As entrance to the Web, search engines are at the top of the information funnel. Their strength comes from two aspects: (1) being able to process massive amount of raw data and squeeze out useful information (2) being exposed to mass audiences' intentions. Their audiences are so diversified that the quality of their service can only be measured by statistical average. One of Google's search product managers once mentioned, "if the odd that we do a better job than our competitors on any given query is 2 to 1, we are going to lead."
What does "statistically better" mean? It literally means the service quality has weakness somewhere and is not uniform across all the users. That is why people are buzzing "personalization" and "open" these days. Although these two concepts look a lot different at the first glance, they are actually very much alike: they all target the bottom of the information funnel!
Why the bottom is so important? Because the key value of a web service is its "relevance" to user's intention. Web services that target general audience usually only optimize for average. However, for a given user with clear intention, "relevance" or "value" or "experience" cannot be averaged out!
For example, in answering the query "baby face," why should an expecting mother see all these "Babyface" albums or movies? Just because on average, more people like to see them? "Relevance" is all about users, not some "common-sense guidelines." To be able to impress individual users, a service must try as hard as possible to understand them at a much finer granularity! This is what I mean to be "Personalized Web Service."
It is hard, because the service not only need to squeeze out useful information from large amount of data, but also need to tag them with labels and match with end users' profile smartly.
Sometimes, I simply could not stop asking, is it possible that one service provider can deal with this complex situation really well? And I am convinced more and more that the answer is "open." Let everyone contributes, not only as a consumer, but also as a provider. Give everybody a low barrier to contribute seriously, and the results will be a "personalized" Web.
You will still see service targeting general audiences around for a long time, but the gold rush will be "personalized open web services." This will be more and more obvious as mobile internet becomes an everyday necessity of human society. With smaller screen, relevance will be a more intensive battlefield!
Soar