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| The 21st Century Utility |
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Since the turn of the century, the Search Marketing industry has grown to become a substantial sector that is changing the way that sales and marketing departments operate today. But how powerful will Search become?
This article questions whether Search will become the utility of the twenty-first century. Prior to 1997 the Search Industry was still in its infancy. Today it is a multi billion dollar industry with organizations such as Piper Jaffray's predicting Search Marketing becoming a $7 billion industry worldwide by 2007. Natural Search and Paid Search are now being used to help bolster offline sales and marketing efforts and to build awareness of leading brands. However, as we have all seen, the growing strength of the web has also led to online household brand names being introduced such as Google, Amazon and Ebay. Search is the audience interface of the twenty-first but it is already set to become an invisible utility rather than an act in itself. Yet what comparisons can be made with the value of search? How can those still sceptical really grasp what search represents? Without it, put simply, sites and online marketing campaigns will not be found, therefore making any investment worthless. As with the EPG technology that supports digital satellite platforms such as BSkyB - search's true power could be its utility and ultimate invisibility. As search continues to develop, online users could become less aware of search brand names such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN and will simply use the technology to identify the information they require. Historically the growth of Clocks could be seen as a parallel of "form" and "function", with them first starting out as "functional" Navigation & travel mechanisms, where the mechanism makers were the "brands". This was where increased time-keeping accuracy was prized above the "form" of the clock. After 200 years of development clocks become more about the "form" with retailers taking centre stage with the mechanisms becoming "utilities" and the design becoming the "key brand". Could this happen to Search with the impact of "internet time" moving from "function" to "form" within 20 years? As recent reports earlier this year have highlighted, search is now becoming more of a multi-media proposition. For example, Google launching Google Video, which searches for the "closed caption" information that comes with TV programmes for keywords. This is currently being used in the States, but only by a handful of US channels. TV desktop searches for TV news, film trailers and then links to them. Closer to home, the BBC is also developing a system to enable its TV and radio news programmes to be searchable online, to be automatically transcribing the speech as text. This will then link to a low-resolution video or audio copy of the relevant programme. O2 also made an announcement in February stating that it had become the first UK operator to launch paid-for search listings on its mobile internet portal, which was the first move towards replicating today's online success and shows that search is even developing into a multi-platform proposition. Its important to note the significant uplift in value for online search alone, paid-for search has rocketed over the last two years, with its value doubling to £114.3m in the first half of 2004, up from £54.7m in the first half of 2003, according to a report by the IAB. Jupiter Research also reflects this and has predicted that the UK market will grow to a staggering £323m by 2009. As search "time" marches forward, its commercial value will also continue to escalate but could we will see a shift away from leading "functional" brands such as Google, MSN and Yahoo! and more column inches devoted to the "form" brand with further technical developments becoming the first true twenty first century utility. |
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