I was moved to write this blog post after seeing the Search Engine Watch item by Nathania Johnson entitled 50 Most Memorable Moments in Search for 2008.
It was one heck of a year for the search industry. The convergence of outside economic forces, a wild presidential election and the 2008 Beijing Olympics were all signs of an industry becoming more and more mainstream and global. Here’s a look at the completely subjective biggest stories in search from 2008.
I am a strong believer in the KISS principle and my favorite quotation is: I am sorry this letter is so long. I did not have time to write a shorter one. Some say that Mark Twain was the author, although the more literate suggest that it was originally written in French by Blaise Pascal (1623-1662). Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.
I presume there must be two groups of people in the world. There are those who like long lists. And there are those who like short lists. I am very much in the second group. My preferred list has three items in it. I guess with any less it could hardly be called a list. However once it goes beyond three, then it is unlikely anyone will really remember all the elements of the list.
For search articles an additional reason for short lists is that with fewer links under the PageRank approach each link receives more authority. With a list of 50 items each link receives only a miniscule proportion of the PageRank of the original article. This does of course assume that the links have not been nofollow-ed.
For more general reasons short lists are better. Long lists are tough to argue with. Indeed after three days my comment was the first to be added to that article. With only three items in my list of memorable moments, it is unlikely that everyone will agree. Since conversations are what the Internet is all about, short lists therefore feed this process better.
From Nathania’s long list I believe the following three items are really the most memorable. As it happens two of them are not even links, but clearly had to be included since they are very important.
2. Search Advertising Plays Major Role in Elections From the primaries to the general presidential election, it appeared that whoever outspent their competitor headed to the next step. Barack Obama, with his arsenal of cash, went on an online advertising shopping spree and will be inaugurated in a mere 21 days.
6. Twitter Becomes Agent of Search Whether you deem it a micro-blogging tool or a mass chat client, Twitter went mainstream this year and the search industry was smack dab in the mix of things. Many users found Twitter useful for the actual conducting of searches, while others found it useful in networking.
11. G1, the First Google Android Phone, Released Through T-mobile
Are these the three most memorable moments in search for 2008 for you? Please leave a comment and let us know what you think about all this.