Everyone Wants to Have the Google Killer. Is It Vertical Search?

This week saw the launch of Wikia Search, and the revelation that Mahalo is still relying on Google for most of its traffic, using SEO strategy to drive it. And while everyone wants to be the search engine that actually succeeds in drawing users away from Google, no one really thinks that a contender has appeared yet.

Here's the rub: Google is processing over 20,000 terabytes PER DAY. No start-up in the world is going to have the cash to process that kind of data, and even utilizing Amazon's EC2 isn't going to make it affordable to replicate the same quantity of results. And while the buzzword with both Mahalo and Wikia Search is “people” search, there is no way that humans alone can assemble enough data to be all things to all people to make the information relevant.

So what's left? According to Sramana Mitra, it's a vertical search. Rather than focusing on the broad over-reaching crawl of Google and the like, she suggests that companies will roll up into specific areas of interest, using Kayak as an example. By focusing on a single subject, like travel, a site like Kayak can provide everything from travel planning to hotel information without having to sift through thousands of irrelevant results.

Of course, the key here is to get out of the gate before Google realizes that they could branch out and essentially take over the world. There are some sites out there that promise that this sort of vertical searching is coming, such as Zat, but so far, nothing has surfaced. Taking an independent search that has no vested interest in one company over another that could provide independent search results along with product reviews, and a community to compare notes, give suggestions, and poll for information would be a time saver and actually make some of the great technology that's sprung out of Web 2.0 useful for more than passing someone virtual drinks on a social network.

If what Mitra suggests comes to fruition, 2008 may be a year of some very interesting mergers and alliances between little Davids trying to take on the big bad Google.