Does a searcher always know what they want and in what format?  The answer is: “maybe”.  Search Engines continue to test the type of content consumers are interested in digesting as consumer adoption increases in broadband, rich(er) media, and consumer generated content.  Search Engines have and continue to invest in building on channels and additional products and are now directing/forcing users to engage. 

Two weeks ago, Google announced their roll-out of “Universal Search” which would integrate Google’s various vertical search apps into the main Google.com interface (video, image, web, news, base, etc).  Google also has been testing for some time on integration of Google news as the top results when major news was available, which trumped all other natural search results and would effectively push down some results onto other pages.

This week Ask announced their new Ask3D interface which was a 1-year project to revamp the outdated look and functionality.  Ask3D is already being marketed (saw a spot on NBC primetime).  The new Ask3D interface is similar in strategy as Google “Universal Search” in the sense that a single result will populate content related to various channels (video, images, blogs).  Ask3D is also composed of human edited results for a guided experience to help narrow or expand your search.  Ask3D is pulling in natural results targeting a users IP address.  Ask continues to be one of Google’s bigger AdSense partners meaning Ask runs Google advertisements in exchange for revenue share.  However, the contract ends CY 2007 and is up for review.  Google publicly stated Ask needs to increase their searches and uniques meanwhile Ask is struggling to find a means to monetize on it’s own.

Phil Shih