PubCon Vegas 2006 - John Battelle Keynote

John Battelle, founder of Federated Media and author of “The Search,” presented on search as a user interface. I thought he had some interesting ideas, particularly when it came to his vision of the future of search. The example he used was buying wine. There are hundreds of choices, and it’s easy to get ripped off. Imagine being able to read the wine’s barcode with your cell phone or PDA in order to have that code automatically searched by Google. Google then returns results, including average local price, reviews of the product, and where to buy locally. ALl in all, I thought it was pretty sweet. John Battelle has long been one of the big names in the search industry, and his insights into the future are, I think, a valuable indicator of what me might be seeing in the near future.