Both search and the internet itself are at an interesting juncture.
The internet giants are all looking to mobile as an area of enormous growth. Google is dominating search everywhere except perhaps china.
Also interestingly Google is focusing on the concept of snippets. They are the select videos or pics that now appear in Google’s search results.
They are looking to take the concept of snippets further – for example when you search for a chocolate cake recipe – they extract the recipe out of the page results. So in essence you don’t have to leave Google to read the recipe – as Google has captured the recipe within its own framework.
Further, both Google and Microsoft are talking with Twitter re: real time search capabilities. I.e. you search for chocolate cake and you will be able to see who is cooking a chocolate cake – right now. And with Twitters new location based API’s you will be able to find fellow chocolate cake cookers in your area.
The other battle is the free/paid battle raging between content creators i.e. News Corporation and “content skimmers” i.e. Google.
This is a strange battle – on the one hand news Corporation is opening up a lot of their content to API’s and the other they are putting up a payment platform – so they know where and how there content is being used across the web – with the premise of collecting royalties.
All in all these mega shifts and battles can make the small start-up feel – well – daunted.
However, the small developer has never had so much free - cloud based information and services at their fingertips.
A developer can use Google’s search API’s, image API’s, mapping API’s and translation API’s.
The entire catalogue of Youtube is searchable – the developer never needing to worry about bandwidth costs.
Social networks such as Twitter open their platform up their developers.
Back to the shift to mobile. I believe the whole mobile thing is just a phase – as the real swing is to all sorts of devices being internet aware and using the power of the internet to create rich user experiences.
They’re plenty of example – such as fridge being able to detect what items need to be purchased (i.e. we’re out of milk!) and then going online to order some.
The slightly tacky picture frames – which wirelessly synch with services such as photo-bucket and display your online photo galleries.
My favorite is the internet used on tablets/wall hangings. Combine this with voice activated search and you are close to having a personal concierge service. This would be great in the kitchen where you don’t want sticky fingers on your laptop.
Find me the best chocolate recipie now!