Three Kings
- Image via Wikipedia
The first time I became aware of the difference between ‘search’ and ‘discovery’ was when I was attending a keynote of the founder of Stumbleupon Garrett Camp at The Next Web in 2007. And I’ve been interested in this subject since then. Search versus discovery can be illustrated by the following dichotomies between;
– knowing what you want versus not exactly knowing what you want,
– going to the information versus information coming to you,
– driven by popularity (math) versus driven by recommendation (social),
– wanting less (search results) versus more (options) is better,
– endpoint versus starting point.
More popular said; search is making the web effective and discovery makes the web fun (again!). Browsing the web in the pre-Google era was in fact discovering the web. Nowadays ‘search’ is still the most dominant theme, covering nearly everything we do with on the Web (finding something or someone). But most current innovations made in search are related to the discovery experience within search. Especially in the field of image/visual search (f.e. look at Google Swirl). So another dichotomy can be added;
– text-based (entry field) versus click-based (button, link).
To put it more straightforward; the future of search is discovery! The success of Twitter proves this thesis. Twitter is commonly seen as the most important player in the field of ‘realtime search’. But from a search/discovery perspective; Twitter is largely a discovery service!
– Information (Tweets) is coming to you;
– It’s driven by popularity (You choose whom you want to follow);
– A tweet acts as a starting point for further exploration (in a sense of thinking, linking etc.)
And if you’re following, you don’t have to search!
In the meantime, another term is making its appearance; recovery! Recovery refers to the activity of finding something you’ve seen before. F.e. you’ve seen a fragment on television, and you go to Youtube to find this fragment.
From a content perspective there are three ‘kings’;
King of Text is ‘Search’, the King of Images/Galleries is ‘Discovery’ and the King of Video is Recovery. And as in poker, the game immediately ends when one player has three kings!
Related articles by Zemanta
- Search, Discovery and Curation (newcommbiz.com)
- Sobees Launches Realtime Social Media Discovery Platform (techcrunch.com)
- StumbleUpon Recasts Itself As A Social Search Engine “Between Google And Twitter.” (techcrunch.com)
Leave a comment
Recent Comments
Recent Posts
Archives
- December 2017
- October 2016
- December 2014
- November 2014
- August 2014
- June 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- September 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- May 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- October 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- June 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- March 2006
- December 2005