People have been so focused for so long on Search, that many have missed where the battle is.
The battle for search is over. Google has around 70% of all searches, Bing/Yahoo about 25%. Everyone else is down in the weeds. These percentages are not likely to change greatly in the next few years – no matter what anyone says, predicts or does (hello Blekko). I won’t try and predict farther than that. I am not insane. But it remains a highly dynamic area because Google continues to roll out improvements at a mad rate.
As has happened many times in the past, the face of the Internet continues to change. Once directories dominated and Yahoo was king. Once something called Usenet was where the action was.
There’s a lot of talk of Social Networking (Facebook, Twitter and the like). They are huge and getting more so. Facebook gets a significant percentage of the total page views on the entire Internet!
There are more searches on YouTube than on Bing/Yahoo.
And mobile – everything mobile – is growing by leaps and bounds as smart phones become the norm in the world of cellular and iPads and their imitators sell at the rate of millions per month.
Right now, these four areas are where the action is. They are likely to remain the focus for the next few years. Within each area, I doubt anyone can predict where it is all going to go. One thing’s for sure: Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a wild ride.