Search Engines: Hold Your Vertical – Please!
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Written By Noah Mallin | January 6, 2009 | Share This
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Today, the so-called “conversation search engine” Artiklz was launched in beta form. Judging from it’s name and the copy on their landing page it was developed by a group of rogue LOLcats. As usual, us search geeks will play around with it, turn up our noses, and leave it on the trash heap along with Cuil and every other new search engine launched in the last several years. Dismissive much? Oh yeah. Why? Glad you asked.
Rather than going the hackneyed Google-killer route Artiklz kicks it super-old school by attempting yet another vertical search platform. In theory, Artiklz’s ability to search for terms across different social media conversations is a boon to brand managers and marketers – anyone who wants to see what is being said on a topic and where it’s being said. So far, so good.
The problem is that Google can quite easily replicate what Artiklz is doing, and probably do it better. They already scrape more social media content than can be choked up by this upstart’s results page. Let’s face reality here – when people want to go to a dedicated search site they go overwhelming to Google, unless they have been acclimated to Yahoo or Live.
As we said in our predictions for this year, horizontal is the new vertical. The “new” search engines are content rich repositories of info. Search capability allows users to better use the content they are already interested in. YouTube, the number two search engine in the country after parent company Google, is a prime example of this in action. Had they launched as a video search engine without user created and uploaded content they would have been just another carcass on the pile.
What do you think? Leave a comment here or send me a message on Twitter at @nmallin.
Topics: Google, Online Video, Search: News, Search: Vertical, Search: Video, Social Media, Yahoo! |
Hi Noah, that is a very good piece.. Enjoyed the write up.
I think you are spot on. Focusing on just one thing instead of trying to own the world is the best way forward.. The web is hyper active and highly competitive and it is so easy to get lost and lose focus. Stick with what you know best and sooner than later things will definitely start happening
Best,
Mike
http://www.wannadevelop.com