techdigest

The innovation in the search technology is predominantly being done in the UI side. Will it really increase the user adoption? Emre Sokullu on ReadWriteWeb has this to say:

“ Like Quintura, Snap relies heavily on UI innovations. The problem with relying on UI innovation is that the barrier to entry is too low. The big players Google (SearchMash) and Microsoft (Live) are actively experimenting with UI innovations.

However I think UI innovations will be very suitable for vertical search engines. For example flight search engine Kayak and job search engines like SimplyHired and Indeed can deliver UIs that take into account the unique requirements of their topic focus. Quintura Kids and Quintura’s upcoming ‘Search In Site’ feature can also succeed by delivering UIs for niche audiences. However I don’t think that up and comers like Quintura Web Search can easily convince us to change our general search attitudes. It’ll take more than UI innovations to compete with Google. ”

The partial results of the poll:

Yes, the likes of Quintura provide a viable alternative to Google for general search 17% (9 votes)

Yes, but it won’t be a single alt search engine - united they stand… 19% (10 votes)

No, the barrier to entry (for other startups and bigcos) with UI innovation is too low 31% (17 votes)

No, Google has it covered 33% (18 votes)

This entry was posted Wednesday, April 4th, 2007 at 4:04 am and is filed under Search, User Experience/UI. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.