New Directions In Search (NMK)

The role of search in the marketer and vendors' repetoire is becoming ever more dominant as online search blends with everyday life in broadband Britain. This half-day event will focus on some of the key issues in search - marketing tactics and local versus international search. Incoming trends will also be addressed, from RSS and semantic web to the challenges of mobile search...

With mass broadband uptake now a reality, online search is an everyday part of British consumers' lives, as well as a key driver for business marketing and sales.

But with this increasing centrality comes challenges, to specialise or be full-service, to venture into or synchronise with mobile search, to build results through RSS...

This half-day event will focus on some key issues and developments driving new directions in search:

Local vs International Search:

What is local search, how does it differ from the offerings of international search engines like Google, Yahoo or Ask Jeeves? How do consumers and businesses use it? And where do location-based mobile services figure in the equation (are we being automatically searched for on a geographical basis via GPS?)

Desktop, Convergent & Mobile Search:

Where is search taking us? We can now search our desktop, get local information, and search for music on P2P sites. RSS aggregation is already impacting search and momentum is spreading beyond the developer community for ushering in the semantic web.

And what of mobile search? Norway-based Fast Search and Transfer (FAST) launched the world's first mobile search engine mSearch in March. Designed to collect results speciafically for wireless users, it focuses on content such as music, games, ring tones and digital images. Meanwhile April saw Google Local off the starting blocks in the US, letting people with browser-enabled cell phones browse Google Local - a Web directory of local businesses and sights - by typing in a name and ZIP code. Will services like this challenge the reign of online search?

Speakers will be announced shortly.

01zero-one, Peter Street, Soho, London W1F 0HS.