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This presentation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

The future of search: localisation, personalisation and socialisation

11th Southern African Online Information MeetingSandton Convention Centre, 5-8 June 2012

Karen BlakemanRBA Information Services

Slides available on http://www.rba.co.uk/as/, authorSTREAM and Slideshare

karen.blakeman@rba.co.uk

Twitter: @karenblakeman

http://www.rba.co.uk/

Trends in search

Mobile

Localisation

Personalisation

Social

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No longer straightforward text searching of web pages and documents

What it's all about......

MONEY!

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It's all about money!

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Google 2011Revenues $37,905 millions (up 29% on 2010)

Net Income $9,737 millions (up 26% on 2010)http://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html

2011 – 96% of revenues are from advertising

Google has a problem....

Google's problem "How People Spend Their Time Online – Stephen's Lighthouse" http://stephenslighthouse.com/2012/03/14/how-people-spend-their-time-online/

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But Facebook isn't a search engine – is it?

Already has a search option (sort of) using Bing

Facebook Delves Deeper Into Search - Businessweek http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-03-28/facebook-delves-deeper-into-search

If Facebook improves its web search many users will not bother leaving Facebook to go to Google for search, which means Google loses a significant amount of ad revenue

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Search engines and social networks

– need to know more about you

– where are you

– need to know what sort of information you are interested in

– need to know who your contacts are on-site and elsewhere

– need to know about your activity elsewhere

Personalise results

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Your browser, device, operating system...

Panopticlick https://panopticlick.eff.org/

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You are here!

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Google.com =

Location information gone wrong!

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Mobile search

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http://searchengineland.com/google-62-percent-of-v-day-restaurant-searches-were-mobile-111746

20-25% of volume of search via mobile

Local search 20% via desktop, 40% via mobile (including tablets)

But low CTR on mobile

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"Over the past year, smartphone ownership among American adults has risen from 35% of adults in 2011 to 46% in 2012. This means that the overall proportion of U.S. adults who get location-based information has almost doubled over that time period, from 23% in May 2011 to 41% in February 2012. The percentage of adults who use geosocial services like Foursquare has likewise risen from 4% in 2011 to 10% in 2012."

http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Location-based-services.aspx

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Amazon

Online shopping (Ocado)

Targeted advertising

Personalisation

Encouraged to share

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Personalisation

location

past searches

viewed in the past

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This is not like a loyalty store card or online store personalisation

Not just you

Your network connections, friends, followers, circles

Everyone else?

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How far does personalisation go?

Is Google really filtering my news? http://www.librarianoffortune.com/librarian_of_fortune/2011/09/is-google-really-filtering-my-news.html

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How far does personalisation go?

An Awfully Big Blog Adventure: The answer to your question... depends on who you are (Anne Rooney) http://awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/answer-to-your-question-depends-on-who.html

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Borromeo vs Borromeo

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Word cloud of top 20 results for a Google search on Prague (web history and social networks switched off, cookies cleared)

Word cloud of top 20 results for a Google search on Prague (signed in to Google+ account, social networks and web history enabled)

Google's new Privacy Policy

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"Our new Privacy Policy makes clear that, if you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services. In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience."

Toward a simpler, more beautiful Google http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/toward-simpler-more-beautiful-google.html

"we're more excited than ever to build a seamless social experience, all across Google"

Impact of changes on YouTube

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Gives me videos based on my web search history, linked to my location (Reading) plus a long list of videos mentioned by people in my Google+ circles.

Targeted advertising?!

I wonder how Google will customise my web search based on my YouTube viewing?

Google Enables Cross-Platform Local Search (As Carrot To Relinquish Your Privacy) http://searchengineland.com/google-enables-cross-platform-local-search-as-carrot-for-web-history-113811

Introducing a new local search experience across your devices - Inside Search http://insidesearch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/introducing-new-local-search-experience.html

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Google Now Forcing All New Users To Create Google+ Enabled Accounts

http://marketingland.com/google-now-forcing-all-new-users-to-create-google-enabled-accounts-3912

Search Plus Your World (SPYW) referred to as Search+ now available in Google.com and is the default. Gives priority to content from people in your Google+ network if you are signed in to your account.

(And the next Google killer is….Google! http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2012/01/30/and-the-next-google-killer-is-google/ )

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SPYW currently being tested on Google.com

Top results (blacked out for privacy reasons) were from one of my Google+ circles and from people who restricted access to the postings.

Take care when providing information to users.

Google Knowledge Graph

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Google Knowledge Graph

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Facebook profile Google+ profile

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Bing Relaunches, Features New Social Sidebar : http://searchengineland.com/the-new-bing-microsoft-tries-again-with-search-meets-social-120728

'Social' can affect all types of web activity

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Advertising based on Facebook friend's interests & work

Details of Facebook friend's activity using Economist app

Article "recommended" by a friend on Facebook.

Logged out of Facebook

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Advertising now based on part of my search history (renewable energy)

Am I being told off for not being logged in to Facebook?

The Independent newspaper

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Facebook Social Readers Are All Collapsing http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/facebook-social-readers-are-all-collapsing

Signing in and sharing to gain access to data

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Allow local, personalisation and social?

Not necessarily a bad thing

Fantastic when you're on the move

A different point of view

But does bias results

What I see on my screen is not what you'll see on yours

Be aware of potential privacy issues regarding friends and contacts in social networks when providing results to your users and clients

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Really don't want it when searching?

Log out of all search and social accounts

Try a a search tool with less or no personalisation: DuckDuckGo, Yandex.com, Blekko, millionshort.com

Chrome Incognito (still keeps location)

Actively manage/delete search cookies

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Social, personal and the law collide - the "cookie law"

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Cookies Regulations and the New EU Cookie Law - ICO http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations/privacy_and_electronic_communications/the_guide/cookies.aspx

https://twitter.com/currybet/statuses/205637902296821761

Mobile is here to stay and will increase

Localisation, personalisation and socialisation are here to stay

As part of search they can give an important, alternative point of view.

Understand how they influence results, how to avoid their impact when necessary, but also how they can be used as part of a better search strategy.

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Thank you. Please share!

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