Google's Fight to Kill Search by 2020?

[Linda Buquet]

Really interesting article about how predictive recommendations could minimize need for search in the future. Then where will we all be???

Google's Fight to Kill Search by 2020 | DigitalNext: A Blog on Emerging Media and Technology - Advertising Age

Inventing The Future of Search Means Inventing Life After It

There are several intersecting trends that may contribute to a future where the need to search is minimized and preempted. All of the trends center on the availability of data, which will in turn be processed, analyzed, and applied in ways to anticipate consumers' needs before those needs are expressed. The biggest contributor of data is consumers' mobility, and the precise location beacons will contribute to the precision of the predictive analytics.

The idea behind this has been around for a while ? the proverbial "walk by a Starbucks and get a coupon texted to you" scenario. But it's far bigger than discounts, and the data's far more powerful than that which indicates when one happens to walk by somewhere. The future hinges on mobility-fueled intelligence that knows that on Tuesday at 4, it should prepare a shopping list for you because you do your grocery shopping after work. It knows you dropped clothes off at a different dry cleaner so there's an opportunity to get you to switch. It knows that when you're traveling, it can guide you around the airport to your favorite kind of car at one of your preferred rental car companies without you ever needing to book it. All of these scenarios minimize or obviate the need for searching at all.

Thought-provoking and kinda scary!

 

[apolodor]

Few days ago I was using Google to find a nearby shop where I can buy whiteboard markers. Right before showing me the global results, Google attacked me with 3 entire rows of randomly chosen whiteboard markers from Amazon, Ebay and a few other online shops.

Indeed, Google is trying to anticipate the consumers needs, but I doubt the consumer likes it. If Google continues with this nonsense changes sooner or later we'll all switch to using Bing, Yahoo or some other search engine. Not just SEO experts, normal search consumers too.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Ya I'm finding predictive recommendations and these ads that follow you around wherever you go a little spooky. Just checked a post by Search Engine Land in my feedreader and it showed me an ad for the Recliner I looked at recently for a Christmas present for my Dad on Amazon. I know that's different, but still spooky how much Google and advertisers know about us and how they follow us around and re-target us.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Yep, I see that too!! Ads for Tassimo were showing up all over every page I visited today that had ads on it because I visited Tassimo's website previously. I think privacy is a thing of the past these days...

 

[Eric Rohrback]

I'm one of the advertisers that's guilty of this retargeting/remarketing everyone is getting hit with. I do PPC work for a lot of clients (small-large) and a good tactic to drive sales is to remarket to users who have visited, but didn't buy from a website. I think a lot of advertisers don't realize they really need to limit the max amount of impressions per user per campaign. It really does get annoying when I see the same stuff all over the place all day. There is definitely a delicate balance between effectively targeting a user to revisit the site and complete the purchase, and annoying the crap out of them because you have display ads targeting them 100 times a day

Little tip, if you don't want to see these ads all the time, just clear your cookies or adjust your settings to not save cookies. Other than that... it's kind of up to the advertiser to realize they need to limit impressions.

 

[MiriamEllis]

Putting on my tinfoil hat for this one....

I purchased several seasons of the old 70s TV show 'Dallas' from Amazon.com. All of a sudden, TripAdvisor starts sending me all this advertising for air fare to Dallas (a place I have never been, nor investigated visiting).

Is there some link between Amazon and TripAdvisor I've overlooked? Makes one want to look back over one's shoulder to see who is watching.