Making Search Engines Work Like Engines: Automatically

By Jörg Überla, Guest Author

Isn’t it astounding? Within only a few years, the majority of the adult population in the industrialized world has learn’t that searching is a matter of the right keywords. You type in your request, get 100,000 something results and try to narrow them down. This is a fantastic business model for providers, but a time-consuming activity for consumers. Right now, we are seeing two major developments in Europe that change this trend: vertical search engines and second generation search engines.

Let’s start with vertical search. A perfect example is Berlin and Tokyo-based Wazap!, market-leader for the gaming community, especially in gamer paradise, Japan. Wazap’s database includes thousands of reports from gamers about the latest software and hardware as well as all services provided in this multi-billion-euro business. Wazap! combines this proprietary knowledge with all available online information about this industry and keeps attracting more and more users who fear the unspecific information overload of traditional search engines.

While you still have to type your keywords here — World of Warcraft or whatever you are interested in — second generation engines like Proximic try to redefine search activities. After installing their gadget, Proximic will give you weblinks with similar content to what you are actually looking at. No keywords, no typing, just a window with further information.

In my opinion, such “real” engines show that development in this area has not stopped yet. Thinking five years ahead, searching will be a permanent and automatic action while you work online – what you will do most of the day. To come to this point, a lot of new business concepts have to be tested and valued by the market, in Europe as well as in the U.S. and Asia. For all of them, one challenge is extremely important: language. Did you know that the EU recognizes 23 official languages? You can be sure that there are people on the Continent who prefer to search in each of this languages, using keywords or, more advanced, just receiving the necessary information from an engine.