Also earlier this week, Yahoo! decided to weigh into to fray, promising a Yahoo! flavored desktop search app also by the end of the year (notice a trend here? I am wondering who the first one with a desktop search will be? Maybe they are all waiting for each other to see what they offer?)

Also, already on the market with desktop search are HotBot and Blinkx. While the HotBot search application seems somewhat limited, it was the first on the market. Personally I really like Blinkx, it has several great features and will probably be the benchmark the others will use.

Ask/Teoma has also recently mentioned that they plan on releasing a Teoma based desktop search, but that won't be for some time yet.

While I think desktop search is a great idea, I am not sure how the general public will take to it. Even with Blinkx and HotBot (and the Google DeskBar) running on my desktop I tend to launch a web search because it is what I am used to.

The advantage with Blinkx is that it resides on the top bar of the browser and other applications and makes itself known, which helps me remember that I can use it on occasion.

Which leads me to think that any desktop search application has to be quicker and easier to use than a regular web search. Of course, people will likely default to it for a local search of their hard drives, but the web search will still likely come from the web and not the desktop appliance. At least not in the short to middle term. Long term, perhaps it will.

Also, I think once local search gets better and more integrated into the desktop search you will truly have a powerful and easy to use search ability. The next question becomes - how do you optimize your website for such a search?

Rob Sullivan
Production Manager
Enquiro.com

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