Marketing matches the benefits of my product with the needs of my customer.  The question is: who is my customer?  What is her role in her company, what are her professional aspirations, how does she communicate with others in the company and what kind of a problem solver is she?  The better I can answer these and other related questions, the more successful I will be at developing my product and showing her how its benefits can meet her needs.

One of the most memorable exercises I undertake with my marketing students, usually in the very first lecture, involves several pairs of scissors, a pile of colorful newspapers, and a healthy portion of imagination.  Half of the students are instructed to cut out ads, define the product or service offering and its benefits.  The other group goes about finding pictures of interesting people and pastes those images next to a vivid description of what they imagine that person to be.  The more detail, the better.  And it always certainly includes a name and a face.

Picture a Persona

Derived from the Latin word for "mask" or "character", persona refers to a fictitious description of a person.  The development of personas for marketing purposes is relatively wide spread according to a 2006 research paper by MarketingSherpa.  For example, it states that 40% of business technology hardware marketers use personas for their marketing.  Best Buy went through it to improve its in-store experience, and SAP did the same while designing its call center software.  How these companies create personas and communicate their identities internally varies, but the results are the same: they are better able to understand abstract customer data if they can picture it, and picture it with a face.  Humans empathize with humans.  And we tend to think in pictures.

Pareto Principle and Marketing to Personas

Can we justify marketing to just one or two personas when we know our customer base is made up of a large variety of persons?  Are we excluding the rest, or even prejudging our customers before we meet them?

Focus is the key, and the Pareto Principle can be used as justification.  Named after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, it states that 20% of our effort will likely result in 80% of our rewards, i.e. 80% of sales will come from 20% of our clients.  The better we understand the top 2 of our 10 client types, the more successfully we can market to them.  

I let Chris Sherman convince me that if I had to choose one overseas show this year, it should be SES China in Xiamen. Part of me is thanking Chris, and part of me is cursing the hell out of him. To be fair to Chris, he warned me that this is a cultural shock of significant magnitude. He was right.

I'll leave the personal observations for my blog. One of the reasons I came was that I knew this was the most important online market in the world, and I had to dip my toe in for myself. For that, I do have to thank Chris. A few weeks ago I was in Florida for the Search Insider Summit and made a note of some advice Esther Dyson passed in the keynote presentation to the ersatz "Bill Gates" (played by David Vise). "Make sure your kids learn Mandarin". Xie Xie (thank you) Esther. You're absolutely right.

Big, But Just Beginning

Let me give you some sense of the magnitude of this market. Right now, the Chinese internet market is the second largest in the world, and it's only a whisker behind the US, with 150 million users (the US has 154 million). But the US has 68% penetration. That 150 million represents about 10% of the Chinese market. At full saturation, the Chinese market will be almost 7 times as large as the US.

But don't make the mistake of projecting the US experience onto the emerging Chinese Market. Chinese culture is vastly different from the US one, and their online community will bear little resemblance to ours. For one thing, much of the Chinese online experience will likely happen through mobile devices. While internet penetration is only 10%, cell phone penetration is significantly higher, at 33%. The mobile market is much more mature here. For another, the Sino mind just clicks at a different speed than ours.

Hot and Noisy Online

One of my favorite phrases I've learned while here was renao, which loosely translates into "hot and noisy". It was explained to me by Deborah Fallows from the PEW Internet Group, an U.S. ex-pat living in Shanghai for two years with her husband, author and journalist Jim Fallows. It sums up so much of what I've seen here. The Chinese like to be bombarded by visual stimuli. They operate at a frenetic pace, juggling several things at one, each loudly demanding attention. Some look at this as a lack of maturity in the Asian market. Chinese web sites are seen to be garish through western eyes and we think this is because the designers aren't very sophisticated yet. Perhaps it's just the designers catering to their audience, who like it "hot and noisy".

Savoring Information

The other difference is how western cultures treat information, compared to the Chinese. In the west, information is in no short supply, and for the most part, we inherently trust the source of that information. We believe most things we read online to be true. Our biggest challenge is to wade through the mountain of information available to us and to eliminate the irrelevant. The Chinese treasure information, yet have a healthy skepticism as to its veracity. While the west is ruthless in our filtering of information, particularly on a search page, the Chinese are more apt to gather and consider, taking time to digest and choose. They often have multiple windows open at the same time, both as a way to keep busy with the slower load times typical in China, and also because they like their desktop "hot and noisy".

Keeping an Eye on the Market

One of the reasons I was here was to share preliminary findings from an eye tracking study we did with Chinese users on the two main Chinese search properties, Baidu and Google.cn. This difference in user behavior became very apparent in the study. In North America, the average interaction with a search results page, from launch to first click, is generally less than 10 seconds. In the Chinese study, we saw averages of 30 seconds on Google and up to a minute on Baidu. While North American scan activity is condensed in the Golden Triangle, in China, it's spread around the page. It's fascinating to watch an individual session. The eye zips around the page, picking up information in an apparently haphazard manner. Baidu has been taken to task for the opaque nature of its listings, where you can pay for placement. The results are also much more prone to affiliate spam (on both engines, but particularly Baidu) than we see in North America. But the Chinese don't mind. Baidu has captured 62% of the search market here, compared to 20% for Google. After all, lack of trust in information is nothing new to the Chinese. Why should it be any different on a search engine? By the way, release of the study is slated for mid-June.

Everyone I've talked to here agrees. This is a market ready to explode. Innovation is happening organically and at an incredibly rapid pace. The development cycle to turn out new functionality on Chinese sites is 30 to 50% as long as their North American based rivals. As somebody told me, "in China, you point, shoot and then aim. Deliberation will kill you here." This is a lesson Google is learning the hard way. In chatting with Chris, the level of sophistication has raised immensely from the last show they did here, in 2006. The Chinese internet market is like a Beijing taxi, there may be no logic to its route, but it's sure getting to wherever it's going in a hurry!

Search engine marketing has been a tough sell for many companies.  Part of the reason for this is that in many companies there are only a small percentage who "get" search engine marketing.  Many of the marketing managers with companies understand the need for search marketing.  More so for online marketing in general.  Those who do understand search marketing are faced with the arduous task of selling online marketing to their managers, their team and C-Suite Executives.  While selling search engine marketing to their team and their immediate managers may not always be that difficult, selling online marketing to C-Suite Executives is a whole other ball game.  So how exactly do you sell online search marketing to C-Suite executives?  Here are a couple of points to consider when trying to sell search engine marketing to C-Suite execs.  Is search engine marketing the new C-Suite marketing?

1. Speak the C-Suite Language - Understand what is important to the C-Suite.  Perform an analysis of what their needs are.  Create a persona for the C-Suite Executive.  Find out what language they use and learn to speak that language.  It's like when you go to a foreign country and need to learn the native language.  Being able to communicate like C-Suite Executives is the first step in selling them on search marketing. 
     
2. Present Value Justification - At the end of the day, C-Suite Execs are all about ROI and profit.  A little secret for you; people are in business to make money… to make a profit.  Learn what the benefits of search marketing are and how creating a dominant online presence can help improve ROI.  Knowing that search marketing, specifically organic search marketing, can provide a great return with limited investment is a key selling point when providing value justification to the C-Suite Executive.
     
3. Educate the C-Suite - In a lot of organizations, C-Suite Executives are often looking towards traditional media to improve ROI and to market their companies.  Search marketing and online marketing is relatively new.  While it has been around for the better part of a decade (even longer depending on what you refer to search marketing as) online marketing and marketing through search is new when compared to traditional marketing media.  For this reason educating C-Suite Executives is critical in getting their buy in.  If they do not understand what SEM or SEO is, how can they accept it as a necessary and effective lead generation tool?  Understand that many C-Suite Executives may not have any perception of search engine marketing simply because they do not know what it is.
      
4. Know who the C-Suite are - sounds simple doesn't it?  Well consider this, there are a number of different C-Suite Executives that can exist and they include:

• Audit Committee Chair
• Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
• Chief Compliance Officer (CCO)
• Ethics Officer (EO)
• General Counsel (GC)
• Chief Audit Executive (CAE)
• Investor Relations (IR)
• Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
• Chief Operating Officer (COO)
• Chief Information Officer (CIO)
• Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
• Chief Security Officer (CSO)
• Chief Risk Officer (CRO)
• Chief Labor Lawyer
• Chief HR Officer
• Chief Learning Officer

A recent report by the Economist Intelligence Unit and the search company Fast reveals the attitudes towards Web 2.0 in the "typical" corporation.  Of interest here is that the report states that "The C-suite is more enthusiastic than lower-level executives.A full 85% of C-suite executives see the sharing and collaboration aspects of Web 2.0 as an opportunity to increase revenue and/or margins, versus 75% of middle management. The C-suite is also more inclined to view Web 2.0 as transforming, affecting all parts of the business (35% versus 28%) and having a significant impact on the company’s business model (41% versus 22%)."  Proving that search engine marketing and online marketing can have a significant impact on a company's business model just might be the new C-Suite Marketing that is required to get buy-in from those that can have the greatest impact on search marketing efforts.   Search marketing may not be the new C-Suite Marketing, but search marketing definitely needs to be marketed to the C-Suite.

The walls are coming crashing down at Google. They're in the middle of tearing down silos and aggregating content. But that aggregation will likely come with a very unique viewpoint some day: yours.

Last week at Searchology (an event I couldn't attend, due to a conflict) Google unveiled universal search, along with a few other assorted tidbits. David Berkowitz covered this in Tuesday's Search Insider, so forgive me if some of this is redundant, but I think we're covering unique ground in our approaches.

Mixing up Google's Buckets

The key for universal search? Results that come from a number of different sources: the web, blogs, video, news, images, maps, local, product, to name a few, all presented on the same results page. And yes, ads. Because, in the words of Marissa Mayer, "sometimes an ad is the right answer". So, in effect, Google is no longer a search engine. It's an "idea portal", aggregated from Google's vast web reach around a specific query, on the fly and brought together for the user. And Google, in its infinite wisdom, will apply a universal ranking algorithm across disparate content to pull what it feels is the most relevant to the top of the page.

Universal search, in one fell swoop, makes the idea of vertical search irrelevant, because Google is making it all horizontal. They'll assemble a smorgasbord of content from their various buckets, prepared right in front of your eyes in 0.23 seconds.

Does One Score Fit All?

But here's the challenge. The task of applying a content agnostic relevancy score is daunting, and according to Google, it's the reason they're only now introducing universal search, after a number of years in the lab. In fact, it's so daunting, you'll probably only see other types of content creep onto your results page in the most obvious of cases. For example, a search for a specific video that's suddenly very hot will bring back the video clip near the top. For most searches, the net impact of vertical search will be the appearance of some additional links to other vertical "buckets" near the top of the results set. Like most things that can impact the user experience, Google is treading carefully here.

Just Add Two Dashes of Personalization

So why bother? Because universal search becomes much more interesting when you combine it with personalization. In a recent interview I did with Marissa Mayer, she said she didn't see a strong vertical angle for personalization in the near future. I can't help but think that personalization will drive universal search. In fact, I don't think universal search works very well without personalization. In both cases, we're looking at an on-the-fly algorithm that works over and above the base Google algorithm, reordering results for you. Google will be able to be more confident in offering a much richer and more diverse set of universal results when you can tap into previous search and web history. It will give them a lot more background to help them put context around your query. With personalization, every search becomes your customized portal, centered on what's on the top of your mind right now. And that's pretty interesting, both for the user and the advertiser.

And One Cup of Assorted Advertising

Obviously, Google's mind is straying down this path as well, because at Searchology, Marissa did a pretty intense back pedal from her previous position that display or rich media ads would never appear on the search results page. The official position is now: "potentially..possibly..probably". Google's statements used to be much more unequivocal, but lately, they're sounding much less adamant and much more political. No door shall remain unopened, even if it's just a crack, because chances are, Google may have to squeeze through it in the future.

Increasingly, the puzzle pieces of Google's empire are falling into place. When you take personalization, universal search, enhanced ad serving capabilities and outreach into the most popular web communities and bring them together, you start to see a pretty compelling network emerge, and it's all centered on the user, one user at a time.
 

This week, Enquiro released its latest B to B research study (with the help of partners MarketingSherpa, Zoominfo and SSI), based on a survey to almost 1100 respondents.  Today, I wanted to share a few high level findings with you that came out of the study  The full report is free and is available on our website

The Mirrored Worlds of Online and Offline

One of the challenges in B to B marketing is that you're not marketing to just one person; you're marketing to an organization. So you're marketing to different people within that organization at different times.  This adds a significant amount of complexity to business-to-business marketing. We wanted to capture this aspect of the B to B buying process and shed a little more light on it.  Within the survey, we grouped respondents into four different categories of buyers: user buyers, technical buyers, coach buyers and economic buyers, the one who actually signs the check.

Another thing we wanted to look at was the impact of both online and off-line influencers in the purchase decision.  How important was visiting a website, compared to seeing a vendor at a trade show or an ad in a trade publication?  In the study, one thing became clear.  Online influences have gained a tremendous amount of ground on traditional influences.  In fact, they've even caught up with the traditional off-line winner, word-of-mouth.  The vendor's own website was listed as the most important influence, together with word-of-mouth from a colleague or peer. Close behind were search engines, distributor websites and word-of-mouth from a friend.  When B to B purchasers enter the purchase cycle, online activity is a natural result of off-line brand awareness.  As the buyer becomes aware of the potential product or solution, the first reaction is to turn online to find out more about it. Across all phases of the buying cycle, including awareness, research, negotiation and purchase, over 85% of respondents indicated that they will go online to help them make the right purchasing decision. This was highest during the awareness and research phase, with a full 92% of respondents indicating that they would turn to online resources.  It was lowest during negotiation, but even so, two out of every three respondents indicated that they would go online during this phase.

The Search Intersection

The vast majority of purchasers start their online journey at a search engine.  Although this varies by phase of the buying process, over all phases one in two users turn to a search engine first to help them find the online resources they're looking for.  This is highest during the beginning of the purchase process, in the awareness and research phases.  At the awareness phase, 65% of respondents indicated the first place they would go would be a search engine.

There's also a distinct evolution in the use of search engines as buyers move through the purchase process.  Near the beginning, the first places they turn to are the major portals, and the overwhelming favorite is Google, the first choice of 77% of the respondents.    By the way, in a simulated search we incorporated into the survey, 74.2% of the clicks happened on organic listings. This matches up quite well with the organic/sponsored breakdown we've seen in other studies.

But as they begin moving through the phases, the role of the vertical B to B search engine (such as Business.com or Knowledgestorm) becomes more important.  Buyers use these engines to build their consideration set and dig deep for the information about the product or solution alternatives they're considering. While only 7.3% of respondents indicated they would turn first to the B to B vertical engine in the awareness phase, 22.1% indicated this would be their first choice during the negotiation stage.

K.I.S.S. Works for B to B too

The biggest influence for the B to B buyer? The vendor's own website.  But when it comes to accessing information on that website, simpler is definitely better for the B to B buyer. Clear, extensive product information provided in an easily transferable, text-based format was by far the most important information the buyers were looking for on the website.  Number one was clear pricing information.  This was followed closely by extensive product information, comparisons with competitors and downloadable papers and product sheets.  The least important factors to the buyer were things like podcasts, webinars and online chat functions.  B to B buyers are very task oriented; they want to get in, find the information they're looking for and get out.  They have little patience for linear multimedia presentations that force them to gather information on the vendor's timeline, not their own.

B to B purchases are often complex, long cycle affairs.  They generate a tremendous amount of online activity and the wonderful thing for the marketer is that much of that activity funnels through a search engine at some point.  This gives the marketer who understands this process a tremendous advantage, because it's easier to determine the most traveled intersections online. But that understanding is the key.

Within the SEM industry a trend can be noticed towards the internalization of search; the formation of in-house SEO and SEM teams to handle search. With the costs of reputable outsourcing agents continuing to rise, the justification to hire within and develop an in-house team becomes justifiable, or at least appears to on the books. Return on investment with a team working full time on bid management and organic strategies should be able to deliver the same value as does an outsourced company, not working nearly as many hours.The simple ROI calculation cannot factor in the intangible factors associated with outsourcing to a reputable SEM company (I'm saying reputable because the industry is littered with the living room-based self proclaimed SEO firms who are anything but reputable and whose services can be easily internalized.)  However, having worked with internal departments it is apparent that the value justification of an outsourcing is apparent.

Similar to an accounting department hiring an external company to perform audits, an outsourced SEO firm can act as an independent auditor for your entire SEM campaign. Being once removed from the business is not a disadvantage, in fact in many cases, being external to the company allows the SEO firm to understand the business problems and strategic goals without losing site of the main objective due to corporate pressures. An outsourced company needs to not only understand the business objectives and resource allocation limitations of their clients, but act to ensure the SEO efforts remain on track to achieve the corporate goals.

Furthermore, an external company does not become involved in the political environment of the company. The politics are understood by the outsourced company, however, an outsourced company does not become directly involved. When recommendations are made from an external company auditing the current SEM campaigns, the recommendations will be results-focused and should be relatively free of political motivations. A significant time-savings can be realized by externalizing certain SEM elements such as bid management. An outsourced search partner consistently trains and educates themselves in the latest industry best practices, maintains its position on the leading forefront of knowledge and explores new alternative marketing tactics. Moreover, a strategic search partner will have already made the contacts within the industry there by ensuring new campaign tactics are quickly implemented. Outsourcing to a SEM solutions provider does not mean externalizing your entire SEM department, but rather accessing an entire knowledge database for strategic insight.  An SEO firm should not be used to perform the basics; quite frankly anyone can write an optimized Meta tag and can be paid significantly less than what you would pay and outsourced firm to do the same. However, the SEM firm should be able to provide the training, best practices documentation, and support to the in-house team. Where the value of an outsourced SEM company truly does show its value is through the advanced, higher level strategic planning and execution.

For example (and at the risk of trivializing strategic planning), when I had set out to write this article I had an idea of what I wanted to achieve; however, half way through I seemed to have gotten off track and needed a colleague, external to the situation, to help put me back on track to achieve my desired results. Now I do know that most of you reading this are probably saying big deal it's only an article; however, in a metaphorical sense, this does describe many of the situations with designing a complex e-marketing campaign we deal with on a daily basis. Many business systems, and even our own government structure, are based on a series of checks and balances; an SEM firm should serve as that strategic check and ensure your total campaign remains in balance with your objectives.The argument for in-house SEM is extremely apparent with Pay Per Click campaigns. Although the argument can be made that bid management can be automated, the simple fact is that no computer can optimize a campaign to respond to competitive pressures or respond to a change in quality score. Moreover, a computer cannot determine the most effective advertising mix for a specific campaign nor can it determine what language the user is using to more effectively market to them.  Total reliance on an automated bid management system will simply maintain the status quo (maintain return on investment or your position on the Search Engine Results page), but will not allow for strategic improvement. Computer programs can only sustain a campaign and it is up to a strategic search partner to work with you to grow your business. A computer program also can not determine how to increase conversions from a particular campaign nor can it determine which elements are the most effective and what the most effective communications mix (language, images, and calls-to-action) will work the best. Tools are on the market to aid in the testing of page features to aid in increasing conversions, such as the Google Website Optimizer; however the information these tools provide are only as good as the initial set of data entered into them. Automated bid tools for PPC are one of the major reasons that the costs of campaigns are driving smaller advertisers out of the industry. With the implementation of any campaign a SEM company can help to establish limits on the campaign, implement the proper tracking, and ensure that ROI is constantly measured. Outsourcing to SEM companies can provide significant opportunities to build upon the in-house team and provide real value through strategic insight. Anyone can be taught the basics of SEO, but a true SEM solutions provider will act as the extension to your strategic planning team, implementing the complex solutions and working with you to achieve your business goals. Stay tuned for part two…

If you knew what your ideal target customer was thinking when they landed on your website, would you structure your design and content accordingly to meet their needs?  How about if that target customer was prone to react differently and interact differently with your website if they were in a different stage of the buying cycle?  What would you do differently for that person?  The concept is not new, and every company that sets out to develop a website wants to connect with that person.  When it comes to purchasing a complex B2B solution, the interaction with a website can vary greatly and understanding the intent of the user and mapping that intention with the solutions offered on your website is of paramount importance.  This article will look at one aspect of how the B2B searcher, at the early stage of researching a product, will interact with your website.

For a Technology firm, the B2B solutions they require could range from a content management system to enterprise level solutions.  These types of purchases could require months of awareness and research before a buyer begins to think about negotiating a purchase.  In our recent B2B study we surveyed 1000 participants and learned that 51.8% of them used a search engine while they were in the research phase.  We learned that as the user moves down the sales cycle they tend to favor B2B vertical websites and the vendors' website plays a larger role (28.4% at the purchase phase).  However, let's get back to the researcher.  The VP of Marketing for a large organization that has been tasked with shopping for a complex product (i.e. content management system) and we know they are starting their research at a search engine.

Influencing Factors
If we first think of the offline influences that may shape your frame of mind when starting your search, word of mouth from a colleague ranks the highest, followed by advice from a friend, then advice from a paid consultant.  So you've been swayed a little bit and you have a few ideas in mind as you set out to do your research.  While this whole process starts at a search engine, the most important factor influencing your buying decision is the vendors' website.  The search engine has helped you find the vendor you want to consider.  Now what aspects of that company and their website will convince you to shell out the big bucks for your high-cost content management system?

Top of mind awareness is important. But generating awareness and maintaining this top of mind awareness can be difficult to do. For B2B marketers who are looking to create awareness about their solutions and services, being innovative and finding new methods to create awareness is key. An innovative method for creating top of mind awareness is through the use of search and mobile marketing.

The major search engines from Yahoo to Google have products in place to address the need of mobile advertisers. Look to both search giants to continue to improve their mobile search solution offerings. So why should B2B marketers use mobile search as part of their online marketing strategies? Examining the mobile solutions that Yahoo and Google offer may provide some answers as to why B2B marketers should incorporate mobile search into their marketing efforts.

Yahoo Mobile Search

Yahoo! has one of the largest audiences on the mobile Web. Through Yahoo! oneSearch and Yahoo! Go, Yahoo! reaches a substantial percentage of the worldwide mobile audience. Yahoo claims that Yahoo! oneSearch reinvents search to give consumers exactly what they want on their mobile device - instant answers. vYahoo mobile services enable mobile advertisers, publishers and operators to elevate business results.

Yahoo's mobile search solution fo publishers include items such as:

• Yahoo! Mobile Ad Network
• Yahoo! Mobile Content Engine
• Yahoo! Mobile Media Directory
• Yahoo! Mobile Site Submit

Yahoo Mobile Business Services is designed to enable:

Advertisers to reach the growing mobile consumer audience with innovative, highly-targetable placements that deliver results.

Publishers to increase the discovery and distribution of their content to mobile consumers, and to generate revenue from it.

Network Operators to offer leading-edge customer experiences, and to participate in the growth of mobile advertising

As B2B marketers, Yahoo!'s Mobile Ad Services can be a great method for increasing top of mind awareness for the services and solutions that they provide. Products such as Yahoo! oneSearch, do in fact provide a better search experience that redefines search for the phone. B2B marketers who have not looked at mobile search as a means of creating top of mind awareness should indeed consider mobile search as an addition to their marketing efforts.

Yahoo Press Release on Yahoo oneSearch
Yahoo Press Release on Yahoo Mobile Publisher Services

Original Post on Yahoo Mobile Marketing for B2B Marketers on SEO-Space 

Earlier this week I spoke with Brad King who is the Senior Director of Yahoo! Search Marketing for the Travel Category. Yahoo Search Marketing recently released a case study in which they helped a Travel company called Pleasant Holidays to Optimize their search marketing campaigns.

Below are the questions I asked Brad, listen here on how to fully leverage the services of Yahoo! Search Marketing:

- Can you give everyone some background on the case study?

- What were the biggest pains put forth by Pleasant Holidays?

- Is this a trend for businesses in the Travel Industry?

- Can you tell everyone why simply measuring clicks is not enough?

- One of the major lessons was to look at keywords holistically; can you speak to what this does for an online campaign?

- Are you planning on releasing more case studies in the future?

Original Post: Web Analytics World

Being as most of the Search Insiders are in Bonita Springs this week, chances are that you'll be hearing a lot of what’s happening down here in the Florida Everglades (other than the brush fires which appear to have us surrounded). Aaron Goldman shared his Buzz-o-meter with us on Tuesday, where he measures the words that seem to be dropped with the greatest frequency. It appears that my opening remarks set a tone that has been picked up in a number of sessions, and two words breaking into the top 10 are Connection and Community. He added a third C: Content.

Search Engines Go Under the Hood

To me, they sum up a transition that’s happening in search. Expect the activity of searching on a search engine to gradually disappear, to be replaced with the functionality of search as an underpinning to the workings of many things on the web. Search will become the engine that drives the semantic web, which Esther Dyson talked about in her keynote. She’s looking for search to move beyond "search and fetch" to her ideal, "deliver, act and transact". Search will be the connector between what we want and what best matches our want out there on the web. And rather than a singular task (i.e. go look for this query) it will become a self guided series of tasks, with intelligent agents in between to set search on its new direction. An entire trip, include flight reservations, hotel bookings, ground transportation, notifications of friends in the area and restaurant reservations could all be handled by intelligent web agents, powered by search. And as came up in a panel discussion with the Search Insiders, when the presentation of commercial messaging appears in this context, it’s not advertising, it's a helpful recommendation.

The piece that drives this is personalization, and that's why Google’s moves are potentially so important. They take us much closer to the semantic web that Dyson envisions. This is the first C:

Connections.Redefining Community

The other C speaks to the very transformation of our society: Community. The way we relate to each other is being totally rewired by the internet. By sheer physical necessity, communities have previously been defined by geography. We shared a common space, which enable communication, which created community. But today, the internet has made physical distance irrelevant. Our communities are now defined by commonly held ideas or interests. Communities form around ideas, and search connects us to those communities. Every time we do online research for a product or service, we step into a community. In the course of a day, we can belong to several different communities. They are constantly shifting, as people move in and out of them, depending on the longevity of the engagement with the idea that forms the community.

Content Trails

And a third C, content, is the trail that the other members of that community leave behind
through their conversations. These are the telltale signs that someone has already gone this way, and left a permanent record of their engagement with the community. Every Wikipedia
entry is part of a community, as are many MySpace pages, blog posts and other virtual
outposts. Search is the thread that loops them together at the user’s initiative. In fact, the algorithm of the engine is the de facto definer of community with each given search. The
engine goes out, defines the landscape of community, and connects you with the citizens of
that community and the content trails they leave behind.

It's a fascinating world, which is being born as we speak. It's a sociological experiment of vast magnitude in the making, and, I don’t think we know what the repercussions will be. Whatever they are, it’s too late to turn back now. Technology moves fast, but people move slowly, and not in one mass. Small degrees of technological change can create seismic shifts in the sociological landscape. And we’re subjecting ourselves to a degree of technological change unparalleled in history. Who knows what we've unleashed?