Can search emulate the web browser?

Firefox, as of its recent third incarnation, must be one of the most successful software projects to date. It’s common knowledge that it’s challenging Internet Explorer for supremacy as its user base grows with every release and every year. There are three things, in my mind, that set it apart from most other software projects out there. It’s highly succesful, complex, and it’s open source.

Firefox is certainly not unique in these three factors, but they do seem to indicate a growing trend largely mandated by the economies of free: namely that the “free” version of any category of software is gaining ascendancy. Vendors with proprietary software are battling economic realities with decreasing differentiations to set them apart.

One software category that does not seem to be following this trend is search. This list shows few open source search libraries, many based on the same indexing engine and all little known beyond the software development industry. Why is this so?

Naturally, building an effective search engine is difficult. To compete with Google, one must have vast resources, both human and technical. It seems unthinkable. Yet, who would have predicted the phenomenon of Firefox? Wikipedia? Linux? Apache?

If it still seems unlikely, remember that Google ultimately battles the same realities as all other vendors. For example, Firefox pundits regularly tout the transparency of Firefox development in increasing security when compared it’s competitors. Much like hackers attempt to exploit security flaws in a browser, so black hat SEOs attempt to exploit flaws in a search engine’s algorithm. Could the success of transparency in security translate to success in search?

As the costs of online storage and processing in the cloud approach zero, social networks rise and become interconnected, communication and transparency increase, and the economies of free take hold, what chances do we have of seeing localised, relevant search on a transparent, open platform? I think it’s just a matter of time.