Death of Search?

So the ex CEO of Omniture has produced a blog post.

Its very interesting that it aims to deflate the search bubble, and lets face it, when we say search bubble, what we really mean is Google. To me its like a shot across the bows, a message of intent if you will.

I have for a long time believed that search is over emphasised as a mechanism for sales and I'd like to focus on this "retail" side of search for this blog. There's been a great number of experts encouraging customers to throw money at search - it is after all very "measurable". This "measurability" has made it easy for customers to present to their board and show how "effective" their campaigns have been. The conversion rates often aren't spectacular but when the CEOs compare this to the woeful effectiveness of banner advertising, its seems attractive. For CEOs, search conversion rates are accepted as being the cost of doing business online - an essential, just like your electricity bills.

However I dont think the competition from the new holy trinity of facebook, twitter and iphone that has convinced me of this.

I've consistently said is that search doesn't "sell" - search "finds".

If I'm looking for a company and cant find it through search this will definitely have impact my likelihood to buy from that company. If I've bought a commodity from a company before and had a good service and price, I will return to them for similar items - but that's not down to their search ranking.

If I'm looking for a commodity, a holiday, a new blu-ray player anything like that, seeing a company at the top of paid search will have some impact but it will be minimal. I'll respect them for having money and some targeting, but this alone will not make me want to buy from them.

What I'll want is a mixture of human advice and product information on that commodity. I'll be looking for information from other people (reviews, ratings etc) and price comparison sites that tell me where would be a good place to get it from.

So the next question I would ask of the trinity is can they provide me with that information?

Lets look at them.

Facebook contains communities. Does Facebook have the potential to become this place that I would go to find reviews? Yes. But its still not yet a place I'd go to for reviews, I'd seek out user forums or independent (or supposedly independent) sites that house reviews from industry experts. User forums / sites / applications are invariably more sophisticated and in depth than anything on facebook, although of course this could change if facebook opens up more.

Twitter. Communities? Yes. Reviews? well not really, how much can you fit into the twitter text box that tells you anything other that "its great lol" and "it sux". Twitter is very much about immediate impact and news (hence why it gets so much media attention). I think it could be good for generating excitement of a new product or company, but this would be short lived as the twitterverse moves on. Twitter can of course link to other sites and this is also of great value. If you can get your reviews on twitter quickly then someone will find them when they search in a week or a months time.

IPhone apps? Communities? Yes, you could create that app. Reviews? Yes you could create that app. But how do you get that app on a users phone? That's the tricky part. You've got to create a compelling reason, and that has less to do with the iphone and more to do with what you offer.

So for me, yes there are alternatives to search that google should be worried about, but nothing that immediately threatens it dominance in the online space. I'd recommend reading the Ad contrarian for more interesting articles around the other "dead" channels that seem to be ignored.

I think there is still space for someone to achieve dominance in independent advice.

I think the "old guys" at amazon and ebay offer more interesting and threatening alternatives than the holy trinity.

I think companies like Yellow Pages and Which? in UK are probably missing this opportunity as well, the ability to build these communities and user reviews whilst maintaining a relative air of independence could be done easily given their branding & audience reach.

And finally, I'm also wondering what happened online to all those governing bodies, organisations and charities that certify and review companies offline in the UK. I imagine they could make quite a name for themselves if they had a larger web presence, the likes of Tripadvisor performs the role for me that actually I'd like to come from ABTA. This bodies could be more than just a record of who agrees to their codes of practice and actually contain direct customer feedback.

Anyway, I digress. Is search dead? No. Will the holy trinity replace it? No, but it will divert some of a companies online resources towards it because the next generation are now churning out social media gurus rather than search guru's because for todays kids its the new way to make a fast buck at their elders expense.

So to finish with an example:

Does anyone really need to "search" for "Apple" or "Iphone" in order to buy it, no. But I bet they would search for "cheap Iphone tariff" or "Iphone review". Do apple need to have a big facebook or Twitter strategy? Probably not, because they've got the product and market share.

And what about everyone else? Everyone with a product that less revolutionary, less loved, less well known and more mediocre? Is Facebook and twitter going to make the difference in their marketing and sales over and above any search activity?

The channel is the mechanism of the message. You have to get that message right and deliver it to your audience in order for it to work. Unless a channel defines your audience you should concentrate on the message first, mechanism later.