Over the past few years, there has been an underlying shift in the way we use technology in our lives. This could be simply described as moving from user-initiated (search) to auto-serving (suggestions) technologies, and it’s about to change the way we live, communicate, make money, shop, collaborate and more. Instead of actively searching for things, we will be presented with them, as we live our lives.

FacebookFacebook’s new “instant personalization” is just the beginning of an era in which we will slowly allow more and more technologies to shape our discovery and decision processes. As they become more integral to our lives, search as an activity will become less relevant. Here is why.

1. The Search Process is Inefficient

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Most of the technologies and platforms we use these days require our action. In order to achieve anything, we have to acknowledge the need, make a decision, and then follow through.

Example: You need a new swimsuit for the summer and you decide to find one that best matches your search criteria: Color, style, size, etc. You use GoogleGoogle, ShopStyle, TheFind, or any other smart shopping engine. This simple task requires a bit of thought and effort on your part.

What if you could skip this process and let technology offer you the perfect swimsuit once the summer season arrives, without asking you to take any action?

2. Mobile GPS Eliminates the Need for Location-Based Search (more…)

In the advertising industry overall, revenues generated by direct and brand advertising are roughly split 50/50. But in the online world, where direct advertising is represented mostly by search and email ads and brand advertising by graphical display ads, the split is closer to 70/30 in favor of direct ads.

Last year, with the economy down, the display portion of the U.S. online advertising industry had a particularly rough time. Total revenues in 2009 were down 5.2 percent to $7.5 billion, estimates JPMorgan analyst Imran Khan in a new Internet industry report. But he forecasts that in 2010 U.S. display advertising will rebound 10.5 percent to $8.3 billion, buoyed by a rising economy and actions to reduce the glut of display ad inventory for higher quality sites and content. For instance, both AOL and CBS are making moves to remove their premium ad inventory from ad networks where prices get beaten down to the lowest common denominator.

As the industry moves away from plain-vanilla CPM ads—which lead to banner blindness—and towards a variety of better-performing ad formats (including sponsorships, behavioral targeting, and more timely display ads), that should help lift revenues as well. (more…)

I am back from San Fran from 2 days, just to discover that more than 1 in 3 of San Francisco’s nearly 27,000 city workers earned $100,000 or more last year – a number that has been growing steadily for the past decade. And if you take out all the beggers it probably brings the avarage to 1 in 1…

The number of city workers paid at least $100,000 in base salary totaled 6,449 last year. When such extras as overtime are included, the number jumped to 9,487 workers, nearly eight times the number from a decade ago. And that calculation doesn’t include the cost of often-generous city benefits such as health care and pensions. (more…)