The future of search might be changing, Searchme.com is using images of websites, rather than the traditional text based response that Google returns. At first, I was a little skeptical but after looking at the demo and taking personal biases away, I think they are on to something huge. As more and more boomers come online, and become comfortable with the internet, I think this will become their preferred method of searching. This would be right up my moms alley, and might even get my grandma to enjoy the internet.
Rather than relying on what Google tells them what the page is about, they will have the chance to see it. This will likely reduce their frustration of clicking on the wrong site and having to continue clicking on “blind” pages. The visual search results also have a text component returned as well at the bottom of the image. One issue they might face if this is successful is bandwidth, but bandwidth was issue a few years back with video and look where we are today.
Another interesting twist might be based on their algorithm for page or I guess “view” rank. Will they take images and designs into affect to make better looking sites with good images rank higher? Its all about visual, not necessarily content.
Overall, I think searchme.com has potential as it is completely different than Google, MSN, and Yahoo. It will be tried by different demographics and accepted by a few, but I think this might be the next step in the life of search. Check out the demo, its actually pretty cool. I was thinking I was playing with my iPhone the way the pages roll.
Tags: future of search, Google, searchme.com, Visual Search
