Getting Vertical Search Right: The Future of Search is Service

Just about to head over to SES right now.  Steven Krein is speaking on the main stage this afternoon about Getting Vertical Search Right.

We'll be presenting on our strong belief that the future of search is SERVICE.

At OrganizedWisdom Health we realized when we launched that when people are searching for something as important as health information, abundance is not what they are looking for.  Service is.  Most people want information, links, and resources they know they can trust.  It's no longer about getting back 1.4 million search results in .09 seconds.  People want to be guided to a few of the very best links on the topic they are searching for.  People want vetted information, curated links.  Not just a big heap of Web pages with relevant key words and lots of links in/out.

This is where the concept of service comes in.  There are great search services developing that are layering experts, and the power of human guides, onto the world's best search technologies.  Mahalo is an example of a general human-powered search service covering popular search topics from video games to entertainment news.  ChaCha is an example of a general search service where experts will help you via live chat or text.   SeamlessWeb helps people search local restaurants and place orders for delivery.  And OrganizedWisdom (what many have dubbed the Mahalo of Health) is a search service using experts and doctors to guide people to the very best health information and resources.

We believe that as a result of abundance (too many web sites, too many spammers, too many marketers, too many offers, too much information, too many options), there is going to be a powerful service infrastructure that gets built on top of search technologies.

Let me give you two key examples of services we have layered into the search experience and offer at OrganizedWisdom Health.

Last year we launched RequestWisdom - a free service where anyone can request a WisdomCard on any health topic.  If we don't already have the requested WisdomCard created, one of our expert Guides will build the WisdomCard and send the results to the person and publish for all other searchers benefit.  We do the searching for the user.  The good news is that most of the time, our team has already created a WisdomCard on the requested topic and our library of WisdomCards is growing every day (now have over 10,000 health searches covered).  But by adding a free service onto our already running human-powered search service, we are able to deliver specific, clutter-free and organized results that our community needs.

Another example of layering service into search is the new service we are testing in private beta and rolling out site wide soon.  It's called LiveWisdom, and enables anyone to chat LIVE with a doctor to ask questions for $1.99 a minute.  It's an anonymous service and easy to use.  We're adding the service of speaking with a doctor in real-time during the search experience.  We believe that connecting with a doctor should be easy, affordable, and accessible by all.  By adding this service into our search process, we make this a reality.

We'll be talking about these examples and many others today along with an incredible panel of experts.  We hope this spurs a great discussion and others begin to think of new ways to integrate service into search.

Panel Details:

Orion Panel: Getting Vertical Search Right
The need for specialized search capabilities has never been more prevalent than it is today. Established leaders and experts in vertical search application and execution will discuss the state of the industry, positive and negative experiences and best practices for answering needs of today's demanding searchers.

Moderator:

• Kevin Ryan, Vice President, Global Content Director, Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch
• Rebecca Lieb, Vice President & Editor-In-Chief, The ClickZ Network

     

Speakers:

• Bill Tancer, General Manager, Global Research, Hitwise
• Jason R. Finger, Co-Founder & Chief Executive, Seamless Web
• Paul Forster, CEO, Indeed
• Steven Krein, CEO, Organized Wisdom.com
• Joshua Stylman, Managing Partner, Reprise Media