When I wrote my most popular blog post ever (1100 readers), Microsoft Yahoo Makes Little Sense, I struggled with how to describe Yahoo's failing strategy. Finally it came to me. Yahoo failed to realize the change in the Internet to where people now "live on the web". No longer is the Internet about portals, static content and pushing information to readers. Today the Internet is the place where people have their social, intellectual and professional lives on display, in large part through content they produce.
As I consider the future of the Internet, a point my wife (who is much smarter than I am) always makes guides my thinking. She always says, "the computer is just a tool". Thinking about the future of the Internet, the Internet is just a tool to create and collect information. More sophisticated ways to create and collect information, not the technology, will drive the future direction of the web. As Sramana Mitra (another woman) at ReadWriteWeb said, "Web 3.0 will be about feeding you the information that you want, when you want it in the proper context".
Two recent developments support my view:
- Reuters, the international news conglomerate, launched Calais. Basically, Calais automatically generates metadata (subject) tags from any XML document using artificial intelligence. Tags are generated automatically about event, company, organization, person, country, city and people. Producing the tags permits the document to be more easily discovered through a search. Now every Reuters story, and any document that uses Calais, will be much easier to find. Reuters obviously supported the development of Calais in order to facilitate the discovery of more of their proprietary information, but Calais can be used by anyone.
- Google now offers the ability to translate any web page into any one of 13 major languages, but the really useful feature is that I can enter a Spanish search term, search Spanish language web pages and receive the pages translated into English, French, Russian.... Next time you need to research a foreign country or company, you are no longer limited to the English language pages (or whatever language you prefer).
A recent post on Research Recap, an excellent blog for new research on a wide range of subjects, highlights another interesting development. According to Forrester Research, 64% of consumers prefer to read user reviews of products (rather than manufacturer specs). This finding makes clear to me that we have more confidence in each others content than in content from companies, the media or the government. This is why blogging is so popular :), del.icio.us bookmarks has so many users and Ning's growth has been fueled by specialized subject social networks. There is a social component to all these examples, but I believe that it is the user generated content that is driving their popularity. A newly launched site, Docstoc.com, is another example that user generated content is the future. Docstoc allows users to upload and share a wide range of documents on subjects ranging from business and legal to creative and educational. Next time you need a sample contract try Docstoc.
What I expect to see in the near future is the following:
- The ability to subscribe to a particular search on Google or any other search engine and receive updates via RSS as the search results are added to or change. This would be particularly useful to people interested in SEO, search engine optimization, or staying updated on a particular subject. I think it would be easier than saving a Google search or relying on a clipping service to collect pages on a particular subject.
- While much is made of vertical market search engines, I think that a better alternative may be for several users with a common interest to be able to collectively post their bookmarks on a subject. Rather than having to view the hundreds of low quality subject tags on delicious, you could go to a specialized search engine that, for example, utilizes the bookmarks from four professors at MIT that are subject matter experts (sort of a Ning for search engines).
- Another search option that I think will be coming is the ability to direct the search engine to certain particular databases that may not show in results frequently. For example, the Social Science Research Network is an excellent source of academic articles on a wide range of subjects, but I rarely see links there from a business topic search on Google.
- I think there is a big opportunity to develop expert answers, similar to the questions feature on LinkedIn. Almost every question on LinkedIn has a rating of the best answer, yet these responses are only available to LinkedIn users. The other difference between LinkedIn and, for example Yahoo Answers, is the quality of the respondents (very high on LinkedIn). I think there is a business model based on a subject matter website where real experts (not hacks) answer questions and revenue comes from advertising.
Enough user generated content for today. Have to go check the Google searches that brought readers to this blog.
