Searching Versus Finding

(Or where we need to go in the future of search)

One of the most problematic parts of Google (and in fact, on some very basic level all search engines, including the new Facebook one), is that it’s business model is built on search plus placed advertisments in that search.  At first, this seems very effecient.  Knowing what people are searching for is an indicator of their interests, thier hopes, their dreams.  Adveritising via placed links as a way of getting through to that need that has already been expressed.

This seems a little backwards.  Although it is profitable to place ads in the middle of the sales funnel, issues arise if your search term never pops up.  In theory and in practice, your search term is the end all be all of what could be.  If you have a truly revolutionary process (or even a not so revolutionary one, but one which requires finders to get to you nontheless because you face many competitors), how do you make sure that your term comes up.

That process is generating want.  In other words, how do you generate want, continually, seasons after seasons, the way Hermes does with their scarves.

That process, is the process of finding.  It is the process of exciting the audience to want to engage with your product way before they engage with your product.  They have to find your product, and find it appealing.  Remember that most puchases (even online ones, dare I say it) are strate from the gut, impluse purchases.  Placing your object in the way of a person to be found is a skill, an art, and a science.

One of the critical starting points for getting found is to be places on a list of some sort, some sort of way of placing oneself as exclusive.  Another is to short supply of your object.  A third is to soft launch with tastemakers.  In the end, all of these require reach: They require a build of buzz so that one wants to go and use that search term.  Advertising can be used to further highten the atmosphere of your object, your thing, as desirable and elite.

In the end, this is where search fails: It can’t find your want: it can only capture what is already there.