The Quiet Portalization of Google
Aaron points out, Google have just added one more top of results feature: Stock Charts So where to now?
It makes you wonder, as it did Eric Goldman, what's left to do? As Eric points out, a search for Milwaukee weather will show you current temperature and forcasts, a search for million dollar baby brings up showtimes and reviews. There's also a host of other stuff, such as Google Print and Google Maps that the right queries will trigger top of results inserts for. So where next?
Will GOOG be happy with the quiet portalization of their website via it's SERPS, with those (eventually) revenue generating inserts providing a much needed, not Adwords, $$$ stream or will we see the fabled my.google.com? Who knows...
Yahoo's Jeremy Zawodny said a little while back that it's not a questoin of 'if', with regard to Google portalization, and that people where asking the wrong question. What they should be asking is What will the next generation portal look like?
If their current products are any indication, most things fit into a "one box" view of the world. By that I mean that each of their major properties have an obvious text input box and one or two buttons. The interaction is in one of two modes:
- Type into the box and hit the button. Look at results.
- Use other navigation to browse. Repeat.
He goes on to theorize that 95% of Google sessions start with some kind of search, and says that he's not convinced that this "one box view of the world" is going to be the primary mode of interaction over the next few year.
Im not convinced either, but then i dont think my.yahoo is the solution.
Google Portalization
What i think i'd like to see is a mish-mash between my.yahoo functionality and Google simplicity and minimalism - to be able to construct my own page, but for it to be a less daunting task. After all, fully half the arguments you read about educating Joe Surfer state that you simply can't. Joe Surfer is just not sophisticated enough in his needs, nor profficient enough in his skills to really get any value out of many of Google's services unless they are indeed "one box".
They do have some terrific UI engineers however, and it really wouldn't be so hard to put "add to my.google" links on this inserted content in the one box model....
very interesting
...don't read that many blogs but i work with portals and the like, so i read the Zawodny article linked to above. Not much on next generation of portals, but in one of the comments i found this little gem: Yumgo
Strictly speaking, a Portal is an entrance or entry point. It's where you start your journey from A to B. In that light, a search engine -- any search engine -- is a portal. So is Threadwatch, btw.
I love your posts claus - I always get something worthwhile out of them! This time it's Yumgo.... thanks!
Rides
http://labs.google.com/ridefinder
It just get's weirder...
Blue skying is good...
...and Google is good at it as Ride Finder shows, though I tend to think portalization via SERPs is unlikely here. Something like this can work with a my.google scenario that, knowing how G likes to investigate many different possibilities, somebody somewhere must be working on.
That said, I kind of think that Google will try to go in the direction of the "tabless portal" (Did Danny Sullivan coin the phrase "tabless search"?) because -- as we all know -- algo-generated content is best! If it goes to a my.google type of portal it will be a major sea change and basically a reformulation of its DNA.
[bluesky]The way something like Ride Finder will work for me is when I click on one of those upside-down teardrops and my GPS-geneated pickup info is sent directly to the taxi.[/bluesky]