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EXCERPTED

Search Does Not Have to Be the Enemy on the Path Out of the Recession

The path to the top of a mountain is best scouted from the bottom of the valley, where the peak can be seen and the route sighted. Clouds and vegetation may occasionally obscure parts of the trail, but the general direction is enough to estimate distance, effort and time. From the valley floor, you may underestimate how long it will take to hike the trail, but at least you have your bearings and energy to start the climb.

As we trudge through this recession, there's hope that the worst is behind us. Looking up, we can see the technology mountain and how to climb it. We find confidence from being able to see the top, but to get there we must innovate and stay ahead of shifting consumer behaviors.

To understand the next evolution of how consumers will access, experience and consume content, it is worth looking at the priorities of the big players--Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Apple, etc. These companies are increasingly moving us to one world of information available via the cloud and accessed through three screens: the television, computer and mobile phone.

With one world of information, consumers will increasingly rely on search to find content across all their screens. As such, search advertising continues to be Google's moneymaking machine and one that Microsoft desperately wants a share of.

Over the next year or so, the search war will only intensify. Microsoft will continue building the momentum it created from successfully launching Bing, its new search experience. It will also want to capitalize on the Yahoo search partnership it negotiated. Google will hardly lay idle, and this will trigger an arms race of search innovation that will have implications for content publishers.

Search engines will get smarter. Microsoft and Google will not only continue to refine their search algorithms, but also the presentation of the results. They will work hard to structure and present the information to directly answer a consumer's search question while trying to anticipate their next action. Consumers will be provided with the information they need without ever leaving the search results page. For example, a search on Bing for movies would show summarized movie reviews from Entertainment Weekly next to local show times and user reviews from Metacritic, all on bing.com. The search war will see more examples surface, and quickly. Publishers need not fear this innovation. They should adopt semantic Web standards to have their content appear in the right search results to drive traffic.

Read an extended version of this article in min & paidContent's The State of Digital Media, Volume 2, which also includes Digital Media Boxscores and chapters on monetizing social media, digital advertising, recent social media deals and profiles of digital brand leaders. Domenic Venuto is SVP and head of the Media and Entertainment Practice with the New York City office of digital agency Razorfish.

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