Google is a complete failure - the need for curation

Google is a complete failure. Not as a business venture, although if it doesn't fix the shortcomings of search I don't think it will be nearly as profitable in 5 years. Not in terms of technology. Google has terrific search algorithms that usually do very well finding everything important related to a keyword or search string. No, it is a failure in curating the results of what I'm looking for so that I get the EXACT result I'm interested in within the first three listings. Instead, I get literally millions of results. Student Loan generates over 31,000,000 results. Travel to Costa Rica (a personal favorite), 186,000,000 (as an aside, I'd love it if I could skip to the very last page of results to see what's there). You used to at least be able to use the "I'm feeling Lucky" button (although honestly I rarely got lucky), but with Google Instant, I'm not sure that is even an option anymore. And with businesses dedicated to gaming search (and as a consultant I've advised clients to do the same), Google is fighting a losing battle using technology. The opportunity has given rise to Blekko and others that actually use human beings to provide better search and curation, which is truly ironic given that Google put Yahoo's manually curated search out of business during the last decade.

I'm not just picking on Google and search however. The same things goes for finding customized content. I get half a dozen newsletters a day to keep up with digital media and E-Commerce, and it takes far too long for me to sort through them to find out the key stories I need. Groupon keeps sending me Brazilian Wax offers (which sounds pretty painful), even though I haven't clicked on one in a year. What is desperately needed is professional curation, and I'm not sure technology alone can do the trick. I've written a few times about the New York Times and the value it provides curating news for me (http://lewisgoldman.blogspot.com/2009/01/why-nytimescom-should-charge.html). The Times decides what is on the Front Page based on the gut feel of their editors, not based on any statiscal model. Same goes for Travelzoo, which culls the best travel deals on the web and sends 20 of them to me every week. Curation is clearly the next big opportunity in terms of Internet and Mobile content, and those who understand it will be the next wave of winners. If you'd like to see how powerful it can be, try the search I did for Student Loan on Google, Bing, and Blekko. Google and Bing's top organic results are both studentloan.com, which is the URL I secured for Citigroup when I was running E-Commerce for their lending businesses in the late 1990's. Its a great site, but lets face it, its goal is to get you to apply for their Student Loan. On both search engines, Citigroup is followed by Sallie Mae, another student loan lender. Blekko's top two results - a Government run site about Student loans and a blog with great Student Loan information. Neither are perfect (top choice should be Finaid.org in my opinion, having worked in the industry a few times), but both are at least providing information rather than selling a product.

The businesses and sites that can curate and provide relevant results quickly will be the big winners. I don't know anyone who has time to go through 31 million sites.