What do email, search engines, and phones have in common that make them all old school technology?
Email is old school? That is the claim.
Yahoo’s search engine is out of date, and Google search too? Yes. No, not exactly. I mean…read on.
The wired telephone is a past-technology. Its use may be seen declining over the last few years. This happened because of a rise in the use of cellular phones (with no data streaming support other than to send and receive texts). Soon, cellular phones will be considered old-school, as smart phone usage continues to grow. What makes the telephone and soon the cellular phone as old-school as email and search engines?
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One-to-one communications are ceding to social communications brought on by the growth of social networks. Telephone conversations and emails are, for the most part, one-to-one communications.
Search engine companies like Yahoo and Google are recognizing that users will spend more time interacting on social networks and less time on search. Even though advertising on search is more effective than advertising on social networks, Google still created Google+. Yahoo, who has over 700 million users, also has over 50 technology platform properties that do not contribute to any meaningful user-engagement. Unlike Google, Yahoo does not have a social networking platform.
What will Yahoo and Google look like in a world where search and social networks are more closely aligned?
The time spent and the number of users on mobile smart phones will continue to out-pace desktops. Search engines and content creators will need to serve up advertising in an effective way. Optimization of advertising delivery on mobile devices will continue. This means that old-fashioned IT – real-time analytics, reporting and personalization – will still matter as much tomorrow as it does today.
