Finding Versus Discovering
The two sound functionally equivalent, but they're actually quite different. The distinction lies in the intent of the searcher. You find something when you seek out a particular thing and successfully locate it. You discover something while browsing, and you come across something you weren't necessarily looking for.
Columbus discovered America while he was in the process of trying to find India.
Making something easy to find isn't quite as easy as it sounds. I had a friend post a comment and a link a few days ago saying "OkThink is a great blog to read." So at some point, with nothing better to do, I fired up Google and typed in "ok think". Didn't find it. Tried "okthink", all together, and still didn't find it. They have a name, but you can't find them easily because the terms are too vague. (Perhaps they're a new site.)
If you search for my name, Jim McGaw, there are similar problems. I'm not the only Jim McGaw out there; there are at least four others who have a web presence, and one of them even has a blog which he calls "Jim McGaw's Blog". That, and I don't have a particularly great name; most people who don't know me very well try to spell my last name as McGraw, since that's more common. So because I'm not that distinct and because I'm not easy to remember or spell, I'm not very findable by large sums of strangers. (I happen to be okay with this because as far as my day-to-day routine is concerned, this blog is something of an afterthought.)
There are other caveats to findability, but those are a couple of the main ones, and the web is rife with people stumbling over them.
Discovery is a much more interesting process. Influential people with large audiences are able to help people discover things. Oprah is the perfect example of this. If she reads a book, loves it, and it makes her book club, millions of people suddenly get introduced to a book they weren't looking for and they read it because of their trust and faith in Oprah's celebrity status. And that doesn't mean the books aren't good (Dr. Phil McGraw, one man who's probably more responsible than any other for people misspelling my name, might be an exception), but all those people wouldn't have discovered the books on their own.
Amazon's quite good at this. If you go on Amazon looking to find something specific, you'll find it, but I can't tell you how many times I've gone onto Amazon, typed in a vague phrase or idea, and ended up discovering some book that's loosely related to the original idea that I end up buying.
Social media is a great tool for discovery. The only reason I made any effort to find the OkThink blog is because a friend on Facebook led me to discover it.
Why does this distinction matter, and why should anyone care? The Internet is still a fairly new invention, and search is still very much in its infancy. Sure, no new search engine is going to displace Google anytime soon, but that doesn't mean they have the problem completely worked out. Google is a search engine. Bing has recently emerged and been branded as a "decision engine" (because, you know, we need computers to decide things for us....thanks Microsoft.) But what about a discovery engine? If you built that site, what exactly would it look like and how would it work?
Trying to compete with Google and Bing might be a bad idea (?), but there's absolutely no shortage of need or demand for discovery engines on the Web. Search might be hitting puberty at this point, but discovery is not a solved problem; not by a long shot. In virtually every area, there's the potential to introduce more serendipity, and create more seemingly random but sensible connections between things. Even if someone's already doing it, it can be done better. This is a wellspring of opportunity that, from a technology standpoint, we've only just begun to tap.
Over the next ten years, I'm anxious to see just how far down the iceberg goes.
Columbus discovered America while he was in the process of trying to find India.
Making something easy to find isn't quite as easy as it sounds. I had a friend post a comment and a link a few days ago saying "OkThink is a great blog to read." So at some point, with nothing better to do, I fired up Google and typed in "ok think". Didn't find it. Tried "okthink", all together, and still didn't find it. They have a name, but you can't find them easily because the terms are too vague. (Perhaps they're a new site.)
If you search for my name, Jim McGaw, there are similar problems. I'm not the only Jim McGaw out there; there are at least four others who have a web presence, and one of them even has a blog which he calls "Jim McGaw's Blog". That, and I don't have a particularly great name; most people who don't know me very well try to spell my last name as McGraw, since that's more common. So because I'm not that distinct and because I'm not easy to remember or spell, I'm not very findable by large sums of strangers. (I happen to be okay with this because as far as my day-to-day routine is concerned, this blog is something of an afterthought.)
There are other caveats to findability, but those are a couple of the main ones, and the web is rife with people stumbling over them.
Discovery is a much more interesting process. Influential people with large audiences are able to help people discover things. Oprah is the perfect example of this. If she reads a book, loves it, and it makes her book club, millions of people suddenly get introduced to a book they weren't looking for and they read it because of their trust and faith in Oprah's celebrity status. And that doesn't mean the books aren't good (Dr. Phil McGraw, one man who's probably more responsible than any other for people misspelling my name, might be an exception), but all those people wouldn't have discovered the books on their own.
Amazon's quite good at this. If you go on Amazon looking to find something specific, you'll find it, but I can't tell you how many times I've gone onto Amazon, typed in a vague phrase or idea, and ended up discovering some book that's loosely related to the original idea that I end up buying.
Social media is a great tool for discovery. The only reason I made any effort to find the OkThink blog is because a friend on Facebook led me to discover it.
Why does this distinction matter, and why should anyone care? The Internet is still a fairly new invention, and search is still very much in its infancy. Sure, no new search engine is going to displace Google anytime soon, but that doesn't mean they have the problem completely worked out. Google is a search engine. Bing has recently emerged and been branded as a "decision engine" (because, you know, we need computers to decide things for us....thanks Microsoft.) But what about a discovery engine? If you built that site, what exactly would it look like and how would it work?
Trying to compete with Google and Bing might be a bad idea (?), but there's absolutely no shortage of need or demand for discovery engines on the Web. Search might be hitting puberty at this point, but discovery is not a solved problem; not by a long shot. In virtually every area, there's the potential to introduce more serendipity, and create more seemingly random but sensible connections between things. Even if someone's already doing it, it can be done better. This is a wellspring of opportunity that, from a technology standpoint, we've only just begun to tap.
Over the next ten years, I'm anxious to see just how far down the iceberg goes.