It isn’t really breaking news to say that navigation has changed. The question I want to ask here is: what does this new behavior mean for page design and web-based user experience? Web design is a field where methodology and best practices are in constant flux. Not only does user behavior evolve with new trends (like search and social media), but each project has its own priorities, such as visual aesthetic, intuitive functionality, lightweight utility, and so on. Usually, one of the main considerations is how easily a user can find the information he’s looking for. Over time, common practices like breadcrumbs and the “mega nav” have become prolific because they help users navigate. So I will ask again: if search has changed navigation, what else should change?

Picture a typical website in your head. What do you see in the top right-hand corner? I see a search bar. If you’re anything like me, you never use that bar because in your experience, it’s not very well implemented, and doesn’t return what you’re looking for. My proposition is this: what if we put less time into menus, and more time into perfecting that search box? If we categorize and label everything perfectly on the back-end, we can use something like Google Site Search to help users navigate through content. Site Search is to your website what Google is to the Internet, and the best part is, you don’t have to change behavior — it has already changed. This has its own implications for SEO and PageRank, but just go with me here. Why don’t we move the search bar out of that tiny corner and put it front and center?

In terms of design, I believe this loosens some of the constraints imposed by traditional navigation and allows page architects to get a little more creative. At the end of the day, the most important part of any business strategy is differentiation, which breeds memorability and repeat visitation. An innovative interface will set you apart from the masses. All that’s left is making sure it aligns with your brand message and doesn’t come at the expense of functionality. With in-site search optimization, it won’t. My prediction is that this approach will become more common, ushering in a much broader range of functional page design. What say you?

Just the other day I was running a search query on a computer I don’t normally use. I pressed Enter, and to my horror, I was presented with search results from Bing. It turns out the browser search bar had been set to run Bing searches.

A number of reflexive thoughts rushed through my head: Who uses Bing? Why was this set as the default search engine? Who would do such a thing?  My questions weren’t without some justification; after all, the result I was looking for didn’t appear anywhere near the top. Google, on the other hand, quickly identified precisely what I was looking for.

But wait. Bing must be good for something, right? I spent some time fiddling it around with it, and I think I have an answer. Use Google when you know what you want; use Bing when you’re not quite sure. While Google is adamant about maintaining a clean and clear interface, Bing does an excellent job of letting you browse through content you might be looking for.

Let’s say a friend of mine told me about a really cool time-lapse video that I should check out, but I don’t remember exactly what it’s called or where I would find it. One of Bing’s strengths is a sort of “click and nav” style of search where you can browse and filter within categories of interest. For example, from the homepage I can click Videos > Viral > Time-Lapse and find a large collection of, well, viral time-lapse videos. Chances are good that the one I’m looking for is somewhere in there.

Of course viral time-lapse video is a pretty narrow category, but the same process can be taken for “weird news” stories, desktop wallpaper, gift ideas for upcoming birthdays (via Facebook Connect), top image searches, etc. Even if I’m not looking for something specific, Bing can offer a lot of content that I didn’t know I wanted.

Bing also offers its own improvements on tools pioneered by Google. For instance, Bing Maps has a taxi fare calculator and a bird’s eye view perspective (different and cooler than the standard top-down view).

The bottom line:

Bing is no Google, and it’s not much of a substitute when you’re looking for speed and raw utility. That said, it’s much more than meets the eye, and has a lot of features Google doesn’t. Bing deserves a chance. Come on….click me.

Last month I had the privilege of taking part in a panel discussion at a Business Marketing Association breakfast in Chicago. The presentation was lead by Ray Villares from Symmetri Marketing – and the theme was the integration of search, social and mobile marketing. From a digital marketing perspective, this is really the holy trinity. Customers can now find you, and engage with you at anytime, from anywhere. Ray stated that mobile is the most intimate kind of communication – and I think that has some implications from a social media perspective. When a user is interacting with a brand via a mobile device, there is a real singularity of purpose in that moment. There aren’t 10 different windows open and programs running in the background. It’s just the two of you, and the soft glow of that tiny screen. Intimate indeed!

The opportunity is to take that relationship with the consumer to the next level. To provide something unique, something special. Maybe it’s a branded iPhone app. Maybe it’s the ability for a customer to text a keyword to enter a contest or receive product information. Maybe it’s the chance to submit a review of your product, service or establishment in nearly real-time. In any case, we have to ensure that the engagement is special. And at the very least – that our sites are optimized for mobile devices.

The biggest challenge is cutting through all the mobile noise. 100,000+ apps are available for download in iTunes, with thousands more for Android, Nokia, Windows Mobile, and Blackberry. And let’s not forget about the mobile web, text messages, and, oh yeah, phone calls. The most effective mobile marketing efforts seem to go beyond pure entertainment or gimmicks, and actually do something useful. I’m thinking of the AT&T “Mark the Spot” app and the Dunkin Run app. Both address a need in a unique way that can really only be offered by the companies themselves. So the questions to ask when considering mobile are 1) What can you offer your audience that no one else can, and 2) Does it make sense to explore mobile devices as a platform to address their unmet needs?

I’ll also add that I think marketers and communicators are going to have to start thinking about how to become a digital triple threat when it comes to search, social and mobile. Traditionally, these channels/platforms have been the domain of “specialists” (and I guess I’m one of them), but with the move to real-time, location-based engagement, these specialties represent the future of almost all digital interaction. This goes for advertising, PR, CRM, you name it. So how are you thinking about mobile when it comes to your 2010 marketing and communications strategy?

What must be realized is that this is becoming bigger than ‘search’ and bigger than revenue drivers.  This is not about Bing and Google Search.   This seems like a long-term competition between two giants battling for position as the preferred technology brand for consumers.  Both will use their core business to expand into other areas and it is important to analyze events and success outside of the ‘revenue’ lens.

This is now truly resembling beginnings of a technological Cold War.  Much like in any long-term conflict, it is important view events with the big picture in mind.  This is now a conflict of pre-emptive moves, territorial encroachments, tricky alliances, posturing, and battles for the ‘hearts and minds’ of consumers.

Let’s analyze the situation through the 3 ‘Cold War’ points mentioned above:

Encroachment
Google: Just announced its own browser based operating system, its office suite has been around for a while now, as well as its own browser.   All areas that have been very important to Microsoft.

Microsoft: Bing is its major search initiative and encroachment into Google’s core area of expertise

Alliances
The potential news content (News Corp., and perhaps AP, Reuters) being available through Bing only is an interesting, yet tricky proposition.  What is a definite outcome of such a deal is a huge loss of traffic for any property that excludes Google.  According to Compete, Google holds 73% of the search market share.  Excluding that traffic would obviously lead to lower page views and that is still the main monetization model of news sites.  It would be interesting to see how much Microsoft is willing to offer news publishers to offset that.

This ‘blockade’ of Google can backfire quite easily because many news providers use AP and Reuters content such as The New York Times.  So it seems that the content would still be accessible, just from a different destination.

Time will better judge this potential alliance/blockade but the initial thinking about its financial success is skeptical in terms of revenue, yet it may not be about that.  This may be a step to deny Google their stated goal of indexing all of the world’s information.

Similarly, speculation of who will acquire Twitter in 2010 is something to watch (no matter what is currently said) and again this will not be about revenue generation much like Google’s purchase of YouTube. Twitter and YouTube’s monetization is far from proven as has been seen.  So these are all big picture, defensive in nature moves and are not necessarily about revenue generation.

It seems that these are just skirmishes for what is ahead, and that is the battle for the ‘Hearts and Minds’ of consumers to become their preferred technology brand.

Although it seems that Google has an advantage because its product development model lets it release a multitude of diverse products that live in the ‘cloud’ (Gmail, Wave, Voice, Maps, Profile, Docs, Calendar, Reader, etc…), the flaw may be precisely in the way how these products are developed – by individual teams that seem to have difficulties integrating their products together.  Few of the products come together in any meaningful away and Google will have to overcome that challenge.

Microsoft’s has the track record in creating integrated user experiences across various services, yet its challenge will remain in moving and monetizing their services and products in the ‘cloud.’

Much like during the Cold War when U.S. and U.S.S.R. battled over distant developing countries, achievements in space, and weapons races, similarly this technology conflict will take both companies into new places. Both will venture far and wide across many aspects of technology,  so watch out mobile, music, GPS, telecoms, display ads, video, RFID, etc… This will be interesting, drawn out, high stakes, difficult to analyze, yet interesting.

1. The ‘Search Wiki’ results page where users can rearrange the results they are getting – true personalized results

2. Integration with Twitter search which will deliver more real-time Twitter content into the search results page

3. ‘Social Search’ which puts content from your personal network into the search results page

This is all disrupting one of the primary tenants of SEO: the relatively stable search results page that is arranged by an algorithm that ranks results on their relevancy to the search query.

However, these new products are really shifting the control of the search results page to the user, their personal preferences, live results, and content from their social networks. For SEO purposes, we may not even know what the search results page looks like from user to user. These are additional levels of complexity that simply cannot be overcome by “content optimization” and “link building.”

Even though adoption of these features still needs to increase, SEO specialists will need to expand their worldview and join the other types of marketers that are all converging on Social Media whether they are advertisers, PR, SEO, direct response, and other types of specialists.

[Also published on Social Media Today]

Search is a hot topic these days and has occupied many headlines. “Bing takes market share from Google”, “YouTube is the second most popular search engine”, “Facebook competes with Google by acquiring FriendFeed”, and so on… The more I see these, the more it seems that we cannot group all these discussions under the headings of general category of “search.” It seems that we may not be talking about a single market share but a market that is evolving, growing, and segmenting itself. I believe time has come to begin to distinguish the various type of “search” into sub categories that are based on user intent or expectation of what a user wants to do. These are the proposed categories:

Real time, personalized advice: This is grounded in a belief that micro content platforms and social networks are competing with traditional search engines. Users can tap their personal networks for queries like “what is the best way to manage Twitter?” or “What is a good hotel in Montego Bay, Jamaica?”

I don’t think that this is a type of search that is worrying Google for the next several years. Yes, they are taking steps to making their search results more real-time, but ultimately this type of search depends on the strength of one’s social network and its ability to field these questions. Most users still wound not rely consistently on their social networks to provide the type of information. If this were a threat to traditional search engine use, we would begin to see a decrease in overall number of queries and users on Google, Yahoo, and Bing and that has not happened yet.

Video and music search: This category is strong enough to stand on its own at this point and while I have heard the mention of “YouTube is the 2^nd most popular search engine”, perhaps it is better to say that it is the “top video search engine” or “top niche search engine” because it simply ONLY indexes video content.

It comes down to: does a user want to watch video or do they want to read? AND, the way we consume information currently is by consuming various information sources quickly. We scan content and therefore reading seems to be the most appropriate way. Reading suits our short attention spans (created in no small part by TV)— and videos are actually less efficient way of consuming information. Therefore, video search is a category, not an all encompassing search engine. It’s a tool for entertainment and niche instructional segments.

And finally:

Topical (or traditional) search: Traditional search engines will remain the immediate source of information for all types of results, video, niche, news, education, etc…. They are effective regardless of how strong your social network is and they have an algorithm behind delivering authoritative results. Going back to an earlier point, if that position was threatened we would already be seeing those trends.

It is important to distinguish between the various types of search in order to be able to properly understand the role of each because it impacts user experience and expectation as well as how organizations can plan to leverage them, but they are not all “search”.