It seems the
blogs are buzzing about “blended vertical search” after a packed house at this
year’s Search Engine Strategies Conference (SES) in San Jose.
But we need to be very careful as we all buzz about blended vertical
search that we get our meanings and definitions right. Blending results across multiple disparate data
sources to provide focused results is one thing. And a good thing if done properly. But blending in search results from other
sources not focused on the specialty of the vertical is just moving back to
broad consumer search. Maybe we should
call that kind of blending Watered Down Vertical Search (WDVS). If you take a focused specialty search engine
and “blend” in other results not specifically related and authoritative, you
are no longer vertical. So let’s all
take blending with a grain of salt. We’ll likely see good blending at first and then
everyone will realize they can mash up all kinds of results and we’ll be back
to where we were last year with consumer search—irrelevant results that waste the
professional’s time.
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About Chris Weiss
Mr. Weiss is a grizzled veteran of IT integration with almost 20 years deep in the data trenches. After an exhaustive Federal IT boot camp with the U.S. Department of Labor managing their legacy data migration, Christopher took over as the chief technologist for User Technology Associates. From that beachhead Chris followed the battle lines of Internet integration to become executive director with USWeb and ultimately vice president of professional services at the nefarious marchFIRST juggernaut. There he spearheaded large scale e-commerce skirmishes with allies like United Airlines, America Online, Citicorp and Harley-Davidson. When the dust finally settled, Mr. Weiss found he had become a mercenary leading his own small consulting battalion deeply entrenched in software product management and marketing with several European start-ups combating data security. In that service Chris has been honored with published victories in periodicals like Government Computer News, Federal Computer Weekly, PC Magazine and Washington Technology. Mr. Weiss currently holds the role of Director of Marketing, North America at Convera Inc. helping the prestigious vertical search superpower catch some "buzz" wherever it resides.