The Future of Search 2007

With the onset of a new year and internet search at an all time high, everyone is eager to get in their predictions of what the industry will hold in 2007. The Director of Northern European Sales for Yahoo Search Marketing, Richard Firminger, has some interesting predictions from an insiders view.

Here are a few of them:

• The search engines themselves will evolve. From a single search we will soon be able to receive answers incorporating text (sponsored and algorithmic), video, images and even human knowledge – the latter coming from social search products like Yahoo! Answers, which was launched this year.
• The growth of social search. 2006 saw a cautious approach by the industry to advertising on social media, with the fear of incurring a negative audience response to intrusive or irrelevant advertising, top of mind.However, with some success already advertisers and media owners alike will be looking to further monetise these highly-qualified and engaged audiences throughout 2007.
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• Evolving campaign management applications. In early 2007, Yahoo! will do this with its new search advertising platform. Future-proofed to evolve with new and existing trends in online advertising, the new platform will provide advertisers with enhanced capabilities and tools such as Geo-targeting and advanced analytics.
• Introduction of mobile marketing. The sheer number of mobile devices – an estimated 2 billion compared to 900 million PCs – means the next big area of internet growth will be among users who have never connected to the Internet via a computer and maybe never will.