When I checked my gmail account last Wednesday, I saw an interesting link about blogging scroll across the top of my inbox. I clicked on a blog entry titled “The future of search.”
Wow! The entry was posted by Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Products and User Experience at Google. She certainly had some vivid ideas about how searching for information should/will change in the next decade.
For example, in one section of her entry, Marissa writes about a “far-fetched idea,” a device a person wears that searches for information based on what it hears in conversations and then reports back relevant findings.
Is that going too far? For hard-core search addicts, maybe not. But what about the rest of us? The last thing I need is a gadget around my neck (that’s what I imagined) that picks up my every word to search the neverending mountains of information on the world wide web. I admit the idea sounds interesting but is it really necessary???
Another interesting prediction was the ability to search by uploading pictures or audio. I can’t tell you how many times I try to search for songs and artists using keywords that don’t really help because I know neither the title nor artist. This could prove helpful in numerous other situations.
In her entry, Marissa also highlights some other changes in searching that she predicts will happen in the next 10 years. I wonder what impact these changes will have on individuals? The news media? There’s no doubt news media will evolve because of these changes. How will the shifts in searching change journalism? Consumers? The actual products of news media? Will the proposed changes in searching be helpful or burdensome? What are the advantages and disadvantages? How will the next generation retrieve their news?
So many questions…Only time will tell, I guess.
I would be more impressed if Google could create a device that would let you hum the melody to a song you don’t know; and it goes through all possible song databases and finds the song for you.
While technology has the ability to change our lives in wonderful, fascinating ways, I think there is a point it goes too far. If devices like that become available, we are eliminating the need for research. Where does that leave students, who actually want to learn in a hands on manner and not have everything given without so much as a thought?
I’d strongly encourage you to offer your own thoughts on where we’re headed.
The old expression, “only time will tell,” isn’t useful to readers who want your opinion.
Thanks.
I am more and more terrified with the fact that readers will have ability to pick only the news they want to know or are interested in. Obviously that where Google and other similar tools are leading humanity. I sometime appreciate that my searches are tailored to my taste because it saves time, but all in all the more narrow your interests are the more you are ignorant about the world around you.
This kind of approach would certainly undermine one of the traditional and valuable functions of journalism: inspiring debate and supporting democracy.
I don’t really have any ideas about where the future of search is headed. I do know that it will continue to get faster, easier and, hopefully, more accurate and customizable. But as far as specific ideas about what will change, I have none. If I did, though, I would get in touch with the folks at Google so I can start raking in the big bucks!!
I could foresee having the search device implanted in your head. You would only have to think about a subject, the device would read the thoughts and fire back to you some relevant data. Maybe it could even give you visual, either on a contact placed in your eye or directly into the visceral part of your brain.
Eventually these devices might be interactive so that you could communicate the data you found directly to others. Also, you could receive GPS data as well as advertising and entertainment shows!
A little scary, however ultimately doable.