A correct answer from Siri

“A million blue links from Google is worth far less than one correct answer from Siri. People don’t really want search engines . . . they want ‘do’ engines.”

Gary Morgenthaler, the first Siri investor, spells out in this Rip Emerson article that Siri’s search paradigm is more desirable than Google’s, because “A million blue links from Google is worth far less than one correct answer from Siri. People don’t really want search engines . . . they want ‘do’ engines.”

It’s not about that the Google’s search results are better or not. It’s about that Siri is a search engine who pretends to be an assistant. But Siri’s search function uses natural language.  This makes the search results somehow more “trustable”.  No one doubts Siri’s weather forecast because everything makes perfect sense when she tells you. If you can trust Siri’s judgment, she will take you from your query to one final resolution, filling in forms and authorizations along the way with your verbal permission.
When it comes to search results, we talk a lot about “findability”, “searchability” and “relevance”. We use those concepts a lot in your search strategies.  The most discussed term in our daily business is relevance.  None of our customer is happy with the search relevance. But what Siri makes is replacing relevance with trustworthiness. And here we are in something called Web 3.0. What Siri has reached, is what we tried for years. Siri pushed all the technology and Information Architecture so easily in the background that we haven’t perceived (at first). She replaced relevance with confidence and the search result page with a human voice. And she makes it so persuasive that we even write about here pretending she’s a Lady instead of a peace of software. That’s the reason why a million blue links from Google is worth far less than one correct answer from Siri.

Find the whole interview of Gary Morganthaler under: http://tcrn.ch/uZS4Iu