Future of Search 2005, Part 2

Part two of E Commerce Times article on the future of search starts with many blind folded dart tosses. Google to launch voip in the UK, Google to buy an RSS aggregator, Yahoo to make a big blog play. Hoo boy, playing what if is fun isn’t it?

Some market share numbers.
“Why so much focus on Google? Because it’s the 800-pound gorilla, serving 47 percent of the search market, according to Nielson//NetRatings. Yahoo serves 21 percent and Microsoft’s (Nasdaq: MSFT) Latest News about Microsoft MSN handles 13 percent. However, that market share is not exclusive. Nielson says there is crossover. Fifty-eight percent of searchers also say they use Yahoo and MSN.”

The article then goes on to say sponsored links on blogs will be the “next probable venue”. Uh… people, that’s already happening. Look at all the blogs running Adsense ads, look at blogads, Adbrite, whole blog sponsoring like Sony with Lifehacker, and numerous other options for bloggers to run ads. This is older than the aged cheddar sitting in my fridge.

Coverage then talks about Google and lawsuits against trademark violation on ads. Again, this is so last year.

Google will be a portal! This has been mentioned how many other sources before? Google really doesn’t need to be a “portal” in the traditional sense of tying everything together on a single site. It’s a platform that only needs a browser. Gmail, news, maps, Blogger, Adsense, movie search, local search sites in multiple languages. Picassa doesn’t even need web access. I would say they already have the features of a portal and more without actually being called one.

Besides, a portal is just icing when they own your desktop?