As Media Post’s Search Insider Summit opened up, everyone fresh with coffee and battles with the bagel toasting machine, the smell of change in the search industry was in the air. Of course we know that change is a key component of search marketing and it’s what makes this industry so interesting and challenging.
Gord Hotchkiss of Enquiro, who was tasked as the event emcee, kicked off the Summit with opening remarks about search as a connection to social change. While innovations with search features and functionality are occurring every day, Gord reminds us that technology changes much faster than people do.
As an agent of change the internet has the potential of having a far greater impact than something like TV. However, we won’t see the real impact of the internet on society for 10-15 years, just like it took many years for TV to change society.
The definition of “community” is changing. It’s gone from what we have in common geographically to communities of ideology. The internet allows communities of interest having nothing to do with geography to exist and thrive. It’s not physical proximity, it’s mind space proximity. People move in and out of communities as they like.
We need to think of search differently. Rather than a box we enter words into to get links back, search is a function that drives connections between communities. Things like personalization and social search are what’s becoming important. Don’t think of it as searching, think of it as connecting.
