The New York Times explores the future of search – influenced by mobile experience, and by focused search such as shopping. UW CSE professor Oren Etzioni – a leading proponent and inventor of new approaches to search – is quoted:
“No longer do consumers want to search the Web like the index of a book — finding links at which a particular keyword appears. They expect new kinds of customized search, like that on topical sites such as Yelp, TripAdvisor or Amazon, which are chipping away at Google’s hold …
“‘What people want is, ‘You ask a very simple question and you get a very simple answer,” said Oren Etzioni, a professor at the University of Washington who has co-founded companies for shopping and flight search. ‘We don’t want the 10 blue links on that small screen. We want to know the closest sushi place, make a reservation and be on our way.'”