The Future of Search Is Curated - CM #17
Emerging ideas on the future of search. Vertical search. User filtering. Constrained supply. Possible business models.
Hello, welcome to a new issue of Curation Monetized.
With more and more information available and with a growing tsunami of SEO-engineered content now aided by AI, it’s becoming really difficult to find “knowledge” and “insights” via a search engine like Google.
Yes, you can instantly find a shop, a product or everything about a place you want to go to, but when it comes to understanding, learning, making-sense and looking well beyond the surface of things, there’s no tool or system that can help us find the high-quality stuff.
In real life, that quality stuff is found normally through other people that you discover, feel affinity with and who you start to trust.
It’s through these trusted individuals that you discover the best resources and people that have answers to your needs.
”More and more, I’m looking for people who can be gateways to the information I need, and these must be trusted people, so we need a Google of the people for the people, an army of individual curators doing this for ourselves. That’s what we need.”
Robin Good - “Content Curation and the Future of Search”
Is the future of search going to be curated?
.
In this issue:
Curation Insights
Future of Search Is Vertical
Search Filters
Constrain the Supply
Curation Tools
Alternative Search Engines
New Tools
.
10 Ideas for Curated Search Business Models
(for Premium subscribers only)Real-World Examples of Curation Monetized
(for Premium subscribers only)Launch Toolkit for Xxxxxx
Catalog of Best Alternative xxxxxx
Directory of Best Xxxxx
.
Enjoy!
Robin Good
Key Curation Insights
Three key elements could be driving factors of a new breed of curated search engines:
1) Verticality
(strong focus, niche, purpose, audience)
2) Filters
(user-driven, tradeable, interchangeable, not static)
3) Constrained Supply
(trustworthy, credible, vetted human indexers)
1) The Future of Search Is Vertical
“We are far from achieving the grand vision of the Internet.
The project of human knowledge, as it stands today, is a vast ocean of ephemeral and fragmented information and ideas, with the best sources near-impossible to find.”
Source: Sari Azout - “The Future of Search Is Boutique”
Google has become nothing more than just a money-making machine.
It’s great to find out where a restaurant is and where to get just about anything but Google has completely lost its ability to help you find quality content that is not SEO-engineered or to make sense of any topic that you know very little of.
This is why I think the future of search is in the hands of new vertical search engines, supported and maintained by their own communities of users.
Here’s a shortlist of what a new breed of search engines key characteristics may look like (inspired by
and expanded by me)Focus on Depth and Understanding
and away from today “latest” and “now” orientationPurpose / Audience-driven
vertical focusIndexed by People, Not Bots
humans add relevant content to the search indexLeveraging User-Defined Search Filters
humans create search filters according to their needs
Distributed
no-one alone owns the index. It is mirrored and distributed across thousands of users.
Trusted
created and maintained by users who have earned community’s trust
constrained and highly vetted supply
Ads-free
Leveraging business models that don’t rely on advertisingPreservable
Search will integrate preservation
Search indexes will keep old pages in their results
Source: Sari Azout - “The Future of Search Is Boutique”
2) Search Filters
If instead of a secret set of filtering algorithms (Google) we had many smaller vertical search engines maintained by groups of trusted subject-matter experts we could have a much different, and likely much more useful search experience.
The key issue is which filters to use and who has control of them.
We do not often think about search engine filters, because we think that through a simple search query we are the ones filtering.
What we forget is that any search engine we use today does a lot of filtering and ranking way before we even think of our search request, excluding thousands of information bits and sources who don’t fit their filter holes.
How can then we find rare, precious content gems, whose only sin is not to have played the SEO game of abiding to a standard and always-evolving set of rules'?
Clay Shirky says:
“So, the real question is:
How do we design filters that let us find our way through this particular abundance of information?
And, you know, my answer to that question has been:
the only group that can catalog everything is everybody.
Source: Russ Juskalian - “Interview with Clay Shirky - Part I”
The Real Big Filters Problem Nobody Seems To See
“What we don’t know is how to solve a much bigger problem: what to do when there are filters at publisher level.
Once you allow this, the first thing that happens is that an entry point is created for bad actors to impose some form of censorship.
In some cases it will be governments, sometimes overtly, sometimes covertly; at other times it will be traditional forces of the media; it may be generals of the army or captains of industry.
The nature of the bad actor is irrelevant; what matters is that a back door has been created, one that can be used to suppress reports about a particular event/location/topic/person.”
This is why:
Search filters / algorithms should be user-driven, not publisher-driven.
There should be no publisher-level filters.
More specifically:
a) Filters Should Be Interchangeable, Exchangeable, even Tradeable.
I should be able to give someone else my collection of search filters and similarly, someone should be able to give me access to their filter set.
By adopting someone’s filters I can search and navigate the information firehose while “walking in someone else’s shoes”.
So I should be able to view news as if I was a 21-year old Iranian. Not by selecting the publisher-side filter for “21 year old Iranians” but by being able to exchange filters with a real live person who has those characteristics.
b) Filters Should Intrinsically Be Dynamic, Not Static
We need to watch for static, hierarchical filters, human or not, and avoid them like the plague. The ideal situation is one where the searcher can reset filters anytime without any loss of time or value.
c) Filters Should Have Inbuilt “Serendipity” Functionality
Filters should incorporate "serendipity" to occasionally present unexpected or novel content alongside tailored results, assisting discovery and exploration beyond user preferences. Following this approach would guarantee a more enriching and diverse user experience, while still accommodating personalized content preferences.
Source: JP - “Filtering Seven Principles”
3) Constrain the Supply
How do we guarantee that the supply of information is high-quality, good and trustworthy?
“…in a world of infinite information,
it’s no longer enough to organize the world’s information.It becomes important to organize the world’s trustworthy information.”
Source: Sari Azout - “Re-Organizing the World’s Information: Why We Need More Boutique Search Engines”
To provide high-quality results with a search engine, the more refined, curated and high-quality the supply-side is, the better.
To guarantee a high-quality supply of information you don’t use an automated spidering / crawling system like Google.
You constrain the supply by leveraging a selected group of “trusted” human experts to index your engine so that the "level of “trustworthiness” of that search engine automatically increases.
Selection criteria for such a special group of individuals may include:
experience in a certain field
credibility factors
written work, books, papers
citations by trusted experts
streaks of valuable contributions over time
and others
Trusted humans will contribute to the depth and breadth of new search engines
They will also categorize, tag and classify much of its content
AI could assist in verification
4) Alternative Search Engines
To get an idea of today’s emerging search engine panorama, beyond Google, look at this shortlist of google-alternatives which already show some interesting features and possible new business models.
Brave
Independent index and allows users to apply their own rules and filters: Brave Goggles. Respects privacy. Does not track users.
100% free.Mojeek
Independent index and algorithms. No tracking. Allows to create personalized, custom results: Mojeek Focus.
100% free.Kagi
Private search engine. No ads, no tracking. Premium meta-search. Customizable. Allows to personalize results and create filters: Kagi Lenses. Requires registration.
Free for up to 100 searches - starts at $5/moPresearch
Built on a decentralized network of volunteer-run nodes. Runs on blockchain. Offers PRE-tokens.
100% free.Andi
Smart search assistant, ad-free, tracking-free and anonymous, and gives you a cleaner, more visual way to search the Internet without clutter or distraction.
100% free.YaCy - Decentralized P2P search engine software (Mac, Linux and Windows).
Tutorials and docs. This is the direction I would want search engines to take. Users are the ones who index, organize, filter and rank.
100% free.
*This shortlist has been extracted from this 60+ collection of alternative search engines I have published in 2023 on the Good Tools newsletter.
New Curation Tools
.
Bmrks
Personal bookmark manager. Minimalistic UI. Auto-detects content type and renders links with full metadata. Keyboard-first design. Fast. No tracking. No ads. 100% freeAboard
Save links (as well as pics, docs, apps, books, TV shows, browser tabs and more) as visual information cards and organize them into shared, collaborative boards. Private or public. Web-based. Browser extension for Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox, and, Arc.
Web-based + iOS app (Android coming soon)
100% free while in Beta
Curated Search Business Models (for Premium subscribers)
10 alternative business models for vertical curated search engines
Curation Monetized: Real World Examples (for Premium subscribers)
Launch Toolkit for Xxxxxx
Catalog of Best Alternative xxxxxx
Directory of Best Xxxxx