I’m finding that I am using Google less and less. Mostly now for specific search such as a device driver update. I know that writing lots of specific keywords will retrieve lots of specific results.
Targeted search - For knowledge and information I tend to hit Wikipedia, Google Blogsearch and Delicious
Consumer choice - I tend to go straight to go straight to Twitter for word of web backup and if it’s not something techy and thus not as talked about on Twitter I tend to go back to Google hoping to hit some forum comments on the product or service.
For finding services I’d go to aggregated services websites like ServiceSeeking
For benchmark prices I would always go to Ebay, Google Products, Amazon and others. These quite often lead me to specific e-commerce sites. i.e. it’s helping me do brand and price exploration and only sometimes the actual buy transaction. So search engines aren’t catching me at all when it comes to spending dollars. So if you sell stuff you need web stores!
This is an interesting little article that makes a lot of sense to me, although I’d probably visit Service Central for finding service providers. It’s interesting, though, as I think Google is well aware of these changes in online habits and is doing what it can to provide more relevant information when you come online. Look in Google labs and see what they’ve got up and coming - they’re definitely doing what they can to get people back into using the web app.
Comment by Pauline — January 13, 2009 @ 2:39 am