GOOG Will Die an Open Death

I've been digging into open search, playing around with Hadoop, Nutch, Wikia Search and other efforts. I don't think it's close to supplanting GOOG, but it will eventually. It will start with better results and/or better display of results -- particularly to niche/long-tail needs. The key will be when someone applies a sustainable revenue model to Open Search in a manner that allows distribution channels to get off the GOOG candy.

The fight hasn't been about search quality for some time. It's been about buying distribution. However, there have only been a few players with search quality high enough to test distribution models. When Open Search allows anyone to match search quality/display, then creative monetization models will emerge -- unlocking distribution in the process.

Yahoo's recent "An Open Approach to Search" post was nice to see, but it's just the tip of the iceberg...

Related images: yahoo, google, hadoop, nutch, wikia search, open search