Challis Hodge’s UXblog

It seems like the trend is shifting from optimizing for a slow, dumb engine, and is moving towards a more sophisticated integration of elements, be it image, video, consumer reviews, or social networks. This changes what is getting optimized from the platform to the asset. That is why the future is all about Digital Asset Optimization (DAO) and not about SEO. Digital Asset Optimization properly assigns value to the platform or device as the conduit for marrying content and intent. By understanding how video can be optimized, a search campaign can be successful on Google or YouTube.

Earlier this week, fellow Search Insider David Berkowitz discussed the new Samsung set top See’N'Search. The device is just one example of how search is going to evolve. I’ve said this before, yet it still has not sunk in for many. Search on the desktop is not the end game. It is the starting point today, and Google has won that medium. When we think about Mobile Search, Local Search, Video and Image Search — and even search on the set top, we have yet to declare a winner, and I would suggest we have yet to even meet all the players.

The closing paragraph of the Keynote study summed it up fairly well. “Whatever the front end, whatever the search domain, the news is sure to be good for users. With such intense competition, and so much money at stake, the leading search providers will continue to make the user experience better and better, and make it easier and easier to find whatever it is we seek.”

So, the future of SEO as defined today is a bleak one. Whether we merely change the description of SEO or use a new acronym like DAO, the days of success being optimization for 10 text links on a standard results page is going to end up just like our old description of the engines: as dinosaurs. Extinct dinosaurs.

Some of the long-time UXblog readers might be familiar with my ‘overly complex diagram used to explain a simple concept.’ It seems appropriate to pull the old graphic out once again as we contemplate the future of specialty Search Agencies.

In recent years we have witnessed the birth of several specialty disciplines that quickly blossomed into specialty shops only to gradually fade out as their skills were absorbed into generalist shops and agencies. A few that come to mind include cognitive psychology into usability engineering firms, cultural anthropology into specialty research shops, and library sciences into information architecture shops.

Obviously some of these specialty shops still exist today but the vast majority slowly faded as agencies sought to find balance between these skills and efficiency in using them.

I believe the end of 2007/beginning of 2008 marks the peak of yet another specialty: Search Engine Marketing & Optimization.

The last couple of years have been challenging as agencies struggled to find ways to integrate specialty SEM shops into their interactive processes. While the value has been significant, they have not been able to achieve the levels of efficiency required to maximize that value.

Over the course of 2008 I believe we’ll see a great deal of realignment in this space. A few SEM/SEO shops will remain independent, some will align with analytics and media shops, while much of the SEM/SEO expertise will naturally merge into the interactive agencies and marketing shops. Once it’s moved into the i-agencies some of the SEM expertise will be absorbed into existing agency disciplines like planning, user experience, analytics, strategy or research. Still, I think we’ll see a specialized search discipline persist inside the agencies for quite some.

All-in-all 2008 will prove to be an exciting year as agencies, their partners and clients continue through the cycle: embracing change, growing and finding balance.

WSDM (pronounced “wisdom”) is a brand new ACM conference intended to be complementary to the World Wide Web Conference tracks in search and data mining. The pace of innovation in these areas has reached a level that requires more than one premier annual venue. WSDM invites original, high quality submissions related to search and data mining on the Web, with an emphasis on practical but principled novel models, algorithm design and analysis, economics implications, and in-depth experimental analysis of accuracy and performance. The goal is to make WSDM a focused meeting with a single research paper session through 2-3 days. WSDM will also invite keynote talks from some of the best minds from industrial and academic research.

A9.com, an independent unit of the Internet retailer, launched a new version of its Web site late Tuesday night. The service greatly expands on and organizes early features of A9, which launched in test form in April, to create a helm for steering personalized Web search. To this end, A9 lets people navigate, annotate and store Web pages they’ve visited, and as the TiVo digital video recorder does with television programs, it will recommend sites based on users’ past preferences.