The future of search is a common theme that will run throughout this blog. However now that I write that down the idea of that theme is actually a bit misguided.

That’s because all these companies we talk about fighting over search – Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon – really have larger ambitions beyond your search queries. Sure they want you to look for things using their products but they also want you to do that along with everything else – wake up, go to work, make dinner, sleep – within their environment. So in fact the future of search is more than just search; it is a desire to have users do everything within a certain environment. All of these companies (along with others) have different ideas of what the best environment is and what their user value and how they will interact with each; this will be sussed out more within this space in future posts.

Anyways with that in mind there was one interesting piece of news that came out today (there were more but we’re just focusing on one here). First we should establish that Google is the leader in search and some would say they have an unassailable position and that any digital marketer, and in particular SEOs focusing efforts elsewhere is a waste of time. Perhaps this is true when you consider only search. But if you start thinking that the end goal is to get you into an environment than the future is much more interesting.

For example, Microsoft announced today that downloads of their new Microsoft 10 platform is now in use on 75 million devices worldwide and the company is targeting 1 billion devices within the next three years. To put that into context Google announced their Chrome browser (Google’s flagship environment) has 1 billion users just this past May along. Who knows where Chrome will be in three years time but growth is harder the larger you get and perhaps they will not be able to achieve much beyond their current status (honestly, these companies are all one data hack or NSA scandal away from big trouble). And if Microsoft can bring back those users they have lost via this new Windows product – which it seems to be doing a decent job of accomplishing – than the future of search may look a lot different than the present.