Smartphones Are Altering the Calculus of the Online Search Business
智慧手機影響網路搜尋
By Claire Cain Miller

Google remains the undisputed king of search, with about two-thirds of the market. But the nature of search is changing, especially as more people search for what they want to buy, eat or learn on their mobile devices. This has put the $22 billion search industry at its most significant crossroad since its invention.
谷歌無疑仍是網路搜尋霸主，市占率約三分之二。然而，隨著搜尋本質的改變，尤其是越來越多人以行動裝置搜尋想買、想吃、想學的東西，產值220億美元的搜尋業也面臨著誕生以來最重要的十字路口。

“What people want is, ‘You ask a very simple question and you get a very simple answer,’ ” said Oren Etzioni, a professor at the University of Washington who has co-founded companies for shopping and flight search. “We want to know the closest sushi place, make a reservation and be on our way.”
華盛頓大學教授艾齊歐尼說：「人們要的是，你提出一個非常簡單的問題，然後獲得一個非常簡單的答案。」艾齊歐尼同時是多家購物與訂機票搜尋公司的共同創辦人。他說：「我們想知道離這裡最近的壽司店在哪裡，訂位，然後上路。」

Google says there are 30 trillion Web addresses, up from one trillion five years ago, and users expect their computers and phones to be smarter. Many of the new efforts are services that people do not even think of as search engines.
谷歌表示目前全球約有30兆個網址，五年前約是1兆，用戶期待電腦和手機變得更智慧。許多新服務的努力方向，是人們根本沒把它當做是搜尋引擎使用。

Amazon, for example, has a larger share than Google of shopping searches, the most lucrative kind because people are in the mood to buy something. On sites like Pinterest and Polyvore, users have curated their favorite things from around the Web to produce results when you search for, say, “lace dress.”
例如，亞馬遜擁有比谷歌大的購物搜尋市占率，而購物搜尋是獲利最豐的一塊，因為人們已有購物心情。在類似「品特斯特」與「波利沃爾」的網站上，用戶會將他們在網路上看到的喜歡的東西轉過來，當你搜尋例如「蕾絲女裝」時，即會出現結果。

On smartphones, people go directly to apps, like Kayak or Weather Underground. Other apps send people information, like traffic or flight delays, before they even ask for it.
在智慧手機上，人們會直接進入應用程式，如「獨木舟」或「Weather Underground（專業氣象網站）」。有些應用程式甚至會在用戶詢問前即傳送信息，如路況（塞車）或航班誤點等。

People use YouTube to search for things like how to tie a bow tie, Siri to search on their iPhones, online maps to find local places and Facebook to find things their friends have liked.
人們會使用YouTube搜尋像是如何打領結這類的資訊，或是在iPhone上使用Siri搜尋，以網路地圖尋找在地地點，以「臉書」尋找朋友喜歡的東西。

Services like LinkedIn Influencers and Quora are trying to be different kinds of search engines – places to find high-quality, expert content and avoid weeding through the Web. On Quora, questions like “What was it like to work for Steve Jobs?” get answered by people with firsthand knowledge, something Google cannot provide.
「連結影響者」或是「問答」等的網站，則是試著充當其他種類的搜尋引擎，用戶可在這些網站中找到高品質、專家提供的內容，不必在整個網路上篩選。在「問答」網站上，提出類似「替史蒂夫‧賈伯斯工作會是何種情況？」的問題，會得到擁有第一手資訊人士的答覆，這點谷歌無法辦到。

“There is a lot of pressure on search engines to deliver more customized, more relevant results,” said Shar VanBoskirk, an analyst at Forrester Research.
佛瑞斯特研究公司分析師范布斯科克說：「在提供更客製化，更相關的資訊上，搜尋引擎壓力很大。」

The promise of search is big enough that even though Microsoft loses billions of dollars a year on Bing and has failed to make a dent in Google’s market share, it keeps at it. Microsoft – which in February had 17 percent of the market, and 26 percent including the searches it powered for Yahoo – has said it views search as essential to its other products, from the Xbox to phones. And there is still a lot of money to be made as number two.
搜尋業務前景看好，因此雖然微軟的搜尋引擎Bing年年虧損數十億美元，且迄今未能使谷歌的版圖縮小，微軟仍決定繼續保有它。微軟二月的市占率是17%，包括提供給雅虎的搜尋服務，市占率是26%。微軟表示，搜尋是谷歌的其他產品，從Xbox到電話等，不可或缺的一環。即使排名老二，仍有賺頭。

There are signs that people’s search behaviors are changing.
有跡象顯示，人們的搜尋行為正在改變。

Searches on traditional services, dominated by Google, declined 3 percent in the second half of last year after rising for years, according to comScore, and the number of searches per searcher declined 7 percent. In contrast, searches on topical sites, known as vertical search engines, climbed 8 percent.
comScore（市場調查）公司指出，谷歌稱霸的傳統搜尋服務在成長多年後，去年下半年下跌了3%，每位搜尋者的搜尋數則下降7%。相反地，稱為垂直搜尋引擎的專題網站搜尋則成長了8%。

This year, ad spending on traditional search engines is expected to grow more slowly than overall online ad spending, a reversal.
今年，有別於往年，花費在傳統搜尋引擎的廣告支出，預期成長率將低於整體網路廣告支出。

Google is making more changes to search offerings, at a faster pace than it has in years.
谷歌正設法讓搜尋產品更多元，並以比多年來更快的速度提供服務。

“What Google is beginning to do is share some of the knowledge in the world that humans have in their minds,” said Ben Gomes, a Google fellow, “so users can begin to communicate with Google in a way that’s much more natural to their thinking.”
谷歌研究員高梅斯說：「谷歌正要開始做的，是分享全世界人類腦中的一些知識，如此一來，用戶即可開始以與他們思考模式更接近的方式，透過谷歌進行溝通。」

In the future, Google could answer more complicated questions, Mr. Gomes said, like “How far is it from here to the Eiffel Tower?” and “Where could I go to a concert in warm weather next year?”
高梅斯說，未來，谷歌將能答覆較複雜的問題，如「從這裡到艾菲爾鐵塔有多遠？」以及「明年我可以到哪裡去欣賞一場在暖和天候下舉行的音樂會？」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/04/technology/as-web-search-goes-mobile-apps-chip-at-googles-lead.html

Graphic：In Search, Google Still Leads
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/04/03/business/In-Search-Google-Still-Leads.html

紐時中文版翻譯：
http://cn.nytimes.com/article/science-technology/2013/04/12/c12search/zh-hk/

2013-04-23聯合報/G9版/UNITEDDAILYNEWS王麗娟譯 原文參見紐時週報八版下