• by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, October 26, 2006

No aspect of the digital world is permanent. The search box only became the Web's de facto interface in the past few years, and some analysts already see a future in which it will grow less central to information-gathering.

RSS feeds, content sharing via social networks, tagging, and indexing will bring people the information they need and want without a proactive query. If Web 1.0 was about search and retrieve, Web 2.0 is about publish, share, and subscribe. As consumers better define what they want and who they are through personalization features, social networking, and other applications, they will attract and engage with more relevant content. This may be why Google cut a deal with MySpace to place ads on the massive social network.

"The mountain came to Mohammed," says Chuck Richard, lead analyst at Outsell, a digital content research and consulting firm. "A huge percentage of what people get from MySpace is not search-driven. A whole generation that lives in MySpace doesn't live in search; they share content."

At the same time, working professionals also crave more than virtual mosh-pits of results. The recently relaunched AllBusiness.com profiles its users from previous searches of business articles to dynamically and proactively deliver content users want. Database provider Mark Logic is building sophisticated new vertical search engines with Oxford University Press and O'Reilly Media that deliver highly structured results in formats professionals integrate into everyday business practices. "How do you turn flat information into usable content?" wonders David Spenhoff, vice president of marketing for Mark Logic. "That's our notion of a post-search world."

The search box will never go away, but many Web 2.0 techniques are designed to reduce dependence on the query reflex. "User behavior will change and [search's] dominance will be reduced," says Richard.