2004 has been quite a year. We saw the emergence of 2 major players in search debuting their own technology, while the third recently doubled the size of its search index, and filled its founder's pockets with money.

We also saw improvements in how the engines rank sites, and how often they spider and index.

So, what will 2005 bring? Let me give you my opinion:

In General

I think it's a given that desktop search will heat up. It's still a technology in its infancy, with most desktop search applications not debuting until the last half of this year. As 2005 shakes out we will probably see more people harness the power of desktop search, and probably many complaining about shortcomings. However, the engines will be quick to react to make the user experience better. Also of note here: I think Blinkx is miles ahead of the pack in terms of desktop search. The others will have to play catch up if they hope to compete with the services offered by Blinkx.

Search in general will get more competitive. We've just started seeing major advertising agencies sticking their toes into the pool and checking the temperature. I think 2005 we'll see many of the large agencies jump into search with both feet, causing tidal waves throughout the search industry. If you thought 8 billion pages indexed was something you ain't seen nothin' yet. We'll also probably see more search marketing companies being snapped up by ad agencies either through acquisitions or strategic partnerships.

Local search will continue to grow as the major search engines figure out how to make it work better. Microsoft is perfecting Geo-targeting and has the ability to serve local results based on where you are as a searcher with no input from you (based on your IP address). Of course there will be some bugs in the system, but they will be worked out over the year.

In addition, vertical search will grow. Although I don't necessarily see vertical as THE hot search of 2005, it will gain a respectable audience and prove to online marketers that there is more to online marketing than Google, Yahoo! and MSN.

We will begin to see more people using their wireless devices to access the web. This year (2004) we are seeing more wireless phone manufacturers, for example, improving the wireless web features built into their phones. No longer do you have to shell out a few hundred bucks to get a web enabled phone. Now they are practically giving them away.