On September 29, 2009 in Mountain View at Microsoft, SDForum Search SIG held a panel discussion on where search is heading. Safa Rashtchy moderated panelist Johanna Wright of Google, Sean Suchter of Microsoft and Larry Cornett of Yahoo.Text from DJCline.com

After communicating, search is the most common thing we do on a computer these days. Microsoft thinks users want shorter and more productive search sessions like when searching for the cheapest flight. You don’t want the anxiety of having paid too much for the flight because the search engine could not find the best fare. Microsoft also demonstrated Bing’s ability to sort through big and little dog breeds. Text from DJCline.com

Google wants users to have the right answer in the shortest amount of time. Over the past decade they have gotten better at more relevant search results. Today if you type in “How to tie a tie” you will get exactly that. If you type in Caltrain you will get an indented link for getting train tickets. Google showed how their cross language capability can display English and Arabic search results side by side. This opens up more content to more of the world’s population. Text from DJCline.com

Yahoo wants to make it easier to check on news and information that is relevant to users. Yahoo revealed its new search framework with filters on the left, results in the center and ads on the right. If you are looking for restaurants it will not only give you the location and menu but the Yelp reviews, Facebook pages, music, video associated with it.  Text from DJCline.com

What about designing search for mobile devices? Don’t try to cram the desktop experience on a phone. Start over and think about voice control, short sessions, simultaneous translation, local search with GPS. Searching for mobile solutions becomes more important as these devices in many cases become our only computing device. Text from DJCline.com

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