right, as with this Quintura.com tag cloud. (Same query as above) As you explore with your mouse, the results change automatically. (See also KartOO.com)
Recently we have moved into Search 3.0 which is obviously 3-D. Here is a new application of Viewzi. You should also look at SpaceTime.com or SearchMe.com. Up, down, left, right, forward and backwards. But is this just “eye candy?’ Not at all.
Just consider the usefulness of a one column list of all U.S. cities versus what you can do with a road map, versus a globe. If you want to see - quickly - the relationship between where Richard, Nitin, Peggy, Rafi and I live, I think you would want a globe. A flat map of the world would not cut it - until you tried to make it into a ball. (See the movie Contact!)
Can there be a Search 4.0 in this scheme? Search 4.0 would have to add “time” wouldn’t it? Well, is that so hard? What I will be looking for is one of these new 3-D search engines that continuously updates the results (as they are discovered or crawled by the engine). Yes, hitting “refresh” does update the results, but it should be automatic - without any action by the user. Comments?
*Thanks to Jean-Noël for this tip!
June 11th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Rather, I guess this principle:
Internet users chose the research modules it wants to use. It builds its own ecosystem based on its preferences. It’s pretty close to yahoo! searchmonkey: modules that you are free to choose or not and which let you create your own search engine…
June 11th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
“Can there be a Search 4.0 in this scheme? Search 4.0 would have to add “time” wouldn’t it? Well, is that so hard?” - Already in the works
Give us a couple of weeks to make this view rock like it should and we’ll release it to the wild. Then you can ask about what search 5.0 is and we’ll see if you can stump us there.
-giovanni, viewzi evangelist
June 12th, 2008 at 10:07 am
from Josselin:
Why would the web necessarily evolve toward having more dimensions ? I wrote an article (for french reading people) criticizing the view that next generation web should be web3D. Adding dimensions is not “just better” : adding dimensions means different ways of browsing, different space paradigm, different organization of information in this space, etc…
3 dimensional representations won’t fit all practices. Time will tell which are better suited to immersive spaces and which are not.
A simple example : reading is a one-dimensional experience. Printed pages are 2 dimensional and books are 3 dimensional but it is just a matter of organizing the data. Hyperlinks did break the linearity of reading, but what would it mean to read in 3D ? Maybe there will be an answer some time to this question… But for the moment I would not trade a 2D reading experience for a 3D reading experience where I have to move around (even in a synthetic world) to get to the end of a sentence… Scrolling or turning pages is tiring enough !