The Future of Search – Hosted at Google’s Cambridge Office, Presented by Google Senior Agency Relations Manager Lisa Green and SEMPO Boston Working Group

#Sempo_boston

Search is being redefined by mobile, local, social, personal, augmented reality

By a device revolution: Mobile phones

• Increasing capabilities and ubiquity
• Have almost human capabilities: ears, eyes, know who, what, where, why

Personalization How can we truly personalize?

Augmented reality Fuse digital to actual world

Localization & personalized search

• iPhone users using maps 30 percent more than desktop users. No need to ID location.
• You know where I am, I want sushi

Social circle personalization

• New: Augment results with friends’ info, say on NZ what did they say/recommend
• What do my friends think about type of mobile phone I’m investigating

Omnivorous search box: everything you’ve searched

• Media
• Photos, video, not just text. 100 billion images added to web every year
• Image recognition
• Look by color, size:  Google can understand what’s in the picture
• Will be able to drag image into the search box
• Google Goggles: take picture, search conducted from pic. Can take biz cards, add to contact lists
• Image swirl: Similar to Wonder Wheel, system understands how images relate to each other

Adding greater depth to search

• Play songs from search results
• Add more languages, make Google universally accessible, can search and get results in native language

What’s new in Search blog posts updated every Friday, Google YouTube brand channel

Q&A

Q. How long until we have conversation w search engines? Have phone talk back to you?

A. Devices need improvement, technology is there on Google’s end

Q. Local listings: Google maps?

A. Local extensions released recently, improvements and beta tests within local Mobile, can target by device and carrier: AT&T and iPhone users within geo space

Q.  Does Google know searches across devices, if you searched from phone, will results on desktop reflect phone search?

A. Only if logged in, but try to keep separate so results not skewed

Q. Location-based banner advertising?

A. iPhone doesn’t allow but android does, up to the carriers, Google working toward those results while protecting privacy

Q. SEM mobile?

A. Device and carrier targeting is latest, for sponsored ads. Can select whether just want full browser phones. More coming in mobile

Other nuggets

• Real-time results: are unfiltered, working to refine real-time
• Hit all points in the algorithm, and businesses can appear in real-time results
• Nexus One forthcoming for Verizon, Google was leaving development to device manufacturers, but now considering it
• The way the search engine works fundamentally won’t change, but focusing on indexing
• Seeing an increase in number of words users putting in the search: Majority of engineers working on search.
• Google tries to be sure agencies are armed w info to sell search marketing (not SEO) so they understand how to grow business

Bottom line

Google’s focus is always on users and giving them what they want

Previous “Voice of Google” posts

SEMNE event: Google Adwords Best Practices with Malinda Gagnon of Google

The following are notes from last night’s event. These are not final text, just merely notes to inform those who were not able to join the “sold-out” crowd (event was free with tasty eats provided by Google) or a refresher for those who were.

SEMPO Boston Hosts Google Universal Search @ Google, Cambridge MA 4/8/09

Speaker: Frances Haugen

Organizing the world’s information with a simple premise: Google will do its best to give the best possible answers

Info takes lots of forms: images, blogs, books

Google seeks to

• Provide comprehensiveness
• Continue to focus on: What is the users’ intent
• Retain relevance
• Run every query against every index
  •         Show results only after looking @ all the data
  •         Blend results into single ranked list

    
What’s next

•     Looking to make search more accessible for non-native English-speakers
•     Improve relevance
•     More parallel searches (When have misspelling, results for corrected also avail)
•     Expand more context (multiple refined searches, apply older queries to new ones)

Help users explore

•     More variety in result types more often
•     One main list w links for refinement
•     Keep list quick and easy to read

What does it mean for Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?

•     Usual guidelines still apply
•     Webmasters are central to Google’s mission

SEMs should take advantage of prominent new verticals    

•     Google video sitemap
•     High-quality well-captioned images
•     Update local searches

Discussion

Why choose one thing over another?
Google has insights of volume to study the patterns of what people click on

Google has people are trained to evaluate: Is this actually better?

Every time Google launches a ranking refinement: It’s done carefully and remains conscious about what people think is actually better.

Regardless of who generates the answers, Google is committed to making sure best possible answers are provided.

Tip: Regular-expressions.info: search pattern language tool