Where Is Search Going in 2007?

It seems as though everyone is writing about and trying to find the “Next Google.” Google has been the dominant Search Engine for several years and now it is the beginning of the year and writers are wondering if this will be the year that Google really gets challenged. Over the weekend there was an article in the business section of the New York Times that was about this exact subject

What made this article standout is the direction the article went, instead of focusing on Panama http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/rc/srch/?mkt=us or MSN Adcenter http://startadcenter.com/nooff/ which according to some are gaining popularity, the author decided to focus on five search engines that were either just launched recently, in beta or in some cases still in development. Powerset (http://www.Powerset.com ) which will use natural language for search (I say will as the site is not yet live). Hakia (http://www.hakia.com ) which is supposed to be like Powerset which is similar to what AskJeeves tried to do years ago. Chacha (http://www.Chacha.com) which similar to the Wiki model the results are determined by real poeple, which is such an interesting concept that Wikipedia itself is trying to get in to this itself with its own search engined designed and updated by users and programmers. Chacha is currently live, the Wiki engine is in developments.

Other search engines are mentioned in the article, including Snap (http://www.snap.com)and A9 (http://www.A9.com ) which is part of Amazon.com. We will keep an eye on all of these sites and many more to see if any of them deliver better results and begin to get a foothold in all of the searches done online. What other sites are out there that you use for search, or is everone still using Google?