It’s always a good public relations tactic to run a survey about your product-market and then publicize yourself on the back of the survey results. (For some reason, the English in particular seem to love this trick.) In deference to Convera’s good marketing in this regard, I thought I’d give some quick coverage to the search survey that they published today.
Their press release is here. The “full survey” (a whopping 7 pages) is here.
Highlights:
- Only 40% say they are very satisfied with results from Internet search engines.
- About 70% admit getting sidetracked during the search process
- When searches fail to find desired results, more than half of all professionals believe the information they’re seeking exists, but they lack the skills to find it.
Then, of course, we have the agenda-setting question: “to what degree would you expect that a customized search engine developed by a trade publication or an industry organization would deliver better results than a popular Internet search engine?”
Which, I’d argue, is pretty much the same as asking: “to what extent would you expect that a suit that has been custom measured and tailored for you would actually fit better than an off-the-rack one?”
The answer: a not-shocking 85%+ agreement (combining results from the “always” and “sometimes” answers). In fact, if there is any shock to be found, it’s that only 30% think such a vertical search engine will always find better results, while 55% think it sometimes will.
Marketing-wise, Convera’s trying to make the distinction between “professional-grade” (which sounds like motor oil) and consumer search engines.
While I think it’s a noble effort, I think they’re missing a few key points.
- Only 30% of people think a vertical search engine will always beat a horizontal one in delivering quality results.
- Perhaps then the best way to fix the “vertical search” problem is not through creating a “vertical search engine.”
- Perhaps the best way to improve things is by really changing the game and using horizontal search for basic crawl-and-index and building content applications to support the work of professionals.
So I think the intent of changing the game is good one. But it’s not search vs. vertical search. It should be search vs. content applications. And for content applications, we think Mark Logic is the ideal platform.
See Elsevier’s PathCONSULT demo for an example. It’s not vertical search. It’s better than that. It’s a true (content-based) application that supports the work of pathologists.
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