The search game is changing, and here's your chance to stay on top of it. Check out the various categories, their innovators and what these shifts mean for marketers.
There's a search engine so popular that even Webster's and the Oxford English Dictionary have accepted its transformation from a noun to a verb. Perhaps you've heard of it? (Hint: It starts with a "G," ends with an "oogle.")
Hitwise recently reported the hardly surprising stat that Mountain View-based Google in April received nearly 70 percent of all U.S. searches. With numbers like that, you might wonder why the entrepreneurs behind new search startups even bother getting dressed in the morning.
It turns out that not only are the founders of new search companies hatching schemes to go up against Google, but in the process, they're also inventing entirely new categories of search -- some of which can, in turn, create entirely new marketing opportunities.
Many of the new search engines rely on sharing information, either among users in the case of social search, or among developers as in open source search. Two other search categories focus more on borrowing than sharing. Metasearch takes advantage of searches conducted by third-party engines, and visual search delivers the results of various searches in a more intuitive, eye-catching format.
Here's a primer for the new search age.
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