2006 Trends Part I: Comment Search

There's a ton of bloggers making 2006 predictions in the blogosphere this week. Two notable ones were opined by Jason Calacanis and John Battelle. I am not here to predict, more to observe. So over the next 10 days (by now you know I like that number), I am going to talk about the most important online trends to watch in 2006. Each day will bring with it a new trend in your RSS reader. As usual, I will look at them through the lens of a confessed marketer, while also maintaining a broader horizon.

The first trend covers how we search consumer generated content. The year 2005 was the year of the blog search engine. Interest in blog mining grew so much that it became something that every major search company felt compelled to provide, even Google. It was no longer the domain of the “insiders,” e.g. just those who blog. Everyday netizens became interested in tapping into the blogosphere's vast mindreading power, perhaps none more so than marketers.

As traffic to blog search engines grew, there was a ton of innovation. Everyone felt compelled to keep up with Technorati. Some, like Ice Rocket, did a fairly good job. Others, like Blogdigger and Feedster, didn't and today they feel largely like dead men walking.

Still, shockingly, every single blog search engine is missing out on the next great opportunity. They're focusing solely on searching blogs. They're building great tools for bloggers, but they're failing to recognize that what we all need is a way to search the entire conversation. This is where the blog search war will be fought in the months ahead.

The high end vendors like Intelliseek get this, but others don't. The gang of four - Technorati, PubSub, Google and Ice Rocket - continue to pile on the features for mining blogs, as they seemingly ignore what will be the next great land grab - mining comments.

Blog comments have perhaps more collective wisdom inside them than any other form of consumer generated content. However, as of today, there's essentially no way to mine them. Who's going to help us here? Will it be Google, Yahoo, Technorati or Ice Rocket? Or will some great new search engine come along and change the game. Tune in this time next year.

Technorati Tags: blogs, comments, Feedster, Google, IceRocket, PubSub, Technorati, Yahoo