My Full Quote for BtoB’s “Room for Vertical Search” Article

Just received my copy of BtoB Media Business today and saw the article “Room for Vertical Search” in which I have a quote. (OK, maybe it’s a little vain to look for my own quotes in a magazine, but don’t tell me you wouldn’t do it too!) It’s the same article that I wrote about in a previous post on my blog which contains my full quote. There was an ommission in the print article that I’m sure was just because of space limitations, but that I feel is critical to the point I was trying to make.

In the article I’m quoted, “Is there an opportunity for b-to-b publishers here? Yes … to provide full-text searches of an editorially filtered subset of Web sites related to a specific industry — in other words, filtering out the junk.” This is true enough, but the section that was omitted was the most important part to the success of any full-text vertical search effort.

The biggest hurdles to success [in vertical search] are:

• Making sure you have enough relevant content
• Making sure the user experience is easy and intuitive
• Promoting that such a resource exists 

In my opinion many publishers underestimate how much effort it takes to ensure you have enough of the right content, to promote the existence of the vertical search to the right audience, and to establish the vertical search as the “go-to” resource for that audience and market. The technology itself is the least cost and effort.

BTW, while I still believe there is opportunity for publishers (both B2B and niche consumer/enthusiast) in vertical search, I believe that the video opportunity is much greater in 2007 and beyond. Much more to come on that in future posts, I’m sure.