Web 1.0 was about linking information, Web 2.0 clearly is about linking people and the enormous impact of recycling social behaviors across all layers, implicit and explicit. I thought AOL Search had a unique opportunity to repositions itself as a “Discovery Engine”/”Recommendation Engine”, taking the lead on becoming the leader of an emerging new social search category. FullView was the base for exactly that.

Congratulations to the tam for delivering on FullView. The performance was probably the only drawback … and was not brain surgery to improve.

Anyways, is Engagement up since the swap from FullView to Google?

http://searchengineland.com/070803-083501.php

“We’re seeing encouraging data on Ask. On the user experience side, one of our focuses is ramping up the frequency of searches for those already using us. Since the launch of our new site design in early June, that metric has and continues to improve. Here are a few other indications that users like the richer experiences these pages offer:

* Large jumps in satisfaction, seen both in surveys and server analytics that gauge user success. The satisfaction numbers are even higher the more content that appears with the results: on top of the page and in the right rail.
* A bit lower click-through on sponsored and organic results per visit with the other choices on the page, but many more visits overall. Frequency and retention are up, which we expect to continue.
* A 27% drop in the percentage of users moving to the second results page. They are getting what they want more quickly.
* A 13% drop in search sessions with more than one search, when searchers use the search suggestions on the home page. These users are guided directly to what they want.
* For searchers using either the TypeAhead search suggestions or our Zoom Related Search, there’s been 28% drop in abandonment.”

for all his faults, miller cared about product. wish he’d had more time to carry out his web 2.0 strategy. take a look at circavie from aim– it’s a great idea, horribly executed.

the “copy the competition” strategy shouldn’t surprise anyone. falco comes from nbc for chrissake. copying is all you do in the tv biz. right now there are TWO crappy game shows on tv where the contestant fills in lyrics to a song. and, yes, one of them is on falco’s NBC.

I remember sitting in focus groups and other consumer tests and you’d ask people “If you were looking for X, where would you go?” 90+% of the time the answer was “Google”.

My big regret is that AOL didn’t fully support efforts to build true social search. In a search world where we see a lot of spam and gaming of the system, using social networks to deliver personalized search results has a lot of promise.

My own 2c on this subject is that AOL Search was a leader in search product innovation during a time when the dialogue in the search industry routinely ignored AOL. This had more to do with the brand perceptions of AOL (especially in the technoelite press) rather than anything we were doing with the product.

In my admittedly biased opinion, AOL had achieved the formidable goal of creating the best search experience on the Web before this most recent removal of what John refers to as the “veneer.”

That said, it seems to me that AOL had to swallow a bitter pill … it almost doesn’t matter what the AOL Search page is doing, people who are inclined to use AOL for Search will continue to do so regardless and those who are lured by the Google brand halo will go there even if AOL (or anyone else for that matter) offers a superior experience. If that’s the case, how does a business justify the cost of a large staff dedicated to creating the veneer if it’s not impacting the bottom line?

Perhaps this answers the “if a tree falls” question. The answer is it doesn’t matter.