LAT Report on Chris Sherman's Search Engine Report

Computers in Libraries 2006

Using an historical viewpoint, Chris Sherman, Associate Editor of SearchEngineWatch and co-author of The Invisible Web & Google Power, discussed trends in the search engine market, highlighted the state of the current search engine market, and predicted what may lie ahead, including current and future legal challenges for Google. Below are our notes from his keynote speech.

1995 - start of new and exciting search engines

After dot com crash remained static

2006 going really new directions

ASK

Ask Jeeves has now become ASK – Jeeves has retired

Chris Sherman thinks this is the absolute best product right now

Smart search, Web answers, Zoom (preview of page)

New toolbox

New reference tools - can create own tools

New maps - animated tour w/walking/driving directions

GOOGLE

Print and advertising company? Microsoft killer? ISP, E-Bay clone? Lost original mission? However, still very innovative.

Google Reader and blog search

Google Video - some fees and blocked by many school districts but through this site can access Google Tech Talks

Google Base - Compete with eBay; however, if you go to this site and look at bottom of this page you will see other good links

Google Mars, etc.

MSN

Microsoft still spending lots of $$

Windows Live- Still new, but watch for what it might become

Virtual Earth and Windows Live Local WAY COOL!!

MSN Direct

OFOLIO web research assistant is free and allows you to download web content for future use and also annotate it (terrific for teachers)

YAHOO

Has been very innovative, even though their pace of innovation is slowing

Unlike Google, they offer People Mediated Search - Metatags which allows you to annotate and personalize your searching. They are not gathering information about your searches and then trying to customize results to you. They are allowing you to do your own personalizing.

Yahoo Research

New at Yahoo: Y!Q- You will see more like this where it is not text based, but more visually based with sliders, etc.

BACK TO GOOGLE

Print project controversial, but Chris Sherman thinks Google will prevail because what they are offering is actually very beneficial to everyone. They are very careful and are not doing anything illegal. What they are doing actually increases interest in print materials and speaker believes will increase profits for publishers, authors, etc. Will eventually have OCLC linked to text searches to show at which library searcher can find book.

There is publisher program where publisher controls how much of content is displayed.

There is library program where users can browse full-text of public domain materials with link to library.

Google doing all the right things to protect itself and it will be good for everyone.

WHAT IS GOOGLE'S GOAL? All books online and searchable AND scanning all books for Google to read. The second one is key. Google will amass all information!

He then gave overview of current lawsuits. We will see lots of copyright challenges and many of them will be aimed at Google.

Dark Side of Personalization

Yahoo - Does it in positive way by allowing you to save web pages and personalize them yourself

Google - Exploits your use of search engine by keeping track of you. Does it so it can return personalized results, but there is somewhat of a threat to confidentiality. Not as much a threat as most people believe because they do employ excellent security measures and encrypt information. Chance of security breach not as great as commonly thought. However, real threat is the government's recent request. First step on a slippery slope. Privacy concerns are exploding. Summary - still trust Google, but be careful.

CHINA

Chris just returned from China. Lot of interest because China in news lately for censorship of searches. However, after talking to Chinese people, his impression is that Chinese absolutely prefer censorship rather than not being able to use it at all. As far as Chris' research while there, relatively few topics are censored and savvy Chinese users can very easily get around this. They can reach virtually any website via widely available proxies. Bidoo is #1 search engine used in China and surprisingly it returns paid search results.

Karen Mitchell and Jane Reeves

Monroe 2-Orleans BOCES Library Automation Team (LAT) Members